Author Joseph H. Retinger Illustrated by Feliks Topolski Probably few of his contemporaries had as intimate a relationship with Joseph Conrad as his fellow Pole and lifelong friend, Joseph H. Retinger. Retinger’s life paralleled closely that of Conrad. They were both born in Poland and came as young men to England, where they met when

by Pawel Jasienica Translated by Alexander T. Jordan The fifth and last volume of Jasienica’s history of Poland covers the period from the death in 1696 of King Jan Sobieski to 1797 – the partition of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania by Russia, Prussia and Austria. It was a century of struggle for political

by Pawel Jasienica Translated by Alexander T. Jordan The fourth volume of Pawel Jasienica’s magnificent epos of Polish history, “Calamity of the Realm,” covers part of the 17th century and deals with a multitude of wars with Muscovy, Sweden, the Tartars, Cossacks, and Turks. It also describes the complex relations between Poland and France. The

by Pawel Jasienica Translated by Alexander Jordan The third volume, translated by Alexander Jordan especially for the American Institute of Polish Culture – as were the preceding ones, Piast Poland and Jagiellonian – was published by the Institute and is called “The Commonwealth of Both Nations,” because Poland and Lithuania entered in 1569 the Union

author Paweł Jasienica translated by Alexander T. Jordan The high noon of Poland’s history, the period which brought the nation to the pinnacle of its political growth and its culture to a golden age, setting the pattern for centuries to come, is brilliantly described by Pawel Jasienica. A bestseller in Poland, packed with facts, rich