The Polish Example

NAT IONAl SYMBOLS IN THE CONTEXT OF RITUAL: THE POLISH EXAMPLE Amongst the many symbols that help to order collective thoughts and actions, national symbols are, after religious symbols, those which possess the broadest range and relate to a particularly important sphere of social life. These are often deeply rooted in the traditions of the nation and at the present day they continue to a role, frequently assuming greater significance in cases of the appearance and intensification of nationalism. This paper aims to demonstrate the functioning of Polish national symbols under the present-day conditions of the communist state, to describe those of their features that arise from the particular situation of Polish society, and to indicate certain symbolic processes typical of dictatorships dominated by ideology. Without dwelling on the long-running discussion of the definition of symbols and how they differ from other sorts of , I shall assume that a symbol is a type of which carries an emotional , the interpretation of which not only depends on reference to a particular code, but also stimulates thought and stirs The symbol, then, has significance in the inspiration and ordering of human activity. National symbols are paP exceZZence public, according to the distinction made by Raymond Firth between public and private symbols;l they refer to values cultivated and shared by the whole This is a revised version of a paper given in the Institute of Social Anthropology, Oxford, on 1st March 1985. 1 Firth, SymboZ8~ PubZic and Private, London: George AlIen & Unwin 1973. 19 20 Zdziscaw Mach nation, and also represent that nation. They are universal, at least in the sense that among the members of a given nation there exists an agreement that the given symbol represents the nation as a whole. In contemporary societies there usually exists a classical set of national symbols - emblem, flag and national anthem - which are officially recognised, unambiguously defined, and protected by law. Thus symbols have, in the most superfi cial semantic sphere, an ordering significance, distinguishing one nation from another and denoting the unity of the members of each nation. But they are also something considerably more important. In all countries national symbols are recognised as sacred both officially, in the legal sense, and by the informal scale of values. They have this property because they symbolise the permanence and identity of the nation, its greatness and its traditions, its ambitions and ideals. To use Durkheim's definition, these symbols express national solidarity. Thus the significance of actions relating to national symbols is the same as if those actions related to the nation as a whole. Considering the exceptional capacity of national symbols for the generation and ordering of collective actions and remembering their universal range - going beyond the boundaries of particular professional, religious or class interests - these symbols become a central element in the majority of political rituals. Ritual is understood here in the same way that Victor Turner uses it, to mean 'prescribed formal behavior for occasions not given over to technological routine, having reference to beliefs in mystical beings or powers. The symbol is the smallest unit of ritual which still retains the specific properties of ritual behavior; it is the ultimate unit of specific structure in a ritual con text.' To use Turner's terminology further, it may be said that in national culture and in the context of political ritual the symbols of which I speak are the dominant ones. 'Dominant symbols', according to Turner, possess three principal features: 1) condensation, involving the concentration of many potential meanings manifesting themselves in various contexts; 2) unifi cation of disparate meanings in a single symbolic formation; and 3) polarization of meaning, by which the given symbol at one extreme of its meaning 'refers to components of the moral and social orders of ••• society, to principles of social organization ••• and to norms and values inherent in structural relationships', while at the other extreme it refers to elementary feelings usually connected with the simplest natural associations evoked by the symbol. 2 National symbols are indeed 'condensed' in the sense that in various contexts they may manifest various semantic aspects, evoking various elements of national tradition and various values, and may arouse various emotions from affection to despair, from 2 Victor Turner, The Forest of symboZs, Ithaca: Cornell Univer sity Press 1967, p. 19. Polish National Symbols 21 pride to aggression. In considering the social functions and the various semantic aspects of national symbols, reference must be made to Firth's exhaustive study of flags. Many of his observations can be applied to all kinds of national symbols. As Firth writes, flags fulfil a role of decoration and display, expressing solidarity and the identification of the individual with the group. National flags usually express in symbolic form the principal values, ideology or aspirations of the nation. Firth quotes an Indian government pamphlet explaining the sense of symbols, in which it is written that 'The National Flag, the National Anthem and the National Emblem are the three symbols through which an independent country proclaims its identity and sover eignty and, as such, they command instantaneous respect and loyalty. In themselves, they reflect the entire background, thought and. culture of a nation'. Firth further asserts that 'Flags are also capable of being greatly varied in shape and design, by use of different patterns, colour combinations and specific motifs. The adaptability of flags in display means that their symbolic value can appear over a great range of ritual occasions •••• Because a flag is cheap to make or buy, easy to manipulate, observable by numbers of people at once, it is a prime vehicle for conveying attitudes towards a social unit, of which one is a member, or expressing other sentiments,.3 Polish national symbols, though sirnUar in many respects to the majority of contemporary analogous symbolic representations of European nations, are distinguished by one essential feature, namely that they remained fundamentally unchanged from their very beginning. It is, as Firth emphasises, a feature of national symbols that 'a change in type of government may be symbolized t 4 by abandonment of the old flag and creation of a different one • As a rule, a change of political system or of political leader ship has brought with it a change of national symbols. Not only have nearly all communist countries adopted new symbols, but the same happened in France after the Revolution, in Italy, and in Germany after the Second World War. From the moment that demo cratic systems were introduced in the majority of European countries, the old symbols that had come from the ancestral signs of the monarchs were discarded. In Poland things were different. The emblem and flag of Poland have their origin in the Middle Ages, and the exact time of their appearance cannot be ascertained. Historical sources record their existence at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The emblem of Poland precedes the flag, and so should be the starting-point of o~r discussion. The emblem depicts a white eagle with outspread wings, its head turned to the right, 3 Firth, op.cit., pp. 341-2. 4 Ibid., p. 347. 22 Zdzis~aw Mach with golden talons and beak. Until the end of the Second World War the eagle wore a golden crown. It is set against the back~ ground of an evenly red shield. The emblem is derived directly from the coat-of-arms of the Piast family, who ruled Poland from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. The first Polish king BolesJ:aw received,according to some historical sources, the sign of ~he silver eagie from the German emperor Otto III as a symbol of their mutual equality. During the Piast dynasty, the Polish state was formed. The eagle has been a popular symbol of power in Europe since Roman times. The reason was, of course, the features attributed to the eagle as the king of birds - the strongest, and the most powerful, independent and majestic. Polish sources indicate that in the period of the break-up of the kingdom into feudal principalities under the German emperors, the Piast eagle had no crown (see Figures 1 and 2). It was given one when, in the course of the unification of the Polish lands at the end of the thirteenth century, Prince Przemys~ was crowned king, s.overeign ruler of a Christian state, the equal of all other European rulers (see Figure 3). From this time, one may say that the crown on the eagle's head has been a symbol of the political sovereignty of the Polish nation. Later on, I shall consider the far-reaching contemporary implications of this fact. Przemysl's coronation seal from 1295 depicted an eagle with a crown and carried around its rim the inscription: 'The Almighty himself hath returned the victorious signs to the Poles,.5 From that time right up to the present day, the white eagle has been the symbol, not of individual rulers or even dynasties, but of the nation and the state. The loss of the emblem, for example during battle, symbolised defeat and dishonour, as is clear from the 15t.h-century chronicle of Jan Dtugosz in his description of an event which took place during the great Battle of Grunwald in 1410 between the Poles and the Teutonic Knights. In the course of the battle, a great red standard with a white eagle symbol ising the whole Polish army found itself in the midst of the fray and nearly fell into the hands of the enemy. Seeing the symbol in danger, the Polish Knights threw themselves desperately to the rescue, while the Teutonic knights had already begun a hymn of victory, jUdging quite rightly that the loss of the symbol would be the final blow administered to the Polish army.

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