History / "How Poles Built Russia... [26]

... Polish Roots of the Russian Empire" is the title of the newest edition of the book printed before under the title "Jak stwarzaliśmy Rosję" (How We Created Russia) and then "How We Built Russia".

taniaksiazka.pl/jak-polacy-budowali-rosje-mariusz-swider-p-2002650.html

The author did a truly benedictine work in following the lives and work of over 3000 Poles who built the Russian Empire. Russian sources, including Горизонтов Л.Е., Служить или не служить Империи? Поляки в России 19 века [w] Rosyjsko-polskie kontakty językowe, literackie i kuluralne. S. Grybowski, W. Choriew et.al (eds.), Moskwa, 2011, but mostly its a pioneer work in it's scale and scope.

For the benefit of our western friends and allies whose knowledge of Central/Eastern European history is somewhat cursory, I shall just remind a couple of facts:

- it was Lechici (sort of proto-Polish tribe) who built Moscow;
- it was Polish printing shops that printed Russian books for over 120 years;
- Nikolai Gogol's real name was Mikołaj Hohoł-Janowski;
- Polish architects raised innumerable civilian and military buildings all over the Russian Empire;
- Polish engineers built bridges and rail network in Russia (90% of steel rails came from Polish factories);
- the role of Poles was so great that a Russian Professor Leonid Gorizontow called the 1800s in Russia
a "Polish Century"...

... and I could go on, but it's better to just grab a book and read it yourselves.