ABSTRACT
Besides being a descendant of one of the great Polish magnate families, who once claimed the town of Zamość, along with other vast land holdings, as one of their possessions, Count Adam Stefan Zamoyski (b. 1949) is a freelance historian and the author of many readable and best-selling books on aspects of Polish, European and world history. Born in New York and educated in Great Britain, besides writing books and essays, he is active in historical preservation in Poland. The present article reviews important aspects of Polish history and its figures from his rather iconoclastic point of view, putting many of the ‘facts’ that Poles think they know about their country from having learned it in school in a new interpretive light. This article appeared in the newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny Nr 30 (3237), 24 July 2011. For a sketch of the newspaper, see the text ‘Wszystkie nasze dzienne zdrady’. The article, which is in the form of an interview with Agnieszka Sabor, has been slightly condensed, with omissions indicated by […].
