A biography of Antoni Patek – a participant in the November Uprising, activist of the Great Emigration and co-creator of the enterprise that became the Patek Philippe manufacture. It is the story of a nineteenth-century Polish entrepreneur set against the economic and social history of the age. The book brought the author the Literary Magazine “Książki” Award in the non-fiction category and a nomination for the Polityka Passports for a debut.
Beniamin Czapla presents Patek not only as the maker of a brand, but as a man of the Great Emigration: a soldier, organiser, employer and participant in social networks that linked Poles in Switzerland and across Europe. The history of the firm becomes part of the history of economy and society in the 19th century – capital, reputation, mobility and identity abroad.
Readers follow the path from the November Uprising to Geneva and then to the international prestige of the enterprise. In the background stand the economic realities of exile, relations with partners (including Franciszek Czapek) and the ways Polish entrepreneurs built recognition in a world without their own state.
Based on this publication, a dramatized documentary film “Antoni Patek – Patriot and Watchmaker”, directed by Krzysztof Paluszyński, was made in 2024.