The story of the enigmatic Jozef Pilsudski, the founding father of modern Poland: a brilliant military leader and high-minded statesman who betrayed his own democratic vision by seizing power in a military coup.

In the story of modern Poland, no one stands taller than Jozef Pilsudski. From the age of sixteen he devoted his life to reestablishing the Polish state that had ceased to exist in 1795. Ahead of World War I, he created a clandestine military corps to fight Russia, which held most Polish territory. After the war, his dream of an independent Poland realized, he took the helm of its newly democratic political order. When he died in 1935, he was buried alongside Polish kings.

Yet Pilsudski was a complicated figure. Passionately devoted to the idea of democracy, he ceded power on constitutional terms, only to retake it a few years later in a coup when he believed his opponents aimed to dismantle the democratic system. Joshua Zimmerman’s authoritative biography examines a national hero in the thick of a changing Europe, and the legacy that still divides supporters and detractors. The Poland that Pilsudski envisioned was modern, democratic, and pluralistic. Domestically, he championed equality for Jews. Internationally, he positioned Poland as a bulwark against Bolshevism. But in 1926 he seized power violently, then ruled as a strongman for nearly a decade, imprisoning opponents and eroding legislative power.

In Zimmerman’s telling, Pilsudski’s faith in the young democracy was shattered after its first elected president was assassinated. Unnerved by Poles brutally turning on one another, the father of the nation came to doubt his fellow citizens’ democratic commitments and thereby betrayed his own. It is a legacy that dogs today’s Poland, caught on the tortured edge between self-government and authoritarianism.

"Zimmerman’s study…is remarkable…an excellent guide in both narrating and discussing major points in Józef Piłsudski’s journey that transform him from conspirator to soldier, socialist to patriot, and arguably statesman to strongman." - Polish Review

"Compelling…Zimmerman narrates Pilsudski’s life with authority, clarity and verve…The book is an important achievement in its introduction of the English-language reader to a key figure in the historical contest between Russian imperial ambition and the smaller nations that resist it." - Times Literary Supplement

"Excellent…a detailed, absorbing book that peels back the complexities of histories to reclaim the figure of Jozef Pilsudski for a new generation." - Jewish Chronicle

"A well-timed book…This well-researched and clearly written biography sheds light on the emergence of an independent Poland, which without Pilsudski might never have existed. It is also a meditation on the confluence of ethnic, religious, national, and imperial history that is Eastern Europe." - The National Interest

"Zimmerman has made Pilsudski’s mostly supportive dealings with the Jewish community, and its experience of antisemitism, a central theme of his book. This tends to crowd out his treatment of other topics or minorities, but it’s good that Pilsudski’s long alliance with Jewish and other non-Polish parties should be more widely known. Necessary, too, though shocking, is Zimmerman’s detailed account of the pogroms that broke out as Poland regained independence, crimes Pilsudski condemned but was curiously slow to halt." - London Review of Books

"Piłsudski’s story, complete with flaws, accomplishments and echoes of today’s war in Ukraine, is brought to life in [this] recent biography." - Associated Press

"Zimmerman’s biography is long overdue. Balanced, meticulously researched and very well written, it provides a panoramic portrait of the man who towers over modern Poland, warts and all." - History Today

"Joshua Zimmerman’s masterful new biography, based on Polish and English sources, explores the controversy that surrounded this contradictory man in his own lifetime and thereafter…This deeply researched study brings to life a restless Polish soul." - Literary Review

"Clearly written, detailed, and absorbing…Zimmerman presents Pilsudski as a classical hero, masterfully balancing the description of events that showcase his hubris and tragedy." - H-Net Reviews

"This well-researched and balanced biography of Józef Piłsudski seems destined to become the standard English-language work on the ‘father of modern Poland.’ It is a significant achievement and deserves a wide readership." - Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

"Likely to be the definitive biography of the Polish political conspirator, military commander, and statesman Józef Piłsudski…Zimmerman’s book is sure to find a wide and admiring readership." - Austrian History Yearbook

"I much enjoyed Joshua Zimmerman’s biography Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland…Will be heartily welcomed by the history buff in your life." - Aspects of History

"Perfectly timed…[Zimmerman’s] even-handedness gives Pilsudski’s history a nuance that was not allowed by Poland’s post-WWII communist authorities, who portrayed him as a proto-fascist and cracked down on his legacy…Impressively documented…Ultimately, Pilsudski’s life was that of a classical hero, replete with both hubris and tragedy." - Notes from Poland

"Magisterial…Zimmerman, in his splendid book, paints a balanced and thoughtful portrait of an eminent Polish leader who devoted body and soul to reestablishing a state that had been swept away by the tides of fate." - Times of Israel

"A masterful biography…This book should be ready widely by historians of modern Europe, and not just historians of Poland. Zimmerman’s account of Piłsudski’s life and legacy helps make sense of modern Poland, to be sure, but it also makes a case for his relevance far beyond Poland’s borders." - Slavic Review

"A work on the life and motivations of Jozef Pilsudski in the English language has been long overdue. … Zimmerman has not taken the easy route of either producing a hagiography or a diatribe. Instead, he produced a well-written and thoughtful account of Pilsudski and how he shaped the Second Polish Republic. …[He] should be commended for his diligence in executing this excellent biography of a great, if neglected, European leader." - Journal of Slavic Military Studies

"Zimmerman’s book can be read not only as a historical monograph, but also as a fascinating account of how Western ideas found their way to Europe’s peripheries and what their implementation in political activism and state-building looked like in that part of the world…A must-read for scholars interested in Eastern Europe." - Studies in East European Thought

"Zimmerman's goal is to restore the figure of Piłsudski to the Anglo-Saxon world, where he is completely unknown, and the present biography is certainly a milestone toward achieving this goal." - H-Net Reviews

"An in-depth biography of the man who has been described as the father of the Polish nation." - English Historical Review