The centenary this month of the start of the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1920 provides good grounds for a post about the University Library’s Polish history holdings.

Recent arrivals

On the Library’s open shelves, Polish history is to be found chiefly in the dedicated 590 class, whose subdivisions are shown in the screenshot below.  Many books are also to be found in the relevant subsections of the World War 2 class (e.g., 539:1.x.60 for Polish war-time political history, 539:1.x.745 for conditions of life in Poland during the war, and so on) and others (particularly the 514:64 and 514:72 classes for East European and European Jewish history respectively).  New Polish history arrivals nowadays are more often than not sent to the closed but borrowable class of C200.

We buy broadly across periods, but it is the 20th century which is the primary focus of our acquisitions; this focus also reflects the trend of current publishing.  A couple of recently received with an older focus are:

– Pod rządami nieobecnego monarchy : Królestwo Polskie 1370-1382 (Reigned over by an absentee monarch : the Kingdom of Poland 1370-1382; C214.c.9370) by Andrzej Marzec (2017)
– Kronika polska (Polish chronicle; S950.b.201.5337), a 2017 facsimile reprint of the 1597 edition of Marcin Bielski’s chronicle of the history of Poland.

The centenary last year of Polish independence, marking the declaration of the Second Polish Republic in November 1918, prompted a slew of books on the republic, its formation, and its early years, including the title below.

– Polska niepodległość 1918 (Polish independence 1918; C214.c.8946) by Marek Rezler (Poznań, 2018).  The book includes maps showing the significant shift of Polish territory between 1918 and 1920, shown below.

Jewish history is a particularly significant focus of our collecting in Polish.  New books join hundreds upon hundreds of titles about Polish Jewish history in the Library, such as the extraordinary and ever-growing set of Warsaw Ghetto sources Archiwum Ringelbluma (539:1.c.745.224-241,243,243a-243i,243k-243p) and the exhibition catalogue of the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, bought in English for as broad an audience as possible, Polin : 1000 year history of Polish Jews (2015.12.285).  Two new arrivals for our collections are:

– Biografie ulic : o żydowskich ulicach Warszawy od narodzin po Zagładę (The biography of streets : the Jewish streets of Warsaw from their origins to the Holocaust; C214.c.9171) by Jacek Leociak (Warsaw, 2017).  The book was accompanied by a large fold-out map showing the Warsaw Ghetto; this can be requested in the Map Room.

– Dalej jest noc : losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski (Beyond lies the night : the fate of Jews in certain areas of occupied Poland; C214.c.8947-8948).  The 2-volume set explores the attempts of Polish Jews to avoid detection during the war.

A full list of Polish history books ordered in recent months can be seen here: 201902_Polish HM titles to end month  As ever, recommendations and queries are always welcome.

Mel Bach
slavonic@lib.cam.ac.uk