In which I recommend books on Polish history

Portrait of Izabela Czartoryska née Fleming by Alexander Roslin (National Museum in Krakow)

This website is dedicated to Polish literature, not history. But occasionally I get asked by friends for recommendations of books on Polish history. I wrote this note for my friend Herb, but because I think it may be useful to others, I ill reproduce it here:

Hello Herb

A great idea to read up on Polish history. Polish history is quite extraordinary for its sheer twistiness, and as such, it is an excellent way to deepen our understanding of the incredible richness of the historical processes that have shaped our continent and the many ways in which a nation becomes and remains a nation.

The usual go-to book on Polish history is Norman Davies' God's Playground, a highly readable two-volume account, but it is just the sort of one-damn-thing-after-another you specifically ask me not to recommend.

And I understand: you're not preparing for an exam. You're just trying to learn something about the country while having fun.

And for this, I think it would be difficult to beat Adam Zamoyski's Izabela the Valiant: The Story of an Indomitable Polish Princess, Zamoyski is a good, highly readable author. The heroine of the book, Izabela Czartoryska, was a fascinating, strong-willed person, probably the richest woman in Europe, a princess related to or friends with many crowned heads of Europe, a patron and collector of art, a politician, and a mother of five children by five different men. She was also the center of the events which led to Poland's downfall in 1795, and the book perforce has to contain a brief outline of Polish history up to that point--the rise and fall as an East European power. And the fact that the book covers the fall of Poland makes it topical: it describes the destruction of an ancient Republic by Russian interference in the Republic's domestic affairs.

Another book which addresses a specific and fascinating topic but incorporates a brief summary of more recent Polish history by reference is Norman Davies' Trail of Hope: The Anders Army, An Odyssey Across Three Continents. This tells the story of Polish POWs taken by the Russians in 1939 when they invaded Poland in alliance with Hitler. When Hitler then invaded the USSR, Stalin about-faced, and the POWs were formed into an army to fight the Germans. And just then, the story of the Katyń murders (the Russians murdered 20,000 Polish POWs execution-style) broke out, there was a diplomatic rupture, and the army left the USSR. By way of Iran, Iraq, Palestine, and Egypt, it fought its way to Venice and Milan. It is a fascinating piece of history, very well told, and gives you a good picture of the diplomatic shenanigans which led to Western allies abandoning the Polish prewar government and recognizing Russian puppets instead.

I should emphasize that while strictly speaking this is a history of an army, it is not military history. That army amounted to an exodus of Poles from Russia, it took with it hundreds of thousands of women and children and non-combatants, actors and writers, scholars and scientists, it ran not only hospitals but also orphanages, schools, publishing houses, and theaters. It was an army, a nation, and a government in exile all in one, on the move. It is a fascinating piece of social and political history

Finally, the same author has a book of the sort I really like: Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present, which sets out to show how certain aspects of Polish history have come to shape our self-image, our attitudes to Russia, Europe, capitalism, statehood, law, personal liberty, and so forth. A great book to muse on philosophically.

ABOUT THE SVIDERMEYER STYLE

If you have visited New England or the American Midwest, you will be familiar with American Victorian houses: those wooden, decorative, fanciful, single-family homes, with rotund living rooms, gables, towers, magnificent fireplaces, and gaudy wallpaper—the epitome of the upwardly mobile middle classes of the Gilded Age. They remain charming symbols of the better past when everything was  simpler and prettier.

The American Victorian house has its equivalent in Poland: the Svidermeyer (Świdermajer) architecture of the Otvotsk[1] Line. The health benefits of the red pine forests southeast of Warsaw on the banks of the river Svider were discovered by the Warsaw middle classes in the 1890s, and the various settlements along the Otvotsk train line soon became their desired escape from the pollution of the city and—as they hoped—the bane of the nineteenth century: tuberculosis.

Soon, the Warsaw middle classes were building summer villas all along the Otvotsk line. Their architects developed a unique style of wooden architecture, informed in part by the Russian dacha, in part by the Alpine villa, and in part by the Zakopane Style of woodworking. In time these new communities became the favorite haunts of the intellectual and literary elite. And as such, they found their way into literature. One of the greatest Polish poets of the interwar period, Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, gave the style a name, calling them “Svidermeyer:”

Jest willowa miejscowość, nazywa się groźnie Świder, rzeczka tej samej nazwy lśni za willami w tyle, tutaj nocą sierpniową, gdy pod gwiazdami idę, spadają niektóre gwiazdy, ale nie na te wille, spadają bez eksplozji na biedną głowę moją, a wille w stylu groźnym jak stały, tak stoją - dzień i noc; i znów nocą nikły blask je oświetla; cóż im “Concerto grosso” Fryderyka Jerzego Haendla! Te wille, jak wójt podaje, są w stylu “świdermajer”

There is a village of villas With the threatening name of Svider, (A rivulet of this name Sparkles among its orchards). Here, on an August night, I walk beneath the stars. Some come shooting down but not upon the homes, they fall without explosion upon my sorry head, and the villas in their glory stand as they’ll ever stand. A day; a night; and again a night, they bathe in the summer’s glow; what do they care for Concerto Grosso of Frederick Haendel, George? They are, says the village mayor, In the style of Svidermeyer

Despite the ravages of World War II and a period of disfavor (1945-1990) when “wooden” briefly meant “poor” and many of the houses went to seed or were “recycled,” the several hundred houses remaining in the various localities along the Otvotsk train line have now become objects of desire, lovingly restored, and visited.

A recent book, Nasz Świdermajer, by Hanna Litwin, , tells a tale of such a house. Built in the 1890s by a Russian officer stationed in Warsaw, it had six apartments, three glassed-in verandas, two glassed-in balconies, four kitchens, eight bathrooms, an armored vault, a smoking room (for smoking homemade sausages), several secret passages, and a clock tower. In the course of restoring it, the family discovered heirlooms buried in the walls during World War One, gas masks from the Polish-Russian War, and three secret apartments in which, at different times, different people hid during World War Two: Jews from the local ghetto, smugglers, partisans.

Hanna Litwin’s book is as much a biography of the family as it is a biography of the house, as if it were a living, breathing creature. The House of Women tells a similar tale: the story of the lives of three generations of women who lived in an ancient Svidermeyer house near Otvotsk, a huge, rambling house with a convoluted history, buried treasures, mysterious rooms, and secret passages—secret passages both within its walls and within the hearts of its residents. As the story unfolds, we discover that the women themselves turn out to be mysterious: none turns out to be the person she thought she was.

Your translator

Tom Pinch

Ardennes National Park

Here is a guide to the Svidermeyer villas of Otvock: https://culture.pl/en/article/a-guide-to-the-wooden-villas-of-otwock.

And if you are in Warsaw, you can take the train to Otvotsk and follow this trail for a pleasant afternoon walk: https://pl.wikiloc.com/szlaki-wycieczki-piesze/swidermajer-47567778.

Of which you can see some lovely photos here: https://www.aktywniwpodrozy.pl/swidermajer-w-otwocku/.

And here is an academic article on the style, if you are into this sort of thing: (PDF) “Świdermajer”, the Architecture of Historic Wooden Summer Villas in the Polish Landscape: A Study of Distinctive Features (researchgate.net)

[1] Otvotsk (Otwock): a satellite city to the south east of Warsaw.

On the Illustrations of the The Devil's Brood

The latest book in the Aleksander's Antiquities series was published on February 21, 2025.

Our latest volume in the Aleksander Krawczuk series is "The Devil's Brood," the tale of the sons of Constantine the Great. It tells two parallel stoiries: one of the vicious, evil, and incompetent sons of Constantine fighting it out amongst themselves like rabid dogs, and murdering all and sundry in the process; and the other--of a gentle, sensitive, beautiful boy reading poetry and studying the classics. One day, fate will raise him to the purple and posterity will remember him as Julian the Apostate.

We have illustrated the volume with reproductions taken from "Romanorvm imperatorvm effigies: elogijs ex diuersis scriptoribus per Thomam Treteru S. Mariae Transtyberim canonicum collectis", or "Portraits of Roman Emperors: eulogies collected from various authors by Thomas Treter of St. Mary in Trastavere."

Tomasz Treter, who wrote the short biographical notes of the emperors (the list is by no means complete and the reasons why some emperors are not included are not clear) was a son of a Poznań family of book binders, a philologist, translator, and poet with a clerical career in Rome (where he served as a canon at Santa Maria in Trastavere) and Poland (where he succeeded to a canonry once held by Copernicus). He had also served as secretary to Kings Stephen Bathory and Sigismund III.

The book, published in 1583 with entirely fanciful illustrations by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri, was dedicated to Stephen Bathory, King of Poland, with a beautiful frontispiece featuring the Polish coat of arms.