Global InformationSztafeta information
 First edition, front cover | |
| Author | Melchior Wańkowicz |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Mieczysław Berman |
| Country | Poland |
| Language | Polish |
| Genre | Creative nonfiction |
Publication date | 1939 |
Sztafeta (English: Relay Race) is a 1939 compendium of literary reportage written by Melchior Wańkowicz. It was published in the year of the German-Soviet invasion of Poland. Popular demand caused it to be reprinted four times by the Biblioteka Polska before the outbreak of hostilities. The book was never published in Communist Poland because it praised the democratic achievements of the prewar Second Polish Republic.[1]
It gives an account of one of the biggest economic projects of the newly resurgent interwar Poland, its Central Industrial Area. The work has been described as a "colourful reporter's panorama, telling the story of the recovery of the Second Polish Republic". Ryszard Kapuściński wrote that Sztafeta "was the first grand reportage of its kind in Poland's history – written about Polish production effort".[1] To write the book, Wańkowicz collected a great amount of background information, and he carried out dozens of interviews, starting with President Ignacy Mościcki and ending with sailors, coal miners and primary school teachers.
The book begins with an analysis of the situation of Poland in 1918, right after World War I. The country was in ruins, with two million houses destroyed; industry devastated; poverty, hunger and the threat of a cholera epidemic, all left behind by the Partitions of Poland. It goes on to describe the achievements of the Second Polish Republic, not only about the Central Industrial Area but also about the construction of Gdynia seaport, and of the political scandals such as the annexation of Trans-Olza.
The book was disliked by some members of the military establishment in Poland in 1939. Wańkowicz, they claimed, too frequently criticised the poverty and backwardness of Poland after over a century of foreign occupation.[2]
Wańkowicz, who was one of the first modern Polish reporters to write about the economy, had authored a series of reports about the Central Industrial Area (or the Polish Magnitogorsk, as he called the project). They were published in the Polish press in late 1937 and early 1938, and became so popular that he decided to gather four of them in one volume, C.O.P. Ognisko siły, published in 1938. The book was immediately sold out, as Polish readers loved Wańkowicz's optimism, temperament, national pride and honesty.[3] Impressed by the popularity of C.O.P. Ognisko siły, Wańkowicz began writing a more extensive work on the Central Industrial Area and the development of the Polish economy as a whole.
Sztafeta, with 520 pages, is the result of his efforts. Mariusz Grabowski of a daily,Polska The Times, wrote in February 2012 that Sztafeta reads like a national myth with every page a gem by praising Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, and the Sanacja government.[4]
Sztafeta, based on the original 1939 edition, together with a number of photographs and maps by pre-war graphic designer, Mieczysław Berman, was republished in February 2012 by the Warsaw publishing house Prószyński i spółka (whose founder Mieczysław Prószyński is a grandson of Konrad Prószyński), as volume 16 of the collected works of Wańkowicz.
- ^ a b Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm, Melchior Wańkowicz, Sztafeta. Prószyński i Spółka 2012, ISBN 978-83-7839-044-2
- ^ Sztafeta zamyka serię dzieł Wańkowicza. PAP, 2012-03-17. Niekomercyjny serwis informacyjno-publicystyczny Pozytywy. (in Polish)
- ^ Melchior Wańkowicz, Sztafeta. Dzieła zebrane. Opis. Księgarnia Internetowa Gandalf. (in Polish)
- ^ Wańkowicz składa pokłon Stalowej Woli by Mariusz Grabowski, 2012-02-10. "Narodowa baśń ku pokrzepieniu serc."