THE SARMATIAN REVIEW
Vol. XXVI, No. 3 September 2006 The Poles as “Others”
“The people whose stories we shall never hear.” From the Sarmatian Review archives. 1226 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006
The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059- Polish Political Diaspora and the Polish system that does not put power and 5872) is a triannual publication of the Polish Institute Americans, 1939–1956 (review). . 1237 wealth first. Its strangeness reminds us of Houston. The journal deals with Polish, Central, Piotr Wrobel, The Massacre at Jedwabne, that our own discourse is not a universal and Eastern European affairs, and it explores their one. Nor is Van Norman just a flatterer— implications for the United States. We specialize in July 10, 1941:Before, During, and After the translation of documents.Sarmatian Review is (review)...... 1238 his ennumeration of Polish shortcomings indexed in the American Bibliography of Slavic and James E. Bjork, Religion and the Rise of sounds familiar even today. East European Studies, EBSCO, and P.A.I.S. Nationalism: A Profile of an East-Central Among these shortcomings is a International Database. From January 1998 on, files slowness to get one’s act together in the in PDF format are available at the Central and Eastern European City (review)...... 1240 European Online Library (www.ceeol.com). Bogdan Czaykowski, Polskie wizje Europy political arena, as well as disregard for Subscription price is $15.00 per year for individuals, w XIX i XX wieku (review) ...... 1242 public relations. Polish politicians seem $21.00 for institutions and libraries ($21.00 for Jonathan Z. Ludwig, Polish Encounters, to ignore the image of Polish politics they individuals, $28.00 for libraries overseas, air mail). have been creating inside the country and The views expressed by authors of articles do not Russian Identity (review)...... 1244 necessarily represent those of the editors or of the Agata Brajerska-Mazur, Warsaw Tales abroad. The 2005 elections in Poland Polish Institute of Houston. Articles are subject to 2006: New Europe Writers’ Ink (review) . . brought to power a party (PiS, or the Law editing. Unsolicited manuscripts and other materials ...... 1246 and Justice Party) that, for the first time are not returned unless accompanied by a self- in postcommunist history, had no ties in addressed and stamped envelope. Please submit your Mary Ann Furno, Encounters: Philosophy contribution electronically and send a printout by air of History after Postmodernism (review). . the establishment of “People’s Poland.” mail. Letters to the Editor can be e-mailed to ...... 1247 Upon coming to power PiS proclaimed
Dariusz Skórczewski The zone where the natives live is not complementary to the zone inhabited by the settlers. The two zones are opposed, but not in the service of a higher unity. Obedient to the rule astorp by Paweł Huelle, Poland’s most of Aristotelian logic, they both follow the principle of accomplished contemporary writer (1), has reciprocal exclusivity. No conciliation is possible, for of the C frequently been interpreted as a counterpart to two terms, one is superfluous. The town belonging to the Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. A reader of colonized people, or at least the native town. . . is a place of Mann’s novel may remember that before his arrival at ill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. . . .The colonized Davos, Hans Castorp spent four terms as a student at man is an envious man. And this the settler knows very well; the Danzig Polytechnic. It is around this digression that when their glances meet he ascertains bitterly, always on the Huelle builds his plot, inserting into the biography of defensive, “They want to take our place.”(2) Mann’s protagonist an extensive Gdaƒsk-based episode. Both Polish and German critics have praised Gdaƒsk in Castorp is, in fact, more than just a Huelle for his skilful exploitation of literary tradition provincial melting pot bearing some marks of a and for revitalizing the myth of Gdaƒsk with its splendid Hanseatic past. Viewed through the distinctive atmosphere and surroundings. They have protagonist’s eyes, the town seems to comply perfectly focused on recognizing Mann’s motifs such as time, with the criteria of literary representation of colonized narrator, and philosophy as vital elements of Huelle’s space defined by Fanon. Dominated by the Germans, story. Let me suggest an excursion in a different it has Prussian barracks with Prussian soldiers and a direction by answering the following question: Why newly established German university with German and did Paweł Huelle write Castorp? This question can also Prussian students. Every street and building is filled be reversed as follows: Why would it have been with things German. However, the town constitutes a impossible for Thomas Mann to write Castorp? I treat space that is heterogeneous, with an array of impervious the second question as tautological with regard to the zones. Viewed by Castorp the biker, the indigenous first. However, I am not interested in exploring Polish and Kashubian people constitute an enclave psychological or biographical aspects of either novel. driven to the margin of the world and its spatial The situation of Huelle’s Castorp reminds one of Jean representation. They occupy limited areas and do not Rhys and her celebrated Wide Sargasso Sea. In that mix with the dominating population of Germans: novel the canonical narrative of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is challenged through the switching of perspectives. Both Kashubians and Poles alike, none of whom he was able to discern by language, were for him as grey dust: By giving voice to Antoinette Cosway, the actual name of covered long ago with pavement, only at times to unveil its the animal-like and repulsive Bertha Rochester in Bronte’s existence in assigned areas.(3) work, Rhys invites her audience to a contrapuntal rereading of Bertha’s traumatic life story as told from her Hans Castorp does not confine himself to the own non-British perspective. This is how Rhys “writes exploration of the town, however. He draws strong back” to Bronte and to the colonial discourse encapsulated aesthetic impulses from his frequent outings to the in Jane Eyre. In Wide Sargasso Sea we see the polemic woods and countryside, where he finds delight in response by the former British colony to the dominating contemplating alien (i.e., Polish) landscapes. In the image of the periphery as solidified in the master narratives relevant descriptions specific tropes and figures are of the metropolitan center. drawn from Polish literary discourse that are familiar I argue that Paweł Huelle’s novel should be viewed to Polish audiences, such as the weeping willows, storks from a similar position. The Gdaƒsk-based episode of in the meadow, and birch groves. However, these Castorp attracts readers’ attention by the unique specifically Polish elements are configured in a way postcolonial perspective from which the novel personae that breaks with their two standard functions: emotional 1230 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 and identifying. Castorp admires foreign landscapes We are frequently reminded by the novel’s characters from a perspective approaching that defined by Edward that the era of colonization left its mark on the novel’s Said as “Oriental.” The subject’s attitude toward the setting. Pastor Gropius, “having spent twenty years in observed objects reflects his fascination, which can be the midst of the blackest tribes of Bantustan” (14), is described as that of a conqueror who through an offered a parish near Gdaƒsk that is in close proximity epistemological act appropriates the exotic and to the metropolitan center. Another character, Kiekernix stimulating territory. The space of Gdaƒsk and vicinity the Dutch merchant who reaps profits from trading with penetrated by Castorp and his peers appears to exist overseas colonies, informs his copassengers about the only to bring excitement to the young generation of peripheral status of Gdaƒsk, a “provincial shithole with conquerors as they traverse its vast and uncivilized no theatre up to a certain measure” (15). The dialogue tracts. Franz Schubert’s song “Das Wandern” sung by of these two characters is quite revealing. The pastor Castorp during one of his excursions seals this act of gives a speech in defence of German imperialism where appropriation. This piece by a German composer he equates this imperialism with the “civilising becomes the most appropriate textual instrument to mission,” the universal argument of every spokesperson reflect the emotions aroused by his encounter with for the colonial enterprise. The rhetoric of la mission typically Polish landscapes. The reader receives a clear civilisatrice reproduces figures of speech widely message that while nature is the domain of periphery, employed by British or French writers and politicians culture belongs to metropolis. of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: “We The importance of spatial arrangement for the came late to Asia and Africa, that’s true. But how about postcolonial overtones in Huelle’s novel is already Eastern Europe? For centuries we have been carrying demonstrated in the novel’s exposition. The opening the law, order, harmony of art and technique. Without interaction between Hans Castorp and his uncle reveals us the Slavs would long ago have fallen into anarchy. the latter’s views on the East, which are so characteristic It is thanks to our benevolence that they find their place of imperial discourse. As a matter of fact, by so doing in the family named civilization and culture” (23). Huelle revives Mann’s perspective in The Magic Kiekernix offers an immediate riposte that seems to Mountain that presented the classically Orientalist imitate some arguments by the more aggressive image of the East in the enigmatic Claudia Chauchat. postcolonial critics. I quote it in extenso as it lays out In Castorp, the East is a formidable territory where the direction in which Paweł Huelle develops his unpredictable events may occur, a realm in which narrative: “Ladies and gents, please imagine that one “forms which have been worked out with much day an armada of foreign, Indian, or Chinese vessels difficulty may plunge into chaos” (8). By warning his calls at Amsterdam. . . . They force us to worship their nephew, Uncle Tiennaple duplicates the standard God, they kill our king, rape our women, and drive our representations of the East’s lurking temptations and men to coalmines or plantations. Syphilis, smallpox, dangers that await an unwitting newcomer. These quinsy, cheap vodka, and opium do the rest. Then their representations proliferate in a great many imperial preacher tells us to thank them for their care through literatures: “Please, consider how easy it is to deviate which we found ourselves in the family of civilization from a once-taken road. An insignificant word, an instant and culture. . . . That’s exactly how Indians, Asians, of weakness, a moment of oblivion may all ruin the efforts and blacks feel today” (23). of many years. In the East these things simply happen And we may add: so do Kashubians and Poles. In more often, although one cannot rationally prove it” (10). this remarkable passage, the postcolonial problematic Interestingly enough, the prophecy encapsulated in is powerfully brought into the very core of the novel. this warning is fulfilled in the novel. Castorp eventually Kiekernix’s voice fixes the plot of Castorp in the does succumb to the East in a way that imitates the sociopolitical reality of the early twentieth century widely exploited literary representation of the Orient. according to the established patterns of literary In his dream the East is embodied in a tempting woman representation in British, French, or German writings with a sensual scent of musk and “delicately protruding of the time. Such patterns were thoroughly examined cheekbones that, together with the peculiar, slightly in Said’s Orientalism. This is where Huelle’s respect whimsical expression of her mouth, set an exotic allure for the principles of spatial organization in colonial of her face, an ambiguous and attracting strangeness” discourse ends. From this point on in Castorp we (95, my italics). encounter examples of the transgression of those Orientalizing clichés. For the title hero the Prussian September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1231 presence in Gdaƒsk is an unpleasant burden. Castorp’s clerk, a most unfortunate person ridiculed by those attempt at crossing the boundary of urban space during around him because of his Polish accent, is driven to his outing ends with only a qualified success because suicide. Dr. Ankewitz, a Polish exile from the Russian of his accidental and undesired encounter with his partition, can start his psychiatric practice in the German German peers. Further, Castorp’s position as an outsider empire only due to his perfect command of German. is by no means a satisfying explanation of the mode in The hegemony of the language, however, is which the Germans are introduced in the particularly powerfully challenged in Huelle. The first instance of shaped scenery. Clearly playing the role of an transgression occurs when Castorp meets a poor “understanding link” between the two separated zones, Kashubian boy. At first the boy is depicted in full the protagonist distances himself from his compatriots, conformity to the well-established pattern of imperial especially those who represent the chauvinist Prussian narrative: his body ragged, and his “bare feet shoed mentality. This distance is powerfully manifested with flimsy sandals” (50). Similar to the Arabs through the arrangement of the novel’s scenery. described by Albert Camus, he remains anonymous, In Huelle’s novel Castorp strolls along the streets of with no certain identity. Despite his subalternity, Gdaƒsk and Sopot performing typical acts of however, the boy bests Castorp by his language perception. Despite his young age and a certain competence, the lack of which the latter painfully philosophical immaturity (he has not met Naphta, who realizes in their conversation. In an imperial novel the will inspire him to seek answers to most vital protagonist would most likely dismiss this questions), he is richer than his Mann-invented confrontation with some denigrating comments on the predecessor because he experiences an encounter with Poles’ undeveloped civilization, or the barbarism of the culture of an oppressed nation. From this the obscure and rustling Polish speech, or the perspective, the novel can be briefly summarized as a supremacy of the Prussian educational system that process of Castorp’s maturing through his discovery imposes the language of the colonizer over the of his own identity as a member of a nation that colonized, thus fulfilling the civilizing mission. exercises authority over the population of Poles and Castorp, though, does none of these. Rather, he gives Kashubians, both of whom are viewed as inferior. This himself up to the strange feeling of “not having access thread is very subtly interwoven with Huelle’s plot. to that which for others is as obvious as the air” (51). Part of this cognitive process refers to the novel’s The second instance of the break-up with language space. Although certain areas such as hotels and ships domination is manifested in the relationship between are marked by German names, most places bear Polish Mrs. Wybe and her Kashubian housekeeper. Kaszibke names. Instead of “Soppot” or “Danzig” we have Sopot does away with the stereotype that is so commonplace and Gdaƒsk. In a similar vein “ulica Kasztanowa” in literatures of all empires, one of subalternity of a (Chestnut Street) is not replaced with servant who is silent and has no right to voice his/her “Kastanienstrasse.” For a newcomer from a own opinions. Kaszibke reverses the traditional order. metropolitan center, this space continually Although taught the piano by her mistress (so that the demonstrates its inherent strangeness, mysteriousness, educational mission of the colonial enterprise can be and impenetrability. The space extends itself onto other carried out), the Kashubian girl actually takes over areas of the nonexistent Poland. As Castorp becomes through her simple yet forceful language. It is Kaszibke directly involved in the novel’s intrigue, we see his and not Mrs. Wybe who actually holds power in the finger traversing a map of Russia, searching for Lublin. home where Castorp rents his room. In this way yet Leaving space, we now move on to the language. again, the metropolitan hegemony over peripheries is The sentence “Only German is spoken here!” (108) questioned. Kaszibke seems to display the ambivalent graphically points to the symbolic role played by effect of colonization. She is the colonizer’s mirror language in the novel. In Castorp, German is an image, yet this image is somewhat distorted and instrument of hegemony incorporating the famous caricatural in accordance with what Homi Bhabha dictum by Fanon that “A man who has a language described as “mimicry.”(5) The colonized’s behavior consequently possesses the world expressed and is copied by the colonizer, yet this imitation is deeply implied by that language”(4). In the novel German subversive as it bears traces of mockery and menace. clearly is the language of power. When contaminated, Consequently, the authority of colonial discourse as it must be unmercifully rejected not only for the sake represented by Mrs. Wybe is threatened and the colonial of purity but also to maintain power. The university’s domination is destabilized. 1232 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 The third instance of the transgression of colonial dependence on Castorp. Instead, she gains domination narrative in terms of language is related to the over him, first by destabilizing his burgher lifestyle by mysterious Wanda Pilecka. Although Polish, her becoming a hidden object of his desire, and then by position in the novel is one of an outspoken partner halting their acquaintance with an elegant, yet firm, rather than a silent representative of a subjugated gesture. The erotic thread between Wanda and the nation, as seen in her free multilingual conversations German has an equivocal ending: on the one hand, it at the table. Devastated by Pilecka’s charm, the breaks the stereotype of mutual perception of the two protagonist seeks to discover her true identity, and it is nations, while on the other it lends support to one of by the language that he is led astray to consider her as the foundational Polish myths—that of a legendary Russian. This is how we come to the third aspect in ninth-century Wanda who refused to marry a German. which the colonial dimension of Castorp is overcome— It is important for the postcolonial interpretation of the problem of identity. the novel to trace the evolution of Castorp’s Castorp is astonished by the discovery of Wanda’s consciousness. His biography emphasizes his affiliation true nationality. His bewilderment grows even larger with the center of the German empire. Theodor as he finds out that her lover is a Russian officer. This Fontane’s Effi Briest, a novel stolen from Wanda by destroys the stereotypical image of Polish-Russian the protagonist, invokes memories, among which the relations based on Castorp’s rudimentary knowledge imperial myth is brought to the fore. “His own life, of Poland’s history. This knowledge only reiterates the growing in the shade of harbour cranes and oceanic clichÈs of German imperial education of the time: “In ships, stock market, world business and colonial gymnasium he had one lesson on the history of Poland: merchandise, all of a sudden seemed full of light anarchy and alcoholism of the noblemen led to partition comparing to the rutted sandy road in Pomerania” (113). as this ulcer in the very midst of Europe had to be Castorp obviously comes from the center where quickly cut out for hygienic reasons” (184). civilization, power, capital, and prosperity coexist in In the novel the knowledge of the subjugated ethnic harmony, to the peripheries where those values are groups, such as Poles and Kashubians, is an element challenged by different values that he has only begun of the discourse of power. It encompasses to discover, principally through his fascination with historiography, anthropology, and ethnology, and the charming stranger. It is interesting to note that resembles the writings on the conquered peoples as before Castorp meets Pilecka, Poles are almost absent collected and conveyed by British, French, or German from the plot. The hero and his environment consist scientists, writers, and travelers. As Said pointed out, mostly of Germans, while the exotic peoples of the this knowledge is never a neutral and disinterested East appear only to reaffirm the purpose of colonial description. On the contrary, its purpose is to solidify discourse, which according to Bhabha is “to construe the power over the object of studies. Huelle’s novel the colonized as a population of degenerate types . . . seems to follow this pattern. To paraphrase Said, in in order to justify conquest.”(7) The shocking Castorp Germans do know Poles and Poles are that assassination of a German goldsmith by a Polish which is known by the Germans(6) and exist only apprentice and his fiancée that makes the local insofar as they are narrated. This is how we come to headlines fits this paradigm perfectly. realize the importance of the evolution of the When Wanda and her Russian lover enter the scene, protagonist’s awareness of the postcolonial overtones a “Polish-Russian knot” (185) is tied together to of the novel. Castorp’s deeper acquaintance with the broaden Castorp’s horizons and shift the narrative onto Poles affords them a more subjective and autonomous a postcolonial plane. The protagonist is presented as a status in the novel. newcomer from a metropolis who arrives at peripheries This is how Wanda Pilecka, a representative of the in order to deconstruct the imperial myth and discover nation whose colonization seemed legitimate and even the actual identity of the subjugated peoples, which in advantageous in the light of Castorp’s education, is turn allows him to realize his own identity. Huelle puts elevated to the position of his partner. To be sure, she him in an entire array of relations to other characters appears as a person who is visibly relaxed—an unusual and situations that question his canonical image of feature for a member of a colonized nation. Although Germany and imperial Europe. Castorp comes to the she shares some parts of her biography and even thanks realization that he belongs to a colonizing nation, and him for providing her an alibi, Wanda never loses her this discovery is a matter of disgust rather than pride dignity and neither does she fall into any kind of to him. The process of gaining this awareness September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1233 constitutes a vital layer of Huelle’s fiction. It finds its BOOKS Books apogee in the symbolic gesture of the rejection of both German and Russian imperialism on the final pages of Hyphenated Catholicism: A Study of the Role of the the novel. Having encountered these two imperial Polish-American Model of Church, 1890–1908, by discourses, woven into a lecture on Goethe and a Casimir J. Wozniak. San Francisco-London: Catholic Russian textbook respectively, Castorp demystifies Scholars Press, 1998. xi + 277 pages. Two appendices them and ostentatiously refuses to participate in the and a bibliography. ISBN 1-57309-140-5. Hardcover. colonial enterprise represented by them. his is a solid work of derivative scholarship. From The elements of Huelle’s novel discussed in this this book I learned more about early Polish paper demonstrate that, although in many ways T immigration to America than from all other books on indebted to Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, the topic I have read, including Kruszka‘s, Baker‘s, Castorp is a product of a literary consciousness of the and the twentieth-century compilations. Wozniak is a postcolonial era. The author dexterously exploits reliable scholar: he footnotes and annotates narrative strategies of colonial discourse only in order conscientiously. At the same time, the book reminds to enter into polemics with this discourse and offer a one that the Polish American problems are under- novel perspective, one that was unattainable for Mann. theorized and that most books on the subject do not As a consequence, Huelle wrote a postcolonial novel. articulate anything in a novel or captivating way and The final nachgeschichte, consisting of some snapshots instead, summarize and rephrase the available sources. of Gdaƒsk’s complex history throughout the twentieth The book starts with the cogent assumption that century, leads to the following conclusion: the Gdaƒsk- Polish immigrants differed from other immigrants to based episode in Castorp’s biography has been narrated America because of their strongly maintained ties to from a perspective accessible only to a writer of our the Polish language and culture, and their strong time, that is, a perspective brought into existence only adherence to Catholicism (grounded in their after the demise of the German and Soviet empires in Polishness). The Poles came from partitioned, that is, that part of the globe. One should only hope that colonized Poland, and they clung to their national German critics, so enthusiastic about the perfect identity to express their defiance of Protestant and imitation of Mann’s style by Huelle and the rapacious Prussia on the one hand, and Orthodox, reconstruction of Gdaƒsk’s and Sopot’s ambience at rapacious, and destructive Russia on the other. They the turn of the century, will spot this dimension of the remained Catholics because they were Polish. The novel, thereby breaking the silence surrounding the author correctly observes that the American church German “white colonialism.” ∆ hierarchy did not understand this unique symbiosis of religious and national identity, and exerted no effort to NOTES 1. Teresa Halikowska-Smith, “The Past as Palimpsest: accommodate it. the Gdaƒsk school of writers in the 1980s and Wozniak concentrates on the patriarchal and 1990s,” Sarmatian Review, vol. XXIII, no. 1 medieval aspect of the Catholic Polish parishes in (January 2003). America, and on the tension between secular Polish 2. Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated organizations and this patriarchal model of religious by Constance Farrington (Harmondsworth: organization. He refrains from stating forcefully that Penguin, 1990), 3rd ed., p. 39. by destroying the ethnic parishes and eradicating the 3. Paweł Huelle, Castorp (Gdaƒsk: Słowo/obraz Polish language from church services, the Irish and terytoria, 2004), p. 160. All translations from Polish German bishops in the United States destroyed a good are my own, references in brackets. deal of Catholic identity. This conclusion leaps at the 4. F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986), p. 18. reader from the pages of this book, but Dr. Wozniak is 5. H. K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London- too mild a person to accuse anyone outside the Polish New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 86. community of doing anything wrong. The fact that 6. E. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, n.d.), p. segments of the Polish community broke away from 34. the Catholic Church to form the National Polish 7. H. Bhabha, Location of Culture, p. 70. Catholic Church, or that Polish Americans today have become cafeteria Catholics no less than their German American or Irish American counterparts, is due largely to the action of those non-Polish bishops who banned 1234 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 the Polish language from Sunday schools and from Kosciuszko Rising. While Mickiewicz pulled at the liturgies in the predominantly Polish American sleeve of Pope Gregory XVI during his Vatican audience, churches. Wozniak makes it clear that the church he and others wrote poetry reflecting deep Catholic hierarchy made no effort to provide Polish communities spirituality. The educated classes were perhaps more with Polish-speaking priests. There is no evidence that democratically inclined than the Polish clergy, who eagerly the bishops ever tried to negotiate with their Polish lapped up the deference extended to them by the peasants. coreligionists matters such as church ownership and It does not occur to Wozniak to explore the implications administration, or that they tried to promote ascendance of this submissiveness to priests and the passivity which to higher church functions (bishoprics, for instance) it bred. He assumes that it indicated deep religiosity. of the Polish American priests. Wozniak does not spell One is struck by the absence in this book (and in the out these matters clearly (perhaps being a priest has Polish American model of the church that Wozniak something to do with it—he does not want to criticize discusses) of any discernible links to the rich intellectual the hierarchy too boldly), but they jump at the reader tradition of Catholicism. There are no discussions as the obvious implications of many situations here mentioned, no names invoked. If Polish Catholic life in described. Instead of quoting John Courtney Murray, America was indeed so isolated, from intellectual currents Wozniak quotes a priest of dubious Catholic orthodoxy, of the Church in Poland and elsewhere, this should have Fr. Richard O’Brien, as an authority on what the been mentioned and criticized. In particular, the passivity American Church was and should be, like. Again, Fr. of the Polish Catholic community in America concerning O’Brien is as remote as can be from the problems of the elevation to sainthood of various holy men and women Polish American Catholics; indeed, from the problems of Poland should have been discussed. The only instance of Catholics of non-Western European descent. of Polish American activity within the universal Church In summarizing Polish American history, Wozniak mentioned in Wozniak’s book is a feeble movement to relies excessively on declarations and public statements have a Polish American bishop ordained. How pathetic. (usually made at meetings and conventions), and he Unlike Pope Benedict XVI, who recently called on Poles does not sufficiently investigate practical to be more active in the universal Church and proselytize implementation of these declarations. There is too little more, Wozniak is perfectly content to leave Polish emphasis on case research and too much reliance on American Catholics to follow whoever happens to be what some relatively insignificant chronicler wrote in intellectually and spiritually alive in the Church. his/her book or article. Wozniak does not care to suggest The book’s style strikes one as excessively humble. any further perspectives or avenues of research, and The author is knowledgeable and bright, yet he he makes no substantive comparisons to other Catholic manages to create an undercurrent of the “excuse me minorities and their ways of solving the problem of for living” or “excuse the Poles for existing” tone so acculturation in America. Wozniak’s contribution prevalent in Polish American publications. One misses consists in providing a very competent summary of here the “I matter” tone which is so clearly heard in what earlier authors said. All the stereotypes about the writings of clergy of English or German Polish social classes and their attitude to Catholicism background. Apparently Wozniak would be perfectly are unquestioningly accepted. A more critical approach content if Polish Americans continued to feel like the poor would have yielded a richer harvest. For instance, the immigrants they once were, without any aspirations to oft-repeated truism that the Polish intelligentsia and leadership in the ecclesiastical arena. (sb) nobility were not religious whereas the Polish peasantry The Orange Ribbon: A Calendar of the Political Crisis was bears scrutiny. Wozniak does not seem to in Ukraine, Autumn 2004, compiled by Wojciech distinguish between genuine spirituality on the one Stanisławski. Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies hand, and somewhat mechanical church attendance on (www.osw.waw.pl), 2005. 126 pages. Paper. the other. The peasants’ knowledge of their faith was What the title says: an accurate record of what happened often skin-deep. W. S. Reymont’s novel The Peasants in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution. Poland would [1904–09, awarded the Nobel in 1924] shows this not be Poland if it did not generously support the cause of clearly. The peasants were deferential to their priests, freedom of its eastern neighbors. The book is carefully and their social life centered around the church, but prepared and meticulously copyedited. But—why does this does not necessarily indicate deep religiosity. It this book not have an ISBN number? In the twenty-first was not the nobility but the common men and women century, this sentences the book to nonexistence except of Warsaw that hanged a few traitor bishops during the for a very narrow circle of readers. September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1235 Literatura polska w Êwiecie: zagadnienia recepcji i the USSR. Unlike the Hungarians, the Italians, the odbioru, edited by Romuald Cudak. Katowice: Gnome Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Slovaks, the Chetniks, Publishers (ul. Drzymały 18/6, 40-059 Katowice, Poland), the Croats, and numerous others, the Poles had made a 2006. 308 pages. ISBN 83-87819-74-3. Paper. moral commitment not to shake hands with the Nazi A collection of papers on the presence of Polish devil come what may. The Soviets were bad, as bad as literature in various countries of the world. The papers the Nazis. But the Poles determined to go against were given at a 2005 conference hosted by the Machiavellian realpolitik and do the decent thing. In University of Silesia. this case, doing the decent thing was to make an alliance with the British and the French. They assumed that their allies would also do the decent thing. That their allies would sit on their hands during the September 1939 Rising ’44 invasion of Poland by both the Germans and the Russians The Battle for Warsaw was simply beyond the comprehension of the leaders of what Chamberlain had called “this virile race.” During the invasion of Poland, the Western Front was an empty By Norman Davies [2003]. London: Penguin, 2006. xxix + shell manned by veterans of the First World War. The plan, 752 pages. Index, maps. ISBN 0-14- 303540-1. Paper. $18.00. agreed upon with the British and French, was that while German strength was being expended on the Eastern Front, James R. Thompson the British and French would attack Germany from the west. It did not happen. No British soldier died fighting he book is a carefully researched and argued the Germans during the entire blitzkrieg of Poland. The Tindictment of the Churchill government Polish leadership, one would have thought, might have concerning its treatment of the Poles during the Warsaw learned something from this sorry fact. Rising against the Germans by the Armia Krajowa (Home Army). The generally accepted view of historians The strategic mistake of the Poles was to trust their is that the uprising was an ill-conceived, romantic exercise British allies to support a rising that ostensibly had of the Polish commander General Bór-Komorowski. The the full backing of Churchill and about which the truth is something dramatically different. British had full knowledge in all stages of planning. Those expecting a page-turning account of the Rising itself should look elsewhere (the old Wajda movie The Poles, stabbed in the back by the Soviet Russian Kanal is not a bad choice). This is not a book of military invasion of 17 September 1939, determined to fight history. This is a historical, almost a legal, brief. Davies on. Thousands escaped to France, following a torturous demonstrates that the Rising was not some hairbrained course through Romania. Many thousand others left scheme, hastily and poorly planned. Rather, it was the gulags, on sufferance from Stalin, to exit through consistent with the policy of the Polish government, Iran, joining the fight in North Africa, Italy, and France. in exile and underground, to oppose the German The Polish 303 squadron, as acknowledged by British occupation of Poland. No other occupied nation was Air Marshall Dowding, might well have made the as active in underground acts of resistance against the difference in the Battle of Britain. Poles, after the Nazis. No other nation suffered such retribution for its British, the Americans, and the Soviets, furnished the acts of resistance. And it is most important to note that largest number of combatants in the fight against Hitler. the Warsaw Rising was planned in coordination with (Not bad for an occupied country.) As allies, the Poles the Allied attacks on the Reich. were beyond steadfast. The strategic mistake of the Poles was to trust their General De Gaulle had insisted on independent British allies to support a rising that ostensibly had the French control of French forces stationed anywhere. full backing of Churchill and about which the British De Gaulle had learned from the evacuation command, had full knowledge in all stages of planning. In Texas “Anglais, à droite. Français, à gauche” at Dunkirk. we have an old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. The much larger Polish force put 240,000 seasoned Fool me twice, shame on me.” In this regard only, soldiers directly under British command. An exception shame on the Armia Krajowa, shame on the Polish to this was the First Independent Parachute Brigade of government in exile, and shame on General Bór. General Stanisław Sosabowski. This was a rapid Before the Second World War, the Poles had rejected deployment force to be used only in support of a rising the German invitation to join in a general invasion of 1236 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 in Poland and only on Polish soil. Instead, it was were frequently taking Polish battle messages and dropped into Arnhem in broad daylight, three days into editing them as they were being passed back and forth Montgomery’s hairbrained Operation Market Garden, from London to Poland on British transmitters. without artillery. They were used as a diversionary A major argument of Davies’ book would appear to sacrifice to allow evacuation of the trapped British First be that, assuming the British were good allies, the Parachute Division. Armia Krajowa plans for the Warsaw Rising were quite All this was in the middle of the Warsaw Rising, reasonable. The Poles knew full well that the Soviets, precisely the event for which Sosabowski’s force had who had been a major part of the invasion (into Poland) been created in the first place. Of course, Sosabowski force in 1939, were treacherous in the extreme. But demanded to have his brigade dropped into a staging for this very reason, it was essential that the world see area near Warsaw. But, “It simply isn’t on, Old Boy.” Poles playing a major role in the liberation of Warsaw. And “Monty really is counting on you chaps in What was the consequence of Anglo-American Arnhem.” And, the inevitable, “It is, after all, the same liberation of Paris? Simply that the French took over war. The quicker Germany is defeated, the quicker their country from the Germans. What was the Poland will be free. You must fight where you are consequence of a Russian “liberation” of Warsaw? A needed most.” All this while the SS were slaughtering replacement of the Germans by the Soviets. A Warsawians at rates sometimes as high as 20,000 per substitution for the Gestapo by the KGB. day. And the KGB were preparing death lists for the Of course, it was to be expected that Stalin would Armia Krajowa against that day they found it deny refueling rights to Allied aircraft supporting the convenient to cross the Vistula. Armia Krajowa in Warsaw. A rather easy bluff to call. Why were the Poles so pliable in doing the bidding Were the Russians really going to seize American and of the British? No one can say for sure. But the fact is British aircraft and their crews at that stage of the war? that the Polish government in London exile felt Unlikely. Even if the embargo were genuine, the Allies comfortable with their British hosts. As so many others, were bombing Königsberg, roughly the same round trip the Poles were easily coopted by the tweedy fox- distance from the southeast of England. From Brindisi, hunting squirearchy of England. Carton de Wiart, the Italy, the round trip was 1,600 miles. South Africans, British legate to Poland during the 1920 Bolshevik War, Polish, and British crews did successfully make such had been more Polish than any Pole, incredibly brave, relief flights when they were permitted by the Allied incredibly noble, a true szlachcic in spirit. Poles judged High Command to do so. The fact is that Churchill did him to be a prototype of the British governmental not want to expend resources to support the Poles aristocracy. The Poles were mistaken. They might have fighting in Warsaw. Just let them charge the enemy done well to have had a chat with their Australian and unsupported the way the Australians and New New Zealand colleagues concerning the Churchill Zealanders had done thirty years earlier at Gallipoli. prototype, much the more typical of British statecraft. If the British knew they were not going to provide Churchill showed himself, as he had at Gallipoli in the logistical support to the Poles (and they did); if they First World War, to be willing to fight to the last ally, thought the Russians might reasonably stall their crossing be it ANZAC, South African, Sikh, Ghurka, Canadian, of the Vistula until the Germans had wiped out the Armia American, or Pole (here Davies would also include Krajowa fighters (and they did); if they knew that even Welshmen, Scots, and Irishmen, whom he rightly Sosabowski’s force was to be denied the right to drop categorizes as members of the British Near Abroad). into Warsaw (and they did), then why did they not tell the Allies were to be expended as needed, with the British Poles so that the rising could be called off? What is worse Empire being the worthy beneficiary of their sacrifices. than an ally who tells you to count on him and then sits on Although Poles had proven to be master his hands while you are being slaughtered? cryptographers, having cracked the German Enigma The AK had already developed a contingency plan code, they never bothered to encrypt their plans against that involved the underground not participating in the British snooping. Not the thing to do among allies, Old assault on Nazi positions, but saving their powder for Boy. Thus the British had clear knowledge of Polish the power struggle that was expected to occur once the plans at all times. The Poles had no clear knowledge Germans had been defeated. Churchill actually of what the British were up to and never really eliminated this possibility as effectively as if he had demanded it. They assumed that what they were being purposefully been doing Stalin a favor. When the fed by the Brits was the whole truth. Worse, the British resistance against the Soviets did start up, it did so September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1237 deprived of the best and the brightest of the AK. The Exile Mission: The Polish Furthermore, the AK members who survived the Rising had revealed themselves, by their participation in the Political Diaspora and the Polish Rising, as KGB targets for transport to the gulags. So this is the gist of Davies’ argument: the Warsaw Americans, 1939–1956 Rising was a risky but necessary and reasonable venture if the Poles could count on their British allies. Should By Anna D. Jaroszyƒska-Kirchmann. Athens: Ohio we castigate General Bór and the AK for their naivete? University Press, 2004. xxi + 368 pages. ISBN 0-8214- Davies is inclined to say not. Poles have never played 1526-3. Cloth. $35.00. the part of the totally isolated and totally hostile group such as ETA or Hamas. They more or less had to trust Patricia A. Gajda the Allies. It was the only game in town. Davies does have harsh words for those in the Polish government dam Mickiewicz (1798–1856) was one of the in London exile who allowed themselves to be Aintellectual leaders of the Great Emigration who charmed, coopted, and intimidated by their British took up residence in Paris after the failure of the hosts. In retrospect, the AK fighters of Warsaw are to November Uprising in 1830. He and his compatriots be honored for fighting even when, finally, there was in exile, moved by faith and love of the nation, vowed nothing but honor for which they could fight. to undertake a pilgrimage “to the holy land, the free As for Roosevelt, he was essentially a very sick and country.” They succeeded in inspiring not only not-very-well-informed individual surrounded by some themselves but also the generations that followed. The people who held the Soviets in high esteem. But for exile mission served the nation well, even as it underwent Churchill, there can be no excuse. He knew what he reevaluation and refinement until Poland was again free. was doing, what the consequences would be, and he Anna D. Jaroszyƒska-Kirchmann, who has published did it anyway. What Churchill did was one of the great articles on aspects of this historical narrative, has now moral crimes of the twentieth century, and his written a full-scale study of the World War II reputation should never have survived it. generation’s exile mission and its effect on the In the course of researching materials, I read some relationship between these displaced persons seeking twenty reviews of Davies’ book. Most of the reviewers resettlement in postwar America and the Polish “didn’t get it” or possibly “did not want to get it.” There Americans already living here in long-settled was some castigation of Davies for not writing a time- communities. The Exile Mission is the recipient of the indexed history of the Rising itself. Then there were Polish American Historical Association’s Kulczycki Prize. those who wanted to accept the notion that Churchill Although the author keeps her focus on the mission, was simply being realistic and that General Bór and she offers more to the reader than the title promises by the AK were hopeless romantics who destroyed the providing a context for her subject, both in time and youth of their nation in a futile revolt. There were others place. The first chapter goes back to September 1939, who showed thinly veiled Schadenfreude over the the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequently destruction of so many Polish lives. The Poles were the Soviet Union, recounting events and following the decried as anti-Semites who had not spent enough of Polish people’s oppression and dislocation by many routes. their copious Second-World-War leisure time trying to These different routes take them to places around the save Jews from the Nazis. One sometimes wonders world, and so the story of the worldwide wartime diaspora what fraction of book reviewers feel compelled to read emerges. This chapter provides a historical framework the books they review when it is possible to simply for the growing literature of wartime memoirs, such as fall back on old stereotypes. Journey from Innocence (1998) by Anna Dadlez, World But Norman Davies, who is probably the greatest War II Through Polish Eyes: In the Nazi-Soviet Grip historian of Poland ever, has laid out a brief of bravery (2002) by M. B. Szonert, When God Looked the Other and betrayal that all Polish statesmen might well heed. Way (2004) by Wesley Adamczyk, or The Polish “Whom can we trust to defend Ireland?” asked the Irish Deportees of World War II: Recollections of Removal to bard. “We ourselves (sinn fein).” ∆ the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World (2004) edited by Tadeusz Piotrowski. The reader then meets the wartime intellectuals who arrived in the United States as “quota” immigrants, as 1238 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 well as the writers, poets, and literati who gathered in share in its leadership. The Poznaƒ massacre in 1956 exile in Paris before being dispersed far afield by the was the turning point in their relationship. They now advance of Nazi forces. Like Mickiewicz a century were speaking the same language. Further, as new earlier, they became intellectual leaders of a nation in waves of émigrés came to America in the Solidarity exile, the foundation upon which those who followed era, the same pattern of tension between groups, vying at war’s end would build. They articulated and refined for leadership, and renegotiation of the mission recurred. their mission, fervently espousing political action in No review can do justice to this important work. The the service of the nation, commitment to the reader must marvel at the cultural organizations, independence of Poland, and the preservation of Polish schools, and universities established by Poles, even in history and culture and ties with the worldwide short-term exile; the quality of their émigré literature; diaspora. Such goals would lead them, and the postwar political bickering and division within the London wave of displaced persons who followed, to embrace government that claimed the continuing allegiance of the leadership of the Polish government in exile in the exiles around the world; and confusion in the face London, to lobby for a reversal of the Yalta agreement of international developments in 1956 and 1989 that and the restoration of former borders, and to necessitated yet further renegotiations of the exile contemplate the third world war that would provide mission. The author attempts to bring in the voices of the means by which Poland would become free. In the worldwide Polish diaspora. but by doing so she working for this agenda, however, they found the will moves away from the focal point of her book, the of Polish Americans wanting. Polonia was too émigré/Polonian relationship. Americanized and materialistic, not sufficiently The author articulates a compelling historical political or sophisticated, more emotionally attached paradigm, intelligent and nuanced, inviting scholars to more to a romanticized, nineteenth-century folk version further investigate the exile mission. Strategies meant of Poland and a badly decayed language they thought to make the text easier to read, such as quotations from was Polish, more trusting of Washington than London, interviews or memoirs, are too few to achieve that and nowhere near seeking a new world war to liberate purpose. Especially in the earlier chapters, there is a the homeland. Polish Americans, on the other hand, good deal of repetition, a violation of chronology, as found the newcomers to be arrogant, presumptuous, Jaroszyƒska-Kirchmann lays one layer of her story over ungrateful, and unwilling to work as hard as they had another, necessitating a return to a time already worked, This is the same tension described so well by discussed. I am, however, at a loss to identify into Mary Patrice Erdmans in Opposite Poles (1998) in her what better slices she might have cut this meaty repast. study of the Chicago Polonia. The two groups were Her documentation is abundant and rich, and the not speaking the same language, but they did find bibliography extensive and helpful. A well-captioned opportunities for agreement. Strongly anticommunist ten-page photo spread is placed between the third and ÈmigrÈs could agree with Cold Warrior Polonians that fourth chapters. The List of Abbreviations is most useful. lobbying the United States government on behalf of The book ends happily. The democratically elected Poland’s liberation was a worthy common goal. Polish president, Lech Wał∏sa, receives the insignia of Jaroszyƒska-Kirchmann carefully documents the state from the president and delegation of the Polish arguments between the two groups, openly played out government in exile in London in December 1990. in the Polish American press, and also the convergence President Ryszard Kaczorowski transfers to the new of their views in the Cold War context. Early attempts Polish president authority over the emigration “which of émigrés to take over the leadership of Polonia and has fulfilled its mission.” ∆ the Polish American Congress failed, but the Polonian- led PAC, with its official connections, took the lead in The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, lobbying efforts for the Displaced Persons Act, organizing and conducting the monumental 1941: Before, During, and After resettlement efforts for the DPs, and seeking the American government’s humanitarian assistance for By Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. Boulder, CO: East and liberation of the people of Poland. In short, the European Monographs (distributed by Columbia Americans remained Americans, but staunchly University Press), 2005. vii + 277 pages. ISBN 0- supportive of the mission while exiles learned the social 88033-554-8. 2 appendices, notes, bibliography. dynamics, gained legitimacy in Polonia, and came to Hardcover. $40.00 on Amazon.com. September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1239 have been initially about 50 willing Polish perpetrators. Piotr Wrobel As the atrocity unfolded their number probably dwindled to about 20” (167). We have to remember, he publication of Neighbors by Jan T. Gross in however, that of the twenty several were Volksdeutsche T2000 in Poland initiated a national debate on and “degenerates.” The Chodakiewicz reconstruction Christian-Jewish relations and the crime of Jedwabne. includes some details: The debate became international when the book was translated into several languages. Hundreds if not The beating and killing of a number of thousands of books and articles discussed Gross’s work. Jews before the rest reached the barn Many of them were of polemical character. The book had a definite impact on the attitude of under review belongs to this category. Its author is a the assembled Poles. Crowds tend to be professor of history in the Institute of World Politics in mercurial. Hence, the tormenting of the fellow human beings by the Germans Washington, DC. He earned his doctorate from and their willing Polish auxiliaries must Columbia University in 2001 and published several have shocked at least some of the on- books and many articles on Polish-Jewish relations and lookers. Mockery increasingly gave way the history of twentieth century. to pity and mercy. Many, if not most, The Massacre opens with an introduction that makes passive spectators gradually began to clear that the main goal of the publication is to show recoil in disgust and horror from the that Gross’s interpretation is wrong. The four chapters spectacle. At least some Polish in the first part of Chodakiewicz’s book, “The Setting,” onlookers and unwilling participants describe “A Small Town and a Shtetl,” the era “Under escaped from the scene before the mass Soviet Occupation,” “The Assassination and the murder took place. A number of Poles assisted the Jews by comforting them, Massacre,” and the period “After the Tragedy.” The quenching their thirst, allowing them to second part, “The Crime,” analyzes “The Investigation escape, and even giving them shelter. and the Trial,” “The Witnesses from Jedwabne,” “The (168) Forensic Evidence,” and “Shock Therapy”; in other words, the Jedwabne debate. The Massacre closes with Gross’s book is certainly debatable (see my article in a “Conclusion” that presents Chodakiewicz’s version the Polish Review, XLVI/4, 2001), its methodology of the Jedwabne events. There are two appendixes, should be open to discussion, and Chodakiewicz does detailed endnotes, and a bibliography. present some good arguments. Of course, historians Each of the chapters contains enough controversial should use as many primary sources as possible and material for a separate discussion. Yet, due to a lack of these sources should be examined many times. Also, space, this reviewer will concentrate on the main point some statements by Gross, such as the famous “the of the book. Jan T. Gross, claims Chodakiewicz, is Polish half of a town’s population murders its Jewish wrong because he applied a wrong methodology to half,” are unacceptable. Chodakiewicz’s good points, insufficient and dubious primary sources. The however, are overshadowed by numerous flaws. investigation materials produced during the 1949 Chodakiewicz seems to have lost any sense of Stalinist trial of twenty-two suspects in the Jedwabne proportion. The most important (and frequently most massacre, continues the author of The Massacre, are uncomfortable) issues are treated briefly and are buried completely worthless; the Wasserstein testimony, in thousands of irrelevant details. A great deal of space, Gross’s main primary source, is falsified and politically for example, is devoted to the Jewish involvement in motivated; and the partial exhumation of 2001 was communism, but the author does not write much about inconclusive. In fact, writes Chodakiewicz, all the the anti-Semitic ideology and propaganda of the Jedwabne primary sources that we know of are National Democrats, who decisively influenced the insufficient to reconstruct the crime properly and, very worldviews of many, if not most, Poles from Jedwabne. likely, we will never comprehend what really happened Chodakiewicz quotes many authors, but the list is odd: in Jedwabne on July 10, 1941. And yet Chodakiewicz next to outstanding historians, such as Piotr Wandycz is able to present his recreation of the crime. It was or Krystyna Kersten, there appear politically motivated well preplanned, initiated by the Germans, and utterly amateurs, such as Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski. In lacked any pogrom-like spontaneity. “We can estimate addition, not infrequently, Chodakiewicz quotes only that, including peasants from nearby villages, there may such fragments of important works that support his 1240 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 opinion. For example, Istvan Deak’s review of Gross’s deferential quote from another review grounded in book quoted by Chodakiewicz (153) includes not only emotions. the critical fragments presented in The Massacre, but also statements like “Jan Gross cannot be praised Religion and the Rise of enough for having awakened the Polish public to the need to address the dark episodes in their national Nationalism history. A sure sign of his success is the sudden and A Profile of an East-Central European City unprecedented soul-searching that has swept Poland.” The book under review has a visible political agenda By Robert E. Alvis. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. and is written in a language full of politically loaded Press (www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu), 2005. key words. Everyone whose opinions are different than xxvi + 227 pages. Index, bibliographies. ISBN 0-856- Chodakiewicz’s is a “pundit” (the author’s favorite 3081-6. Hardcover. $34.95. word). Some, and this is really bad, are “leftist pundits.” We read about a “Piłsudskiite Union of Armed Struggle” (Zwiàzek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ) during the James E. Bjork Second World War and an “accomodationalist Polish Socialist Party” (PPS) after the war. Neighbors ver the past quarter century, there has been no achieved its popularity because Polish intelligentsia is Olack of scholarly interest in the phenomenon of philosemitic. “The [Jedwabne] debate laid bare a nationalism, and East-Central Europe has been widely shocking malady afflicting much of Western academia viewed as a crucial region for understanding how and media, especially in the United States” (176); but nationalist programs have emerged and evolved. And also “Poland’s academia is still awash with erstwhile yet there remain scandalously few detailed, English- party hacks and their intellectual progeny,” (158) which language studies focusing on exactly how and why the also explains Gross’s success. idea of the nation mobilized specific populations and The Massacre is, in my opinion, difficult to read, resonated in people’s daily lives. Robert Alvis’s book unoriginal, irritating, and unconvincing. I believe that is a welcome contribution to overcoming this deficit. some phrases taken from Antony Polonsky’s review Tightly written, highly readable, and based on a solid (The American Historical Review, 109/3, 2004) of array of church and state archival sources, the Chodakiewicz’s previous book, After the Holocaust: monograph should be read not only by historians and Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War II, regional specialists but also by students of also apply to The Massacre: “It does not rise above nationalism—and especially the intersection between the clichés of old-fashioned national apologetics” and religion and nationalism—across a range of disciplines “What is most striking about this book is the lack of in the humanities and social sciences. empathy with those caught up in these tragic events.” ∆ Alvis situates his study squarely in the context of recent theoretical literature on the development of Professor Chodakiewicz responds: nationalism. He takes issue with the dominant My book was a painstaking examination of the facts as “modernist” understanding of nationalism (formulated, we know them from all available sources. I wish Professor in different ways, by authors like Ernest Gellner and Wrobel had spent more time discussing the facts and my Benedict Anderson), which views nations as arguments based on them. Instead, Professor Wrobel innovations and tends to stress the affinities between argues at the level of emotion. The last line of his review nationalist programs and those of liberals and radicals tells much: “What is most striking about this book is the in the revolutionary era stretching from 1789 to 1848. lack of empathy with those caught up in these tragic As Alvis rightly notes, this approach suggests a close events.” I can assure Professor Wrobel that I, coming from link between the rise of nationalism and the process of a family which suffered from both Nazi and Soviet crimes, secularization. The modernist model is, he argues, of have empathy aplenty for the victims of those terrible limited use in understanding the growth of nationalist times. But a historian should attempt to construct analyses aspirations and conflicts in the city of Poznaƒ (Posen) based on facts and not engage in the emotion-driven during the early nineteenth century. Following scholars creation of appeals not based on evidence. I fail to see in like Adrian Hastings and Liah Greenfield, he sees much the review a single original observation about my book. more long-term continuity in the formation of national Lacking ideas of his own, Professor Wrobel ends with a cultures, with “pre-existing ethnic identities and historical and cultural legacies” providing “genuine, September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1241 compelling substance” that shapes and constrains the German history. Likewise, and despite the sympathy “invention” of nations (xxi). In contrast to other studies of many Polish-patriotic writers and political activists of nation-buliding. like Eugen Weber’s classic Peasants for the French revolutionary tradition, the expansion into Frenchmen or Jeremy King’s more recent of the Polish national movement beyond the ranks of Budweisers into Czechs and Germans, which strive to the szlachta most often involved embracing rather than impress on readers the novelty of the national way of rejecting religious language and symbols. In one telling understanding the world, Alvis’s book insists that there example from the spring of 1848, the story of a Prussian already was a significant national component to earlier soldier casting a Polish cockade into the mud only religious identities, just as there remained a significant seemed to generate a radical response among local religious component to later national identities. Catholic peasants when it was reported that the cockade The book begins and ends with two descriptive had been worn by a Catholic priest and that Protestants/ snapshots of the city of Poznaƒ—the first at the time Prussians had also defiled a monstrance and the interior of the Second Partition of Poland and the beginning of of a local church. As religious, national, and state loyalties Prussian rule (1793), the second on the eve of the 1848 became ever more mutually reinforcing, Poznaƒ’s revolutions. In the intervening chapters, Alvis traces population became increasingly polarized. At the height social, economic, political, and cultural changes, of the revolutionary unrest in 1848, a German-national looking first at the city as a whole, then at internal petition condemning the “evil of mixing both nations” developments within each of the two main Christian garnered a thousand signatures; a petition pleading for communities. This approach generally works well, German-Polish coexistence mustered fifty (174). conveying a sense of place as well as time, of shared This narrative is eerily suggestive of the dynamics municipal experiences as well as specifically that have escalated into “ethnic cleansing” in so many intracommunal ones. But the book’s structure makes corners of East-Central Europe (and elsewhere) in the all the more poignant the absence of a sustained century and a half that has followed. The danger of treatment of Poznaƒ’s Jewish community, which was such narratives, of course, is that their momentum can roughly as large as the Protestant community (about a appear so inexorable that the process of polarization quarter of the population). There are many possible becomes functionally indistinguishable from a story pragmatic reasons for this absence (time, space, of timeless “ancient hatreds.” Alvis cannot be accused language skills), but Alvis’s attempt to make a more of such backdoor primordialism. He is conscientious substantive case, arguing that the Jewish community about noting contrary cases in which national and “was not central to the question of religion and confessional allegiances did not smoothly dovetail. nationalism in our time period” (xx) is not convincing. Nonetheless, the author is a bit too quick to characterize His own account makes clear that attitudes toward Jews these cases as outliers. There were, in fact, some major were central to how Protestants and Catholics defined ideological currents and demographic blocs that made their own religious identities as well as how they a bipolar ordering of Poznanian society highly understood various notions of Germanness and problematic. One, already noted, was the sizable Jewish Polishness. Indeed, while the absence of a more population, which could, depending on one’s point of view, sustained and equivalent treatment of the Jewish be counted as German (and thus undermine any easy community is unfortunate, Alvis is to be commended association between Germanness and Protestantism) or for including quite a few interesting tidbits regarding be considered a formidable third force. Another wild card attitudes toward Jews, ranging from the durability of that only became more important toward the end of the “blood libel” rhetoric and imagery to the evolving attitude period Alvis examines was the phenomenon of of Prussian state officials toward Jewish emancipation. ultramontanism. Just as modernizing trends were Over the course of the book, Alvis provides a expanding the horizons of national communities, generally persuasive account of how the transformation nineteenth-century Roman Catholics were also developing of Protestants’ and Catholics’ sense of community a greater sense of extralocal identification with involved not only a process of nationalization but also, coreligionists. For the small but significant German in various ways, an intensification of religious Catholic population, this meant that an alternative identifications. For Poznaƒ’s Protestants, a growing “imagined community,” one that was neither Prussian- sense of connection with and reliance on the Prussian Protestant nor Polish-Catholic, was becoming available. state was often buttressed by providentialist Alvis briefly gestures toward these developments (e.g., understandings of Protestantism’s role in Prussian and 1242 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 in his account of the “Cologne Troubles” of the 1830s) accentuated the threat that Poland’s entry seemed to but does not really explore these broader possibilities. pose to Polish traditions, national character, religious But these are relatively minor quibbles about a well- beliefs, the ownership of land and property, and written book that deserves a broad audience. ∆ economic sovereignty. The anthology comprises forty texts and a valuable Polskie wizje Europy w XIX i introduction by the compiler. The selections, some of which, unfortunately, are mere snippets, are grouped XX wieku chronologically into four sections: those from the nineteenth century, from the years 1910–1939, from Edited by Krzysztof Ruchniewicz. Texts selected by 1942–1989, and from the period after 1989 (the final Peter Oliver Loew. Wrocław: University of Wrocław text was written in 2000). Grouping them thematically Press, 2004. Monograph Series on German and European would have been better. Studies, 6. ISSN 0239-6661. 284 pages. Paper. In Polish. One major theme is encapsulated in the title of Section I: “What kind of Europe for the Poles?” The Bogdan Czaykowski answer, running through several of the nineteenth- century pieces and resurfacing in some from the twentieth century, especially during the Second World he role of the land between Germany proper and War and in the 1970s and ’80s, is that Poland’s interests the Eastern Slavs, of how the character of its T and future require some kind of a federated or united people, institutions, and politics made a difference in Europe. In fact, some of the nineteenth-century pieces the broader European context has been only are projects for a European constitution. The one glaring occasionally understood by Western European rulers omission is that of the ideas of Prince Adam Czartoryski and political elites. It played a greater role in the (mentioned only in the introduction), well presented in imperial and geopolitical thought of Russia, while the Marian Kukiel’s Czartoryski and European Unity (1955). Poles themselves have oscillated between an The second persistent theme is cultural and spiritual, exaggerated sense of their importance and a deep and it includes political culture. Here the spectrum of skepticism about their European status. views is very broad, ranging from Antoni The ambivalence in the Polish attitudes toward Chołoniewski’s essay Duch dziejów Polski, in which Western Europe—and to most Poles Europe was the author argues that prepartitioned Poland had identified with its western part—is well reflected in developed “progressive” democratic and international Peter Oliver Loew’s anthology of Polish writings on, institutions and norms well in advance of similar about, for, and against Europe. The book is a Polish developments in Western Europe, and Roman edition of Loew’s Polen denkt Europa. Dmowski’s somewhat peculiar assessment that The book was obviously inspired by the processes although the exclusion of Poland from Europe as a and debates preceding and accompanying the result of the partitions had a number of negative enlargement of the European Union, and its focus is consequences, it wasn’t entirely negative, considering on the Polish “vision” of Europe. The book is valuable that the Poles did not share in the excessive rise of the as an illustration of what various Polish ideologues, standard of living and other ills of industrialization, politicians, publicists, leaders, and historians thought and had the fewest freemasons in all of Europe. Here of the hope that Western Europe held for Polish also belongs Stanisław Brzozowski’s overly harsh aspirations; how they understood the Europeanness of judgment that nineteenth-century Poles had been Polish heritage and culture; which values or norms they merely passive consumers of Western European ideas considered to be European and either held in common and contributed next to nothing to Western European or worthy of emulation; and which features of Western intellectual development, as well as Józef Chałasiƒski’s Europe they regarded as a betrayal of the European thesis that because of Poland’s turning to the East (by past, viewed primarily as a Judeo-Christian heritage. means of union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), the The problematic, ambiguous, and even painful image Poles lost their initial Western base and created a culture of Europe surfaces again and again in these pieces, but that was nonurban and nobilitarian, and hence at no point as vociferously as in the years preceding unproductive and lacking in professionalism. Interestingly Poland’s entry into the European Union, when the enough, apart from Chałasiƒski’s piece, the economic reborn postcommunist right wing movement, rooted theme is conspicuous by its almost complete absence. in the anti-German thought of Roman Dmowski, September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1243 Many of the pieces selected by the author are Holy Roman Empire into the Slavic-Lithuanian disappointing: they are nonanalytical, ideological and territory, and then of the Germanic states spearheaded superficial. Several focus more on Poland, its by the Teutonic Knights (it was only in the early predicament, its culture and spirit, rather than on eighteenth century that Brandenburg became modern Europe. But there are a few that are memorable and Prussia). We will never know how real the possibility of substantive. These include Szymon Askenazy’s piece Sweden establishing and consolidating its control of the (1916), where the author notes the internationalization Baltic littoral, and perhaps of the Baltic hinterland, would of the Polish question and discusses the geopolitical have been in the seventeenth century, but it was Polish significance of Poland, quoting Napoleon’s opinion la resistance to the Swedish invasion in the mid-seventeenth Pologne, cette veritable clef de toute la voute century that defeated the Swedish expansionist plans, thus européenne; Jan Kieniewicz’s interestingly contributing to the expansion of Russia. conceptualized 1991 article in which, trying to assess The decline of the old Rzeczpospolita in the second the historical place of Poland in Europe, he argues that half of the seventeenth and through most of the apart from the goal of entering European and global eighteenth centuries had far-reaching consequences for economy, Poland’s European role should be to recreate Europe. The power vacuum that arose in the vast “the borderlands of Europe” by helping the nations east Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian territory resulted (given of Poland to gain freedom and European status; Tadeusz the imperial and expansionist ambitions of its three Mazowiecki’s memorable 1990 speech at the forum of neighbors) in the partitions in the years 1772–1795 of the Council of Europe; and John Paul’s II 1991 homily that territory, thus establishing not only a common significantly titled “To Restore Values to Europe.” border between Russia on the one hand, and Prussia- Regrettably, the publishers of the book omitted notes Germany and the Hapsburg Empire on the other, but on the authors and index, which are included in the also a common interest of not letting the rebellious German version. Poles undo the partitions. This fact, except for the This review would not be complete without Napoleonic interlude, had certainly helped (with the positioning the subject in a broader context than the exception of the Austrian-German conflict of 1866) to book affords. Whatever definition or value is given to keep peace among the three partitioning powers for the idea of Europe, there is little doubt that what literally a hundred years. Yet between 1792 and 1864 historically has been coextensive with roughly the there were several insurrections, as the Poles refused territory of present-day Poland has on a number of to give in or give up. The upheaval in the Polish part of occasions played a crucial role in European history. Russia in the 1905 revolution contributed to changes The designation of Poland as the antemurale, or in the governance of the tsarist Empire that in turn bulwark of Western Europe, or Western Christianity, facilitated the revolutions of 1917. Furthermore, the certainly has some historical validity: in the late existence of a common border between the two central medieval period and until the end of the seventeenth European empires and Russia enlarged enormously the century Poland constituted a barrier against westward scope of the conflict known as the First World War; expansion of Muscovite-Russian as well as Mongol similarly, the partition of Poland in 1939 between and Ottoman power. At the same time, it transmitted Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, whereby the two eastward West European ideas, models, and institutions, powers yet again established a common border, made the most notably to the huge Lithuanian-Belarusian-Kievan Second World War an event of much greater proportions territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and even, to and consequences than it might otherwise have been. a lesser degree, to Muscovy, a fact that the victorious The role of Poland in the most recent history of Russians have not been willing to admit about the Europe needs no reminders. While the inclusion of defeated Poles. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the Poland in the Soviet empire made that empire‘s threat First World War the Poles stopped the westward to Western Europe that much more acute, and at the expansion of militant Russian communism. What has same time diminished the Polish role as the transmitter been even less obvious to Western historians and of Westernism to the non-Russian Eastern Europe, the ideologues is the fact that the rise and the consolidation rise of the massive Solidarity movement and its ability of the kingdom of Poland between the tenth and early to sustain itself through the years of martial and fourteenth century, and then its dynastic and later postmartial rule, combined with the moral and political political union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, had stature of the “Polish” pope, were major contributing placed an effective barrier against the expansion of the factors in the implosion of the USSR and the rise of a 1244 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 new geopolitical configuration on the European Russia participated in the partitioning and then continent. And the more recent Polish presence in elimination of Poland from the map. The Russian Ukrainian politics and Polish influence in Brussels Orthodox Church to this day continues to fear the Polish testifies still further to the importance of Poland for the Catholic Church, having most recently seen its power overall security of Central and Western European nations in supporting Solidarity and giving the world Pope John and the further Europeanization of its eastern part. ∆ Paul II; it thus prevented the Pope from visiting Russia. This is a centuries-old fear, originating during the Polish Encounters, Russian Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic Church converted much of the Orthodox borderland peoples Identity to the Uniate Church. On the political stage, this was seen in the Soviet Union’s avoidance of invading Edited by David L. Ransel and Božena Shallcross. Poland during the height of Solidarity, and it is seen Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005. 218 pages. today in Russia’s expressed unhappiness at Poland ISBN 0253217717. Hardcover $50.00, paper $22.95. joining both NATO and the European Union.
Jonathan Z. Ludwig Why such a large entity as Russia seems so deathly and irrationally afraid of a much smaller Poland? his collection of essays is based on a series of Publishing collections of conference essays is always papers originally presented at the conference T a risky affair, as there is the very real possibility that “Polonophilia and Polonophobia of the Russians,” held there will be no common underlying thread. Fortunately on the campus of Indiana University in September 2000. this collection does not have that problem, as each essay The essays discuss the creation and development of discusses an important link or demarcation between Russian national identity in light of the influences of their Polish and Russian culture and then how the Russians Polish neighbor. react to or use this to define their own national identity. Poland has always presented a strong cultural and What is important about this collection is that politics political problem for the Russians. While the other plays, at most, a peripheral role in the essays. While boundaries touching upon Russia are distinctly non- the editors’ introduction does explain the political Russian in their culture (Finnic peoples to the north; backdrop to 500 years of shared history, the essays Turkic peoples to the south; and Asiatic peoples to the themselves discuss history, literature, music, religion, east), Poland, as a fellow Slavic nation, shares a number philosophy, and architecture. of cultural traits, among them linguistic, with Russia. Barbara Skinner’s contribution, “The Irreparable In this way, Poland has been more accessible and, as Church Schism: Russian Orthodox Identity and Its some Russians have argued and continue to argue, Historical Encounter with Catholicism,” opens the therefore presents more of a threat to Russia, both collection, discussing the earliest years of Russian politically and culturally. Thus Russia has often felt distrust of Poland: the aforementioned Orthodox unease the need to define itself as distinctly non-Polish. with its Catholic neighbor that set the stage for a As the editors point out in the introduction, this has centuries-long distrust of Poland and Polish culture by not always been the case. Russia has, at times, openly its larger neighbor. Beth Holmgren’s “Imitation of Life: welcomed Polish cultural influences into Russia A Russian Guest in the Polish Regimental Family,” one (polonophilia). For Russian Westernizers, Poland was of two essays solicited for this volume after the the gateway to western European culture and politics; conference, begins the discussion of nineteenth-century they understood Western civilization through the eyes relations. It presents the life of Nadezhda Durova, the of their fellow Slavs. It was hoped by Alexander I, transvestite Russian cavalry officer who served in among others, that Poland could serve as a model to Poland and reported on life there in her memoirs. help liberalize Russia. Nikolai Gogol often expressed Megan Dixon’s essay “Repositioning Pushkin and the his admiration of Polish literature, and Aleksandr Poems of the Polish Uprising” discusses a series of Pushkin and Adam Mickiewicz were acquainted with nearly forgotten, overtly political anti-Polish poems that and influenced by each other. Pushkin wrote after the 1830 Polish uprising. While At other times, however, Russia has reacted strongly Pushkin had never been to Poland, he admired Polish against the Poles, fearing their influence culture and especially the writings of Mickiewicz. After (polonophobia). The fear was so strong at times that September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1245 the uprising, however, which Pushkin considered an nationalistic right-wing press who hoped to keep this unjustified rebellion, he turned against Poland, thus “foreign influence” at bay. This paranoia ultimately led reinforcing the notion that he was Russia’s national to the belief that there was a Polish-Jewish plot to poet and the defender of Russian culture against outside overthrow the Russian empire. Robert L. Przygrodzki’s influences. Halina Goldberg’s “Appropriating Poland: “Tsar Vasili Shuiskii, the Staszic Palace, and Glinka, Polish Dance, and Russian National Identity” Nineteenth-Century Russian Politics in Warsaw” discusses the 1836 world premier of Glinka’s Ivan discusses the life of Russian émigrés in post-1863 Susanin, the Russian hero who united his people against Poland. Russian men who moved to Warsaw often took the invading Poles during the Time of Troubles. As Polish wives and, afraid that their children would adopt expected, Polish music accompanies the appearances Polish culture instead of Russian culture as their own, of the Polish gentry and is presented as negative, constructed their own school to educate their children “foreign” and anti-Russian music. However at the same in the Orthodox faith. They went so far as to embellish time, Polish mazurkas and polonaises were some of the facade of the building in Orthodox/Byzantine style the most popular nineteenth-century dances among the which was immediately stripped away as soon as Russian elite, accepted by them as “Slavic” music. Poland won its independence in 1918, in much the same In his contribution “The Slavophile Thinkers and the way that nations occupied by the Red Army in 1945 tried Polish Question in 1863,” Andrzej Walicki discusses to de-Russify and de-Sovietize themselves after 1989. the philosophical views of the Slavophiles Nikolai Judith Deutsch Kornblatt’s essay “At Home with Pani Strakhov, Iurii Samarin, and Ivan Aksakov. All three Eliza: Isaac Babel and His Polish Encounters” begins understood the allure, power, and influence of Catholic the discussion of twentieth-century Russian-Polish Poland but, believing that its continued influence would relations. She argues against the commonly held be dangerous for the future of the Slavic lands, argued opinion that Babel’s Polish characters play the role of that the Slavic peoples would be best united under anti-Semites, saying that the Poles have much in Russian leadership and used this to justify Russia’s common with the Jewish people—the notion of the continued oppression of Poland. Nina Perlina’s “wandering Jew” is paralleled by the reality of the “Dostoevsky and His Polish Fellow Prisoners from the “wandering Polish border.” Matthew D. Pauly’s “Soviet House of the Dead” discusses the chapter “Comrades” Polonophobia and the Formulation of Nationalities and its portrayal of the Polish prisoners that Dostoevsky Policy in the Ukrainian SSR, 1927–1934” discusses met while imprisoned in Siberia. Dostoevsky’s the aftermath of the Soviet war with Poland in the 1920s polonophobia increased, as did his identification with and the assassination of several Soviet officials in Orthodoxy and Russianness, after the 1863 rebellion; Poland. Convinced that Poland, and especially the nevertheless, Perlina argues, he was able to portray Polish gentry, were bent on destroying the nascent appreciatively the traditional Polish characteristics of Soviet Union, the USSR eliminated Ukrainian officials individuality and national pride. Manon de Courten’s thought to be sympathetic to the Polish political model, “Vladimir Solov’ev’s Views on the Polish Question,” changing their nationalities policy in the process. No the second essay solicited after the conference, presents longer would they be tolerant of indigenous cultures; Solov’ev’s hope that Catholicism and Orthodoxy can rather, they would begin a system of Russification in be reconciled and reunited, albeit only under the all areas. The collection closes with Irena Grudziƒska- leadership of the Orthodox Church. Solov’ev held a Gross’s essay “Under the Influence? Joseph Brodsky very negative and narrow view of Polish history, a view and Poland.” As it did 200 years before, Poland, with a which was limited to the uprisings of the 1800s, and more relaxed attitude toward censorship during the he justified the partitions of Poland and the suppression 1960s, served as a conduit for Western culture to the of the 1863 uprising as being in Poland’s best interest. East. Brodsky was one of the young poets to take Like the Slavophiles Strakhov, Samarin, and Aksakov advantage of this, discovering Western cultural motifs mentioned previously, Solov’ev believed that the Slavic and philosophies that began to influence his work and world could only be united by its “older brother” Russia. others of his generation. Leonid Gorizontov’s essay “The Geopolitical Upon reaching the end of this collection, the reader Dimension of Russian-Polish Confrontation in the has been taken through the key points of Russian-Polish Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries” argues that cultural relations presented in historical order. While the moving of Polish boundaries further to the west this volume does explain Russia’s acceptance and was done under the influence of the Russian rejection of Polish culture over the centuries, it does 1246 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006 not adequately answer why such a large entity as Russia Karen Kovacik wonders “how does he move between seems so deathly and irrationally afraid of a much these realms?” By that she means possibilities of a new smaller Poland, a fear that continues to this day. ∆ Poland and “[the] disaster of central planning.” James G. Coon in “The cry of nie ma” offers a pun that comes close to describing the essence of Polishness. Warsaw Tales 2006 Somebody explains to him why there is never any small New Europe Writers’ Ink change in Poland, whether in kiosks or in the department stores: “Poland has been short-changed / Edited and coauthored by James G. Coon. Warsaw: by history.” Jennifer Robertson, while describing Polish Wydawnictwo Ksiàžkowe IBiS, 2005. 142 pages. ISBN 83- markets of today and admiring “home grown 7358-031-X. Paperback. Zl. 10.00. Available through enterprise,” recalls the war and forty-five years of
Rare and Forgotten Books—SR partial reprint series with her history, her literature, her art, and her Poland: The Knight Among unfortunate people, which Americans ought to know. I am glad this excellent book has been written. ∆ Nations NOTES 1. Helena Modjeska was the founder of an agricultural Louis E. Van Norman colony for Polish settlers in Anaheim, California in the 1870s. The above Introduction was written in 1907. Introduction by Helena Modjeska Author’s Foreword ne fine characteristic I have especially noted in Othe American people: as a general rule, they are n “impression” comes so perilously near being a not led to an opinion by the verdict of any other nation. Ajudgment that the author of this volume feels Of recent years, particularly, their popular verdicts have called upon to offer a few words of explanation. been based upon their own independent judgment, and In the following pages no attempt is made to write a some of these verdicts have afterwards been accepted history of Poland, or to present a comprehensive study by the whole world. They were the first to “discover” of the Polish national psychology. To sound the depth [Henryk] Sienkiewicz. They did not accept him on the of racial character would require many years of actual claims of French, or German, or English criticism. By life near the heart of the people, and elaborate historical their own native perception they knew he was great, research. Nor has the writer ventured to prophesy the and now the whole world has accepted their judgment. political future of the Poles. Nor, finally, has he Therefore, I think it is particularly appropriate that it attempted to describe the condition of Russian Polish should be an American who now, for the first time, cities during the reign of terror of the past two years. presents the true Poland, the country of Sienkiewicz, (1) The following chapters, many of which have already to the American people. appeared as magazine articles in this country and in I must confess that I am usually frightened when I England, are no more than the first-hand impressions begin to read anything foreigners write about Poland of an American journalist who has been permitted to and us Poles. So much has appeared that was untrue spend a year in the former Polish Commonwealth, and distorted and ridiculous. But these “impressions” visiting almost all the important historical points. Being are so sympathetically written, so discerning and, at the first American ever to visit all sections of old Poland the same time, so generally impartial and just, that I for the express purpose of writing about it, he was am glad to recommend the volume to the dear land of accorded exceptional facilities for observation and my adoption as the best I know of about modern Poland study. The result is a collection of honest impressions by an outsider. It is so clear, so interesting, so pleasantly of a remarkable people, presented as an humble written, that one does not want to put it down before contribution to race psychology. To make the picture reading the entire book. I was especially pleased with more complete, it has seemed worth while to summon the chapter on “Polish Music and the Slav back from the past some of the more potent Temperament.” It is so fair and discriminating. Most personalities of Polish history. of the names mentioned in this chapter are well known to me, are personal friends, and I can recognize the Here is the home of a denationalized people, in faithful portrayal of these artists who, like myself, were which there is being enacted a century-long drama contemporaneous with the first stages of development worthy of a Homer or a Tacitus. in the great art movement in Poland. Several of them, including Mr. Sienkiewicz himself, were with my Here is the home of a denationalized people, in which husband and myself in our little colony in California.(1) there is being enacted a century-long drama worthy of Americans know very little of the real Poland. Most a Homer or a Tacitus. Forty-four years ago, in the of them have read Thaddeus of Warsaw, but this middle of our Civil War, the Poles had their last uprising Thaddeus was not the real Kosciuszko,. He was not against Russian rule. Ten years of “reconstruction” for even a real Pole—only a creature of the author’s our South seemed an age. Mutinies, riots, and imagination. Since Sienkiewicz wrote his Trilogy, revolutionary outbreaks, all suppressed in blood and Americans have known more. They have much still to fire, show the world that, after nearly half a century, learn, for with all her faults, there is much in Poland, Poland is not yet fully “reconstructed.” Politically, there 1250 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006
is no Poland, but a distinct, individual, resistant people, Jewish Encyclopedia(3) is an excellent resume of the who are no more conquered and absorbed by the Polish Jews’ part of history. partitioning powers than the Hungarians are assimilated The list of those who have aided the author in the by Austria. The Poles remain a persistent national type, preparation of this book is so large that it includes and the “Polish question” is an ever-present “ghost that practically everyone he met in Poland, and many others troubles at every European Council.” in this country. It is impossible to render adequate And yet, up to the time when the Trilogy of historical thanks to all, but the author wishes to express grateful works by Henryk Sienkiewicz appeared, Poland was, acknowledgment, particularly to the patriotic Poles who of all civilized geographical entities, the least known have read the manuscript and have made many valuable to Americans. It is in the belief that the country of suggestions. He also desires to acknowledge courteous Kosciuszko and Pulaski, of Copernicus and Sobieski, permission to reproduce articles from The Bookman, The of Chopin and Paderewski, deserves better of the land Outlook, The Chautauquan, The Cosmopolitan, Brush and of Washington that this book is written. Pencil, The Booklover’s, and other magazines. There are so many striking contrasts —and startling The author’s opinions, of course, are his own, and similarities—between Poland and these United States Madame Modjeska’s sympathetic introduction does not of America, that a study of Polish history and indicate, necessarily, her agreement, in detail, with conditions ought to be of peculiar interest to us. We these opinions. ∆ Americans are citizens of a young, powerful, active Wyckoff, New Jersey, August 1, 1907. country, which is the bulwark of freedom and the refuge of oppressed peoples. Poland—if one may still speak NOTES of her as a nation—is very old. For a century and more 1. 1905–1906, or the aftermath of the workers’ rebellion she has been in chains, with no chance for activity, in Russian-occupied Polish cities. 2. Poland, by W. F. Morfill. London: Fisher & Unwin, save in her spasms of revolution. Yet how much alike 1893. xvi + 389 pages. Maps. are the two peoples. Both are brave to a fault. Both 3. Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, live in a country which is a confederation. The union, 1901–06. in 1569, of Poland, Lithuania, and Ruthenia, was the first voluntary confederation of independent powers Chapter 19 — Henryk Sienkiewicz in Europe. Both peoples incline to elective A rare honor it certainly is for any one man to be able governments; both, while religious themselves, have to introduce his country and countrymen to the world; ever been tolerant to all other creeds. Both love liberty to recall to the memory of mankind an oppressed and better than life. And, finally, the greatest soldier heroes almost forgotten people, and to so revivify its past that of both—Washington and Kosciuszko—fought side by the whole civilized world pauses to look and listen as side for American independence. But there is a vital though a new protagonist had stepped upon the stage present significance also to Americans in the of the century. Such is, indeed, a rare honor, but it psychology of the Pole. Almost three millions of this belongs to Henryk Sienkiewicz, incomparably the highly developed Slav race are now settled in this greatest prophet of Polish nationality. country, rapidly becoming bone and sinew of American national life. A study of the temperament and genius There are so many striking contrasts —and startling of this sturdy stock will help us in understanding more similarities — between Poland and these United States than one factor in our own pressing problems. of America, that a study of Polish history and Of modern books on Poland, available to the general conditions ought to be of peculiar interest to us. reader, there are very few. Those interested in following up some of the facts and allusions in this book should, Sienkiewicz has introduced his countrymen to the first of all read the immortal Trilogy of Sienkiewicz, American people. It is not as “the author of Quo Vadis?” as well as “Children of the Soil,” “Hania,” Knights of that his name will be longest and best remembered, the Cross, and On the Field of Glory by the same author. although such is the popular way (at least in this Georg Brandes’ Poland: A Study of the Land, People, country) of referring to him. It is as the man who made and Literature will also prove of value. W. R. Morfill’s his country known to the world, as the author of the Story of Poland (2) is a good brief reference history, Trilogy of Polish novels, that he claims the affection while Herman Rosenthal’s article on Poland in the and homage of his countrymen. September 2006 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1251 To the American, the Englishman, the German, and tang of the forest still clinging to it, makes grateful, Henryk Sienkiewicz is a masterly weaver of appropriate surroundings for a study. A few books and fascinating, powerful, realistic romances. To the Pole a couple of fur rugs—the spoil of the mountains— he is all this, and much more. He is his country’s first complete the den of the novelist. adequate interpreter to the world, and his works are A most modest man is this world-famous author. You the mirror in which “Sarmatia sees her strenuous, cannot extract personalities, except the meagerest, from beautiful self.” To an audience larger, more widely him by any means known to the diplomat’s art or the distributed, and more generally intelligent than that of journalist’s craft. “I toiled at short stories until I could any other living author—with the possible exception write a good one before I attempted longer of Tolstoi—he says: “Gentlemen, permit me to present productions.” This is the terse way he sums up his early Poland. This is not mere story-telling, literatry literary struggles, A search among the “biography portraiture, romance-building. This is a great people; pigeonholes” of certain Warsaw newspapers supplies Poland, with all her magnificent virtues, all her the information that, like most eminent literary men, lamentable shortcomings. Permit me, ladies and his beginnings were arduous and discouraging. From gentelemen, to present to you Poland.” his mother, Stefania Cieciszewska, who was a poetess All his historical novels on Poland, but particularly of culture, he inherited a taste for literature. He wrote the incomparable Trilogy, present, in bold, clear-cut, a series of critical articles in 1869, in his 25th year, but beautiful lines, that unfortunate land and people that is they attracted no attention. The next year he tried a today without a place on the map of nations. In the novel, but that met a fate strangely appropriate to its Trilogy the novelist has gathered up all the threads of title—In Vain. No one credited him with talent, and he the national life and character of his countrymen and lost heart. In the hear of our Centennial he came to this woven them deftly into one shining cord: the series of country and joined Madame Modjeska’s famous colony three realistic, historical romances, With Fire and of expatriated Poles in California. Then came his Sword, The Deluge, and Pan Michael. sketches of travel in America. “I know the great West A man in the prime of life, and in the plenitude of his of America as a traveler only,” he said. Here I fancied powers, hearty, cordial, and courteous, slightly reserved I could detect the faintest apologetic touch to the voice. atr times, always modest and unassuming; a man of Perhaps the novelist has had an inkling of the the middle height, with a kindly, honest face and quiet sensitiveness of Americans to the opinions of manners, with now and then the almost hunted look of distinguished foreigners, like Dickens and himself, who one who fears the “lioniser”—such is, in brief, the have seemed hasty in their generalizations of America impression made by Henryk Sienkiewicz. His is a most “as seen from a car window.” Mr Sienkiewicz’s winning personality, with simple, natural dignity, and reference to pigs in the streets of New York somehow an utter lack of pose. lingers unpleasantly in the memory. The novelist had just returned from a walk with his “How do I write a novel?” He laughed. “What a daughter when I presented myself at his cottage at question that is, and how can I possibly answer it? I Zakopane in the Carpathian Mountains. His naturally prepare to write a novel by reading every book and olive complexion was flushed with the exercise, and document referring to it in all languages that I can lay he flourished a ciupaga (or hatchet-headed mountain hold of. Then I let it all soak for a while.” (The novelist stick) gleefully as he stepped buoyantly into the room. did not use the word “soak,” but explained more in Delightful and unique is this zakopiaƒski or detail that he meant that process.) “Then I write. That Carpathian style of building and carving. It looks like is all. Quo Vadis? Was comparatively easy. There was a clever amalgamation of the Norwegian and Swiss, a great wealth of books and documents to draw from. but yet with a new stamp, cast in a new mould, Tacitus was a gold mine. It took about eighteen months peculiarly its own. The woodcarving of these górale, to complete Quo Vadis? Which was my first serious or peastant mountaineers, is really wonderful. From effort in the classical field. The Trilogy was more the massive newel post at the foot of the stairs to the difficult, requiring very careful research, and the study delicate filigree leaf-tracery of the paperknife on Mr. of old and generally obscure authorities.” ∆ Sienkiewicz’s desk, it is all done by hand, and—Oh, Louis E. Van Norman, Poland: The Knight Among Nations. rare temperance and restraint!—left quite unsmirched Introduction by Helena Modjeska. New York-Chicago-Toronto- Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company (New York: 158 Fifth by the vandal, vulgar paint. Fresh, clean, white wood, Avenue, Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue, Toronto: 25 Richmond St wrought into beautiful, artistic forms, with the ozone W., London: 21 Paternoster Square, Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street), 1907. 2d edition. 359 pages, index. Hardcover. 1252 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2006
About the Authors Give James E. Bjork is Lecturer in the History Department of King’s College in London. where it really counts Agata Brajerska-Mazur is Assistant Professor of Polish at the Catholic University of Lublin. One of her publications is a book on translating C. K. Norwid into English. support Bogdan Czaykowski is a Polish poet. He is also Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. The Sarmatian Review Mary Ann Furno did her postgraduate work in
12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 psychoanalysis in the Lenox Hill Hospital Psychotherapy 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901
12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 Program in New York City. 12345678901234567890123456789012123456789012345678901 Patricia A. Gajda is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Tyler. Jonathan Z. Ludwig is Senior Lecturer in Russian at Rice University. He teaches courses on Russian language and RADIO COURIER literature, Slavic Cultures, and Central Asian history and Polish American Radio Network politics. Helena Modjeska [Modrzejewska] (1840–1909), the great P.O. Box 130146, Houston, Texas 77219 Shakespearian actress of the nineteenth century, spent her Polish Language Program early years in Poland before moving to the United States. Saturday 11:00 AM, 1520 KYND Dariusz Skórczewski is a Kosciuszko Foundation Teaching tel./fax: (281) 679-6623 Fellow at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is also email:[email protected] Associate Professor of Literary Theory at the Catholic www.radiocourier.com University of Lublin. James R. Thompson is Noah Harding Professor of Statistics at Rice University. He is the author of, among others, Models for Investors in Real World Markets (Wiley, 2003) and Szwede Slavic Books Simulation: A Modeler’s Approach (Wiley, 2000). Post Office Box 1214 Louis E. Van Norman was a writer and editor, in addition to Palo Alto, CA 94302-1214 serving as Commercial Attaché of the Bureau of Foreign 650-780-0966 and Domestic Commerce, US Department of Commerce, [email protected] in the first decade of the twentieth century. www.szwedeslavicbooks.com Piotr Wrobel is Associate Professor of History and Konstanty Reynert Chair of Polish History at the University of Toronto. One of the world’s great Slavic bookstores.
The Anya Tish Gallery 4411 Montrose Houston, Texas (new location!) Thank You Note phone/fax: 713-524-2299 The Sarmatian Review Publication Fund wishes to thank Artwork and paintings the following individuals and institutions for their donations from Central and Eastern Europe between March-August 2006: Mr. Leonard M. Krazynski, Former Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland in Houston, and Ms. Diane Krazynski; Ms. Beata Piasecka; Ms. Irena Szewiola; Dr. Bohdan ELITE TRAVEL Vitvitsky. Ticketing, Cruises, Accommodations, Car Rental We extend special thanks to Ms. Aurellia Sobczyk for her Halina Kallaby, General Manager thoughtfulness and generosity over the years in renewing 2550 Grey Falls, Suite 200 the subscriptions of so many in the United States and Houston, Texas 77077 overseas. Phone: 713-535-1438 [email protected]