According to the British diplomat Edgar D’Abernon, it was the 18^th decisive battle in world history. The Battle of Warsaw deserves to be listed on par with the D-Day as a critical turning point in the fight against totalitarianism in Europe.

Because of the Iron Curtain that divided Europe as a result of the Yalta Conference, the significance of this specific event to the history of Europe did not get imprinted in the world’s memory as prominently as it deserves. This concerns both mass culture and history textbooks. It is time to finally fill those gaps in European collective memory.

The anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw should be celebrated not only in Warsaw, Poland, but throughout Europe. Even though it was Poland that had won on the Vistula River, that victory concerned to a large extent the freedom of European nations from the totalitarian darkness of communism.

From a historical perspective, the year 1920 closed a series of events that began with the partitions of Poland by Prussia, Russia and Austria in the late 18^th century. The Battle of Warsaw was the culmination of one of the most remarkable episodes of the building of a modern nation in European and global history. The nation without a state, emerging on the ruins of military and political defeat (including numerous Polish uprisings and collapses of successive substitutes of the state), Poland was erased from the map of Europe, which extended from the end of the 18^th century to the end of World War I.

The first Polish phenomenon worth mentioning is the scale of transformation of the Polish society over 19^th century from a feudal one to one of Europe’s most modern civil societies – and, as a matter of fact, without having any state institutions. An enormous network of social, cultural and sport institutions, like the “Sokół” gymnastic association, financial unions, scientific societies and school self-education societies can be compared only to reforms during the Meiji period enacted by the strong central power in Japan.

Soon after regaining independence in 1918, Poland adopted some of the most modern social and electoral legislations of the Western world. A shared sense of regained freedom prevailed over prejudice and a temptation to discriminate against wider segments of society. Poland had to build the unity and cohesion of the entire nation. The intellectual work undertaken at the end of the 19^th century found its succession in the pro-state efforts once public institutions were regained after 1918.

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