Perspectives on Polish History by Peter D. s> Stachura (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 359 Ungarn nicht wie die Iren sind'), Ad'am Nadasdy, Professor of English Literature at Budapest University, in an article section headed 'Why the Hungarians are not like the Irish', makes a very convincing argument for the dissimilarities between Hungarians and Irish (albeit in terms of language maintenance and culturalrepercussionsarisingtherefrom). Having mentioned the (possible) influence of Thomas Moore's poetry on Sandor Petofi's 'National Song', Kabdebo continues by referring to a little known poem by W. B. Yeats(p. 28, n. 27) which best makeshis argumentfor continued research in the parallels between Hungary and Ireland. While historical parallels may at best be strained, literary parallels reinforce this valiant work, urging the reader to reconsider the paths of Hungary and Irelandfrom the earlynineteenth centuryto the dawn of the twenty-first: We,too,haveseenourbravest andourbest, Toprisongo,andmossyruinrest, Wherehomesoncewhitened valeandmountain crest, Therefore, 0 nationofthebleedingbreast, Libations fromtheHungary oftheWest! Department ofHistory WILLIAM O'REILLY NationalUniversity ofIreland, Galway Stachura,PeterD. (ed.).Perspectives onPolishHistory.Occasional Papers,2. The Centre for Research in Polish History, University of Stirling, 200I. I20 pp. Notes. Index. JJio.oo (paperback). THE publication of six papers on various aspects of Polish history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is a fruit of the Centre for Research in PolishHistory, establishedin 2000 underthe directorshipof PeterD. Stachura at Stirling University. Two articles concern Polish-Scottish relations. Mona McLeod looks at the Scottishcontributionto industrializationin Polandin the nineteenth century. She has used some fascinatingmaterial, much of it from family records. However, a better orientation in the literature on Polish economic history and a more structuredargument would have improved it. Madeleine Stachuracomparesthe Polishemigrationto theUSA in I870- I9I8 with that to Scotland I939-50. She summarizesAnglophone literatureon the former. The section on Scotland is based primarilyon archivalresearch. She shows that the initial goodwill shown to the Polishsoldiersand civiliansfaded somewhat after I943 as the pro-Soviet left attempted to pin an image of reactionary, anti-Semitic warmongers on the Poles. Their Catholicism also provoked some hostilityin a countryblightedby sectarianism,and Poleswere seen by some Trade Unionists as competitors for jobs and housing. Peter Stachuraargues that the simultaneousfounding of the WeimarRepublic and the Second Polish Republic opened new opportunities in Polish-German relations. It is a well-informed article, but it really shows the depth of antiPolish feelings among the vast majority of the German political elite including liberals and socialists.He says less about Polishviews of Germany. PeterLesniewskiinvestigatesa militaryaspectof the Britishapproachto newly independent Poland, namely the mission led by Colonel H. H. Wade. He 360 SEER, 8i, 2, 2003 revealsthatwhile Wade increasedPolishconfidence in GreatBritain,he failed to build Britishconfidence in the new Poland. One reason was the sometimes tendentious coverage in the Britishpress of anti-Semitic excesses in Poland. David Kaufman's analysis of the Jews and Poland in I9I8-21 is set in the context of the high point of Polish-Jewish co-operation in I863-64 uprising againstRussianruleand the worseningtensionsthereafter,especiallybetween the National Democrats and socialists and internationalists among the socalled 'Litvaks' Russian-speaking Jews forced westwards. In I9I8- I9 Polish independence was opposed by manyJews within and without Poland, because of the experience of anti-Semitism and the fear of worse to come. Kaufman arguesthat the notorious Lwow pogrom of 30 November i9I8 and other events were misrepresentedby the Special Commissioner of the World Zionist Organization Israel Cohen, who aimed to show that the Poles were inherently anti-Semitic and could not be trusted with their own state. Peter Stachura's reflections and perspectives on Polish-Jewish relations in the aftermath of the Holocaust are intended as a corrective. It is virtually impossibleto write dispassionatelyon the subject,and Stachuraputs forward the Polishcase. He opposesthe tendency to makea causalconnection between anti-Semitismin pre-warPoland and the fact that most of the death camps in which so manyJews were slaughteredby theNazis were on German-occupied Polish soil. He does not deny anti-Semitism,which, he acknowledges,was on the rise again after Pilsudski'sdeath, but generally assesses it symmetrically with anti-polonism. He assertsthat claims of anti-Semitic discrimination in the aftermath of the First World War 'were invariably [my italics] without foundation or grosslyexaggerated' (p. 83). He is on firmerground in writing that the Final Solution 'had...