Józef Piłsudski

"For years, J6zef Pilsudski has been in one of the top three places in the rankings of the most distinguished figures in Polish culture and history in its over a thousand years of history," writes Professor Andrzej Chwalba in the introduction to our album. He also admits that the 1926 May Coup, which was led by Pilsudski, set a lot of Polish people against
the Marshal, as they were strong advocates of inviolable norms of a democratic government. Despite this, thanks to his previous unquestioned contributions to his homeland, J6zef Pilsudski is widely recognised as the father of independent Poland as well as of the victory over Bolshevik Russia in the 1920 war. The album contains some two hundred photographs mostly from the National Digital Archives and the National Library — including the most famous pictures of J6zef Pilsudski as the Commander, Chief of State and the first Marshal of Poland, as well as those that have been published extremely rarely or not at all.