A hundred years ago today, a peace treaty was signed in Riga's House of the Blackheads. This building was constructed in the early 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild for unmarried merchants, shipowners, and foreigners in Riga. The treaty, however, had nothing to do with the Brotherhood which incidentally was still active at that time. The treaty was signed between Poland on one side and Russian and Ukrainian Soviet republics on the other. 

After 123 years of political non-existence, Poland was re-born in 1918 and forged its Eastern border fighting a war with the Bolsheviks during which the so-called Miracle on the Vistula River (Polish: Cud nad Wisłą) also known as the Battle of Warsaw (1920) was needed to secure its independence and stop the Bolshevik's march westward to unite with fellow revolutionaries in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. A British politician and diplomat, Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon (1857-1941) who was a part of the Interallied Mission to Poland during the war (July 1920) called it The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World in the title of a book he published in 1931 (reprinted in 1977 and issued in Polish translation in 1990).

The Russo-Polish War (1919-20), including the decisive Battle of Warsaw (1920) received a lot of attention in scholarly and popular publications, many of which are in the collections of the New York Public Library. Most of them were prepared by Polish authors (mainly after the fall of Communism), and only a few by Russian authors. The topic was also studied by people not affiliated with any of the sides of the conflict, including (in chronological order of their publication):

• G.V. Saint-Dizier, L'aigle blanc contre l'étoile rouge; guerre polonobolchévique en 1920... (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1930).
• Henning Stålhane, Polsk-ryska kriget 1920... (Stockholm: Militärlitteraturföreningens förlag [1930]).
• Norman Davis, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20 (London:  Macdonald and Co., 1972).
• Thomas C. Fiddick, Russia's Retreat from Poland, 1920: From Permanent Revolution to Peaceful Coexistence (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1990).
• Stephan Lehnstaedt, Der vergessene Sieg : der Polnisch-Sowjetische Krieg 1919/20 und die Entstehung des modernen Osteuropa (München : C.H. Beck, 2019).

The Treaty of Riga attracted less interest but it is nevertheless well-covered. First of all, NYPL holds two titles contemporary to the event with the actual text of the treaty published by the opposing sides:

• Comité exécutif de la conférence des membres de la constituante de Russie, Mémoire sur le traité de Riga: conclu entre la Pologne d'une part, le gouvernement des Soviets d'autre part, le 18 mars 1921 (Paris;  ["Presse franco-russe"], 1921).
• Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, Traktat pokoju między Polską a Rosj̜ i Ukrainą, podpisany w Rydze dnia 18 marca 1921 r. I. Tekst główny. II. Umowa repatracyjna. III. Umowa delimitacyjna (Warszawa, F. Hoesick [1921).

An important part of the negotiations dealt with the revindication of economic and cultural goods, a topic which was discussed by Jerzy Kumaniecki. NYPL also holds a partial catalog of works of art and national memorabilia recovered by Poland from Soviet Russia under the Treaty.

Of special interest are the memoirs of Jan Dąbski (1880-1931) who was in charge of the Polish delegation as well as Volodymyr Kedrowsky (1890-1970) who was a Ukrainian National Republic's delegate at the peace negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty. Finally, several works present different points of view on the Treaty itself and its impact on subsequent political developments, including (in chronological order of their publication):

• Prokhor Nikolaevich Olʹshanskii, Rizhskii mir. Iz istorii borʹby Sovetskogo pravitelʹstva za ustanovlenie mirnykh otnoshenii s Polʹshei (konets 1918-mart 1921 g.) (Moskva : "Nauka", 1969).
• Prokhor Nikolaevich Olʹshanskii, Rizhskii dogovor i razvitie sovetsko-pol'skikh otnoshenii 1921-1924 (Moskva: "Nauka", 1974).
• Stanisław A. Dąbrowski, The Peace Treaty of Riga, M.A. Thesis, Fordham University, NY, 1959 also published in The Polish Review 5:1  (1960): 3-34.
• Ivan Zavada, Ryzʹkyi dohovir i Ukraïna (Kyïv: Vydavnychyi tsentr "Prosvita", 2000).
• Sławomir Dębski, ed., Zapomniany pokój : traktat ryski : interpretacje i kontrowersje : 90 lat później (Warszawa : Centrum Polsko-Rosyjskiego Dialogu i Porozumienia, 2013) also published in a Russian translation as: Zabytyi mir: Rizhskii dogovor 1921 goda : interpretatsii i spory (Moskva : Aspekt Press, 2014).
• Jerzy Borzęcki, The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, c2008).

In addition to the above-mentioned publications, two collections in the holdings of the New York Public Library deal with either the Russo-Polish War or the Treaty of Riga.  

The Collection of Russian and Ukrainian Posters for the Years 1917-1921 in NYPL's Rare Books Division is a gift from Dorothy F. and Paul Hall and consists of 104 posters that were gathered by Benjamin Blattner during the years 1922-1923. Some of these posters deal with the war and show the Bolshevik's derogatory view on Poland and its allies, including:

• Belaia Pol'sha i Sovetskaia Rossiia [White Poland and Soviet Russia].
• Iasnovel'mozhnaia Pol'sha - posledniaia sobaka Antanty [Poland - the Last Dog of the Entente].
• Na pomoshch' panam! Poslednie rezervy marshala Fosha [To the Aid of Pans [Landowners]. The Last Reserves of Marshal Foch].
• Svin'ia, dressirovannaia v Parizhe [A Pig Trained in Paris].
• Za Pol'skim Panom idet russkii pomeshchik. Pomni eto, krest'ianin! [Slogan: Behind Polish Pan goes the Russian Landlord. Remember that, Peasant!]

NYPL's Manuscripts and Archives Division holds a unique album of autographs of signatories and others present at the signing of the Treaty of Riga, 1921, presumably kept by a member of the Polish delegation. This item was purchased in 1957 from Julius Kanarek (1901-1968), a soldier in the Polish Legions during World War I and later a lawyer in Warsaw. Since 1939 he lived in New York where he continued to work as a lawyer and was very active in the Polish community.  

A written evaluation of this purchase which was probably prepared by someone from the Slavonic Division states that the item: "...contains brief comments, bon-mots, signatures, etc. of participants, both Polish and Soviet, as well as of several leading Latvian personalities. (....) It can be said that it catches the spirit of war tiredness and compromise which was characteristic of the conference." The first person to sign the album was Jan Dąbski who was followed by Leon Wasilewski (1870-1936) whose family originated not far from Riga and who at that time served as the Polish ambassador to Estonia. While signatures of some of the participants could be used to authenticate this album it also carries a stamp of the Consular Agency of the Polish Mission in Latvia in the City of Dyneburg [Daugavpils].