URBANKOWSKI Bohdan - JÓZEF PIŁSUDSKI THE MARZYCIEL AND STRATEGIST

URBANKOWSKI Bohdan - JÓZEF PIŁSUDSKI THE MARZYCIEL AND STRATEGIST

(...)After reading Dreamer and Strategist, Professor Waclaw Jedrzejewicz said:

- For the next fifty years this will be the best book on Pilsudski.

The author has created a work with reliability unmatched by scholarly publications, and at the same time not tiresome thanks to the lightness of pen proper to a poet and essayist. Unlike most historical works, Urbankowski does not focus on mere factuality, though this part is also commendable. The fruit is an abundance of little-known facts and a broadly outlined historical context.

The masterpiece is the depiction of the Marshal's activities in philosophical and ethical terms. This provides a glimpse into the moral dilemmas and an understanding of the controversial decisions that Pilsudski made in his turbulent life. At the same time, he is a character tossed about by history and this history creating. Urbankowski treats his hero with sympathy and understanding, but is not an uncritical hagiographer. This attitude in the 1980s and 1990s was an effective antidote to the flood of publications slandering Pilsudski, most of which were written to political order.

Today, in turn, Urbankowski's book does not lose its relevance, providing a counterbalance to another peculiar fashion for ruthless criticism of the Marshal and his circle of associates. To travesty a Stendhal prophecy, it is not always necessary to rewrite the biographies of famous people. Sometimes it is enough to revisit the most valuable ones, and Urbankowski's one is unrivaled."(...)

Bartłomiej Osuch( Source: ZNAK Bookstore)

Published by ZYSK and S-ka, 2014.Dimensions.24,5x18cm; Pages 1024; BEAUTIFUL ARTISTIC BINDING full leather, embossing, stained card trims. Clean Pieces. Very good condition.