The British-Czech philosopher Ernest Gellner used to tell an anecdote about visiting Poland during the last years of communist rule. When he arrived, people would ask him: “How is he?”—without ever specifying who they meant. There was no need. Gellner knew they were referring to Leszek Kołakowski (1927–2009).
Kołakowski was one of the great philosophers and essayists of the twentieth century—and, despite living in exile after 1968, a hero of anti-communist resistance in his home country. After the fall of the Polish People’s Republic in 1989, Kołakowski was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest decoration. His death made the nation’s front pages. He was buried with military honors and recognized with a minute’s silence in parliament. Yet, in his three adoptive countries—Canada, the United States, and Britain, where he settled for the last four decades of his life—he remains mostly unknown.
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