Pilsudski Institute of London

The Piłsudski Institute of London stands in Hammersmith, west London, inside the Polish Social and Cultural Association building. It is a Polish research centre devoted to modern Polish history. The institute takes its name from Marshal Józef Piłsudski, the inter-war leader who shaped the Second Polish Republic. Its founders included Piłsudski’s widow Aleksandra and generals such as Władysław Bortnowski and Wacław Stachiewicz. After the Second World War they reopened the institute in London to safeguard documents from the wartime destruction of the Warsaw original. Today it houses archives, artefacts and studies covering the Second Republic, the years of occupation, the communist era and post-1989 Poland. Visitors find a reading room filled with books and files, exhibition spaces for anniversary displays, and a programme of lectures and readings. The institute also loans materials to museums and shares its holdings with the public. Its library shelves hold memoirs, press cuttings and photographs that bring each period to life.