1919 - 1921 WWI Polish Bolshevik War WAF Press Photo Archive (100+)

Item Details

In the two years following WWI, Bolshevik Russia sought to move through a war torn Europe. Global powers believed that if Poland fell, Communism would quickly spread through the continent.

 

 

President Hoover sent immense Humanitarian Aid & War Loans while the French mobilized the Blue Army & sent their own generals in on ground support. The Polish-Bolshevik War // Polish War for Independence became pivotal to determining modern European borders at the close of the First World War.

 

 

(117) total press images (in postcard format) record the seminal Burning of the Bridge at Vistula to the epic Battle at Warsaw, Battle of Niemen & finally the Treaty of Riga in 1921.

 

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Illustrated from the officer’s viewpoint through inspections, visits, strategy conferences & ceremonies, the men who freed Poland are all well represented in portrait here :

 

Futurę Head of State Jozef Piłsudski, Generał Jozef Haller & Generał // then Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Generał Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski, Lucjan Zeligowski, Tadeusz Wroński & French Military Officials Generał Eugene Mittelhauser (Blue Army), Henri Gouraud, Paul Prosper Henrys. Many figured prominently into WWII as well.

 

(104) silver gelatin RPPCs are rubber stamped Warszaw Agencja Fotograf on the reverse or blind stamped WAF. Though no other signature appears, it is likely the singular work of Saryusz Wolski. Wolski was an early reporter for Poland’s first wire service (Marian Fuks) before founding WAF in 1919. By all reports, he worked independently and the WAF signature would have been interpreted at the time as his own.

 

(6) photo postcards are signed K. Dowmont // Wloclawek, who does not to appear in archive. These are the Bridge at Vistula series w/ Red Cross Nursing support figuring heavily into the trenches.

 

(7) RPPCs w/ American backs capture a Consumer’s League Rally in Detroit w/ a Polish language banner supporting the War Loans or are studio portraits of uniformed soldiers, one as young as 14 years old. Several are signed either Rozanski (Chicago) or Central Art (Detroit).

 

An outlier portrait of Ignacy Skorupka, a charismatic young priest killed in the Battle of Warsaw (signed Raczyński),  may relate to the series of an elaborate church service — possibly a funeral procession.

 

(36) images are not pictured here simply for brevity, their subjects are every bit as strong though I have chosen the best composed. Only minimal handling throughout.

In addition, (31) printed postcards referencing Russia, China & Japan and are included as found in the family estate. They may provide context to tracing the archive’s original journey to the United States.

 

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Most logically, the collection was sent by a sympathetic friend or Wolski himself to an American publisher of Polish speaking community newspapers as a way to illustrate the Homefront War.

 

 

The studios in Chicago & Detroit seen here are no coincidence, those populations were exploding in the early 20thc on the backs of automotive factory & slaughterhouse labor.

 

 

Complete archive as captured by a fine photographer w/ access, very possibly one of the founders of Poland’s Free Press. Outside of the appeal to Polish American or Warsaw archives, this collection offers a first hand account of Interwar Europe w/ many of the names that would come to define WWII.

 

 

Wide historic interest w/ only occasional historic reprinting by Polish language archives.