Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski was born in New York of Polish parents and educated in England, at the Benedictine college of Downside and at the Queen’s College, Oxford University. Since then he has worked as a freelance historian and journalist, contributing to all the major British papers and periodicals. He has always taken a keen interest in Poland, and he views the history of that country essentially as part of a pan-European process.

He is best known for his Holy Madness (2001), a study of Romantic nationalism in Europe and the Americas, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow (2004), and Rites of Peace; The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna (2007). His latest publication, Warsaw 1920 (2008), covers the Polish-Bolshevik war of that year. Alongside his professional activities, Adam Zamoyski has always been profoundly concerned with the cultural heritage, its preservation and popularisation.

He is currently Chairman of the Board of the Czartoryski Foundation in Kraków, and is working on a comprehensive project to restore its museum and collections.