Dwellers in the Field

Dwellers in the Field, translated as the Polians, epitomize the agony and exultation of the last millennium. With the Great War, 3 million Poles fled to the United States, 9 million succumbed to Russian domination and 5.5 million came under the boot of the Austro-German empire. Those who stayed fetched their guns, some to fight the Germans, some to fight the Russians, while the hard-core Nationalists fought everybody. In the maelstrom that followed, no one escaped. This is their story. It is an action filled saga of the obscure vision of soldiers crawling through gas in the Pripet Marshes, of those who hid in the forests of Little Russia, the headlong panic of rag-bound feet in winter, and the flutter of farewell notes on the bulwarks of empty trenches. Then, as now, their frantic cries are of Prussian elitism, Marxism and Solidarity too.