May 12th is the day we are commemorating the anniversary of the death of Josef Pilsudski.

Josef Pilsudski was a Polish statesman and a prominent figure on the international scene.

He is considered as the “father of the Second Polish Republic” which reemerged in the year 1918 and 123 years after the partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia in 1795.

On November 18, 1918 Poland regained its independence and Pilsudski was its chief of state until 1922.

One of his most impressive and famous achievements was his role in the Polish-Soviet War.

On the verge of defeat his forces, in the August 1920 Battle of Warsaw, threw back the invading Russians. Pilsudski who commanded the Polish forces made use of innovative military tactics

and the battle came to be known as the “Miracle of the Vistula”.    

With regard to domestic policies Pilsudski was a proponent of a multinational state from an ethnic point of view which would be “a house of nations” for ethnic minorities

and other national groups.

To read more about how Pilsudski perceived by Polish Jews? What was his position on Jews?

An additional and colorful article about Pilsudski published on the 80th anniversary of Pilsudski’s death