At the annual Valdai Discussion Club forum in Sochi on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again invoked Poland’s history, this time focusing on Marshal Józef Piłsudski — a central figure in Poland’s 20th-century independence struggle. According to Putin, under Piłsudski’s influence, Poland committed “many mistakes” in the years leading up to World War II.

“Piłsudski was hostile toward Russia. Guided by his ideas, Poland made a series of errors before the war,” Putin said, as quoted by the Russian state agency TASS. “Germany at that time proposed a peaceful solution to the question of Danzig [now Gdańsk] and the so-called Polish Corridor. The Polish authorities categorically refused, and thus Poland became the first victim of Nazi aggression.”

The remarks were a direct response to recent comments by Polish President Karol Nawrocki. Speaking in a radio interview, Nawrocki said that he sometimes “speaks” with the spirit of Piłsudski in imagined conversations about both historical episodes, such as the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, and current events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Who was Piłsudski?

For Western readers, Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) is remembered in Poland as the founding father of modern independence. After more than a century of partition by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, Piłsudski led the country to sovereignty in 1918. In 1920, he masterminded the defense of Warsaw against the advancing Red Army, an event known as the “Miracle on the Vistula,” which halted Soviet expansion into Europe.

For Poles, Piłsudski embodies national resilience and independence. For the Kremlin, however, he is often portrayed as a Russophobe whose policies allegedly destabilized the region — a framing used by Putin to support his broader historical narrative.

Historical Politics as Strategy

Putin also accused Poland of refusing Soviet assistance to Czechoslovakia in 1938, when Moscow proposed sending the Red Army through Polish territory to counter Adolf Hitler’s ambitions. “If today’s Polish elites remember the lessons of different eras and the mistakes made in the past, that will not be a bad thing,” Putin added, linking the history of Piłsudski’s era to present-day politics.

These statements fit a pattern in Russian historical discourse: shifting responsibility for the outbreak of World War II away from the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact — the secret Nazi–Soviet agreement that carved up Eastern Europe — and instead casting Poland as complicit in its own destruction.

Poland’s Counter-Narrative

Polish historians and leaders strongly reject such claims. In Warsaw, Piłsudski remains a national hero and symbol of independence, celebrated for defending not only Poland but also Western Europe from Bolshevik conquest in 1920. His legacy is frequently invoked in contemporary debates, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as Poland positions itself as a frontline defender of Europe once again.

Putin’s comments are part of a broader Kremlin strategy to weaponize history — portraying Russia as the victim of others’ mistakes while minimizing its own acts of aggression. For Poland, however, Piłsudski’s legacy is the opposite: a reminder of resistance to foreign domination and the high price of sovereignty in Eastern Europe.