A THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY 15resistance soldier from the eastern provinces, Jasienica had taken refuge in pre-
historic and mediaeval research. But throughout the 1960s, he published volume
after volume of his best-selling survey of Pre-Partition History - Polska Piastow
(1960), Polska Jagiellonow (1963), Srebrny Wiek (1967), and Dzieje Agonii
(1972). More of a historical writer than an academic historian, he gained great
popularity by presenting a colourful and patriotic view of the past with literary
flare. He inevitably earned the double displeasure of Party professionals and the
envy of less talented pedants. Yet his works rescued history-writing from the
disrepute of ideological servility, and saved the post-1956 generation from
the dearth of history books in which Poles could find pride and enjoyment.^19
Thirty years would pass before the reading public had anything comparable to
contemplate.
Marian Brandys (1912-98) came to the fore in the same years as another
beneficiary of the 'The Thaw'. Brother of the more ideological Kazimierz
(1916-2000), who made his name in the Marxist Kuznica circle, the elder
Brandys had been both a POW in Germany and a foreign correspondent. He
came to specialize in the Napoleonic period and, as his chosen art form, in
small-scale essays, sketches, portraits, and studies. Apart from a series of
biographies, which started with Nieznany Ksiaze Poniatowski (1960) about the
nephew of the last king of Poland, he produced two influential collections -
Kozietulski i inni (2 vols., 1967) and Koniec swiata szwolezerow (5 vols.,
1972-9). Together with Jasienica, he sought to re-establish the fading tradition
of history-writing as a branch of Belles Letters.
By the 1960s, therefore, History was again enjoying wide popularity in Poland.
The country was still basking in the afterglow of Gomulka's October. The
Stalinist nightmare had passed. The air of gloom and shame which Stalinism had
injected into everything connected with Poland's independent past, was being
dispelled. Pessimism gave way to guarded Optimism, and distant events with the
most specious relevance to the present were celebrated on the slightest pretext.
Historical anniversaries came into vogue. Everyone knew that the biggest
anniversary of all was due in 1966. It was awaited with fervent expectation.
The Roman Catholic Church was particularly well prepared, especially since
Polish celebrations would coincide with a Roman Holy Year. Preparations had
begun in 1957 with a Great Novena, the nine-year period of prayer and fasting.
In 1966 itself, the Cardinal-Primate, Stefan Wyszynski, toured the entire coun-
try, province by province. Starting in Gniezno, the cradle of Polish Christianity,
on 14 April, he proceeded to Czestochowa on 3 May, to Krakow on 8 May, to
Warsaw on 26 June, to Katowice, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Lublin, Bialystok, Torun.
Everywhere he was greeted by tens and hundreds of thousands of people, by del-
egations of miners in uniform, by processions of men, women and children,
by girls in regional costume, by crowds upon crowds, standing in the rain or