This morning in the box a transportation – a book by Władysław Konopczyński "Piłsudski a Poland". From Gierty Publishing House, and most likely personally from prof. Maciej Giertych.
At 1 time, a historian “collaborating” with PiS encouraged me to print this unknown work by Konopczyński due to the fact that he did not want to exposure himself. At the time, however, this was not possible due to the fact that the Master's household blocked its publication, reasoning that the book was "undeveloped", and the reason was different – the household feared scandal due to the fact that Konopczyński Piłsudski did not spare. Prof. Gierty explains in the introduction that 70 years after the death of the author – the right of the household to have a typescript expired. At this point we should thank the Publishing home for the problem of publishing this work, it was not easy due to the fact that the text required amendments and corrections. Konopczyński's book about Piłsudski is simply a fulfillment of his debacle to see the light of day, he did not compose it in a drawer, only for future generations, to warn. From this point of view, it is besides applicable to our current situation, when, in the opinion of many people, the regulation of the Law and Justice is simply a repetition of the sanctioning methods.
This book is not a classical biography, but alternatively an essay in which Konopczyński – on the basis of these sources he had at his disposal writing this work (1940-1942) – presents his individual view of this character. So this is not strictly technological work, although the author tries to operate with origin material according to the principles of objectivity. But here we besides have a clear polemic outline (the others will say it's a pashquil). Konopczyński witnessed all this, he was for a time an active politician of National Democracy, an MP (1922-1927), as if he felt the regulation of sanitation and the fall of Poland. He wrote at the time erstwhile Poland Piłsudski collapsed. This could not have affected the focus of the courts. The generation that survived the fall of the Second Polish Republic – straight accused Piłsudski and his full camp of what happened. It was a period of the top fall of the Piłsudski myth, which is now celebrating triumphs again. For people under his influence, this book will be a shock.
Is this a fair picture? That depends on your point of view. surely the purely historical work would be free from many conclusions and assessments presented by Konopczyński in this book. In many passages it is besides not so much a book about Piłsudski, but about Piłsudski's era, as well as about Konopczyński himself and his views on Poland and its history. It is simply a subjective book, but that is its value. This is the image of a generation who came to live in the Piłsudski era, a generation that felt that he had taken Poland from them.
Konopczyński devotes the most space to the period of the regulation of sanitation, which is understandable. It is like a settlement with a strategy which, in the opinion of many Poles, advised to fall the state. The essence of the sanitation strategy is described, among another things:
"With the benefits of this symbiosis, based on the looting of state organs and political organizations, the mafia has settled down over society and uses full power over it. Sometimes he looks left, sometimes right. It's red, white, blue. It does not service any organization or social class – it forces everyone to service the “state”, i.e. himself. If the state is rather satisfied with it, then a fistful (a fewer thousand) of aristocrats and plutocrats, or a fistful (a fewer thousand) of the “revolutionary” proletariat (...) The void between the utmost pillars is filled with both sides by contempt, and bureaucratic bonds, covered with artificial social tissue, and supported by armed force, emergence over voidness."
But the author besides does not avoid assessments of his own camp. Clearly, he does not accept the return of young people and Dmowski himself to anti-democratism. And even though he inactive identifies himself as a typical of the national camp, he clearly writes that his sympathy during this period (the 1930s) was on the side of Wojciech Korfanty and Wincent Witos, whom he glorifys. This besides applies to the assessment of the Polish politics and politics of the national camp in the face of the collapse of Czechoslovakia.
Here is his assessment of this issue, but besides his reflection on how it happened:
"However, they became partially confused and temporarily so usually sober and widely-concerned abroad nationalists. arrogant of their primacy in the creation of nationalistic doctrine compared to Germany, the Springs and the French, they did not announcement how this doctrine covered up the map of Europe. Realist Dmowski, who was able to deal with and with masons, and with Jews at the end, took specified an unconcerned position towards Jews and masons in the country and abroad that his students about another enemies of Poland began to forget. The example of Spain, which the masonry had cast on communism, was highly suggestive – and that is where Germany did better work than the French and English. Even friends specified as Kozitsky, Folkerski, were disheartened by the hopeless marazm of French democracy, and since the influences of freemurals in the Czech Republic were known to have been overestimated there (under German suggestion) the achievements of communism, so there were no shortage of voices in the national press, from which Berlin and Budapest may have enjoyed. During the conflict with Lithuania, the national youth competed with the pro-government in chauvinist performances."
This is simply a very crucial quote showing the view of the alleged old on what happened to the national camp in the second half of the 1930s.
And here are the final conclusions that the author of the book made, of course, concern the assessment of Józef Piłsudski:
"Clean fair elections were sacred to him in the 1990s: after 30 years he showed Poland and the planet the election strategy of Składkowski.
Clean hands: condemns “all taxation money bombings” and at the same time reaches for 8 million for organization use. He talks to the Rataja Sejm about corruption, and he uses these millions to bribe citizens and pay for election hyenas.
"Honor the god of the army": but he only means that the army is to avenge the harm of the leader and its own: this honor allows an armed pile to harass the helpless.
He had a May coup to rise the level of morality in the military – he only raised the perverse's salary. Fighting slander. So many sharp words about her (Warsaw's capital of slander), and yet almost all the impressions they formulated against Piłsudski his enemies, in full were besides weak compared to his "real reality". And he himself, as he was harassing erstwhile Austrian generals, what did he say about the Trumpczyński and half of the parliament, what about the imprisoned MPs in Brest, what about the full nation?
Political principles. The fight against the Carat he preached and led for 30 years—and then sought out the Cara, which all the regulations explained for him in the spirit of bondage.
People's education. Piłsudski hurt over children without school. For the longest time, he held a minister at the office, who gaged science, pushed the agrarian people distant from education, tolerated and almost nursed illiteracy.
For the fight against Russia he neglected his defence against Germany, himself was culturally powerfully shaken, spouting Russianism, spreading in politics the odor of pain.
He had a “party piece” in contempt – and created the Block, a vessel of all organization sins without organization values.
He sniffed and hunted abroad agents: but with the national masonry he collaborated in harmony, protected Jews, and most likely produced any powers in spite of the Polish reason of the state.
To Slavic minorities, he first shone in the eye with the jagillon idea, after which he pacified.
These unusual tendencies and talents would possibly find fruitful application in another ages, under another heaven: in the palace of a tiny Italian tyrant from the time of Machiawell, under the sails of a Viking expedition for Hercules' pillars to Tunis or Cyprus, or in tents of a powerful horde that floods India or Mesopotamia. Piłsudski would be able to build a state from half-wild liberated for a 1–2 generation draft. possibly he could play his part well over Vistula and Warta in the days of Krzywousty and Zbigniew. After all, the flatterer argued in his favour: that the founding of the states frequently committed barbarism, that French Louis XI gave the rulers an example of parasociative shamelessness.
But powiatalska Poland had over 10 centuries of spiritual improvement and wanted to live thousands more. Poles were all liable to God and history, without a difference, and not only their president after 1935. Poland was filled with Christian, Western European civilization, made up of morally free and reasoning citizens. The thought of advancement by the noble spirits has given her light. She was fighting in her own right by the possessors who were being cared for. She hungered for social solidarity and brotherly love, and even in organization and class battles her sons had humanity, honesty. To specified a nation a man higher than the law and truth, with hatred and contempt upon all sides, the King of the Spirit and the educator was not fit. He lived for a twelve years besides long, and possibly it would have been better if he had not lived at all."
Jan Engelgard
In the photo: Józef Piłsudski on the east Front (1919). Coloring photos Mirosław Szponar.
Władysław Konopczyński, “Piłsudski a Polska”, Wydawnictwo Giertych, Kórnik 2023, ps. 460.
