Sketches from a Secret War
In his home Kyiv, the forgotten protagonist of this true story aspired to be a cubist painter. His abilities led him to several positions in a Europe reshaped by the First World War: intelligence operator, influential statesman, underground activist, and lifelong conspirator. During the Second World War, Henryk Józewski managed Polish intelligence in Ukraine, governed the borderland province of Volhynia in the interwar years, participated in the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet underground, and plotted against Poland's Stalinists until his imprisonment in 1953. His personal narrative is significant in and of itself, but it also sheds new insight on the underpinnings of Soviet authority and the beliefs of those who opposed it. This book argues that Józewski's tolerant attitudes for Ukrainians in Volhynia were part of Poland's strategy to roll back the communist threat by following the arc of his life.
To save Józewski, his Polish milieu, and his Ukrainian ambition from oblivion, the book mines archive documents, many of which have only been available after the fall of communism. An epilogue ties his legacy to the Soviet Union's demise and the 2004 democratic revolution in Ukraine.
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