Communist Poland in Stark black and white
933968
Beautiful black & white that captures the fatalistic world and feel of communist Poland.  Slow and plodding at points,  but with a story worth telling that sadly rings true, yet points to truths much deeper than just a history lesson.
1585143
Polishchuk, a courageous, scholarly Ukrainian political scientist, has been smeared, (e. g., "KGB agent"), and donated copies of his book have been removed from libraries. (pp. 7-8).  Far from being an Ukrainophobe, Polishchuk is proud of his Ukrainian heritage. He defends Khmelnytskyi, the haydamaks, etc. (p. 21), and agrees that the prewar Polish government undercounted the 5.1 million Ukrainians (p. 258), and was unfair to them. (p. 237, 258). However, he also contends that Ukrainian grievances against the Polish government found satisfactory expression through democratic channels. (p. 132).

Most prewar Polish repressive actions were an understandable reaction to UVO/OUN provocations. (pp. 109-110). Only 9 or 19 Ukrainians died during the Polish pacifications (p. 117) against dozens of Polish and Ukrainian victims of UVO/OUN political violence. Death sentences were leniently commuted (p. 115), and not one Ukrainian political prisoner was tortured to death at Bereza Kartuska--with all remaining inmates released at Poland's 1939 defeat. (p. 23, 127).

That OUN is fascism is obvious from an entry in the Nationalist "Encyclopedia of Ukrainology", quoted by Polishchuk: "The humanist traditions of the pre-revolutionary Ukrainian leadership were characterized as nave...Some publicists even openly advocated Machiavellianism...integral nationalists considered international relations as a `struggle for existence' that was decided purely by force...The political order of the future Ukrainian state was to consist of a one-party system and would be based on a principle of supreme leadership (vozhdyzm). There would be only one political organization (OUN), which would consist of a supraclass of 'better people'...The closest relatives of Ukrainian nationalism were not German Nazism and Italian fascism, which were the product of industrialized and urbanized societies, but similar ideologies of parties among agrarian peoples in less-developed countries of Eastern Europe, including the Ustase (Ustashi) of Croatia, the Rumanian Iron Guards...The Ukrainian movement also adopted certain symbolic paraphernalia (such as forms of greeting)." (pp. 58-60).

The OUN, however, IS Machiavellianism par excellence, as exemplified by its emphasis on deception as well as its 7th Commandment, which says to not hesitate to commit the greatest crime if the Cause demands it. (p. 66). Polishchuk thinks that the post-Stalingrad OUN metamorphism into democracy was more tactical then genuine. (e. g., p. 66, 287). A chilling 1992 OUN map still shows present-day southeast Poland as rightfully part of the Ukraine. (p. 70).

Prewar OUN violence was motivated primarily by "permanent revolution", and the dread of a peaceful, non-separatist Polish-Ukrainian rapprochement. Far from being "poor Ukrainian peasants oppressed by Polish landlords", most prewar OUN leaders were young, educated Ukrainians from privileged backgrounds. (p. 90, 93, 118).

The murderous personality cults of Bandera/Melnyk paralleled Hitler/Roehm. (p. 92, 144, 146).  The WWII OUN-UPA genocide of Poles was a direct application of the amoral might-makes-right teachings of Dmytro Dontsov, the "father" of Ukrainian fascism, as well as one of the planks of the 1st OUN Congress back in 1929. (p. 297). The latter called for an ethnically-pure Ukraine, and the destruction (not relocation) of all non-Ukrainians, thus resembling Hitler's Final Solution. (p. 94-95, 218, 258-249). The creative sadism used by UPA murderers stemmed from Dontsov's teaching that severity was a hallmark of patriotic will. (p. 218).

The "cruelty of the times", cited as an excuse for OUN-UPA conduct, was caused by human choices, not natural disasters. (p. 100). Polishchuk examines and debunks the rationalizations and blame-the-victim arguments of OUN-UPA apologists of the genocide of Poles. (p. 142, 225, 233-237, 296). After many interviews with knowledgeable Ukrainians, and mostly-fruitless solicitations of testimonies, he concludes that Polish revenge killings of Ukrainians were uncommon. (pp. 280-284).
4098934
Piknie czyta si histori, egzotyczn, odleg, fascynujc. Byam w Chiskim Zakazanym Miecie, ta ksika wzbudza wspomnienia i poszerza wyobrani, wiedz, rwnoczenie spisuje wiadectwa zacieniania ktgw midzy nawet "najdalszymi "cywilizacjami.
adna strona nie zanudza.
P.s.: Nie jestem recenzentk. 
Szczerze polecam.
3800633
"Comintern and Peasant in East Europe 1919-1930" is a study of how the Communist parties in East Europe attempted to win the support of the local peasantry.

Unfortunately, the book isn't very well written, and the source material is also somewhat problematic. The author uses secondary sources in English, French and Russian (!) to describe the situation in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. He is (of course) hostile to Communism, but also to the agrarian parties with which the Communists competed. The author dislikes the Bulgarian agrarian leader Stamboliiski in particular, perhaps because he was so successful?

Since the Communists were largely based in the cities and called for the abolition of private property, the task of winning over the peasantry wasn't an easy one. To a large extent it failed. Jackson describes the failure of the Red Peasant International (Krestintern) to win mass support. The Krestintern did recruit the Croatian "peasant" leader Radic to its ranks, but Radic's party wasn't particularly radical, and seems to have joined the Krestintern mostly as a tactic. Soon enough, Radic joined a "bourgeois" Yugoslav government, putting an end to the rather unnatural alliance with the Communists.

Still, there were exceptions to the rule. In the eastern parts of Poland and in Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia (controlled by Czechoslovakia), the Communists did manage to command the support of the local peasants. In the "backward" and "primitive" Ruthenia, the Communists actually became the single largest party! In Poland, the Communists formed a parliamentary faction together with a number of peasant parties (although some of these may have been Communist fronts). Jackson believes that the main reason for the success was the national question. Many peasants in the eastern parts of interwar Poland were Ukrainians and Byelorussians. In similar manner, Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia was inhabited by Ukrainians and Hungarians, who resented Czech control of the area. The Communists simply exploited the hostility of the national minorities against the central governments. It's also interesting to note that Radic represented a virtual minority nationality within Yugoslavia (the Croats).

"Comintern and Peasant" also gives a brief overview of the agrarian parties in East Europe. Of these, the Bulgarian Agrarian Union of Stamboliiski was the strongest, most successful and most authentically agrarian. The Croatian Peasant's Party of Radic was less agrarian in practice, being dominated by urban intellectuals and acting more like a regular political party of Croatian nationalism. The Romanian "agrarians" seem to have been a market liberal, right-wing party bent on industrialization! The Czechoslovak Republican Party was the strongest agrarian party in East Europe and hosted the Green International, an international organization of agrarian parties. However, the Republicans were strictly constitutionalist and oriented to compromise and coalition-building with other parties, both right-wing and reform socialist. They eventually became a party of the wealthy middle class and rich farmers.

The book cuts off the story in 1930, probably because the "ultra-left" turn of the Comintern in 1928-29 made it less interested in winning over the peasantry in the European nations. Curiously, the moribund Krestintern wasn't dissolved until 1937. (In fact, even the Soviet sources are unclear on when the Red Peasant International was actually dissolved. One Soviet source suggests 1939! It's not clear why the Krestintern wasn't resurrected during the popular frontist phase of Communism.)

I didn't really like Jackson's book, but since there are few sources on this subject matter in English, I give it three stars.
1762461
The review you posted by Publishers Weekly literally made me want to gag. This book is not a "history junkie's delight"; it is the essence of Poland's 50 year nightmare from 1939 to 1989.

As a retried U.S. military officer and Polish-American baby-boomer whose father fought at places like Iwo Jima during WWII, I have great interest in the betrayal of Poland during WWII.  Anyone who knows about the Katyn Forest Massacre (done by Dear Mr. Stalin), the Warsaw Rising of 44 (when Dear Mr. Stalin refused to allow the Allies to come to the aid of the people of Warsaw) and the mass deportations and genocide against the Polish people, will be highly interested in this book.

A great percentage of the letters are about the "Polish Problem." And I am afraid the Polish Problem still exists today whereby people glorify the contributions of the Soviet Union led by a mass-murderer whilst at the same time being almost totally ignorant of the contributions of Poland to the defeat of Nazi Germany.  The effectiveness and impact of Poles of the 1st Polish Armored Division, the two Polish Fighter Squadrons during the Battle of Britain, and the Poish heroics and sacrifices at places like Monte Cassino are either unknown or minimized. To this, add the contributions of hundreds of thousands of Polish Americans, sons and grandsons of Poland, like my father and more famous (maybe not so famous) Polish Americans like Col Gabreski and Lt Col Urban.

At Amazon.com, you stock books like "A Question of Honor" which should be read by all those who want to truly know what wartime misery is all about. Shame on anyone who tries to varnish or glorify the abject misery that Stalin (not Hitler) brought to his own people but especially to the Polish nation.
2654409
If you like reading Government censored material; if you liked reading such hard hitting newspapers as Pravda, then you will love this book. All the writers were soldiers which means, by default, they were covered under the UCMJ and prevented from saying things detrimental to the Government. They also were under OPSEC (Operational security) requirements which means they could not report everything. Further, most were under a "registration" order meaning they had to register their writings with their commander which resulted in regular "reviews" of their writings.

Even the write of the book admitted on CSPAN that they could not write about things like "when a patrol went bad".

So, much like 1984 and the days of the Communist publications such as Pravda, this book is a group of censored writings from soldiers.
4044481
Ann Applebaum explains in detail ,why the communists failed in eastern europe. It was not liberation ,but military occupation. The author describes in detail country by country the oppresion on the Russians
4308898
Stanislaw Likiernik recounts his experiences in prewar Poland, German-occupied Poland, the AK, the Warsaw Uprising, and postwar Paris.

In recent years, some (e. g. Jan T. Gross) have advanced the disingenuous argument that Poles were willing to incur the German-imposed death penalty for harboring radios and guns, but much less so for harboring Jews. To begin with, everyone knows that getting away with hiding a forbidden object is much more likely than getting away with hiding a human being. As it turns out, Poles weren't particularly risk-taking when it came to radios either: "Radios in private hands were a rarity, their possession punishable by death." (p. 72). As for black marketeering, Poles really had no choice, and they knew furthermore that the death penalty upon being caught wasn't consistently enforced: "To survive, the inhabitants of Warsaw had to use the black market...In my place, a real gendarme would, at his most benevolent, confiscate the goods, and at worst let go with his sub-machine gun. Searches of trains often ended in the shooting of women and men traveling with contraband food supplies." (p. 83)

Likiernik describes his experiences in KEDYW (KIEROWNICTWO DYWERSJI, or Directorate of Sabotage) (pp. 67-70), which included the blowing up of a German train that was taking ammunition to the Russian Front. He played a direct role in the assassinations of German officials, including Commander Schmalz (pp. 96-97) and the Gestapo agents Jung and Hoffman (p. 103). KEDYW was somewhat better armed than other AK units (p. 107), but some 70% of KEDYW members later perished during the Warsaw Uprising (p. 147).

Just before the Uprising, Likiernik had what turned out to be a prophetic experience: "My friend Roman Mularczyk (later known as Roman Bratny, the celebrated writer) came to see me several days before the Rising. `Mark my words,' he said. `The Russians will provoke an insurrection in Warsaw and when we start fighting, they'll stop their advance and let the Germans finish us off.'" (p. 111). And so it happened: A vast sea of death and destruction.

During the Uprising, the most unpleasant German weapon was the Nebelwerfer ("bellowing cow" or "wardrobe"; p. 123). Likiernik was wounded a number of times, and had to be moved from a field hospital because the Germans would murder the wounded (pp. 117-118).

After the war, Likiernik observed the Communist takeover of Poland from a Polish mission in Paris. He also noted: "The demeanor of the new arrivals from Poland, especially of the officers, was getting increasingly strange. Some communists of Jewish origin could hardly even speak Polish." (p. 178).
333871
This is history at its most hideous.  Most Americans interested in the history of World War II are quite familiar with the major outlines of the Allied victory over a fearsome German war machine.  The story stretches from the German invasion of lands that lay to its east, then to lands in the western part of Europe and ultimately to the vast Soviet Union, a fatal error since the German army withered as the Russian winter surrounded it in late-1942.  By then, America had entered the war. Slowly, the combination of American power and the heroic Russian resistance, draining the power of the German army, turned the tide.

But there is another side to the history of World War II that was little-known outside Eastern Europe during most of the war and even now has not been fully described until Timothy Snyder, a professor of European history at Yale, wrote Bloodlands.  This is the ghastly story of famines, executions, ethnic cleansing, gassings, deportations, and incarcerations - all of which took place quite apart from the military engagements with which most Western students of the war are familiar.

The sheer scale of the killing is difficult to comprehend.  The agony of useless deaths, meted out to close to 15 million civilians, is a horrific story.  Most of these were killed by the Germans, the vast majority to the east of the German state and most killed in Poland and the eastern lands of the Soviet Union, Belarus and the Ukraine.  The Soviet state used famine as its principal method of killing; this was a slow, agonizing death, frequently leading to cannabalism.  Germans used gassing, mass executions, and bombing to achieve their even more lethal goals.

Most of this story is so hideous that it becomes difficult to read.  The senseless slaughter of defenseless civilians was so pervasive and so immediately threatening that only small pockets of Eastern Europe remained relatively safe during the war.  The Western world, most importantly the United States and Britain, were only vaguely aware of what was happening in central Europe.

Remarkably, very little of the mass slaughter achieved any enduring political or military purpose.  The Soviet Union felt a sense of isolation in the early days of the war, facing Germany and the non-Russian minorities to its West and Japan to its East.  Germany faced France to its West, its historic foe, culturally and socially strong even though thoroughly smashed in less than a month of fighting in June 1940.  And to its East, the Polish state, with 7.6 million Germans living within its borders, remained a significant power.  Russia solved its problem by annexing large swathes of land to its West, killing huge numbers of these civilians.  German politics during the war descended into not much more than a frantic effort to stave off increasingly bad military results and, as a substitute for victory on the battlefield, the extermination of the Jews of Europe.

Bloodlands tells the most bloody stories in the most bloody war in human history.  It is a history that is hard to read but hard to put down.  How two twisted men, Stalin and Hitler, could have thrown the European continent into such a hideous battle remains a mystery.
4881284
And how Polish have been under occupancy of Russian bastards. Nobody knows the story? Uuuhhhhhh. That's very sad. Very sad. U can also read 'bout polish camps. What a bulls***.
1227395
This review is based on the 1996 Oxford hardback edition, and focuses on matters not developed by other reviewers.

Sierakowiak devotes a considerable number of entries to the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland. On Sept. 14, it rained. Sierakowiak notes that, had this been going on since Sept. 1, the German tanks would've gotten stuck in the mire (p. 38). On Sept. 19, Sierakowiak repudiated Hitler's lies, in which the Fuhrer, in a radio broadcast, had blamed Poland for starting the war and for mistreating the German minority (p. 42).

A radio program from London mentioned the Germans' vain seeking of Prince Janusz Radziwill to form a collaborationist government (Nov. 5, 1939; p. 59). This adds refutation to the claim that there was no Polish Quisling because the Germans never wanted one.

No sooner had the German entered Lodz then they began to persecute both Jews and Poles. On Nov. 17, 1939, the Germans forced Polish priests to destroy the Kosciuszko statue with sledge hammers. This being ineffective, the Germans resorted to dynamite (p. 63).

A common Polonophobic Holocaust theme is the one about Poles habitually delighting in Jewish humiliation and suffering. In contrast, Sierakowiak writes (Nov. 18, 1939; p. 64): "The Poles cast down their eyes at the sight of the Jews with their armbands; friends assure us that `it won't be for long.'" In view of the fact that Sierakowiak otherwise never mentions Polish attitudes, and that negative incidents are more likely to be remembered and recorded in diaries than positive ones, this takes on further significance.

Sierakowiak was irreligious (p. 38). And, not only was he pro-Communist, but in fact he praised Communists and condemned capitalism many times (p. 88, 92, 102, 105, 155, 220, 260, 263, etc.).

As for leader Chaim Rumkowski (Rumkovsky) and his privileged Jews, Sierakowiak elaborates on the inequities between the well-fed, well-clad Jews and the starving, ragged Jews (p. 176, 198, 245). When Rumkowski ordered the timely and obedient fulfillment of the German order to deport Jewish children and the elderly ("useless eaters" for extermination), Sierakowiak noted the many kinds of privileged Jews whose children and elderly relatives had been exempt from this order (pp. 216-217).

The Germans used some Jews to beat other Jews (March 16, 1943; p. 258). During the deportations, one unarmed Jewish policeman each was assigned to supervise the loading of about 100 Jews onto the trains (p. 270). Armed Germans didn't usually get involved until the latter phases of the day's loadings.

Owing to the fact that the Jews in the Lodz ghetto had been exploited for German war production, they were spared for most of the duration of the war. Not until August 1944 did the Germans liquidate the Lodz ghetto.
2843124
Have you ever considered a city break in Wrocaw, formerly Breslau, in Poland? Pop it on your city break list, it has enough to keep you entertained for a long weekend!

Naturally I took a book that is mainly set in the city to read whilst I was there. Home is Nearby is set in the 1980s when Solidarnoc, headed by electrician Lech Wasa, was beginning to grow, as the Poles, living under Russian Communist rule, began to rebel against the oppressive regime. Reading the novel gave me an informed view of what I was experiencing in 2018, a reminder of much bleaker political and economic times: No meat, no money, no dignity, a city that was uniformly pigeon-coloured and colourless. A lack of fruit that was commonplace in those days  oranges, for example  were unavailable to most. That is hard to imagine today with the beautifully painted gingerbread houses that surround the main square and the vitality that is evident everywhere in this largely preserved (and in parts rebuilt) medieval city.

An attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II, who was originally from Poland, was almost taken as a sign for Poles to ponder their position, governed as they were by their hard-line nation.

It was a time when toilet paper was in short supply and the Party newspaper, Tribune Ludu, served in its place  a fitting use as many Poles saw it. Lightbulbs were scarce and people would often steal ones in public spaces for their own use. Again, a stark contrast to the vibrant city one encounters today. In December 1981 martial law was imposed and it was the ordinary people who were the targets. That became a defining act by the government.

Ania Skowroska decides to leave her father and rural village behind in order to study art and sculpture at the University of Wrocaw. It is there that she meets Dominik a journalist and Magorzata, a radical artist, members of a group of an avant garde artist community.

As martial rule is enforced, Ania finds she needs a permit to travel home to her Father from Wrocaw; random arrests have started taking place As art is suppressed and goes underground, Magorzata holds an illicit exhibition in her apartmentlife is changing and not for the better.

This is very much the story of students countering the iron hand of oppression, and as they take a stand, they are faced with life changing consequences.

Wrocaw is a city that has been inventing and reinventing itself after wars and conquests and tragedies. Past lives are evident everywhere you go today. Passing St Elizabeths church I was reminded of parts of the story; at the Botanical Gardens (which we visited just near the Cathedral) I recalled a beating during curfew that happened to one of Anias friends.

As the sun set behind the pillars of the gothic town hall, we walked across the city centre.. and I followed in their footsteps #onliterarylocation

The novel really set the context of the citys recent history, history that happened in my own life time. A sobering read in many ways, made poignant by being in the city.
4347535
When Rethinking Poles and Jews was initially published in 2007 it received all kinds of favorable press in the Polish American media. I suspect this was because Pol-Am reviewers, who had yet to actually read the book, had caught wind that it included a section on anti-Polish stereotypes. While Rethinking Poles and Jews does present a balanced treatment of Polish-Jewish relations, it doesn't shy away from the pervasiveness and virulence of Polish Catholic anti-Semitism.

The two overly-critical customer reviews that you find here, one from an academic who specializes in anti-Polonisms and the other from a radical Dmowskian ethno-nationalist, translate into a very favorable recommendation for the objective and fair-minded reader.

Some other very good books which discuss Polish Catholic anti-Semitism:

"Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present" by Joanna B. Michlic

"Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland" by Jan T. Gross

"The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland" by Antony Polonsky

"Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz" by Jan Tomasz Gross

"Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath" by Joshua D. Zimmerman

"Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945" by Gunnar S. Paulsson

"Shtetl" by Eva Hoffman

"Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust" by Michael C. Steinlauf

"Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust" by E. Thomas Wood

"My Brother's Keeper: Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust" by Antony Polonsky

"Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War" by Emanuel Ringelblum

"On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the Two World Wars" by Celia Stopnicka Heller

"The Convent at Auschwitz" by Wladyslaw Bartoszewski

"The Hidden Pope: The Untold Story of a Lifelong Friendship That Is Changing the Relationship Between Catholics and Jews - The Personal Journey of John Paul II and Jerzy Kluger" by Darcy O'Brien

"When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland" by Brian Porter

"Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland" by Brian Porter

"The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots" by Rafal Pankowski

"Rome's Most Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and Independent Poland, 1914-1939" (Polish and Polish American Studies) by Neal Pease

"Traitors & True Poles: Narrating A Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939" (Polish and Polish American Studies) by Karen Majewski

"The Catholic Church and Antisemitism: Poland, 1933-1939" by Ronald E. Modras

"The Jews in Poland" by Chimen Abramsky

"Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust" by Dorota Glowacka

"Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation" by Magda Teter

"From Assimilation to Anti-Semitism: The Jewish Question in Poland, 1850-1914" by Theodore R. Weeks

"Antisemitism And Its Opponents In Modern Poland" by Robert Blobaum

"The Jews of Poland Between Two World Wars" by Yisrael Gutman

"Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews During World War Two" by Israel Gutman

"Economic Origins of Antisemitism: Poland and Its Jews in the Early Modern Period" by Hillel Levine

"Forced Out: The Fate of Polish Jewry in Communist Poland" by Arthur J. Wolak

"The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland" by Genevive Zubrzycki

"Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy" by John K. Roth

"In the Shadow of the Polish Eagle: The Poles, the Holocaust and Beyond" by Leo Cooper

"No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939" by Emanuel Melzer

"The Politics of Hate: Anti-Semitism, History, and the Holocaust in Modern Europe" by John Weiss
46305
I was hoping to get color photos of proud German soldiers in their uniforms but they're all black and white which, needless to say is uninspiring to read.
Otherwise, it's well-written and the black and white photos do an ok job of depicting the uniforms.
3526284
Though not an easy book to read, "Notes from Underground" offers a bleak look behind the Iron Curtain and Czechoslovakia, where Jan, who has written a samizdat published by his mother, must deal with his mother's arrest for publishing his work, with the general paranoia that accompanied life in mid-1980s Czechoslovakia, and with an attempt at love under a totalitarian regime.

There is a pervasive sense of distrust, paranoia, and futility throughout the novel. Whom can Jan trust in a world filled with informants? What is the point when Jan marries his love if the authorities will not recognize the union? There are shades of 1984 or almost any good dystopian novel here, but this story takes place not against a fictional backdrop but against one that existed only 30 years ago.
1292796
There is often an unfortunate, and incorrect, portrayal of Poles as indifferent to the fate of their fellow Jews in German-Nazi occupied Poland. This book helps set the record straight. It provides testimonies of Poles, and other gentiles, who helped the Jews avoid death. And only in German-occupied Poland was the death penalty meted out for any gentile who assisted a Jew in any manner. There are more Poles honored at Yad Vashem, in Israel, for rescuing Jews than members of any other European nationality. Furthermore, only a small fraction of rescuers of Jews were ever honored: Most were eventually discovered by the Germans and murdered along with the Jews they were hiding.
4922247
This book is by no stretch of the imagination a true historical account of Poland's rich and complex history starting from the reign of the Piast Dynasty to the great territorial expanse of the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth (which at one time included Moscow itself) to the partitions of 1795 to the communist period.  As a work of fiction it is a good read.  As history of Poland it is very rough around the edges and omits much.