We callback an article originally published on our portal on 15 August 2020.
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Among the late published books about the latest Polish history, the work of prof. Marian Marek Drozdowski is distinguished by the fact that its characters have left behind many of the works we usage to this day.
"In our museums we will find very fewer memorabilia from the people who created our economy and civilization" – regrets Prof. Drozdowski, author of the unique publication "Builders of the Second Republic. To welcome the century of regaining independence" (Independence Museum/M-D-M Publishing, Warsaw 2018). It is simply a collection of lectures on achievements without a tiny forty characters who contributed to Poland's regaining freedom of politicians, scholars, military and clergy. Prof. Drozdowski notes that the builders of our cities, workplaces, municipal and communication infrastructure are not heroes of our times. ‘Will individual name them? They don't be in general consciousness. We are inactive in orbit of the influences of the mentality of the East, or deficiency of respect for the creators of civilizational, method progress," the student maintains.
Prof. Drozdowski, according to the publisher's note, is the author of many publications on the past of Poland and Warsaw, Polish-American relations and Polish history, not only writes, but besides follows their path. The technological work of a historian is linked to social activity. He contributed, among others, to the creation of monuments in Warsaw by Stefan Starzyński, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Tadeusz Kościuszko.
General at the Fair
The protagonists of “Builders of the Second Republic” – creators of civilizational, technical, cultural advancement – no uncertainty do not fall within the ellipse of mentality of the East. Among them are both well-known personalities (Józef Piłsudski, Roman Dmowski, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Vincenty Witos, Wojciech Korfanty, generals Józef Haller, Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Władysław Sikorski, Cardinal August Hlond), as well as builders who have only late taken the right place in our consciousness: Władysław Grabski – Prime Minister, Minister of Treasury, Rector of the General School of the Wiejski Farm, Prof. Józef Buzek – creator of the Central Statistical Office or General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski – slayer of the Red Army in the 1920 War.
For the chapter devoted to Tadeusz Rozwadowski I am especially grateful for the author of the “Builders”. Firstly, due to the fact that the general deserved not only in the military field but besides in the economy. As prof. Drozdowski reminds, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, an artilleryman, for example, led to the start of extraction of potassium salts from neglected deposits in Kałusz and Stebnik (now Ukraine). He was besides the creator of respective inventions, including a simple but effective aiming instrument and a fresh kind of artillery missile, alleged grenade-shrappnel. In the book we find a meaningful assessment of the military innovator, performed by Dr. Mariusz Patelski from the University of Opole, author of the biography "General defends Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski. Soldier and diplomat": "He was a versatile man, active on many levels – organizer and reformer of the Polish army, entrepreneur and inventor".
Secondly, I am grateful for the chapter devoted to Tadeusz Rozwadowski due to the fact that I remember the conflict to commemorate the general in Warsaw. The capital of Poland in 2012 joined the cities where Tadeusz Rozwadowski, the hero of the Warsaw Battle, reached the street bearing his name. A prominent military was commemorated 92 years after the battle, after 3 years of efforts made independently by 2 associations of citizens. The street bearing his name is located on a distant Targówku (although another locations were indicated), by the exit road from the city. It runs from Radzyminska Street through the meadow, which extends at the back of a large commercial facility. In addition, there is besides Rozwodowska Street in the area.
General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski of the coat of arms of Trump (1866 – 1928) prepared plans against the defeat of our troops and orders concerning 1 of the groundbreaking battles in past that reversed the course of the 1920 Polish-Soviet War. He was head of the General Staff at the time.
On 12 August, erstwhile Red Army's capture of the capital seemed a substance of hours, Chief Chief Józef Piłsudski left Warsaw to lead the strike troops. Before leaving the city, he handed Prime Minister Vincent Witos his resignation from the position of Chief and Chief Commander. The Prime Minister did not announce the Commander's resignation, so as not to extinguish the spirit of the city's defenders. In these circumstances, the actual command of the full operation, as the researchers say, was exercised by General Rozwadowski. On 15 August, on the ceremony of the presumption of Our Lady, Polish soldiers stopped the Bolsheviks at the gate of the capital. The Miracle of the Vistula has come true.
Prof. Drozdowski quotes Piłsudski’s order of April 1, 1921, in which General Rozwadowski says: “Your abilities and your surviving head helped you in the most hard circumstances. (...) delight accept the assurances of advanced respect and genuine appreciation and gratitude.” Piłsudski received no Polish general for the Polish-bolshevik war, says the author “Builders”.
Tanks for horses
The conflict of Warsaw is not the only reason to keep General Rozwadowski in a grateful memory. He besides participated in the defence of Lviv in 1919. In April of that year, he left for France, where he headed the Polish Military Mission. In Paris, he sought, among others, an even better state of Polish-Romanian cooperation, and besides laid the foundation for the improvement of Polish aviation – he contributed to the creation of the Polish-American Squadron named Tadeusz Kościuszko. Merian Cooper, a later known movie producer, served there.
After a triumph against the Bolsheviks, General Rozwadowski presented to Piłsudski the plan to modernise the Polish army – he sought to replace horses with tanks and cars. During the May coup in 1926, he remained faithful to the government. After the assassination, he and Generals Vladimir Zagórski, Julius Malczewski and Bolesław Jaźwiński were charged with criminal offences. He went to prison due to the pressures of the citizens, but shortly thereafter he became mysteriously sick and died. Circumstances may indicate poisoning.
Dialogue Above All
The large value of prof. Drozdowski's book is besides highlighted by the author's ability of many of the featured heroes to conduct dialog and ability to emergence – for the common good – above prejudice. The book shows, for example, the cooperation of the president of Warsaw Stefan Starzyński with "outstanding local government activists" connected with the opposition, including Adam Bienie.
Previously, examples of fruitful dialog in Poland were given, during the war with the Russian Republic of Councils, by the Government of National Defence, headed by Vincenty Witos and in which the minister of the treasure was Władysław Grabski. Thanks to Grabski, Prime Minister and Minister of the Treasury from 1920 to 1921, prof. Drozdowski managed to push through the Agricultural improvement Act, launch a large social action for the Volunteer Army, and get the aid of the Catholic Church and another spiritual religions, especially Moscow, in order to defend Poland from the russian attack. "Thanks to this government and the talents of the Chief Leader and Chief of General Staff of General General Tadeusz Rozwadowski, we have achieved a triumph in the conflict of Warsaw and in the conflict of Niemenska", we read in "Builders of the Second Republic".
♪ Boy, the wind in your eyes ♪
The war with russian Russia revealed that 1 of the biggest remorses of the Second Republic was the peasant issue. Prof. Drozdowski recalls that the Government of National Defence was created in circumstances of chaos, mass desertion, erstwhile about 40,000 soldiers, mostly peasants, left the army to work on the harvest. The situation was taken over by Prime Minister Witos and the military commanders. The Church played a large function at the time. In 1920, prof. Drozdowski writes, the Episcopal Appeals of Jasna Góra called for the support of the Volunteer Army, the Chief Leader and the Government of National Defence.
The peasants listened to the Church and the leaders, but demanded change. On the 1 hand, in interwar Poland, the village faced opportunities for development, which frequently benefited – many of the “Builders of the Second Republic” came from peasant families. Despite hard conditions, they gained education and a place in history, specified as Blażej Stolarski, a folk activist and an innovator besides known for the breaks of the “Financial Observer”, or Prof. Józef Buzek, who, as the manager of the Central Statistical Office, had the beginning of the publishing series “Statistics Polska”, “Skorowidz miejski Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej”, “The Monthly of Labour”, “Statistical Atlas”. Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski appreciated him as an outstanding expert in administrative law, alongside Władysław Grabski and Józef Kiedroń. Let us add that the author of "Builders" writes about Minister Kwiatkowski himself with appreciation that as 1 of the first politicians of the Second Polish Republic, "he understood the importance of the media in conducting effective economical policy": he held press conferences, his speeches were widely distributed, invited prominent writers to cooperate, e.g. Maria Dąbrowska and Melchior Wańkowicz – their works were celebrated by engineers Gdynia, Warsaw, Central Industrial District. The promotion of economical policy was besides served by the Fair in Poznań, Lviv and Vilnius, the chronicle of the film, the celebration of the festival of the Sea.
On the another hand, in the Second Republic the tension between the village and the sanatorium authorities grew, and the peasants were seeing a stronger wind. "Witos – a prisoner and political emigrant after the Brest trial – could not forgive the Russians their political mistakes and initiated a large peasant strike in August 1937, brutally pacified by the State Police" – recalls Prof. Drozdowski. The author of “Builders” besides draws attention to the change of views of Witos towards the Polish Legions, which he initially supported and even called on peasants to enlist in them. Later, however, he harshly wrote about “some legion troops”, “especially legion gendarmerie”, which in certain districts of the Kingdom “boys tormented and even hanged”. An exceptional cruelty was to be seen in Kielce by “the large Pilsudczyk Kostek Biernacki, commandant of the legionary gendarmerie”, the later warden, as any say, of “the only Polish concentration camp” in Bereza Kartuska.
Prof. Drozdowski recalls that when, in the Second Republic, the sanctioning authority of political opponents sent to Bereza, and even to which it points, it killed erstwhile human and citizen rights were violated in Poland, arresting and organizing the processes of opposition leaders, the primate August Hlond issued on 23 April 1932 "A pastoral letter about Christian principles of state life" in which he defended civilian liberties.
Sophie Kossak Street
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, chaplain in the Warsaw Uprising, convinced Poles: “More than your blood it takes Poland your reliable work, so that all of it has bread, shelter and covering.” The Primate of the Millennium emphasized what it would be good to remember especially in these days, that for Poland 1 can sacrifice one's life not only by dying for it, but besides by working: "Today we request a different kind of martyrdom – martyrdom of work, not blood".
This is what Marian Drozdowski seems to be saying. His book “Builders of the Second Republic. To welcome the century of regaining independence" is simply a priceless, well-written evidence that shows that giving your life as a sacrifice is besides for individual to work and serve.
If there is something missing in prof. Drozdowski's book, it is simply a more extended discussion of the achievements of the creators of spiritual goods. Indeed, in “Building” the authors' works, who have had a immense influence on our culture in the interwar 20th anniversary: “Trilogy” by Henryk Sienkiewicz, have taken over the hearts of many Poles, especially young ones, poems by Jan Kasprowicz, the boy of an illiterate host from a Kuyavian village, have moved to this day, especially the “Rarity on My Lips” (“Rarity on My Lips” – Let the lip confess present – Jawi be blooded – the most costly expression: Fatherland.”), Stefan Żeromski’s communicative “At the Probation in Wyszków” revealed the horror of the fall on Poland in 1920 erstwhile Julian Marchlewski, Feliks Dzierżyński and Feliks Kon, delegates of the Polish government from the Russian Republic of Rad, and another companions in the place of the title, were waiting for a communicative about the Warsaw fall, epopej Kości” opened to the Museum of the Museum of Noblad. However, I feel inadequate due to the fact that in the work of Prof. Drozdowski I found nothing about Stefan Banach, co-founder of the Polish Mathematical School, although in “Builders” there is simply a mention of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, mathematicians who contributed to the code of Enigma, or Tadeusz Dołędze-Mostowicz, author of, among others, the large fresh “Nicodem Dyzma” or Józef Mackiewicz. I found nothing about St. Faustina, the author of the Dziennik, the most celebrated Polish book in the planet today, nor about St. Maximilian Kolb (8 October 1894 – 14 August 1941), who created printed media in Poland with millions of circulations and radio, which besides dealt with mathematics and physics, and even submitted a plan of an interplanetary vehicle – a three-member rocket to the patent office. But present Poland stands besides holy, many foreigners come to the Vistula just due to our compatriots elevated to altars.
Nevertheless, the "Builders of the Second Republic" deserve an order. possibly thanks to the book by Prof. Drozdowski, any of the characters of the book – especially by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, the author of fascinating historical novels – will yet get to their streets.
Wojciech Klewiec
