Piotr Wróbel - Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996

HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF POLAND, 19451996

CONTENTS

Poland is the eighth largest nation of Europe and the largest one in East-Central Europelocated between the former Soviet Union and the German-speaking countries. After the fall of communism the importance of Poland has grown rapidly. Poland has the potential to become a political and economic bridge between the East and the West. Located in the heart of Europe, Poland is crucial to European security and stabilization. The last millennium of European history has proven clearly that without peace in Central Europe, in the region of Poland, there can be no peace on the entire European continent. Thus, it is important to have at least a basic knowledge of the Polish contemporary and historical situation. Yet the list of reference books on the recent history of Poland is very short. The Historical Dictionary of Poland, 19451996 constitutes an attempt to fill this lacuna and is a sequel to the Historical Dictionary of Poland, 9661945, published by Greenwood Press in 1996. It is helpful to use both dictionaries together because some movements or individuals active after 1945 but more important in the pre-1945 period have their entries in the first volume, whereas others have entries in both volumes. Both volumes address an English audience rather than a Polish one. An asterisk (*) indicates that an individual name, event, or term appears as an entry in this book. Every entry has a short bibliography of English-language works. If there are no important books on a given topic in English, bibliographies contain Polish-language references. The contemporary history of Poland is very controversial. Even single words are controversial. The words communism and communist, for example, might be contested as inadequate, but the terms socialism, real socialism, or totalitarianism are not perfect either. My intention has been to make this dictionary as objective and impartial as possible. The readers will judge whether this goal has been achieved.