God’s Playground. A History of Poland, Vol. 1. The Origins to 1795

(C. Jardin) #1

xii PREFACE TO ORIGINAL EDITION OF VOLUME I


group of narrative chapters. Together they constitute the warp and the woof of
a close-knit texture designed to convey a sense of the complex relationships, and
confused reverberations, of public and social life. The final chapter presents a
review of events in the Polish People's Republic in the years since the Second
World War. Its concluding section, a personal and impressionistic piece, is
based on an article which first appeared in The Times of 2.7 October 1972 as 'A
Magical Mystery Tour of Poland'.
The content matter is as catholic as space allows. In view of the unfamiliarity
of Polish History to most British and American readers, the treatment of
weighty events has been sweetened with a mild infusion of anecdotes, epitaphs,
bons mots, ditties, hymns, songs, poems, travelogues, lyrical evocations, and
antiquarian curiosities - in short with a selection of all those historical whimsi-
calities which scientific scholars judge unworthy of their genius.
Space has been found for historical documents and literary extracts to be
quoted at length in each chapter. The purpose here was to provide some con-
crete details to interrupt the flow of tedious summaries which would otherwise
dominate this outline of a very large subject. The selection of texts cannot be
fully representative, of course. But an account which evokes some sense of the
infinite specifics of human affairs is less likely to deform than one that talks
exclusively in sweeping generalizations. Given due warning of the dangers of
selectivity, the reader will reach no harm if he glimpses the rich profusion of
source materials on which students of Polish History can draw.
Space has also been found for a limited quantity of encyclopaediac informa-
tion. Here, the interests of form and readability have had to be reconciled with
the need to provide suitable leads for further investigation, and to remedy the
disgraceful gaps with regard to Polish affairs in many standard British and
American reference works.
Notes have been kept to a minimum. Bibliographical references have been
provided at the end of the book for passages which draw heavily on secondary
materials or on recent research. Needless to say, the mention of source materi-
als does not necessarily imply agreement with any of the opinions expressed
therein.
Due warning was given by the publishers that the modern reader is easily
frightened by foreign languages. This is a great pity, since much of the flavour
of East European History comes from the rich linguistic variety of the sources.
None the less, all foreign texts and quotations have been put into English, and
only a few have been left with the original text in parallel. Wherever possible,
foreign verse has been versified in English. Except where indicated, all transla-
tions from the Latin, Polish, Russian, French, German, and Italian, are my own
work.
Place-names cause endless trouble and fascination. In a work of Polish
History, it would have been relatively simple to put all such names into their
Polish form. But such a policy would have led to many anachronisms; and an
attempt has been made in each instance to find the form most appropriate to the
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