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.Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm, Melchior Wańkowicz, Sztafeta. Prószyński i Spółka 2012,
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". 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.Sztafeta zamyka serię dzieł Wańkowicza. PAP, 2012-03-17. Niekomercyjny serwis informacyjno-publicystyczny Pozytywy.
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.Melchior Wańkowicz, Sztafeta. Dzieła zebrane. Opis. Księgarnia Internetowa Gandalf. 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 Polska The Times, wrote in February 2012 that Sztafeta reads like a national myth, with every page a gem praising Minister of the Treasury Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski and the Sanacja government.Wańkowicz składa pokłon Stalowej Woli by Mariusz Grabowski, 2012-02-10. "Narodowa baśń ku pokrzepieniu serc."
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.
Contents
Foreword In the foreword, Wańkowicz states that the title of the book refers to an historic relay race, whose objective is to make Poland a developed and industrial nation. The author also thanks people who contributed to the book, including Ministers Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, Juliusz Ulrich and Antoni Roman. Wańkowicz writes that the purpose of the book is "To show the real face of Poland and show how Polish people work, to show Poles around their own country in which they are foreigners – it means teaching us to respect ourselves (...) I have tried to undertake this task as best as I can" (page 18).
Preface In the preface he touches on the foreign policy of the Second Polish Republic. Wańkowicz claims that the foreign policy of a country is connected with its strength and power. "Foreign policy is a test of finances, military forces, administration and internal order, the psychological density of and the social justice within a nation". As Wańkowicz states, from the very beginning, the Second Polish Republic had to find its place among the victorious nations of World War I, according to the Treaty of Versailles. "History has taught us that we will not prosper under the Treaty, and that we are condemned to handle everything ourselves (...) The Treaty and the spirit of its creators tried to create Poland as one of small Eastern European states. As a result, Gdańsk was not granted to Poland, Trans-Olza was given to the Czechs, eastern borders were limited, and the Little Treaty of Versailles was imposed on Poland (...) [Since 1933], Poland has distanced itself from the Treaty of Versailles, as its failing structure does not attract us. Since then, we have been trying to maintain a policy of balance between our two neighbours (...) Even though the Locarno Treaties gave France the right for an armed intervention in case of the Remilitarization of the Rhineland, even though England, Italy, Belgium and Poland were obliged to actively support France, the French did not make any decision". Furthermore, Wańkowicz claims that the May Coup of 1926 may have been connected with Germany's admission into the League of Nations, since Józef Piłsudski came to the conclusion that under the circumstances, he should take control of both the foreign policy and the army of Poland. (pages 19–23).
De profundis Start Polski (Poland's beginning) This chapter is in memory of the destruction of Polish lands as a result of World War I and other military conflicts, such as the Polish–Soviet War. Compared to France, where only the northeastern provinces were devastated, the Great War resulted in widespread destruction of almost the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic. In 1914–1921, almost two million buildings were destroyed, together with 56% of the rolling stock, 64% of railway stations, 390 larger and 2019 smaller bridges. Losses to Polish industry were estimated at 1 billion 800 million zlotys, four and half million hectares of land were left uncultivated, 4 million head of cattle were killed, 3 million people were forced to leave their homes, 130 million cubic meters of timber were taken out of Poland. According to the Polish census of 1921, thousands of people were forced to live in 75,000 cowsheds, pigsties and shacks. "War has brought destruction to all the provinces of Poland, except for those which had belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia (...) Starving people read with disbelief in the newspapers that as part of World War I reparations, even transports of German beehives headed towards France (...) We have inherited a divided, destroyed Poland, whose lands had for almost 150 years belonged to three different countries (see Partitions of Poland). We have been given a Fatherland moulded out of our traditions, language and the love of our hearts. But economically, it was but a mix of the neglected borderlands of the three foreign nations" (page 31).
Wańkowicz recalls an epidemic of typhus and cholera, which took place in the Soviet Union in 1921. At that time, Polish government created a 40 to 60 kilometer wide barrier implemented to stop the spread of disease, along the Polish – Soviet border. One of the biggest quarantine centers was at Baranowicze, where 10,000 people were treated daily, and 40,000 kilograms of clothes were washed every day. Altogether, 182 Polish doctors and nurses died at the Baranowicze quarantine center, and in 1923, a monument dedicated to them was unveiled there: "Over the dead bodies, we headed towards the reconstruction of Poland" (page 37).
Start COP-u (The COP beginnings) In this chapter, Wańkowicz describes his pre-World War I adventures, when with friends he hiked across the future Central Industrial Area, which before 1914 had been divided between the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary. Those lands, the heart of Poland, had nothing in common: "Eighty per cent of our rail traffic just serves the triangle of Upper Silesia–Warsaw–Lwów. This triangle is empty inside (...) The distance between Vistula river bridges can reach up to 70 kilometers. The population of the center of Poland, the area bounded by the Pilica, the Bug rivers and the Beskids mountain range, which amounts 5 million people, is suffocating due to unemployment and small farms. Urbanization had not taken place in those borderlands of Russia and Austria-Hungary. In the Central Industrial Area, 418,000 people are simply redundant. They may go away, but where to? (...) The Central part of Poland is just rotting. As Marshal Józef Piłsudski once said, Poland is like a bagel, in which anything good lies on the edges. And along these edges we have hostile neighbours" (pages 41–47)
Wańkowicz reminds the reader that other nations had also decided to move their industrial centers away from borders. Soviet Union located its main factories in the Urals, and Nazi Germany in the area between the Weser and the Elbe. "This land, forgotten by God, we shall lift up through the Central Industrial Area, and the Area itself shall be surrounded by highly developed agriculture" (page 52).
Smok pod polską Weroną (A dragon afoot in Poland's Verona) The Polish symbolic and metaphorical Verona is the historic town of Sandomierz, which, according to the plans, was to become the capital of the Central Industrial Area, and of the projected Sandomierz Voivodeship (1939). Similar to Verona (Italy), Sandomierz was famous for its Renaissance architecture but little else. "Nothing has changed here since I visited this town as a kid..." (Wańkowicz). However, the town's location was excellent, as distances to other industrial towns in the region were equally close including Nisko, Opatów, Kielce, Radom, Lublin, Łańcut, Dębica and Pińczów (pp. 55–58).
The chapter describes the current and a potential future of Sandomierz, with new investments, estimated at almost 7 million zlotys. "Meanwhile I do not see any changes in Sandomierz, and neither would Berke see them, whose forces in 1260 faced some 8,000 residents of the town; the same population as now (...) Sandomierz is such a careless town. The seat of the voivode and of the local Polish Army infantry division is in Kielce. The Provincial court, rail and forest management offices are in Radom. School district in Ostrowiec. Post office district management in Lublin, insurance office in Tarnobrzeg, tax office in Opatów, and even the rail station lies on the eastern shore of the Vistula, in a different province. It is touching to watch this careless chaos, to watch the old order of things, knowing that the future will change it all for good (...) Admirers of the Polish Verona may sleep well" (pages 58–61).
Ujarzmianie wody (Taming of the waters) Z kałuży – rzeka This chapter is dedicated to hydropower, and different means of obtaining energy from water. Wańkowicz recollects the disastrous 1934 flood in Poland, which caused damages estimated at 75 million zlotys. One year after the disaster, construction of the Dunajec river dam and a power plant began at the village of Rożnów, near the site of a medieval castle. According to the plans from the 1930s, the government of the Second Polish Republic envisaged construction of 27 reservoirs in the Vistula Basin, and 19 reservoirs in the Dniestr Basin. Wańkowicz himself visited the Rożnów Dam construction site in the autumn of 1938, and the book contains several photos from that visit.