Witoldas Pileckis kovose dėl Vilniaus (1918-1923 m.)

• Gimžauskas, Edmundas
• Stravinskienė, Vitalija

LTDabartinio laiko aplinkybės, visuomeninės politinės aktualijos lėmė, kad pirmiausia Lenkijoje, o vėliau kitose Europos šalyse imta domėtis neeilinės biografijos savininku, Lenkijos tautos didvyriu Witoldu Pileckiu ir aktyviai puoselėti istorinę atmintį. Ankstyvos jaunystės metai tiesiogiai susiję su Vilniumi ir Lietuva ir kaip tik šioji Witoldo Pileckio biografijos dalis sulaukė daugiausiai dėmesio monografijoje. Pasiremiant autentiškais šaltiniais ir naujausia istoriografine medžiaga rekonstruojama knygos herojaus karinė ir visuomeninė veikla 1918–1923 m., atskleidžiamas jo dalyvavimas integruojant Vilnių ir Vilniją į Lenkijos sudėtį, perteikiamas jo požiūris į Lietuvą ir lietuvius. Witoldo Pileckio „vilnietiškas“ gyvenimo etapas išryškėja platesniame Lietuvos ir Lenkijos santykių – formuojantis modernioms respublikoms, Vilniaus ir Vilnijos savasties ir priklausomybės – kontekste. Tai buvo dinamiškas ir kartu įvykių kupinas laikotarpis, paženklinęs vėlesnių metų lietuvių ir lenkų santykius. Witoldas Pileckis kartu su Lenkijos kariuomenės generolu Lucjanu Żeligowskiu, majoru ir rotmistru Władysławu ir Jerzy’iu Dąbrowskiais bei kitais „Vidurio Lietuvos“ politinio darinio gynėjais atsidūrė lietuviams priešingoje pusėje ir atkakliai gynė Lenkijos interesus. [Anotacija knygoje]

ENIt is widely acknowledged that 20th-century Lithuanian-Polish relations remain one of the most sensitive and complicated topics, while the terrritorial battle between Lithuanians and Poles that developed throughout the early 20th century was first of all an argument over the Vilnius Region and the attribution of Vilnius itself. In traditional historiography on the above-mentioned conflict, the provisions and actions of public and political leaders of the day, especially Józef Pilsudski, hold a very important place. However, the modernisation of societies in the Central East European region in the late 19th—early 20th centuries actually went a long way towards revising both the traditional local public lead- ers role, inseparable from the class-based estate order, and his image. Following the West European example, a qualitatively new society began to form, universally identified by mid-2Oth-century sociologists as “mass society”. This was undoubtedly the product of industrialisation, urbanisation, universal education, and ultimately - the democratisation of politics. As these processes were accelerating, the tragedies and upheavals of World War I befell the Lithuanian and Polish lands, causing further havoc and altering the situation. It is quite obvious that under these kinds of circumstances, when the masses took priority over the individual, the old style of “great men” had to either retreat from the historical front stage or take on new roles and functions. Let s say that Pilsudski, being a representative of the old class-based society, was perfectly capable of understanding and assimilating the requirements of the new times, becoming one of the most successful examples of social transformation (or adaptation) in the Polish arena.At the same time, in this space (and not only there), at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, during the genesis of industrialised “mass” society, members of a new generation were born who began their active, social public life right after leaving the school bench, precisely during the upheavals of World War I. After a couple of decades of relatively peaceful life in which they could achieve personal maturity, and then in light of the much more brutal trials of World War II and a certain crisis of “mass society”, some would be destined to become completely new types of “great men” - though not immediately recognised as such by their contemporaries, but only by later generations thanks to historical memory. Circumstances dictated by our present times, topical political realities in society, and in particular, geopolitical conjunctures particular to this region, have meant that the historical memory of Witold Pilecki, a man of an extraordinary biography and a representative of that generation born at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, has started being actively created and nurtured in Poland. On the grounds of such a trend, an extract of Pilecki’s biography from the World War II years has been taken, illustrating how he, as one of the activists of the Polish Resistance underground movement, was voluntarily infiltrated into the Oświęcim (Auschwitz) concentration camp where he was meant to organise resistance activities and inform the world of the brutal crimes being enacted by the Nazis. This has been accentuated as behaviour for which Pilecki is due special honour. In Poland, he has been described as an “adamant soldier”, a “warrior of the lost Rzeczpospolita”, a “volunteer to Auschwitz”, and so on.As the theme of opposition to totalitarian regimes during World War II has been accentuated and popularised on a present-day democratic Europe-wide scale, for the Poles, this national figure of theirs serves as the perfect delegate to the symbolic galaxy of European Resistance heroes. In 2019, the European Parliament supported the initiative proposed by Poland’s representatives to announce May 25 (the date of Pilecki s execution) as the International Day of Heroes of the Fight Against Totalitarianism. Pilecki became known as one of the sixteen youngest participants in European resistance movements during World War II. It should be noted that in this kind of anti-totalitarian focused environment, it is sometimes thought that Pilecki should be unreservedly acknowledged as a great figure in Lithuania as well, especially since his biography bears some association with this country. Yet is this really the case, do those points of contact arouse only positive associations among Lithuanians? Not all of the stages in Pileckis life have thus far been equally well publicised even in Poland itself, where historians and publicists have gone to great effort to research various aspects of Pileckis biography and to popularise this figure. A characteristic trend in Polish authors’ texts about Pilecki reveals that the early stage of this hero’s life has been given a too-modest and generalised treatment. From these texts we learn that the seventeen-year-old youth became voluntarily involved in the activities of Polish military units in Vilnius, and initially stood up to fight against the , Red Army, later on, against the Lithuanian Army as well. During the course of intensive fighting between Lithuanians and Poles over Vilnius and the Vilnius Region, Pilecki unabashedly chose Poland’s side and ignored Lithuanians’ resolve to enact their statehood with their national centre in Vilnius. [...]. [From the publication]