Norman Davies
Author of Europe: A History
About the Author
Norman Davies is a Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, and is a Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Professor Emeritus of London University
Image credit: Norman Davies en 2018
Works by Norman Davies
White eagle, red star : the Polish-Soviet war 1919-20 and the 'miracle on the Vistula' (1972) 175 copies, 2 reviews
Hank was a yank 2 copies
Wyspy 1 copy
Varșovia-insurecția din 1944 1 copy
Europe: A History Volume Two 1 copy
Associated Works
Gulag: Life And Death Inside the Soviet Concentration Camps (2003) — some editions — 50 copies, 2 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Davies, Ivor Norman Richard
- Birthdate
- 1939-06-08
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Magdalen College, University of Oxford (BA|1962)
Jagiellonian University (Ph.D|1968)
University of Sussex (MA|1966) - Occupations
- professor
historian - Organizations
- School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London
Wolfson College, University of Oxford - Awards and honors
- Order Odrodzenia Polski
Order Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej - Krzyż Wielki (1998)
Medal Polonia Mater Nostra Est (1995)
honorowy obywatel Warszawy
honorowy obywatel Lublina
honorowy obywatel Wrocławia (show all 16)
doktor honoris causa Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego (2003)
doktor honoris causa Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego (2007)
doktor honoris causa UMCS (2007)
doktor honoris Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (2007)
Nagroda im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego - Rycerz Wolności (2006)
Zasłużony Kulturze Gloria Artis - Złoty Medal (2005)
Odznaka Honorowa Bene Merito (2009)
Fellow, British Academy (1997)
Fellow, Royal Historical Society
Companion, Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (2001) - Short biography
- Norman Davies jest synem Richarda i Elizabeth Davies. Studiował historię w Magdalen College na Uniwersytecie Oksfordzkim, w Grenoble, w Perugii i na University of Sussex. Doktoryzował się w 1973 na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim.
Od 1971 roku jest wykładowcą, a od 1985 roku profesorem zwyczajnym w Szkole Studiów Słowiańskich i Wschodnioeuropejskich (School of Slavonic and East European Studies) University College London w Londynie. Jest członkiem korespondentem Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności w Krakowie.
Po przejściu na wcześniejszą emeryturę poświęcił się pisaniu książek. Jest autorem takich dzieł historycznych jak: Boże igrzysko (Historia Polski w dwóch tomach), Serce Europy (Krótka Historia Polski), Orzeł biały – czerwona gwiazda, Wojna polsko-sowiecka 1919-1920, Europa, Mikrokosmos (historia Wrocławia), Wyspy. Jedno z ostatnich jego dzieł, Powstanie 44 było jedną z najlepiej sprzedających się książek sierpnia 2004.
Dzięki książce Boże igrzysko (ang. God's Playground) historia Polski stała się bardziej dostępna czytelnikom na Zachodzie. Davies pisał o dziejach Polski często i z dużą dokładnością.
Członek Międzynarodowej Kapituły Orderu Uśmiechu.
W Krakowie, z którym Davies czuje więź osobistą (jest nawet zagorzałym kibicem miejscowej Cracovii[1]), poznał swoją żonę Marię Korzeniewicz, która pochodzi z Dąbrowy Tarnowskiej. Ma dwóch synów. Mieszka w Londynie.
W 1998 roku powstał film dokumentalny o Normanie Daviesie w reżyserii Krzysztofa Wierzbickiego pt."Historia Normana Daviesa" - Nationality
- United Kingdom
Poland (2014) - Birthplace
- Bolton, Lancashire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Krakow, Poland - Map Location
- UK
Members
Reviews
A pedantic, inept piece of work. The areas I happened to be familiar with were handled so badly it called into question the rest of it. (e.g. The German Vormarz is misidentified as a movement, rather than a historical period.)
The conceptual basis was incoherently fuzzy. The people of the former Soviet Union might understand that they are included metaphorically as one of the 'kingdoms' (chapter 15), but the Irish may be quite surprised to find themselves among the 'vanished' (chapter 14). show more This sort of sloppy thinking is reminiscent of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, where the concept of 'civilization' was as broad or narrow as it needed to be at any given moment.
The author also has a bafflingly freshmanlike affection for citing dictionary definitions, encyclopedia entries, and tourist board websites, but spends and inordinate amount of time criticizing them as insufficiently detailed--not only a pedant, then, but one punching well below his weight. Based on this work's lazy lack of precision or clarity, it's a haughtiness that is thoroughly unjustified.
I could also go into the author's hilariously reactionary personal attitudes as well (a royalist conservative my grandfathers grandfathers' would have considered out of touch), but it wouldn't really be relevant. Bad history is bad history, regardless of one's politics. Besides, these attitudes aren't presented any more coherently than his theory.
Any student of history, serious or casual, liberal or conservative, should avoid this book if at all possible. If you are unfortunate enough to be assigned it in class, you can at least take solace in the fact that your professor is not as clever as he thinks he is.
[EDITED: 'Their was frequency a problematic with autocorrect.'] show less
The conceptual basis was incoherently fuzzy. The people of the former Soviet Union might understand that they are included metaphorically as one of the 'kingdoms' (chapter 15), but the Irish may be quite surprised to find themselves among the 'vanished' (chapter 14). show more This sort of sloppy thinking is reminiscent of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, where the concept of 'civilization' was as broad or narrow as it needed to be at any given moment.
The author also has a bafflingly freshmanlike affection for citing dictionary definitions, encyclopedia entries, and tourist board websites, but spends and inordinate amount of time criticizing them as insufficiently detailed--not only a pedant, then, but one punching well below his weight. Based on this work's lazy lack of precision or clarity, it's a haughtiness that is thoroughly unjustified.
I could also go into the author's hilariously reactionary personal attitudes as well (a royalist conservative my grandfathers grandfathers' would have considered out of touch), but it wouldn't really be relevant. Bad history is bad history, regardless of one's politics. Besides, these attitudes aren't presented any more coherently than his theory.
Any student of history, serious or casual, liberal or conservative, should avoid this book if at all possible. If you are unfortunate enough to be assigned it in class, you can at least take solace in the fact that your professor is not as clever as he thinks he is.
[EDITED: 'Their was frequency a problematic with autocorrect.'] show less
What everybody knows about WWII Poland is that the war started there, that there was a revolt in Warsaw, and that the Red Army swept through on its way to Berlin. In this book, Norman Davies explains that there was a lot more going on than that; in particular, that there were two “Warsaw Risings”, the ghetto rising of 1943 (which is usually thought of, in the West at least, as “the” rising) and the Home Army rising of 1944. The book is concerned with the second.
Davies starts with show more background: the first third of the book discusses the pre-rising situation from the points of view of the Western Allies, the Germans, the Russians, and the Poles themselves. The middle third is the dramatic, tragic story of the Rising itself, and the final third is the even more tragic aftermath, where many Home Army soldiers who had been treated as legitimate POWs by their enemies, the Nazis, were executed or imprisoned by their “friends”, the Soviets.
The background section presents the dilemma of Poland, sandwiched between Germany and the Soviet Union. There’s a map of the Polish state at its greatest extent (in the 16th century), extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea (as an aside, unlike a lot of other histories I’ve been reading, this book has excellent maps), a discussion of the various subsequent trials and tribulations, the victory over the Bolsheviks in 1920, subsequent events, including the German/Soviet partition. Davies acknowledges that Poland was a de facto military dictatorship in 1939 (Soviet apologists have gotten a lot mileage out of that, during and since); however, he doesn’t volunteer that Poland flirted with Hitler, including occupying its own little chunk (400 square miles) of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Davies does not gloss over the considerable anti-Semitism that existed in Poland during the prewar and war years. He’s not particularly apologetic about it, citing Polish claims that Jews enthusiastically welcomed Soviet troops in eastern Poland in 1939, and the astonishing statement that the Stern faction of the Irgun contacted German officials in Turkey and proposed an alliance against England. At the same time Davies acknowledges that, during the rising, some units of the Home Army rounded up and shot Jews who had managed to hide out from the SS in occupied Warsaw for four years. Other units welcomed Jews into their ranks; the Home Army staged a “forlorn hope” frontal assault on the Warsaw transit camp; it was unexpectedly successful and the storming units were amazed to find a formation of Jewish ex-soldiers, emaciated and dirty but lined up in orderly ranks on the camp’s parade ground. An ex-sergeant stepped one pace forward, saluted, and said “Reporting for duty” to his rescuers.
The accounts of the Rising are full of sometimes grim, sometimes touching stories like this. The big questions are: (1) Was the rising coordinated in advance with the Western Allies and Stalin, and (2) Could the Red Army, in sight across the Vistula, have done more to help the rising? Davies answers “Yes” to the first, although his evidence isn’t as good as it possibly could be, and “Yes” to the second, although he acknowledges that Rokossovsky was having more difficulty with German resistance than normally supposed.
Thus most of the supplies air-dropped during the rising came from RAF units based thousands of miles away in southern Italy rather than Soviets across the river. Davies cites the well-known claim that Stalin deliberately allowed the Rising to fail so Poland would be free of potential resistance groups when the Red Army moved in; this makes perfect sense, although evidence for it is surprisingly sparse. In any event, the Home Army held out for two months with what they had and eventually surrendered with military honors.
The aftermath, of course, is ugly. I grew up in the Cold War and was taught that Poland was one of those Communist countries that hated the US. Davies makes no bones about blaming Britain (and, to a lesser extent, the US) for what happened. The British Foreign Office and newspapers were heavily penetrated by Communists and sympathizers, and Poland was dismissed as “ungrateful” and “unreasonable” for expecting the West to intervene against Stalin. Roosevelt comes off as a hopelessly naive dilettante, and Churchill as a Machiavellian pragmatist. In light of all this, it’s pretty amazing that the Poles trust us enough to be the fourth largest contributor of troops to Iraq. It’s also telling that it’s perfectly acceptable - in fact, moderately amusing - to be an ex-Communist in the US or England but utterly damning to be an ex-Nazi; and that almost everybody knows who Himmler and Eichmann were but very few can identify Dzerzhinsky or Beria.
I do have some negatives: Davies is convinced that English speakers won’t be able to deal with Polish names. Thus all the participants are identified by either an Anglicized first name and an initial (“Adam S.”, “Thomas A.”) or by an English translation of the nom de guerre used during the war (General “Boor”, Captain “Butterfly”). Admittedly, it might be hard to keep track of (for example) Zbigniew cibor-Rylski, but it somehow seems to dishonor these people by reducing them to abbreviations. Similarly, Poland is consistently referred to as “The First Ally”, rather than as “Poland”; once or twice would be a good reminder but always is an affectation. Next, Davies is fond of reverse name-dropping: omitting the names of well-known people when describing their actions. Thus you have to check the endnotes to find out that, “an artillery officer in Rokossovsky’s army” who writes a poem about the Red Army is Alexsandr Solzhinetsyn, and an Englishman critical of Communism is Robert Conquest. Although all references are included in the endnotes, there’s no bibliography; since the book has 35 appendices already, it shouldn’t have been that difficult to add another with general reference works and specific books on the Rising. Finally, the index is not very good. However, these don’t detract much from the overall value. It makes me appreciate the first lines of the Polish national anthem: Poland has not yet perished, While we are still alive... show less
Davies starts with show more background: the first third of the book discusses the pre-rising situation from the points of view of the Western Allies, the Germans, the Russians, and the Poles themselves. The middle third is the dramatic, tragic story of the Rising itself, and the final third is the even more tragic aftermath, where many Home Army soldiers who had been treated as legitimate POWs by their enemies, the Nazis, were executed or imprisoned by their “friends”, the Soviets.
The background section presents the dilemma of Poland, sandwiched between Germany and the Soviet Union. There’s a map of the Polish state at its greatest extent (in the 16th century), extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea (as an aside, unlike a lot of other histories I’ve been reading, this book has excellent maps), a discussion of the various subsequent trials and tribulations, the victory over the Bolsheviks in 1920, subsequent events, including the German/Soviet partition. Davies acknowledges that Poland was a de facto military dictatorship in 1939 (Soviet apologists have gotten a lot mileage out of that, during and since); however, he doesn’t volunteer that Poland flirted with Hitler, including occupying its own little chunk (400 square miles) of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Davies does not gloss over the considerable anti-Semitism that existed in Poland during the prewar and war years. He’s not particularly apologetic about it, citing Polish claims that Jews enthusiastically welcomed Soviet troops in eastern Poland in 1939, and the astonishing statement that the Stern faction of the Irgun contacted German officials in Turkey and proposed an alliance against England. At the same time Davies acknowledges that, during the rising, some units of the Home Army rounded up and shot Jews who had managed to hide out from the SS in occupied Warsaw for four years. Other units welcomed Jews into their ranks; the Home Army staged a “forlorn hope” frontal assault on the Warsaw transit camp; it was unexpectedly successful and the storming units were amazed to find a formation of Jewish ex-soldiers, emaciated and dirty but lined up in orderly ranks on the camp’s parade ground. An ex-sergeant stepped one pace forward, saluted, and said “Reporting for duty” to his rescuers.
The accounts of the Rising are full of sometimes grim, sometimes touching stories like this. The big questions are: (1) Was the rising coordinated in advance with the Western Allies and Stalin, and (2) Could the Red Army, in sight across the Vistula, have done more to help the rising? Davies answers “Yes” to the first, although his evidence isn’t as good as it possibly could be, and “Yes” to the second, although he acknowledges that Rokossovsky was having more difficulty with German resistance than normally supposed.
Thus most of the supplies air-dropped during the rising came from RAF units based thousands of miles away in southern Italy rather than Soviets across the river. Davies cites the well-known claim that Stalin deliberately allowed the Rising to fail so Poland would be free of potential resistance groups when the Red Army moved in; this makes perfect sense, although evidence for it is surprisingly sparse. In any event, the Home Army held out for two months with what they had and eventually surrendered with military honors.
The aftermath, of course, is ugly. I grew up in the Cold War and was taught that Poland was one of those Communist countries that hated the US. Davies makes no bones about blaming Britain (and, to a lesser extent, the US) for what happened. The British Foreign Office and newspapers were heavily penetrated by Communists and sympathizers, and Poland was dismissed as “ungrateful” and “unreasonable” for expecting the West to intervene against Stalin. Roosevelt comes off as a hopelessly naive dilettante, and Churchill as a Machiavellian pragmatist. In light of all this, it’s pretty amazing that the Poles trust us enough to be the fourth largest contributor of troops to Iraq. It’s also telling that it’s perfectly acceptable - in fact, moderately amusing - to be an ex-Communist in the US or England but utterly damning to be an ex-Nazi; and that almost everybody knows who Himmler and Eichmann were but very few can identify Dzerzhinsky or Beria.
I do have some negatives: Davies is convinced that English speakers won’t be able to deal with Polish names. Thus all the participants are identified by either an Anglicized first name and an initial (“Adam S.”, “Thomas A.”) or by an English translation of the nom de guerre used during the war (General “Boor”, Captain “Butterfly”). Admittedly, it might be hard to keep track of (for example) Zbigniew cibor-Rylski, but it somehow seems to dishonor these people by reducing them to abbreviations. Similarly, Poland is consistently referred to as “The First Ally”, rather than as “Poland”; once or twice would be a good reminder but always is an affectation. Next, Davies is fond of reverse name-dropping: omitting the names of well-known people when describing their actions. Thus you have to check the endnotes to find out that, “an artillery officer in Rokossovsky’s army” who writes a poem about the Red Army is Alexsandr Solzhinetsyn, and an Englishman critical of Communism is Robert Conquest. Although all references are included in the endnotes, there’s no bibliography; since the book has 35 appendices already, it shouldn’t have been that difficult to add another with general reference works and specific books on the Rising. Finally, the index is not very good. However, these don’t detract much from the overall value. It makes me appreciate the first lines of the Polish national anthem: Poland has not yet perished, While we are still alive... show less
Ambivalensek az érzéseim. Egyrészt nyilvánvaló, hogy ez a magyarul megjelent világháborús munkák között egy megkerülhetetlen alkotás – pláne mert akkora, hogy egy birodalmi lépegető is felbotlana benne. Másfelől meg valahogy nem tudtam úgy élvezni*, mint sok más édestestvérét. Davies könyve mindenre kiterjedő figyelemmel és lengyel szemszögből vizsgálja a ’44-es varsói felkelés** eseményeit, mind előzményeit, mind utóéletét akkurátus show more aprólékossággal tárgyalva. A két fenti jelző (a „mindenre kiterjedő figyelem” és a „lengyel szemszög”) az oka e kötet minden erényének, és paradox módon hibájának is.
Ami a mindenre kiterjedő figyelmet illeti: talán kicsit feszesebb szerkezet nem ártott volna. Itt vannak például ezek a „kapszulák” – olyan dokumentumok és visszaemlékezések, amiket Davies a főszövegbe illesztett. Maga az ötlet nagyon eredeti, és alapvetően inkább produktív, mint nem, csak épp folyamatosan megszakítják az elbeszélést, helyenként olyan sűrűséggel, ami már az érthetőség rovására megy. Ráadásul az sem mindig világos, hogy miért oda lettek beillesztve a szövegbe, ahová, némelyik pedig egész egyszerűen nem tágítja a látókörünket, csupán megismétli azt (egy másik szemtanú szájával), amit pár oldallal előbb már megtudtuk. Mintha Davies-nek nem lett volna lelke kihagyni egyet is közülük.
Aztán a lengyel szempont. Néha az volt az érzésem, Davies nem viszonyul kellő objektivitással témájához. Ez többek közt abban nyilvánul meg, hogy ugyan leírja a felkelők által elkövetett atrocitásokat is, de sosem fűz hozzájuk erkölcsi kommentárt – amit viszont a nyugatiak és a szovjetek esetében ritkán mulaszt el***. Ezzel semmiképpen sem szeretnék arra utalni, hogy a felkelők sem voltak jobbak, mint a többi fél: hihetetlen hősiességgel és páratlan szívóssággal vívtak meg egy olyan küzdelmet, aminek (a tények utólagos ismeretében legalábbis) csak a vesztesei lehettek. Egyszerűen arról van szó, hogy ha egy nagyobbfajta embercsoport fegyvert kap a kezébe, akkor ott óhatatlanul lesznek túlkapások – és ezen egy történésznek nem kell szemérmeteskedni. Ez minden felkelés és forradalom a priori tulajdonsága, független attól, hogy az adott esemény becses vagy becstelen szándékból született. (Én a magam részéről ezért igyekszem elkerülni az ilyesmiket.)
De ez bőven megbocsátható. A háborús szakirodalomban Dunát lehet rekeszteni az olyan szövegekkel, amik a nyugati álláspontot tükrözi, és olyat is találunk (elsősorban a ’89 előtti kiadványok között), amik a marxista történelemszemléletet követik, egyértelműen „felszabadításnak” tekintve a Vörös Hadsereg ténykedését. Mostanság pedig egyre nagyobb számban jelennek meg a piacon a Wehrmacht szerepét relativizáló, önigazoló visszatekintések is – de ilyen szöveg, ami a „kicsikre”**** fókuszál, magyar nyelven alig akad. Lengyelország az első ország volt, aki fegyveresen szállt szembe a németekkel, és végig, kompromisszumok nélkül, a legbénítóbb veszteségeket is állva harcolt ellenük. A győztesek oldalán harcolt, mégis veszített: egyik megszállást a másikra cserélte. Lehet (sőt kell is) mélázni azon, mennyiben hagyták őket cserben nyugati szövetségeseik – nyilván nagyon. A brit és amerikai felelősség tény, az pedig, hogy milyen hamar és milyen könnyen szemet hunytak Sztálin lengyelországi cselekedetei fölött, egyszerűen gyomorforgató. Diplomáciai és morális téren elkövetett mulasztásaikat tehát tárgyalni kell, de (és ezt Davies nem igazán hangsúlyozza) katonai téren nem sok mindent tehettek a lengyelekért, ami azt jelenti, hogy azok végeredményben pusztán Sztálin jóindulatától függtek. És hát tudjuk: Sztálin és a jóindulat…
Ez persze felveti a kérdést: volt így értelme az egész küzdelemnek? Varsó a földig lerombolva, az emberveszteség iszonyatos, és mit kaptak cserébe? Csöbörből vödörbe kerültek. Ugyanakkor ebből a heroikus küzdelemből felépíthették maguknak Európa egyik legcsillogóbb nemzeti mítoszát – ami nem kevés. Davies pedig hozzáteszi a magáét a legendához. Bár azért érdemes észben tartani, hogy az efféle nemzeti mítoszok mindig hordoznak magukban némi kockázatot. Alkalmazzuk hát őket kellő visszafogottsággal.
* Tisztában vagyok vele, e helyütt mennyire abszurd, mi több: perverz e szó használata.
** Ami nem keverendő össze a varsói gettólázadással.
*** Talán groteszk, de a nácik esetében viszont gyakran mellőzi ezt – mondjuk ahhoz, hogy az SS kivégzett egy komplett varsói városrészt, igazából tényleg nincs értelme kommentárt fűzni. Magáért beszél.
**** Persze a lengyel részvétel a második világháborúban egyáltalán nem nevezhető kicsinek. Az Anders hadsereg a nyugati frontokon, a Berling hadsereg a keleti fronton, a lengyel pilóták a brit Királyi Légierőben, a Honi Hadsereg pedig a megszállt Lengyelországban mind a katonák számában, mint az elért eredményekben a legfontosabb hadviselő felek közé emeli Lengyelországot. Valószínűleg többet tettek (és mindenképpen többet szenvedtek) a győzelemért, mint mondjuk a franciák. show less
Ami a mindenre kiterjedő figyelmet illeti: talán kicsit feszesebb szerkezet nem ártott volna. Itt vannak például ezek a „kapszulák” – olyan dokumentumok és visszaemlékezések, amiket Davies a főszövegbe illesztett. Maga az ötlet nagyon eredeti, és alapvetően inkább produktív, mint nem, csak épp folyamatosan megszakítják az elbeszélést, helyenként olyan sűrűséggel, ami már az érthetőség rovására megy. Ráadásul az sem mindig világos, hogy miért oda lettek beillesztve a szövegbe, ahová, némelyik pedig egész egyszerűen nem tágítja a látókörünket, csupán megismétli azt (egy másik szemtanú szájával), amit pár oldallal előbb már megtudtuk. Mintha Davies-nek nem lett volna lelke kihagyni egyet is közülük.
Aztán a lengyel szempont. Néha az volt az érzésem, Davies nem viszonyul kellő objektivitással témájához. Ez többek közt abban nyilvánul meg, hogy ugyan leírja a felkelők által elkövetett atrocitásokat is, de sosem fűz hozzájuk erkölcsi kommentárt – amit viszont a nyugatiak és a szovjetek esetében ritkán mulaszt el***. Ezzel semmiképpen sem szeretnék arra utalni, hogy a felkelők sem voltak jobbak, mint a többi fél: hihetetlen hősiességgel és páratlan szívóssággal vívtak meg egy olyan küzdelmet, aminek (a tények utólagos ismeretében legalábbis) csak a vesztesei lehettek. Egyszerűen arról van szó, hogy ha egy nagyobbfajta embercsoport fegyvert kap a kezébe, akkor ott óhatatlanul lesznek túlkapások – és ezen egy történésznek nem kell szemérmeteskedni. Ez minden felkelés és forradalom a priori tulajdonsága, független attól, hogy az adott esemény becses vagy becstelen szándékból született. (Én a magam részéről ezért igyekszem elkerülni az ilyesmiket.)
De ez bőven megbocsátható. A háborús szakirodalomban Dunát lehet rekeszteni az olyan szövegekkel, amik a nyugati álláspontot tükrözi, és olyat is találunk (elsősorban a ’89 előtti kiadványok között), amik a marxista történelemszemléletet követik, egyértelműen „felszabadításnak” tekintve a Vörös Hadsereg ténykedését. Mostanság pedig egyre nagyobb számban jelennek meg a piacon a Wehrmacht szerepét relativizáló, önigazoló visszatekintések is – de ilyen szöveg, ami a „kicsikre”**** fókuszál, magyar nyelven alig akad. Lengyelország az első ország volt, aki fegyveresen szállt szembe a németekkel, és végig, kompromisszumok nélkül, a legbénítóbb veszteségeket is állva harcolt ellenük. A győztesek oldalán harcolt, mégis veszített: egyik megszállást a másikra cserélte. Lehet (sőt kell is) mélázni azon, mennyiben hagyták őket cserben nyugati szövetségeseik – nyilván nagyon. A brit és amerikai felelősség tény, az pedig, hogy milyen hamar és milyen könnyen szemet hunytak Sztálin lengyelországi cselekedetei fölött, egyszerűen gyomorforgató. Diplomáciai és morális téren elkövetett mulasztásaikat tehát tárgyalni kell, de (és ezt Davies nem igazán hangsúlyozza) katonai téren nem sok mindent tehettek a lengyelekért, ami azt jelenti, hogy azok végeredményben pusztán Sztálin jóindulatától függtek. És hát tudjuk: Sztálin és a jóindulat…
Ez persze felveti a kérdést: volt így értelme az egész küzdelemnek? Varsó a földig lerombolva, az emberveszteség iszonyatos, és mit kaptak cserébe? Csöbörből vödörbe kerültek. Ugyanakkor ebből a heroikus küzdelemből felépíthették maguknak Európa egyik legcsillogóbb nemzeti mítoszát – ami nem kevés. Davies pedig hozzáteszi a magáét a legendához. Bár azért érdemes észben tartani, hogy az efféle nemzeti mítoszok mindig hordoznak magukban némi kockázatot. Alkalmazzuk hát őket kellő visszafogottsággal.
* Tisztában vagyok vele, e helyütt mennyire abszurd, mi több: perverz e szó használata.
** Ami nem keverendő össze a varsói gettólázadással.
*** Talán groteszk, de a nácik esetében viszont gyakran mellőzi ezt – mondjuk ahhoz, hogy az SS kivégzett egy komplett varsói városrészt, igazából tényleg nincs értelme kommentárt fűzni. Magáért beszél.
**** Persze a lengyel részvétel a második világháborúban egyáltalán nem nevezhető kicsinek. Az Anders hadsereg a nyugati frontokon, a Berling hadsereg a keleti fronton, a lengyel pilóták a brit Királyi Légierőben, a Honi Hadsereg pedig a megszállt Lengyelországban mind a katonák számában, mint az elért eredményekben a legfontosabb hadviselő felek közé emeli Lengyelországot. Valószínűleg többet tettek (és mindenképpen többet szenvedtek) a győzelemért, mint mondjuk a franciák. show less
Big, sophisticated academic history, covering a thousand years in about the same number of pages. The treatment is part chronological and part thematic, and there seems to be a good mix of facts, analysis and opinion.
As something of an outsider, Davies is probably in as good a position as anyone to produce a balanced view of a subject that is bound to be contentious. It's inevitable that some readers will find their particular concern under-represented, given Poland's shifting frontiers and show more varying ethnic and religious mix over the course of the centuries, but Davies seems to find a reasonable compromise. We're all partial readers to some extent, of course: I had my own grandparents (German Protestants from Łódź and from Masuria, respectively) in the back of my mind - I'm sure someone with Jewish, Polish or Ukrainian ancestors would have read with a different emphasis. Davies makes the point that the only person who ever managed to achieve an incontrovertible definition of Poland was Stalin, who was in a position to re-arrange the world to fit his map. Historians don't have that luxury.
Not being an academic historian myself, I read this book lightly, looking for general background and pleasure, in the knowledge that I'd forget most of the fine detail very soon. I found it something of an eye-opener to be looking at history from the Polish perspective. Alfred Jarry notoriously placed the action of his play Ubu Roi « en Pologne, c'est-à-dire nulle part » - at the moment he wrote that, it was literally true that Poland was nowhere, but I think we still have a habit of thinking in that way even when Poland has a solid existence somewhere to the East or to the West of us. Looking at 1000 years of European history from a point-of-view in which Poland is always central, even when it doesn't exist on the map, is a fascinating experience.
Volume 1 has to confront the question of how the Republic of Poland-Lithuania, at one point one of the biggest countries in Europe, managed to shrink to zero size by 1795. As a student of A.J.P. Taylor, Davies is clearly suspicious of deterministic views of history: it would be far too easy to attribute the Republic's collapse to geopolitical or economic factors. He points out a lot of elements (structural and individual) that contributed to making the Republic unable to respond effectively to a changing international situation, but he resists the temptation to attribute the final collapse to any one cause. Davies is probably right that it's a bit of a futile exercise looking for prime causes in things that happened 300 years ago: what is fascinating in this part of the story is Davies's attempt to get to grips with how the Republic actually functioned as a country. Not only the bizarre constitutional structure, with medieval-style royal elections and legalised civil war, but the economics of the Vistula grain trade, the shifting ethnic and religious composition of town and country, Poland's remarkable role in the intellectual life of Europe, and so on.
The overall structure of Volume 2 has obviously suffered a bit from the revision process: the book originally appeared in English on the day after Jaruzelski's military coup in 1981, with Poland's future in a state of great uncertainty. Obviously, one or two things have changed since then, so Davies produced an updated version in 2004, taking the story up to roughly the end of the 20th century. Consequently, the bulk of the book was written at a time when Poland had not known real independence since the late 18th century, while the last couple of chapters describe a country finding its feet as an independent nation and heading towards membership of the European Union. This means that you can't really draw any overall conclusion from the narrative (except "we don't know what's going to happen next", perhaps). I think what struck me most about this volume was not the account of Poland's sufferings in the Second World War - shocking, but something familiar in its outlines from plenty of other sources - but the detailed analysis of how a Marxist-Leninist state worked (to the extent that it did work...). I've read and heard a lot of accounts of subjective experiences of the system, but this is the first time I've seen an anatomical dissection of the whole structure performed by someone with Davies's level of insight. Fascinating and chilling at the same time.
Davies's style is very readable: a neutral, academic tone, but with the occasional sly joke thrown in. (He even manages to work in a couple of references to his and my old home town, Bolton, Lancs.) The praise he heaps on his own achievement in the introduction and postscript of this revised edition is perhaps forgivable, given that his book has become pretty much the standard text over the past thirty years.
There are some annoying production issues, though. The updating has been a bit hit and miss, so that it isn't always quite clear whether "today" means 1981 or 2004 - you can usually work it out, but it looks sloppy. Even worse are OUP's many little typographical faults. OCR errors are scattered through both volumes (slightly fewer in Volume 2, so the revision process probably helped). The accented Polish letters in Volume 1 are taken from the wrong font, and appear slightly larger than the rest of the text around them, disturbing the flow. That is really irritating and unprofessional, and shouldn't happen in an expensive book from a major academic publisher. Poor reproduction also affects some of the maps and tables in the text, and all the photographic plates (although the latter seem to be an afterthought, not discussed in the text, so it doesn't really matter much). show less
As something of an outsider, Davies is probably in as good a position as anyone to produce a balanced view of a subject that is bound to be contentious. It's inevitable that some readers will find their particular concern under-represented, given Poland's shifting frontiers and show more varying ethnic and religious mix over the course of the centuries, but Davies seems to find a reasonable compromise. We're all partial readers to some extent, of course: I had my own grandparents (German Protestants from Łódź and from Masuria, respectively) in the back of my mind - I'm sure someone with Jewish, Polish or Ukrainian ancestors would have read with a different emphasis. Davies makes the point that the only person who ever managed to achieve an incontrovertible definition of Poland was Stalin, who was in a position to re-arrange the world to fit his map. Historians don't have that luxury.
Not being an academic historian myself, I read this book lightly, looking for general background and pleasure, in the knowledge that I'd forget most of the fine detail very soon. I found it something of an eye-opener to be looking at history from the Polish perspective. Alfred Jarry notoriously placed the action of his play Ubu Roi « en Pologne, c'est-à-dire nulle part » - at the moment he wrote that, it was literally true that Poland was nowhere, but I think we still have a habit of thinking in that way even when Poland has a solid existence somewhere to the East or to the West of us. Looking at 1000 years of European history from a point-of-view in which Poland is always central, even when it doesn't exist on the map, is a fascinating experience.
Volume 1 has to confront the question of how the Republic of Poland-Lithuania, at one point one of the biggest countries in Europe, managed to shrink to zero size by 1795. As a student of A.J.P. Taylor, Davies is clearly suspicious of deterministic views of history: it would be far too easy to attribute the Republic's collapse to geopolitical or economic factors. He points out a lot of elements (structural and individual) that contributed to making the Republic unable to respond effectively to a changing international situation, but he resists the temptation to attribute the final collapse to any one cause. Davies is probably right that it's a bit of a futile exercise looking for prime causes in things that happened 300 years ago: what is fascinating in this part of the story is Davies's attempt to get to grips with how the Republic actually functioned as a country. Not only the bizarre constitutional structure, with medieval-style royal elections and legalised civil war, but the economics of the Vistula grain trade, the shifting ethnic and religious composition of town and country, Poland's remarkable role in the intellectual life of Europe, and so on.
The overall structure of Volume 2 has obviously suffered a bit from the revision process: the book originally appeared in English on the day after Jaruzelski's military coup in 1981, with Poland's future in a state of great uncertainty. Obviously, one or two things have changed since then, so Davies produced an updated version in 2004, taking the story up to roughly the end of the 20th century. Consequently, the bulk of the book was written at a time when Poland had not known real independence since the late 18th century, while the last couple of chapters describe a country finding its feet as an independent nation and heading towards membership of the European Union. This means that you can't really draw any overall conclusion from the narrative (except "we don't know what's going to happen next", perhaps). I think what struck me most about this volume was not the account of Poland's sufferings in the Second World War - shocking, but something familiar in its outlines from plenty of other sources - but the detailed analysis of how a Marxist-Leninist state worked (to the extent that it did work...). I've read and heard a lot of accounts of subjective experiences of the system, but this is the first time I've seen an anatomical dissection of the whole structure performed by someone with Davies's level of insight. Fascinating and chilling at the same time.
Davies's style is very readable: a neutral, academic tone, but with the occasional sly joke thrown in. (He even manages to work in a couple of references to his and my old home town, Bolton, Lancs.) The praise he heaps on his own achievement in the introduction and postscript of this revised edition is perhaps forgivable, given that his book has become pretty much the standard text over the past thirty years.
There are some annoying production issues, though. The updating has been a bit hit and miss, so that it isn't always quite clear whether "today" means 1981 or 2004 - you can usually work it out, but it looks sloppy. Even worse are OUP's many little typographical faults. OCR errors are scattered through both volumes (slightly fewer in Volume 2, so the revision process probably helped). The accented Polish letters in Volume 1 are taken from the wrong font, and appear slightly larger than the rest of the text around them, disturbing the flow. That is really irritating and unprofessional, and shouldn't happen in an expensive book from a major academic publisher. Poor reproduction also affects some of the maps and tables in the text, and all the photographic plates (although the latter seem to be an afterthought, not discussed in the text, so it doesn't really matter much). show less
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