Poland without Zygmunt Waza

 

Cancelled? 

"Polens historia" is a Swedish book about the history of Poland, written by Artur Szulc. The first edition was published in 2017. I recently bought the 2020 edition. The author himself admits that it´s virtually impossible to cram Polish history into a popularized 300 page book in near-paperback format, but I nevertheless think he did write a succesful summary. 

While Poland isn´t literally bordering Sweden, the two nations do face each other on opposite sides of the Baltic Sea. In one sense, Poland feels very close if you´re Swedish. It´s often mentioned in the news, many Poles live or work in Sweden, many Swedes supported or sympathized with the Polish anti-Soviet struggle during the Cold War, and Poland plays a prominent part in Swedish history books. On the other hand, Poland is nevertheless like a different planet compared to Sweden. The languages aren´t closely related, Poland is strongly Catholic while Sweden has gone from Lutheranism to secularism, Sweden hasn´t been at war since 1812 and became a full democracy in 1917-21 whereas Poland suffered under both Nazi and Soviet occupation while domestic democratic traditions are relatively weak. Today, another obvious difference is that Poles are nationalist (the universal standard) while many "educated" Swedes are so de-nationalized that Artur Szulc must explain to his readers how nationalism works and why somebody might still find it relevant or even essential...

Szulc concentrates on Poland´s modern history: the resurrection of an independent Polish state under Pilsudski, the sheer horror (but also heroic resistance) during World War II, the Soviet-imposed Communist regime after the war, and the constant protests against said regime from the side of workers, intellectuals and Churchmen. Naturally, the independent labor union Solidarity (Solidarnosc) plays a prominent role in the story. The last chapters deal with post-Communist Poland in a surprisingly even-handed way. While the book does have a certain "apologetic" tendency, it does acknowledge the darker sides of Polish history, such as rampant anti-Semitism and attempts to downplay it. 

A curious oversight in the chapter on pre-1918 Polish history is that Szulc mentions King Sigismund only in passing. Yet, Sigismund (known as Zygmunt Waza in Polish) is the most obvious connection between Sweden and Poland, being king of both realms from 1592 to 1599 (he was also Grand Duke of Lithuania). His troops even captured Moscow during a war with the Russians! I don´t think Szulc ever mentions this, yet it seems to be a thing both Poles and Swedes (both being traditional adversaries to Russia) might find very relevant...

Not available in any other language than Swedish (not even Polish - I think!), but probably indispensable if you want to understand our closest neighbor in political outer space.