Author(s): Michael Moran

Travel

Poland was once the largest country in Europe - and one of the most powerful. The opulence of the Orient lived alongside the melancholy of the Romantic north creating a nation of passionate extremes and paradoxical psychology, but a country that valued honour and freedom above all. Devastated by waves of brutal invaders - Tatars, Swedes, Germans and Russians - Poland as the 'bulwark of Christendom' was virtually eclipsed in the eighteenth century, an all but forgotten magnificence. "A Country in the Moon" is the result of Michael Moran's fascination with this remarkable land over nearly two decades. Honouring a deathbed pledge to his uncle, an eccentric concert pianist obsessed with the music of Chopin, he gives an insider's view of a country embarked on wrenching change after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the present confrontation of ghosts from the wartime and communist past.In this uproarious personal memoir and meticulously researched cultural journey we keep company with a gallery of fantastic characters - Tatars and Teutonic Knights, Napoleon's mistress and daredevil Spitfire pilots, robbers and Rolls-Royce mechanics, heroic defenders of freedom alongside an ill-assorted group of modern Britons and Poles. First published 2008.