Entwined Histories by Piotr Wilczek

For anyone living in the Polish-British space, this book is an absolute must-read. A collection of 38 essays written by Poland's former ambassador to Washington (during the first Trump administration) and to London (taking office just as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began), the book is presented as a 'cultural memory'. It avoids the format of a conventional diplomatic memoire; Prof Wilczek reveals no juicy tittle-tattle. "I shall be taking such secrets to the next world," he said at the book's Warsaw launch. Rather, each essay shows how the histories of Britain and Poland have been interwoven by war, exile, culture, tradition and diplomacy in unexpected ways. 

After a spirited attack on lazy media stereotypes of Poles in an article to The Spectator, Prof Wilczek has become a regular guest on the pages of the magazine, currently edited by Michael Gove. A revised version of the chapter, How London became Poland's second capital, made its way from the book to The Spectator earlier this month.

What makes the book so fascinating is the topics chosen for 38 essays. A few are familiar (such as the stories of spy Krystyna Skarbek or General Maczek); most of them, however, uncover new territory even for readers well-versed in British-Polish relations. These include the story of how the Duke of Kent might have become the King of Poland had he not died in a plane crash in 1942, and the story of Poland’s ambassador to the court of Henry VIII, Jan Dantyszek (Johannes Dantiscus), who arrived in London as envoy of Poland's King Sigismund I in 1522, exactly 500 years before Piotr Wilczek took up the role of Poland’s ambassador to the UK. I also found fascinating the story of Socinianism, a nontrinitarian Protestant movement ('the Polish Brethren'), based in Raków, "a modest town which housed a printing press, a famous academy and some of the sharpest minds of the age." Prof Wilczek writes: "For a brief but incandescent period, Raków was Geneva without the dourness – Reformation thinking at its most open and its least vengeful." The Counter-Reformation got to the Socinians in the end, forcing them into exile. "Socianian thought percolated into the bloodstream of English radicalism. Its fingerprints can be seen in the writings of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania." A trip to Raków (40km south-east of Kielce) is thus in order.

Another noteworthy chapter, A Polish Eye on England's Harbours – with Joseph Conrad in Mind, considers through visits to Southampton, Portsmouth, Liverpool and Hull how the Polish-born writer understood the British Isles as home to a sea-faring nation. Prof Wilczek quotes from Conrad's description of the Thames Estuary in Heart of Darkness, which remains one of the most atmospherically evocative passages I have ever read in the English language.

London is a top posting for any diplomat, so about a third of the book is focused on it. I found the essays on the Warburg Institute and the diplomat's guide to navigating London's gentlemen's clubs the most interesting, as well as the descriptions of its bookshops – and its Polish restaurants.

One thing I would have like to have seen in Entwined Histories is some comparisons between the training and ethos of the British and Polish diplomatic corps. Diplomacy is very much a field in which one needs phenomenally fine judgment and superb people-skills – and above all, knowing when to stay silent. Dealing with the assorted ogres, narcissists and ne’er-do-wells that all too often rise to positions of highest office requires a suspension of normal instinct-based behaviour. "Diplomacy is a balancing act between urgency and restraint," writes Prof Wilczek; I feel that it is something you have to be born to do; most of us would be too quick to snap back with an undiplomatic riposte that would carry with it real-world consequences. How the diplomatic mindset is nurtured across different cultures is of great interest to the general reader.

Entwined Histories reads well and smoothly; it shall end up on my library shelf next to Speeches for Leaders by the former British Ambassador to Warsaw, Charles Crawford.

Entwined Histories is available from Chronos Books (www.chronosbooks.com) for £12.99/$17.95.

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