the cosmopolitan review

Less is More: Embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, a caring economy and lasting happiness
Edited by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska
New Society Publishers, 2009, 269 p.

reviewed by Anna Kisielewska

Less is More: Embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, a caring economy and lasting happiness edited by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska, opened my eyes to the philosophical underpinnings of the Simplicity movement advocating a simpler, less cluttered lifestyle, one where the focus is not on mindless material consumption, but rather on inner riches, connection with nature, meaningful involvement in the community and, above all, the act of making conscious choices about how we lead our lives. Leading “the examined” life, the authors contend, strips away the inessential and results in happier, more engaged individuals and healthier, safer and more environmentally-friendly communities.

Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile
By Danuta Mostwin
Translated from Polish by Marta Erdman and Nina Dyke.
Ohio University Press, 136 p.

CR recently came across two marvelous novellas by Polish American author Danuta Mostwin in a single volume, Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile, published by Ohio University Press. Beautifully translated by Marta Erdman and Nina Dyke, the novellas are multi-faceted, well polished, and expertly set little gems that illuminate complex characters struggling with lives altered by circumstances, the psychological changes imposed by dislocation and loneliness, and the philosophical reflections prompted by their fate.

The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution
by Alex Storozynski
Thomas Dunne Books, New York 2009, 384 p.

Reviewed by Nina Jankowicz

On a recent trip to Boston, ambling around the city with a friend, I happened upon a statue of Tadeusz Kosciuszko in the public garden. My friend, a Texan named Adam who had never heard of pierogi let alone Polish patriots of the Revolutionary War era prior to meeting me, furrowed his brow at the long, difficult name inscribed on the monument and asked for an explanation of my excitement.

I began with a deep breath and launched into a brief but thorough account of Kosciuszko’s contributions to the rebel fight for freedom during the Revolutionary War. Adam, like most Americans, was surprised to learn a Pole had aided in the fight against the British and, as I was satisfied that I had enlightened him with my knowledge of the war hero, we continued on our way.

Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment.
Edited by Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski
Yale University Press, 2007, 561 pages.

Reviewed by Irene Tomaszewski

Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment is the latest volume in “The Annals of Communism” series published by Yale University Press. Rightly described as the most important publishing project currently in progress in the United States, it documents the 70-year reign of terror that began with the Communist revolution in Russia and has been largely ignored by western intellectuals -- when not actively indulged by them.

One large blind spot in this record is the singular crime known as Katyn – the systematic murder of 22,000 Polish officers, policemen and others held in three special Soviet NKVD prisoner-of-war camps and jails– seemed to be of interest only to Poles and to a small number of western intellectuals who objected to lies as a basis for history, and considered official lies particularly odious.

My Two Polish Grandfathers
And Other Essays on the Imaginative Life
By Witold Rybczynski
Scribner 2009
Reviewed by Anna Kisielewska

"I should have been a true Pole rather than a make-believe Scot" writes Witold Rybczynski in his latest book, the beautifully written My Two Polish Grandfathers. Born in exile in Scotland, where his parents happened to be stationed with the Polish army during part of WWII, Rybczynski became an immigrant several times over during his life, spending part of his childhood in London, then moving with his parents to Canada when he was ten and finally choosing to settle in the United States in mid-life. Everywhere he went, he carried with him his family's story and now he's finally put it down on paper, creating a fascinating read.

Throughout his book, Rybczynski touches upon the issue of identity, albeit in his trademark understated manner. As was common for boys of his era, Rybczynski was fascinated by war and spent a good part of his Quebec boyhood building forts and playing war with his neighbourhood friends. He also loved war movies and saw many of them, though their plots never had anything to do with the stories he had heard from his parents. "Nobody made films about [...] Poles training in Scotland," he writes. Nobody made films, and not many British or North Americans knew about, Polish parachute brigades, Polish pilots in the Royal Air Force, the Warsaw Uprising, Yalta. The stories he grew up hearing were not validated in the wider world, making them seem even more remote and fairy tale-like.