Zygmunt Kaczkowski

There is a consensus that this accomplished writer is today a forgotten figure of Polish literature, virtually erased from national consciousness (one of the "absent greats"—wielcy nieobecni).

One of the most important works of Kaczkowski was Olbrachtowi rycerze ("Olbracht's Knights"; Paris, 1889), a historical novel in three volumes written, it is said, in response to the famous Trilogy of Henryk Sienkiewicz, a writer with whom in his day he was esteemed as an equal.

His cover was blown in December 1863 when a partly encrypted diplomatic cable sent from Lwów to the central government in Vienna by Count Mensdorff-Pouilly, the Austrian steward of Galicia, was intercepted at the Lwów post-office and deciphered by the Polish underground, supposedly revealing the surname "Kaczkowski" (encoded with a monoalphabetic substitution cipher, without the first name being indicated) in the context of certain payments to be made to a person of that name.

[10] Indeed, the verdict against him was itself very promptly rescinded on appeal by the highest organs of the (underground) national government in Warsaw, and although a review of the case never took place, he lived out his days, chiefly in Paris, a man exonerated by default.

[13] There is a consensus of opinion that this accomplished writer is today a forgotten figure of Polish literature, virtually erased from national consciousness (one of the "absent greats"—wielcy nieobecni), on account of the non-literary aspects of his biography.