Full Circle FROM THE PUBLISHER
Full Circle is a moving personal and political account of a country and its people emerging from under the rubble of Communism. For Sikorski, rebuilding a dworek (manor house) known as Chobielin was not just a real-estate investment - it was a literal and symbolic contribution to the task of rebuilding his country. With a novelist's eye for revealing detail and a politician's instinct for the deeper currents running through society, Sikorski tells the dramatic story of his family - his childhood under Communism, his parents resistance to authoritarianism, his relatives on all sides of the political spectrum (including a great-uncle who survived Buchenwald and Dachau). At the same time, literally unearthing Polish history on the grounds of his home - one of his discoveries was a silver half grosz piece dating from the sixteenth century - Sikorski also brings to life for American readers the dramatic history of Poland, where national identity has always been problematic. Occupied by Warsaw Pact troops under Communism, carved up by the German and Soviet Armies during World War II, invaded by Prussians, Russians, and Teutons throughout the centuries, Poland has constantly struggled under the burden of foreign conquerors. An engrossing personal memoir, Full Circle is also a fascinating insider's account of the political transformation of a country that has come full circle many times over the years in its quest for a national identity.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly
The year was 1989, and Sikorski, who as an 18 year old had been given political asylum in England in 1981 and studied at Oxford, returned home and with his parents restored a manor house in his native city in western Poland (and takes pains here to justify his purchase despite restitution laws favoring heirs, which he was not). Then in 1992 he was appointed deputy minister of defense, a job from which, amid so much controversy, he was forced to resign after only three months. In a self-serving, though not uninteresting memoir that tells more than readers will want to know about his family's activities during WWII and disappointingly less about life in the new Poland, Sikorski, a freelance journalist, sets out to establish his bona fides as a Polish patriot. He covers his country's history going back to the 18th-century partition, his childhood under Communism (with annual trips to the West, he was not deprived) and through the exhilarating time of Solidarity. There are astonishing revelations about former president Walesa, who purportedly planned to buy nuclear warheads from the KGB (and cheat them of payment), and a tale of his refusal to entertain the visiting Margaret Thatcher, because he "[did] not receive failed politicians." Can any of that be true? The Walesa presidential palace was like a beer hall, according to Sikorski, and the Solidarity politicians failed because of incompetence and graft. But the new crowd is no improvement, he bemoans, for the Communist collaborators are back in charge. Sikorski concludes that Poland is "busily building an Italy" but that, nevertheless, "life can be perfectly tolerable in a kleptocracy." Photos.
Publishers Weekly
The year was 1989, and Sikorski, who as an 18 year old had been given political asylum in England in 1981 and studied at Oxford, returned home and with his parents restored a manor house in his native city in western Poland (and takes pains here to justify his purchase despite restitution laws favoring heirs, which he was not). Then in 1992 he was appointed deputy minister of defense, a job from which, amid so much controversy, he was forced to resign after only three months. In a self-serving, though not uninteresting memoir that tells more than readers will want to know about his family's activities during WWII and disappointingly less about life in the new Poland, Sikorski, a freelance journalist, sets out to establish his bona fides as a Polish patriot. He covers his country's history going back to the 18th-century partition, his childhood under Communism (with annual trips to the West, he was not deprived) and through the exhilarating time of Solidarity. There are astonishing revelations about former president Walesa, who purportedly planned to buy nuclear warheads from the KGB (and cheat them of payment), and a tale of his refusal to entertain the visiting Margaret Thatcher, because he "[did] not receive failed politicians." Can any of that be true? The Walesa presidential palace was like a beer hall, according to Sikorski, and the Solidarity politicians failed because of incompetence and graft. But the new crowd is no improvement, he bemoans, for the Communist collaborators are back in charge. Sikorski concludes that Poland is "busily building an Italy" but that, nevertheless, "life can be perfectly tolerable in a kleptocracy." Photos. (June)
Library Journal
Sikorski, a journalist who was deputy defense minister in the first Solidarity government, weaves the dramatic events of Poland's recent history into his own return from exile. At his book's center is a project to restore his family's manor house"my contribution to rebuilding Poland, and a last battle against the Communists." Sikorski relives his childhood and daily life in Communist Poland and also writes passionately about his parents' lives during World War II. The most intriguing portions of his book deal with the early days of Solidarity and the risks involved for anyone who participated (the author had to flee to England for several years). He also delves into the history of the town of Bydgoszcz, where his house is located. Sikorski connects the dramatic political and cultural changes of postcommunism to the daily lives of average people and proclaims that a "civilizational revolution" has occurred. Valuable for its depiction of communism's profound impact, this is recommended for academic and large public libraries.Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, Pa.
Kirkus Reviews
Peter Mayle meets Foreign Affairs in this double-edged tale of reconstruction in post-Communist Poland.
Like many other Poles, young Sikorski (Dust of the Saints: A Journey Through War-Torn Afghanistan, 1990) found himself abroad (in England) when martial law was declared in Poland in 1981. But his life in exile, unlike most, was unusually charmed. By the time he returned to Poland in his late 20s, he was an Oxford-educated author and journalist with experience in Africa and Afghanistan. Active in the Solidarity-led government, he also took on the considerable task of reclaiming and restoring his family's old manor house, known as a dworek. "A dworek is not just a nice house to live in, but a calling," writes Sikorski with characteristic intensity and passion. Not only was there the challenge and pleasure of restoring the ruined shell of a once-beautiful building, but there was the history of the environs (and, by extension, of Poland itself) to explore through the process. Sikorski quite clearly means for the restoration to serve as a metaphor for post-Communist Poland's active and often confusing search for a new identity and purpose. He interweaves his descriptions of the reconstruction of the house with his family's history and the turbulent history of modern Poland. Sikorski brings an appealingly dry wit to his observations about post-Communist politics but skimps on the more tangible aspects of reconstructing the dworek (i.e., finances). The house is located in Pomerania, a region that has shifted between German and Polish control, and relations between Poles and Germans loom large in these stories. But Sikorski's presentation of the German-Polish problem manages to diminish or neglect the Jewish aspect of Poland's past. His otherwise moving account of Polish suffering under the Nazis would have been better balanced if placed within the larger picture of the Holocaust.
Nonetheless, Full Circle is an engagingly written and enlightening look at contemporary Poland and its zeitgeist.
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