The book of the famous Polish publicist, journalist and politician Stanislav Tsat-Mackiewicz (1896-1966) "The Polish catastrophe of 1939 and its causes" includes three vivid texts of the author ("Europe at the crime scene," "Thought in ticks," "Beck's politics"), united by an original author's approach to assessing key events in the history of Poland, Russia and Europe during the first four centuries of the twentieth century. The author explores in detail the strategic and tactical reasons for the tragic events of 1939 for the Polish statehood, paying attention to the policy of the interwar authorities of Warsaw and especially the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1932-1939. Colonel Jozef Beck, and on the unfavorable configuration of international relations in Europe for Poland, rooted in the situation that developed even before the First World War and significantly changed in the interwar period in the era of difficult relations between Warsaw and Moscow and Berlin. The author's approach compares favorably for the better against the background of modern speculation and falsifications of difficult events of the first half of the twentieth century. The book can be useful to students of historical faculties, teachers and everyone interested in recent history.