Review of: Joshua Zimmerman, Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2022, 640 pages, Hardcover: ISBN 9780674984271, $39.95

Some called him affectionately “Grandpa,” others referred to him as “Marshal” or “Wódz” (Leader), and still others labeled him “Tyrant.” He was all of these things. His monument in the center of Warsaw—on Piłsudski Square, of course—is inscribed with his proclamation that “a democratic Polish state must guard the cultural rights of all its citizens.” He never quite lived up to that maxim, but he was far more respectful of cultural pluralism than most interwar European leaders. Ultimately, Piłsudski doesn’t make a straightforward hero or a straightforward villain, because he was both.

(Brian Porter-Szücs, Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom)