Polish Himalayan climbing took its first steps long before the first eight-thousand-metre peak was scaled. Later, when the climbing world set out to conquer the Himalaya, Poles were stuck in a difficult socialist reality. Thanks to a great passion for mountains, Polish mountaineers broke through the barrier of the Iron Curtain. In frantic competition with Western climbers and chasing their own dreams, they helped define Himalayan climbing for the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The golden age of Polish Himalayanism left no successors, though; Polish Himalayan climbing was only reactivated after 2000. This article works with published source material to present the history of Polish activity in the highest mountains in the world, including the golden age of Polish Himalayanism and its influence on the current form of Polish activity in the Himalaya.
