You do realise there are much better things to rip off right? :)

Moorcock's just fussy man thinkin' everything connected somehow with Wolves and Whiteness is automatically HIS MULTIVERSE RIPOFF ROAR

It's kind of funny.

You are spot on. While I have no idea what books AS have been reading, and when it occurred, prior to the collapse of communism fantasy was almost nonexistent in Poland. Science fiction was always strong here, but communists seemd to view Fantasy as some sort of escapism, harmful to the society, the sign of West's decadence. Seriously. They were trying to protect us. Tolkien have been translated, also A Wizard of Earthsea U. K. Le Guin. And that was all. Except for bunch of fan translated Conan stories.
So when communism collapsed, Poland got flooded with several decades worth of Fantasy. Mostly the things that have been the cheapest to buy the license of. Translations varied, to say the least.
In that conditions Polish Fantasy was born. On the wave of euphoria after regained freedom. When every suggestion of censorship have been seen as a throwback of communism. Thats why our today Fantasy is somewhat different rthe American one. Full of sex, among other things :-)

I never knew this, that's amazing.

Sapkowski is a voracious reader (as is any good writer), and he has been pretty open about what authors have influenced him. Roger Zelazny and Raymond Chandler figure large, and there's much of Chandler's hard-boiled Marlowe in Geralt.

But you're right, he pretty much had to create the fantasy genre in Polish out of whole cloth, since there wasn't anything of the kind when he wrote the first Witcher stories.

Actually I was there guys... born and raised in Poland I was 16 when red curtain dropped.
You are right in saying that there was very few western books for reading.

Both my parents and I were a vivid science fiction and fantasy readers and seeing more than one western book every two to three months (and even then those were sold under the counter) was considered lucky. Which of course does not mean you could not import the stuff (bring it with you during some sort of official travels or have friends from oversees mail you something).

Remember, there was no amazon.com, no internet, no freedom of speech and expression and so forth, so I would recommend not to apply modern standards to those years gone by…