Sketches from a Secret War
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A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine
Timothy Snyder
The forgotten protagonist of this true account aspired to be a cubist painter in his native Kyïv. In a Europe remade by the First World War, his talents led him to different roles—intelligence operative, powerful statesman, underground activist, lifelong conspirator. Henryk Józewski directed Polish intelligence in Ukraine, governed the borderland region of Volhynia in the interwar years, worked in the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet underground during the Second World War, and conspired against Poland’s Stalinists until his arrest in 1953. His personal story, important in its own right, sheds new light on the foundations of Soviet power and on the ideals of those who resisted it. By following the arc of Józewski’s life, this book demonstrates that his tolerant policies toward Ukrainians in Volhynia were part of Poland’s plans to roll back the communist threat.
The book mines archival materials, many available only since the fall of communism, to rescue Józewski, his Polish milieu, and his Ukrainian dream from oblivion. An epilogue connects his legacy to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the democratic revolution in Ukraine in 2004.
Timothy Snyder is professor of history at Yale University.
“Strikingly new, original, and readable. This book will no doubt force everyone in the field to rethink Ukrainian, Polish, and Soviet history during the interwar period.”—Hiroaki Kuromiya, Indiana University
"Another thrilling and erudite book on the intricate history of East European borderlands by Timothy Snyder, a master of the genre."—Jan Gross, Princeton University
cooperation between Poles and Ukrainians."—Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard University
"[A] compact, well-told history."—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
“[A] compelling book. . . . It is hard not to see this eminently 20th-century story as a biography for a new century. . . . Józewkis’s . . . views are described and analyzed by Snyder with a deft and persuasive blend of empathy and historical detachment.”—Mark Mazower, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History
"Sheds new light on the foundations of Soviet power and on the ideals of those who resisted it."—Reference & Research Book News
"Timothy Snyder's Sketches from a Secret War achieves that rare balance between thorough scholarship and excellent writing: With the plot of a thriller, a hero out of a spy film and historical sources that have never been used before, Sketches is mandatory reading for anyone who cares about twentieth-century history."—Anne Applebaum
“[A] remarkable book. . . . This is a story of passion and intrigue, personal ambition and ideological struggles.”—Omer Bartov, Times Literary Supplement
Publication Date: October 10, 2007
27 b/w illus. + 6 maps