THE SARMATIAN REVIEW Vol. XXIV, No. 1 January 2004
Debating “first things” in Polish
Benedictine Missionary Sister Efrema with Damian, a special care child. Photo courtesy of the Rainbow House in Ełk, Poland, an institution for handicapped persons aged 0-30 maintained by the Polish Benedictine Missionary Sisters. 1002 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 by a Texan rather than a Varsovian The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059- Karcz...... 1019 or a Cracovian. Second, it 5872) is a triannual publication of the Polish Institute After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict of Houston. The journal deals with Polish, Central, in the Wake of World War II by Marek Jan incorporates Dr. Hannan’s and Eastern European affairs, and it explores their Chodakiewicz (reviewed by Danusha V. knowledge of several Slavic implications for the United States. We specialize in Goska) ...... 1021 cultures and several branches of the translation of documents.Sarmatian Review is The Noonday Cemetery and Other Stories by indexed in the American Bibliography of Slavic and Gustav Herling (reviewed by Janet G. Tucker) Christianity. Third, it contains some East European Studies and in P.A.I.S. International ...... 1022 unique insights, such as that of the Database available on OCLC FirstSearch. Subscription price is $15.00 per year for individuals, A Man Who Spanned Two Eras: the story of largely suppressed story of how the $21.00 for institutions and libraries ($21.00 for a bridge pioneer Ralph Modjeski by Józef Council of Florence and its decrees individuals, $27.00 for libraries overseas, air mail). Glomb (reviewed by Ashley Fillmer) . . 1024 were initially accepted in Muscovite The views expressed by authors of articles do not Our Take: American Catholic Parochial- necessarily represent those of the Editors or of the ism ...... 1026 Russia, and then rejected owing to Polish Institute of Houston. Articles are subject to About the Authors ...... 1027 the tsars’ desire for power. editing. Unsolicited manuscripts and other materials Announcements and Notes ...... 1028 are not returned unless accompanied by a self- Among the reviewers we again Thank You Note...... 1028 addressed and stamped envelope. Please submit your welcome Dr. Danusha Goska, a contribution electronically and send a printout by air talented academic from Indiana mail. Letters to the Editor can be e-mailed to
As with some other “national” varieties, the Roman Observing those church interiors, a native of another Catholicism of Poland is, for the believer, analogous country might feel sympathy for the reformers who to an onion. The core contains the barely expressible desired to clear the houses of worship of distractions truths of heaven and earth. The outer layers may and, in some instances in other parts of Europe, embody qualities that are nationally specific, destroyed church interiors in the name of reform. A superfluous, maudlin, or simply imperfectly human, single point of theological and aesthetical focus today evidence of Catholicism’s ability to absorb and characterizes Protestant houses of worship as well as celebrate within a religious context a broad variety of some contemporary Roman Catholic ones, in contrast human cultures and expressions. The core of this onion to many Catholic churches in Poland. During the of Catholicism is separated from its exterior by layers Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Poland of fine onionskin, so that it is impossible to determine, experienced little of the religious violence that occurred in peeling away individual layers, when one has in other parts of Europe, and there was no mass removed the exterior and already begun to discard the destruction of Polish churches. For Polish Catholics, core. Yet the onion is of little use if reduced to a pile all the layers of artifacts and symbols in the churches of individual layers: an evidence of Catholicism’s have their rightful place. Distracting as they might perfect grounding in both the body and the spirit. The appear to the visitor, these represent the layers of Polish believer does not concern him/herself with the splitting history and the influence of the Church upon that of onionskins, but takes the onion whole, outer history. imperfections and all. The first mention of Christianity in Poland relates to One is struck upon entering a Roman Catholic church the mission led by two brothers, Cyril (known also by in Poland by the clutter of symbols and the abundance his baptismal name Constantine and called the of imagery. Some Orthodox churches leave a similar Philosopher) and Methodius, who arrived in Moravia impression with icons and lamps. It might appear to a from Byzantium in the year 863. The story of Cyril visitor that the Polish churches are houses for the local and Methodius is rich in symbolism, though Poles tend religious artifacts of the ages. Processional banners, to disregard its significance because the direct candles, statues, colored streamers hung from the influence of the Cyrilo-Methodian mission in Poland heights of the interior, stations of the cross, paintings, was brief and impermanent, soon to be replaced by the frescoes, and icons are visible. Some churches display traditional Polish orientation towards Rome. The rosaries, jewels, miniature commemorative shields, and mission of Cyril and Methodius occurred before the metal wota donated by individuals in gratitude for and religious split between East and West, and the two commemoration of answered prayers. Certain paintings brothers maintained close contacts with both Rome and portray national saints, such as Maximilian Kolbe, the Byzantium. Proclaimed copatron saints of Europe Franciscan priest who, during the Second World War, along with Saint Benedict, by Pope John Paul II, Cyril 1010 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 and Methodius represent a model for reconciliation In 965 Mieszko I (d. 992), the first historical ruler of between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. the Polish Piast dynasty, married Doubrava, a Czech princess of the Premyslid dynasty. Doubrava’s uncle The layers of symbolic artifacts in Polish churches Vaclav, who is memorialized in the carol “Good King represent the layers of Polish history and the influence Wenceslas,” was martyred in 935 and proclaimed a of the Church upon that history. saint. Her great-grandmother was Ludmila, also canonized by the Church and honored as one of the By the ninth century, the territory of what is today national saints of Bohemia. The beginnings of the southeastern Moravia and southwestern Slovakia was Czech state in Bohemia preceded those of Piast Poland, the center of an expanding political and economic a fact reflected spatially in Poland’s greater distance power that became known as Great Moravia. This is from the Franks and from Rome. In 966 Mieszko I the first Slavic state for which there exists combined accepted baptism in Gniezno, which in the year 1000 archeological, historical, and linguistic evidence. At became the seat of an archbishopric. It should be noted the request of the Moravian ruler Rostislav, Cyril and that Vladimir of Kiev, who accepted Christianity from Methodius led a Christian mission to Moravia. The Byzantium in 988, was the last among the Slavs to join beginnings of Slavic Christianity and the Slavic literary what at that time promised to be a form of cultural tradition date to that time. Under Rostislav and his advancement. successor Svatopluk, Great Moravia’s borders further Christianity led to the acceptance of monogamous expanded to include Slovakia, Pannonia, Bohemia, and marriage and respect for the value and rights of the parts of modern Poland and Austria. Though Great child in society. Yet there was popular resistance to Moravia was destroyed by the Magyars and Franks in abandoning the old pagan beliefs. In the eleventh the first years of the tenth century, the influences of century Poland experienced a revolt against the Church the Cyrilo-Methodian mission survived in the Balkans, and state. Pagan beliefs were particularly well and later penetrated to the territory of the East Slavs. entrenched among the Slavs of Pomerania and the Elbe Saint Cyril created an alphabet and a literary language region, as well as among the neighboring Balts. Saint used today (after modifications) in Russia and the Wojciech (Adalbert), one of the patron saints of Poland other Orthodox Slavic areas, as well as in the Eastern and a former bishop of Prague, was martyred in 997 Catholic rite in Ukraine and Belarus. while trying to convert the Baltic tribe of Prussians to It should be noted here that for many centuries Christianity. Western and Eastern Christianity have met, intermingled, and influenced each other along Poland’s Following the Union of Florence in 1439, the eastern borders. The Catholicism of Poland may appear Moscow Metropolitan Isidore proclaimed the Union more “eastern” than most varieties of Roman of the Eastern and Western Churches in Moscow’s Catholicism, just as the Eastern Christianity of Uspenskii Sobor in 1440. This proclamation was neighboring Ukraine and Belarus is more “western” angrily rejected by the ruler of Moscow Vasilii II who than that of Russia. But Poles tend to view the eastern condemned the Metropolitan and imprisoned him in borders of Roman Catholicism as stark and well defined the Chudnov monastery. in relation to neighboring Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities. In cultural milieus intolerant of Catholics, Poles are The Life of Saint Methodius describes a “powerful sometimes cast as fanatically religious. This is an pagan prince” of the Vistulians whom Methodius inference based more on the statistic, infrequent today persuaded to accept baptism. Based on that evidence in Europe, describing the nation’s identification with and what is known of early political contacts between Catholicism, than on the individual Pole’s expression Krakow and the Czech state that developed in Bohemia of private religious faith. Many Polish Catholics following the destruction of Great Moravia, it seems display little interest in dogmas and are remarkably probable that the mission of Cyril and Methodius had tolerant of other faiths. The tradition of religious some success on Polish territory. Yet full tolerance in Poland dates back to the centuries of Christianization came to Poland from the West. religious struggle in Europe, when the country was a Poland’s official Christianization in 966 meant the haven for religious refugees of all kinds persecuted in official establishment of Christianity in its Latin form. other countries. During the bloodiest periods of religious violence in Europe, Poland was a place of January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1011 unparalleled tolerance. Catholic religious absolutism Poland. Today the existence of the much-persecuted was never a policy of the Polish monarchy. Greek Catholic Church in western Ukraine and other In the fourteenth century and due to intermarriage, areas represents a major source of tension between the Poland was united politically with the Grand Duchy of Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Lithuania. Poland thus became a kingdom of both Western and Eastern Christians: Lithuania had In the eighteenth century Poland became an island previously conquered what today is called Belarus and of Catholicism surrounded by Protestant Prussia and Ukraine. In addition to the Eastern Orthodox, Poland’s Sweden in the northwest, by Hussite Bohemia in the religious minorities have included monophysite south, and by Orthodox Russia in the east. Armenians; Jews; Karaites, who reject the Talmud and accept only the Old Testament; and Muslim Tatars. By Political conflicts with hostile neighbors over the the second half of the sixteenth century, a sizeable centuries strengthened the position of the Catholic chunk of the Polish nobility had become Protestant. Church in Poland. The country became an island of Calvinism exercised a strong influence in Little Poland Catholicism surrounded by Protestant Prussia and (Małopolska) and in Lithuania, while much of Prussia Sweden, by Hussite Bohemia, and by Orthodox Russia. and the region of Wielkopolska followed the teachings The religious policies of those states did not reflect the of Martin Luther. Only with the reforms instituted religious tolerance (of the premodern variety) that within the Catholic Church during the Counter- flourished in Poland. With time, the national ideologies Reformation did the majority of Polish Protestants of Poland’s foes, especially Prussia and Russia, became return to Catholicism. Isolated communities of Polish strongly anti-Catholic. Following the fall of Lutherans survive today, notably in Teschen Silesia. Constantinople in 1453, Russians promoted the idea Religious matters were further complicated at the end of Moscow, the seat of a Russian Orthodox patriarch, of the sixteenth century with the creation of the Greek as the “third Rome.” Moscow denounced Rome and Catholic, or Eastern Caholic (Uniate) Church. The Catholicism as heretical. Union of Brest was signed in 1596 by the Catholic Poland’s declining political fortunes, climaxing with bishops and by most of the Orthodox bishops of Polish the partitions of Poland among Prussia, Russia, and territory. The former Orthodox acknowledged the Pope Austria at the end of the eighteenth century, were not of Rome rather than the Patriarch of Constantinople as unrelated to these developments. Obviously Poland the head of their Church, while they retained their paid a high price for its fidelity to Catholicism. But ill Slavonic liturgy and religious traditions, including the fortune also strengthened the association of Polishness married priesthood. Factors influencing the union were with Catholicism. Under the partitions, the Church the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the was viewed as a prime foundation of Polish society, desire of the Orthodox clergy to improve their social and it was the only Polish institution to continue to and educational status, and Rome’s aspirations for function in all three partitions. Inspired by Adam reunification. Mickiewicz and other poets of the first half of the The opinion that the Orthodox bishops were forced nineteenth century, some Poles came to see a into the union with Rome became standard when the parallelism between their nation and the crucified Moscow-generated history of the region gained Christ. Just as Russians assigned a special role in ascendancy. Yet as Jerzy Narbutt points out in his book human history to Moscow, the “third Rome,” Poles Dwa bunty, the Brest Union was but a confirmation of toyed with the idea that the historical struggles and the Union of Florence (1439), whereby the unity of injustices experienced by Poland had exceptional the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity was significance for all of humanity. Some Poles looked proclaimed. Accordingly, the Moscow Metropolitan to Poland to initiate a new era of human history. A Isidore “proclaimed the Union of the two Churches in similar development is sometimes perceived in Ireland Moscow’s Uspenskii Sobor in 1440. This proclamation where English persecution strengthened Roman was angrily rejected by the ruler of Moscow Vasilii II Catholicism. who condemned the Metropolitan and imprisoned him Bismarck’s policy of Kulturkampf introduced in in the Chudnov monastery. Fortunately, the Prussia in 1872 was generally directed at all Catholics Metropolitan succeeded in escaping to Poland.” (52) under German rule, though Catholic Poles were Yet many of the Orthodox who did not accept the Union especially affected. Laws were passed prohibiting the of Brest were embittered at Rome and at Catholic use of Polish in Polish schools. At the same time but 1012 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 for different reasons, similar laws were passed in the too far removed from the concerns and sensibilities of Russian empire where Poles were forbidden to use the the West. John Paul II was at least partly responsible Polish language even at Warsaw University. Led by for the collapse of the Soviet system. His visits to the Catholic clergy, the Poles of Prussia fiercely resisted Poland as pope before the downfall of Communism Bismarck’s policies. In the meantime under the Russian vividly underscored the contrast between the partitions, a statue of Tsar Alexander II was erected in mendacious ideology of the Communist system and 1889 in Czestochowa, and it became a symbol of the the truths of Christianity. policies of Russification. The placement of the immense statue at the entrance to the Jasna Gora The history of Christianity in Poland is related to the monastery seemed to represent both Russian intent to Pole’s stereotypical enthusiasm for the abstract idea block entry to the monastery and the Russian and the nation’s obsession with historical duties. government’s opposition to the Catholic Church. The According to the Dagome Iudex, a twelfth century statue was pulled down in 1917. summary of an earlier Latin document sent by the Polish king to the papal see, Mieszko I asked that his Since the end of the Second World War, the old entire kingdom be placed under the protection of the traditions of cultural and religious diversity in Poland pope. Certainly Mieszko I was motivated in part by are a memory of the past. Today’s Poland is arguably political considerations, though his request for union the most homogeneous country in continental Europe with the papacy has a special significance in light of from the standpoint of its religious and ethnic subsequent Polish history. Another event that, in the composition. light of Poland’s thousand year history, became something more than mere gesture was King Jan The experiences of the Second World War, the Casimir’s consecration in Lwów (Lviv in contemporary occupation of Poland by the Nazis and Soviets, and Ukrainian) in 1656 of the Polish nation to the Virgin the imposition of a pro-Soviet communist government Mary, who was proclaimed Queen of Poland. At the in the postwar period further reinforced the position of initiative of Stefan Cardinal Wyszyƒski, Primate of the Catholic Church in Poland. Both the Nazis and the Poland from 1948 through 1981, Jan Casimir’s vows Soviets targeted the Catholic Church for destruction. were symbolically renewed by the entire Polish nation Following the Second World War, Poland’s borders in 1956, a year of dramatic political events in Poland. shifted to the west. The population squeezed into those One of the grandest of the Polish nation’s Catholic borders (many of them being the PolishVertriebene, or statements was Jan Sobieski’s defeat of the Turks at expellees from the east) was overwhelmingly Polish Vienna which, incidentally, occurred during the night and Roman Catholic. of 9/11–9/12, 1683, September 11 thus being the day Since the end of the Second World War, the old of the Muslims’ greatest success in conquering traditions of cultural and religious diversity in Poland Christian Europe. Poles saw that struggle as a religious are a memory of the past. Today’s Poland is arguably one, and had Sobieski not felt a very Catholic obligation the most homogeneous country in continental Europe to lead his Polish troops to Vienna, Europe’s political from the standpoint of its religious and ethnic fate might have been quite different. composition. It therefore seems strangely reactionary The spiritual center of Polish Catholicism is the and nostalgic when some Polish and foreign monastery of the Pauline Fathers in Czestochowa, intellectuals invoke the now-deceased multicultural called Jasna Góra, or the Mountain of Light, which and multinational Poland, and call upon the now- houses the chapel of the icon of the Black Madonna. homogeneous Polish nation to practice diversity and A painting on a wall above the chapel shows the Jasna behave as if the country had major problems with the Góra monastery as a medieval fortification threatened “minorities.” by mounted invaders, a scene that became the A milestone of Polish history was the election in 1978 centerpiece of Polish self-perception. The monastery of Karol Wojtyła as Pope of Rome. The Catholic world today is somewhat less impressive, on first appearance, was stunned at the selection of the first non-Italian pope than the fortress shown in that painting. The landscape in centuries. A person of enormous intelligence and surrounding Czestochowa is rather flat, with dense, charisma, John Paul II personally embodies the noblest unimposing forests. The industrial town that has grown traditions of Polish Catholicism. He has been criticized up around the fortress monastery obscures the elevation by some in the West as too Polish, i.e., too traditional, of the site on which the monastery was erected in the January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1013 fourteenth century. The focus of the monastery A sign posted at the monastery entrances proclaims buildings contained within the fortress walls is a tower in seven languages: “This is a holy place. Come here first erected in the fifteenth century, a structure not as a pilgrim.” Nearly three and a half million pilgrims unlike some other historical towers in Poland, in which visited the monastery in 2002. As with other Christian the majesty of height is not entirely matched by monasteries and with holy sites of other faiths, pilgrims originality of architectural design. Viewing the austere journey to Cz∏stochowa to satisfy a spiritual need or exterior of the monastery from a distance, the visitor impulse. In Poland there is final recourse for every trial may be surprised later at the opulence and grandeur of and tribulation. In times of trouble, Poles go to the numerous churches and chapels tucked away within Cz∏stochowa to pray before the Black Madonna. the monastery walls. Religious art in Western Christianity has long Most observers will conclude today that the Second emphasized the humanity of Christ. This is visible in Vatican Council was a success in Poland. Polish the works of the Western European masters, as well as Catholics at all levels of society embraced the reforms; in the modern American iconography, which depicts the Council brought forth none of the divisiveness Christ as a very human, long-haired white Anglo. In that has been seen in America. Poland, Christ’s human nature can be seen in the cult of Christ the Man of Sorrows (Chrystus Frasobliwy), Jasna Góra is a Marian shrine, with the focus of a popular theme of folk sculpture that was popularized devotion on Mary the Mother of God. Unlike Lourdes from the fourteenth century on. Portrayed as fully and Fatima, pilgrimage sites with which it compares human, Christ the Man of Sorrows sits pensively, robed in the Catholic world in stature and popularity, Jasna and with a crown of thorns, one hand supporting a Góra is not the site of a Marian apparition. From the troubled head with furrowed brow. The cult of Christ official perspective of the Church, it is the choice of of Divine Mercy, introduced in Poland by St. Faustina the individual believer to accept or reject the Marian Kowalska (1905–1938), is associated with a popular apparitions, which, at any rate, play no central role in religious painting in which Christ’s human attributes the doctrines and teachings of Catholicism. Jasna Góra and capacity for mercy are emphasized. In contrast, in is therefore a place where a nation chose to celebrate the Slavic East the figure of Christ the High Priest, its ties to Christianity. Something of a window to seated on a throne in the vestments and crown of a another world rather than a mere religious painting, Bishop of the East, is emphasized. This image is the Black Madonna, as the painting of Virgin Mary in seldom encountered in Poland, though an imposing Cz∏stochowa is customarily called, is credited with sculpture was recently erected. miracles associated with Polish history, especially the Jasna Góra houses a museum and library, and the repulsion of foreign invasions. Following the Swedish entire complex represents a sanctuary of Polishness. It siege of the monastery in 1655, the icon’s importance also demonstrates to visitors from abroad that the came to be acknowledged throughout the nation as a medieval tradition of pilgrimages is alive and well in symbol for all Poland. Poland. Before the main entrance stands an oversized At the center of Jasna Góra, behind the fortifications statue of Cardinal Wyszyƒski, who guided the Polish and the monastery buildings that have been erected over Church through the years when Poland was occupied the centuries, is the chapel of the Black Madonna. This by the Soviets. Wyszyƒski is viewed by many Poles as chapel more closely resembles one of the churches of a national hero. The modernistic stage of steel beams the Holy Land than it does a Roman Catholic shrine of and guywires erected for the papal Masses is still in Europe. A gate of black iron and ornate metals extends place above the monastery wall, in readiness for John to the ceiling in front of the small chapel, so that one Paul’s return. Within sight of that platform is an may view the chapel during those times the gate is immense statue of John Paul II. A tablet at the base of secured. In front of the gate hang immense, ornate that statue displays a quote from John Paul’s 1978 visit votive lamps. The nave before the chapel has no pews, to the monastery: “If we want to learn how history so that pilgrims must either stand or kneel. Both chapel works in the hearts of Poles, it is necessary to come and nave are filled throughout day and evening with here, it is necessary to put one’s ear to this place, to pilgrims. hear the echo of the whole life of the nation in the heart High above the chapel altar, the icon of the Black of its Mother and Queen.” Madonna is concealed behind an ornate silver shield, which at specific times of day is ceremoniously raised 1014 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 to a dramatic fanfare of horns and drums. That music jewel-encrusted embellishments for the decoration of is not a recording but is performed by monks. Along the icon. the outer perimeter of the chapel a rail partitions a path The priests within the Jasna Góra complex exude which leads behind the altar. The altar in the chapel is energy and a sense of purpose, and they appear eager located directly beneath the elevated icon, so that the to deal with the anxiety and despair that bring some priest celebrant says Mass with his back to the pilgrims here. Most of the crowds that fill the congregation, as was the Catholic practice before the monastery complex are dressed somewhat formally. Second Vatican Council. Mass is celebrated throughout The pilgrims represent foreign visitors and a cross the day in the chapel and in adjacent churches, so that section of the Polish population. Observing families the pilgrim has the opportunity to walk from one service leisurely strolling the perimeter of the monastery directly to another. complex, one might suppose this is a park in the middle of a city. Large numbers of Poles make a summertime Some young Poles today consider their nation’s pilgrimage on foot to Cz∏stochowa from their homes. ubiquitous Catholicism to be suffocating and While the intended gain is spiritual, the unintended inhibiting. physical benefits should not be discounted. The journey can last several days or even a week, and the pilgrims The oldest extant source on the icon is the fourteenth typically make arrangements beforehand to lodge in century Latin work Translatio Tabulae Beatae Mariae the homes of local citizens along the way. Virginis, quam Sanctus Lucas depinxit propris minibus, One of the most impressive sights viewed from the a copy of an earlier chronicle. According to this height of the monastery walls is the First Communion chronicle, the icon was painted by Saint Luke the processions of children that wind along the roads below Evangelist upon wood from the kitchen table of the the monastery. Moving hurriedly on foot, the lines of house in Jerusalem where the Virgin spent the final children, girls in white gowns and veils, boys in suits years of her earthly life. Clearly, however, this and and ties, approach from the distance and pass through other icons of Byzantine style are of more recent the main gate to one of the churches. Weddings and provenance. Legend states that Emperor Constantine funerals also take place here. the Great brought the icon from Jerusalem to Constantinople, where it was acquired by a Ruthenian Catholicism remains one of the most fascinating prince. It subsequently became the property of Prince aspects of contemporary life and culture in Poland, a Władysław of Opole, who established the monastery testament of history and tradition that survived at Jasna Góra in 1382. Władysław donated the icon to centuries of determined opposition and persecution. the monastery, probably in 1384. Measuring 81.6 x 120.2 cm (97 x 137 cm with the Somewhat more imposing architecturally than polychrome frame), the icon presents a frontal image Cz∏stochowa, though less significant historically, is of the Virgin holding the child Jesus in her left arm. Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, another distinguished Polish Stylistically, the icon represents the Byzantine model pilgrimage site. Located some twenty miles southwest known as the Hodegetria. However, judging by the of Kraków, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is nestled in the writings the icon has generated, the average Pole has foothills of the Carpathians. The site is associated with long since lost any sense of connection with the Pope John Paul II who was born nearby in Wadowice. Byzantine origins of the icon. For him or her, the icon Comprising forty-four churches and chapels, Kalwaria is simply a Polish representation of the Madonna. The Zebrzydowska was established in the seventeenth bottom layer of the icon of the Black Madonna consists century as a replica of the holy sites of Jersualem, of three planks of linden wood, each 3.5 cm thick. clearly a part of the Counter-Reformation movement According to the traditional method of “writing” icons, in Poland. Like Cz∏stochowa, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska canvas was applied to the wood, and the canvas then boasts a miraculous icon, Our Lady of Kalwaria, a covered with gesso. The tempera with which the icon painting in the Western European style. Another was “written” forms the top layer. On special beloved icon and pilgrimage site is found in Wilno occasions, the icon is “dressed” with an elaborate riza (Vilnius), the capital of Lithuania. The Ostrobramska of gems and precious metals, revealing only the heads Mother of God in Vilnius has enjoyed enormous and hands of Mary and Christ. Over the centuries, popularity among both Catholic and Orthodox popes, kings, and nobles donated numerous gold and believers. Other icons, some venerated as miraculous, January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1015 were found in Poland’s eastern marches in what is today Most current observers will probably conclude that Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. Two of the most the Second Vatican Council was a success in Poland. beloved were removed to Wrocław in the postwar Generally, Polish Catholics at all levels of society period: the Mother of God of Zborów nad Strypà, which embraced the reforms; the Council brought forth none accompanied King Jan Sobieski during his military of the divisiveness that has been seen in America. From campaigns, including his defense of Vienna; and the the perspective of the West, this is one of the puzzles Mother of God of Podkamieƒ. of Polish Catholicism. In few other countries was the Some young Poles today consider their nation’s introduction of the reforms of the Council so well ubiquitous Catholicism to be suffocating and inhibiting. received and so lacking in controversy as in Poland. Individuals immersed in the relativism of the West, And yet, despite the general acceptance of the reforms, where all the varied and contradictory systems of the Polish church, outwardly and inwardly, has human beliefs are increasingly accorded equal remained more traditional than the Catholic Church in attention, protest against the value-oriented teachings the West. One can hardly escape the conclusion that of the Catholic Church in Poland. In modern Polish together with the reforms intended by the Council, other cities it is easy to escape from religious symbolism, influences played a role in American and Western and church attendance is not required. Visitors to European churches. In Poland, the Council reforms Poland can easily find milieus where traditional Polish were implemented without distortions and re- Catholicism is scorned and rejected. interpretations. Catholic churches in Poland and the United States Catholicism remains one of the most fascinating typically look quite different, and, corresponding to aspects of contemporary life and culture in Poland, a the physical environment, the services held in them testament of history and tradition that survived have different ambiences and liturgical emphases. centuries of determined opposition and persecution. Of Liturgical devotions in Polish churches seem more course, since the fall of Communism, the influence of private in character than in American churches, where the church has declined to some degree. Some Poles the mind more often communes with the immediate remark that their long history of oppression and foreign community than with the deity and the saints of the rule did not prepare them for the freedoms they have centuries. Observing contemporary Catholic Poland, enjoyed since 1989. Those individuals are frustrated one hardly senses the tremendous upheaval that took that the Church, which led the Polish nation to victory place in the Catholic Church following the Second over determined enemy, now faces in the consumerism Vatican Council (1962–1965) and in the years that and hedonism of the West a more treacherous enemy. preceded the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978. Yet considering the history of Catholicism in Poland, The changes related to the liturgy, the role of the clergy one inclines towards optimism and expects the Church and laity, and church policy on ecumenism are less will succeed in the future in finding its place in the culture pronounced in Poland. In America changes associated of Poland as it has done through the centuries. ∆ with the Council were introduced almost immediately, whereas the attitude of the church hierarchy in Poland Bibliography was more cautious. Liturgical reforms in Poland were Jan Sergiusz Gajek et al., editors, Cyryl i Metody. introduced gradually, and the Polish hierarchy was Apostołowie i nauczyciele Słowian. 2 vols. (Lublin: KUL, unwilling to discard tradition solely for the sake of 1991). experimentation. In Western Europe and America the Violetta Gradek, “Do czarnej Madonny,” Dziennik Zachodni changes that followed the Council brought about (Katowice), 15–16 February 2003. Antoni Jackowski, Jan Pach, and Jan Stanisław Rudziƒski, considerable disruption, so that even today there Jasna Góra (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo DolnoÊlàskie, 2001). remains a lack of uniformity in certain liturgical and Jerzy Kłoczowski, A History of Polish Christianity administrative practices, as well as a lack of consensus translated by Małgorzata Sady et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge on the intent and meaning of certain reforms of the University Press, 2000). Council. No such developments can be observed in Jacek Kolbuszewski, Kresy (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Poland, where the introduction of the vernacular and DolnoÊlàskie, 1995). of the second altar for the priest facing the congregation Jerzy Narbutt, Dwa bunty (Katowice: Unia, 2003). have been accepted without causing disruption in other A. G. Velykiy, S litopysu khristiyans’koy Ukrainy, vol. 2 segments of the liturgy. (Rome, 1969). Adam Zamoyski, The Polish Way. New York: Hippocrene, 1994. 1016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 sense of guilt whatsoever toward the Poles whose BOOKS Received country they invaded, ravaged, and exposed to half a century of Soviet occupation. Scholars in German and he Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant Slavic history need to pay more attention to this book. National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848–1914, T arsztaty translatorskie II / Workshops on by Keely Stauter-Halsted. Ithaca & London: Cornell Translation II, edited by Richard Sokoloski, Univ. Press, 2001. x + 272 pages. Index, bibliography, W Henryk Duda, and Jacek Scholz. Lublin-Ottawa: photographs, maps. Hardcover. $49.95 on Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL and Slavic Research Group, Amazon.com. University of Ottawa, 2002. 205 pages. Paper. ISBN 83- This book ushers in compelling evidence that the 7306-113-4. In Polish, English, German, and Russian. modern Polish national identity developed among This volume is a continuation of a project started in peasants in Galicia long before the First World War June 1999 and involving cooperation of the Institute of and reconstitution of independent Poland. It also shows Polish Philology of the Catholic University of Lublin, that the conception of Polish identity among peasants Poland, and the Slavic Research Group of the University was by no means uniform. The author argues that the of Ottawa. It comprises selected papers from two region’s peasants possessed a high degree of civic Workshops on Translation held in Lublin in 2000 and consciousness at the time when non-Germanic Central 2001. European peasants were supposed to be illiterate, mute, The contents of the volume are diverse yet coherent. and malleable. Thus the book works toward the It embraces issues related to both theory of translation shattering of stereotypes associated with peasantry, and and practice of it. The authors and participants in the for that reason it will not be welcome by those who workshops are interested in some specific problem of cling to these stereotypes. The region’s peasants were translation of (mostly) literary texts into a particular proverbially poor (“Hunger” and “Misery” are the language. This pragmatic direction is welcome. Also actual names of villages in the vicinity of Zakopane worth noting is the fact that the Lublin-based today). As has often been the case concerning Polish Workshops on Translation, having already become a lands partitioned among three European empires, the tradition, develop to embrace other languages of the history of this area has usually been told from the Central and Eastern European region and thus become standpoint of the politically and economically a forum for scholars, graduate students, and successful groups. professional translators who seek to improve their The book is meticulously researched and instruments of translation and exchange their documented. The scholarship is cutting-edge. In the experiences. Besides Polish and English (the latter early twentieth century, Polish immigrants to America being the target language of translations of some of came largely from Galicia. The Nation in the Village the most difficult Polish poetry by Mikołaj S∏p- has already surfaced in various American Polish Szarzyƒski, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, Ignacy Krasicki, discussion groups on the Web. Adam Mickiewicz, Cyprian Norwid, Tadeusz Cold War in the Soviet Bloc: Polish-East German RóÏewicz, and Stanisław Jerzy Lec), other Slavic Relations, 1945–1962, by Sheldon R. Anderson. A (Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian) as well as non- Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. 336 pages. Slavic languages (German and even Turkish) are Hardcover. $33.00 on Amazon.com. objects of research. (ds) A revealing study of the relationship between two thos, vol. 14, no. 4 (2001). A quarterly published Communist groups, East German and Polish. In spite by the John Paul II Institute in Lublin and the John of sloganeering about the supranational nature of E Paul II Foundation in Rome ([email protected]). Communism, the old animosities survived intact in the ISSN 0860-8024. 398 pages. East German-Polish relations during the Cold War. East A periodical on philosophical and ethic issues. The German Communists conveniently shrugged off their authors of essays (some of them translated into Polish, portion of guilt for the Second World War, attributing others written in Polish) are all noted philosophers and it all to West German capitalists. This enabled them to scholars. The lead essay is authored by Karol Wojtyła remain intransigent, behind the facade of consent, about and it deals with the role of Christianity in history. A the Oder-Neisse border with Poland. The old section of the philosophy and theology of history Prussianism with its hostility to Poland and to the follows (four articles) then a section of the Ausländer generally survived in the DDR more fully philosophically-minded Romantic poet of Poland, than in the FRG. It enabled East Germans to feel no January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1017 Zygmunt Krasiƒski (eleven essays). These major sections models, place in liturgy, performing practice, typology are followed by polemics, book reviews, interviews, and of works, their language and imagery. The third conference reports. There is a summary in English. chapter, Inventory of Polish Marian Songs Until the Unfortunately, the volume is marred by editorial Middle of the 16th Century, reviews the source materials: incompetence. The archaic way in which the known texts, information about probable dates and bibliographical matters are supplied is one. Issue authors of the songs, their relationship to foreign numbers and dates of publication have to be brought models, their purpose and liturgical function, as well in line with the standards prevalent in first world as the most important editions and studies of the old countries. As things stand now, a reader does not know documents. whether Ethos is published quarterly, yearly, or semi- The second part features five analytical studies annually. The publishers of the footnoted books are (Studies and Analyses). Four of them pertain to specific not supplied, only the cities in which books were songs: Holy and Pious Anna, The Lord’s Mysteries Are published and dates of publication. The topics of Immense, The Living God’s Liberality, and A Pure Little previous issues enumerated on the back cover mean Flower, Consolation of a Sad Heart, while the last one nothing to a contemporary researcher unless deals with one of the crucial questions in Polish accompanied by names of people who wrote on these medieval studies, namely the relationship of the native topics. No such names are supplied. Such nameless medieval Marian songs to the Old Czech literature. listings smack of medieval times when Christian These songs glorify the most important Marian humility made authors avoid putting their names holidays of ancient Christian origin: Mary’s Birth (Holy forward. Today they merely signal editorial negligence. and Pious Anna), Annunciation and Incarnation (The The English summary is too brief. These and other slips Lord’s Mysteries Are Immense), and Dormition and make this worthy volume lose potential readership. Assumption (The Living God’s Liberality). olskie Êredniowieczne pieÊni maryjne. Studia Consequently, they pertain to the most important and Pfilologiczne, by Roman Mazurkiewicz. Kraków: earliest mysteries of the Mother of God’s life on earth Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii Pedagogicznej, celebrated by the Church. The fourth poem (A Pure 2002. 412 pages. Bibliography, indexes, summaries Little Flower, Consolation of a Sad Heart) is in turn a in English, French, and Russian. Paper. In Polish. prayerful and laudatory song, summing up merits and In his study of the Polish medieval Marian songs, virtues of the “glorious Virgin.” All of them are original the author argues that a living Marian cult in Poland works, at the same time deeply rooted in the tradition was not, in spite of a deeply rooted opinion, a of medieval mariology. In addition, these poems specifically Polish feature, but that it grew from a represent a relatively high theological and literary level, common Christian tradition prevalent throughout while illustrating a development of the Marian song in Europe. It is therefore necessary, when studying the Poland from the first half of the fifteenth century (The native heritage of Marian poetry, to take into account Lord’s Mysteries Are Immense) to the beginning of the an extensive context of tradition: biblical, apocryphal, sixteenth century (Holy and Pious Anna). patristic, theological, exegetic, literary, iconographic, The studies devoted to these documents contain and musical. transliterations and transcriptions of texts, The book consists of two parts. The first is titled commentaries pertaining to the history of literature and Polish Marian Song in the Middle Ages, and it is a to language, and present earlier readings and survey of major findings emerging from the existing emendations. But they also go beyond pure philology, studies devoted to the heritage of Polish medieval opening it to the contexts most natural to religious Marian song. The chapter entitled A General View of songs: biblical, typological-figural, liturgical, the History of Research: Discoveries—Editions— hymnological, theological, and literary. Studies presents the history of the discovery of sources The author of this highly recommended book and of studies devoted to medieval Marian songs in concludes that Polish medieval Marian songs have deep the Polish language. The next chapter, A General roots in Christian tradition, from which the old Description of Resources, provides a synthetic “masters” drew inspiration and models, and in whose discussion of key issues connected with the heritage language, adorned in the poetic music of the vernacular, of the Polish medieval Marian song preserved to our they conveyed to the faithful “the Lord’s immense days: its birth and development, sources and forms of mysteries about Mary’s magnificence.” (mjm) transmission, creative milieus, attitude towards foreign 1018 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 Other Books Received: Two-Hearted Oak: The Photography of Roman Loranc. Clarinet Polka Afterword by Lillian Vallee. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2003. 80 pages. Hardcover. $27.95 on By Keith Maillard. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Amazon.com. 2003. 384 pages. ISBN 0-312-30889-2. $17.47 A stunning work of art, or rather works of art, for the on Amazon.com. album contains several dozen photographs of California’s Central Valley, followed by some photographs of Central John Guzlowski Europe. Among these monochromatic masterpieces we liked best the title (and dustcover) picture of two-hearted oaks. In his seminal essay “The Art of Fiction,” Henry James Xenophobe’s Guide to the Poles, by Ewa Lipniacka. makes an important addition to the discussion of what London: Oval Books, 2000. ISBN 1-902825. A delightful a writer of fiction has to know in order to write and humorous introduction to a nation once called “a state successfully. James puts forth the argument that an of mind” by an English wit. You do not have to agree author does not necessarily have to possess a wealth with everything it says to enjoy it. Definitely a nice gift to of information or experience regarding his subject in an unsuspecting friend. Full of jokes, too. order to do justice to it. Leksykon zakonów w Polsce: Instytuty zycia To illustrate this point James tells a story of an konsekrowanego i stowarzyzenia Ïycia apostolskiego, by English writer who was often commended for her Bogumił Łoziƒski. 2d revised edition. Warsaw: Katolicka depiction of French Protestant youth. When she was Agencja Informacyjna (http://www.kai.pl), 2002. 480 asked how it was that she knew so much about this pages. Illustrations, indices, tables. ISBN 83-9911554-6- subject, she liked to explain how once when she was 3. Paper. In Polish. ascending some stairs in a clergyman’s house she An official encyclopedia of the religious orders in Poland. happened to pass a room where some young Protestants From it, one learns that there were in 2001 over 26,000 women were completing a meal. This scene, according to religious in Poland, and under 14,000 religious men (plus a James, so impressed her that she was able later to write roughly similar number of diocesan priests). Altogether, there a moving and completely successful narrative are 238 religious orders in Poland. They run nearly 2,000 concerning French Protestant youth. James asks us to charitable institutions. Each order is described in terms of its consider this: this writer did not have an encyclopedic, founding, present status in numbers, addresses and institutions book knowledge of life in France; she did not have life run by it, as well as its spiritual goals. experiences that opened the hearts of French Protestant Vmeste ili vroz’: zametki na poliakh knigi A. I. Solzhenitsyna, youth to her; and she did not know much about what by Semen Reznik. Moscow: Zakharov, 2003. ISBN 5-8159- France looked like or sounded like or smelled like. 0332-9. 432 pages. Hardcover. In Russian. According to James, she needed none of this. What Takes on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s ideologized book on Jews she did have was a talent for keen observation. She in the Russian empire. Reznik points out that an entirely was the kind of person “upon whom nothing is lost.” different history of Jews in Russia could be written, and he This he says is the key element a novelist must possess. contributes to this counterhistory in a significant way. If a person is one on whom “nothing is lost,” that person Treasury of Polish Love Poems, vol. 2. Edited and translated can take a brief glance, a sidelong glance as it were, by Mirosław Lipiƒski. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2003. and that brief glance coupled with the artist’s imaginative 11. pages. Hardcover. Bilingual English-Polish. $11.95. and creative talent for analysis and interpretation will Poems from Jan Kochanowski to Wisława Szymborska. enable that person to spin a world out of it. Tyrmand: bikiniarz, konserwatysta. Szkice o literaturze i The point that James raises may seem like the sort of obyczaju, by Tomasz M. Głogowski. Katowice: theoretical, nineteenth-century issue that is best left to Wydawnictwo Gnome, 2001. Index. 85 pages. In Polish. the classroom, something to puzzle an undergraduate Nie min∏ło nic, prócz lat, by Szymon Kobyliƒski and class with, but it is really a central issue for our time as Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm. Warsaw: Nowy Âwiat well. Let me phrase the question James addresses this Publishers, 2003 (www.nowy-swiat.pl). 303 pages. Paper. In way: does a writer have a “right” to write about a Polish. culture that he is not a part of? For example, does the white writer have a right to write from an African
123456789012345678901234567890121234 123456789012345678901234567890121234 American perspective? A Jewish writer to write from a Catholic perspective? A male writer to write from a January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1019 female perspective? And to bring this discussion to little subtler about his use of his research. The way the novel at hand, Keith Maillard’s The Clarinet Polka, Maillard presents this information about Polish does a non-Polish American have the “right” to write a American culture makes the novel often seem more a novel from a Polish-American perspective? travelogue through an interesting culture and less a novel James would answer that Maillard does have such a about a veteran’s fall into dissipation and redemption. right, if he is the sort of writer on whom nothing is Before I move on, I would like to say one more thing lost, the sort of writer who can see a glimpse of a Polish about Maillard’s research. It is narrow. He has American culture and have the psychological and consulted books on Polish Americans by Lopata, analytic tools and intuitions to construct a plausible Renkiewich, Pula, Zand, and Wróbel, but he also states depiction of that culture. Unfortunately, Maillard is he “deliberately did not read any Polish-American not such a person. fiction” until after he finished the first draft of his book. The Polish American world Maillard depicts is thin. This seems such an odd admission and such an odd Set in the late 1960s, the novel tells the story of an Air omission that one has to wonder what was in Maillard’s Force veteran who returns to his old neighborhood, a mind. Imagine someone who has written a novel about Polish American working class area in a town like African Americans or Jewish Americans admitting that Wheeling, West Virginia. The veteran, Jimmy he has not read any fiction by members of either group. Koprowski, is alienated, dissatisfied, and sexually I wish Maillard had explained why his research did promiscuous in the manner of many fictional characters not extend to reading Suzanne Strempek Shea or Tony of the Sixties. In Jimmy’s isolation and sexuality the Bukoski or Stuart Dybbek. Did he feel perhaps that reader hears echoes of Bellow’s Herzog, Baldwin’s they could have given him insights into Polish Rufus in Another Country, Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, American culture that would have made him aware of and Roth’s Portnoy. What is new here is that all of this how stereotypical his presentation of his main character is played out against the background of a Polish Jimmy was? That he had more to do with Tennessee American community. Or more rightly, I should say Williams’ Stanley Kowalski and Nelson Algren’s the foreground of a Polish American community. Frankie Machine than with real Polish Americans? In those novels about young men from marginal Finally, let me return to James’s argument. He cultural groups coming into contact with the dominant contends that you do not have to be immersed in a culture, the marginal culture is presented as culture to write about it, that in fact perception and background. For example, Baldwin does not explain smartness will give you what you need to present a what blues music is; Bellow does not explain what a world different from you own. Having read Maillard’s shtetl is; Updike does not explain what golf is. The book I feel that James may be wrong. Maillard is cultural background of the characters is so much a part clearly a man with sharp skills of observation. His of the characters and so much a part of the authors’ previous novels and the acclaim they have brought him understanding of their characters that those authors do show there is something serious and profound in his not stop the narrative progress of their characters’ powers as a novelist. But those powers do not seem to fictional journeys to say something like: “Weigela, be enough to bring the Polish American characters to well, that is a Polish religious ceremony that involves life in his novel. ∆ such and such.” But Maillard does this sort of foregrounding constantly in the novel. He does it when Polish Romantic Literature he discusses Polish religious holidays and customs, when he talks about the things Polish American eat, An Anthology when he talks about the polkas they listen to, and when he talks about Polish American and Polish history. By Michael J. MikoÊ. Bloomington: Slavica Maillard has apparently done considerable research on Publishers, 2002. viii+216 pages. Illustrations, Polish Americans. He states in his “Acknowledgements and Notes” section at the end of the novel that he wants bibliography. Hardcover. $26.95. the Polish American community in his novel to feel “authentic” (his emphasis), and he mentions many of Andrzej Karcz the works and people he has consulted to that end. I am not sure Henry James would fault him on that, but Michael MikoÊ’s book is yet another volume of his I believe he might feel that Maillard could have been a impressive anthology of Polish literature in English 1020 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 translation. The previous volumes include Medieval work over another? In the case of longer works, it is Literature of Poland (New York: Garland, 1992), Polish understandable that, due to space limitations of the Renaissance Literature (Columbus: Slavica, 1995), and volume, he needed to select short excerpts of each text. Polish Baroque and Enlightenment Literature Therefore we find only three books from Mickiewicz’s (Columbus: Slavica, 1996). MikoÊ, a professor in the epic poem Master Thaddeus and only one scene from Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics at one act of Słowacki’s play Kordian. These selected the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is the excerpts can indeed represent the most essential texts volume’s editor and translator. He also authored the from the two poets’ chosen works. But the choices are fourteen-page introduction and all the notes on the less clear when it comes to shorter works, especially twelve writers represented in the book. With this new poems. Why did the editor include, for example, volume the entire anthology, now in four volumes, has Mickiewicz’s Crimean sonnet VIII and not V? been greatly enriched. It would be hard to imagine any Similarly, the critic will wonder why the editor decided selection of Polish literature without a representation to choose one author over another. The most of Polish Romantic authors, for along with the conspicuous example is the omission of one of the most Renaissance Romanticism was the most original and most important poets of Polish Romanticism, Bohdan consequential epoch in the development of Polish culture. Zaleski. Fortunately his name is mentioned in the The first half of the nineteenth century, i.e., the era introduction, which also features an illustration of Polish Romanticism, was the time of the birth of a portraying the poet, and yet there is no single poem by new sensitivity. As in other western European countries, him included in this work. in Poland Romanticism broke from the rigidity of However, the absence of Zaleski’s poetry does not classicism and rejected the rationality set by the age of diminish the great value of MikoÊ’s volume. It is a fine reason in the previous century. These were replaced collection of authors and their texts. Deservingly, by an intense interest in spirituality and mysticism. But Mickiewicz occupies one fourth and Słowacki one fifth in Poland the new era was also marked by the of the collection. The other conspicuous places belong complexity of the country’s political situation. After to Krasiƒski (20 pages) and Norwid (20), who are losing its independence to Russia, Prussia, and Austria followed by Fredro (15), Kraszewski (15), and in 1795, Poland entered a period of national struggles, Malczewski (10). Most of their works presented in clandestine political activities, and armed uprisings. the anthology have been translated into English for the Every intellectual pursuit, especially imaginative first time. The same can be said about the majority of literature, became subjugated to the national cause of all the other works in the volume. The feat of MikoÊ the country’s liberation. Polish literature began to be cannot be praised enough. Obviously, not mere quantity preoccupied as never before with the problems of of original translations should be considered in measuring history, politics, and society. This preoccupation and an achievement like this but, above all, their quality. several other factors, such as the influence of local After the first reading, it is already clear that MikoÊ’s folklore and messianic ideas, determined the original translations aim at conveying the original texts as character and uniqueness of Polish Romantic literature. faithfully as possible. In the case of poetry, this MikoÊ’s present volume shows these qualities of faithfulness concerns both semantic and formal layers Polish Romantic literature extensively, as much as a of the poetic text. It is remarkable that in his translations modest anthology of only 200 pages can be extensive. MikoÊ succeeds in both bringing into the English It contains more than one hundred poems and prose language the meaning of the Polish original and in excerpts of the period’s leading writers—Adam recreating in English the rhythmic and other sound Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiƒski, qualities of the poetic text that are close to the original. Cyprian Norwid, Antoni Malczewski, Henryk He always aims at retaining rhythm and rhyme in his Rzewuski, and Aleksander Fredro among others. The English translations, if rhythm and rhyme are used in selected poems, as well as prose and drama excerpts, the original text. At times he even matches the number are—generally speaking—most representative of each of syllables in his English verse line with the number author. These are the basic and most essential works of syllables found in the verse line of a Polish poem. with which the reader and student of Polish Romantic Both the sound and metric elements and, especially, literature should be acquainted. semantics of all the translated poems make them easily A critic will of course ask questions. Why did the recognizable for someone who knows the original volume’s editor and translator choose one particular poems in Polish. This quality is likely a reliable measure January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1021 of good translation but, surely, when it comes to literary cites previously unused Polish-language, Soviet-era and poetic translation there is more than faithfulness archives, often local; and materials from underground in the conveyance of meaning and sound. After all, groups. poetry displays such qualities as beauty, poetic mood, Chodakiewicz cites ample evidence to support claims semantic tension, emotional sincerity, and heightened about the Communist occupation that have been intensity of emotion. Critics will certainly want to point recorded in other works. The postwar Communist out that some of these qualities have at times been lost government of Soviet-occupied Poland did demonize in MikoÊ’s translations. They will take, for example, and persecute the heroic Poles who had fought against W. H. Auden’s loose translation of Mickiewicz’s poem the Nazis during the war. These Poles, including “Romanticism” and say that it feels more “poetic” than rescuers of Jews, faced often fabricated charges of MikoÊ’s faithful version. Thus they will still prefer the antisemitism. This was one way to discredit Poland in lines “Silly girl, listen!”/ But she doesn’t listen” the West and lend legitimacy to the Communist (Auden) over “Just listen, maiden!/– She will not hear” takeover. Anti-Nazi heroes were hounded, imprisoned, (MikoÊ). tortured, and murdered. Similarly, the author provides Whatever the possible critique, MikoÊ’s anthology, ample evidence to support what has been acknowledged the first collection of this scope of Polish Romantic elsewhere but remains a contested factor of postwar poetry, prose, and drama in the English language, has Polish life. Jews were disproportionately represented merits that effortlessly outweigh any imperfections that in the Communist power structure, including among critics would be eager to detect. The high literary value those actively torturing Poles. Chodakiewicz’s estimate of the translations is unquestionable and the of Jews killed in Poland in the immediate postwar introduction, notes, comments, and the select period is much smaller than estimates used by other bibliography are flawless. ∆ scholars. While other scholars’ estimates run as high as 2500, After the Holocaust’s estimate is 400–700. After the Holocaust Further, Chodakiewicz argues that the number of Poles killed by Jewish communists was greater than the Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake number of Jews killed by Poles. Chodakiewicz’s book of World War II proved most valuable to this reader as a reminder of the terrible, and too-often ignored, suffering Communism inflicted on a Poland already deeply By Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. Boulder: East wounded by Nazism, and as a reminder of the valiant European Monographs. Distributed by Columbia efforts of heroic Poles to resist Communism. University Press, New York, 2003. 265 pages. For this reader, Chodakiewicz was less successful in Hardcover. $32.64 on Amazon.com. proving that antisemitism had nothing to do with Polish persecution and murder of Jews. Chodakiewicz cites Danusha V. Goska account after account of Polish attacks on Jews. At times his book reads like an aimless and dreary Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Kosciuszko Chair of Polish catalogue of local atrocities: Jews in postwar Poland Studies at the University of Virginia, argues in his new forced, by Poles, to strip naked and sing Jewish songs, book against interpreting postwar killings of Jews in Jews axed to death, Jews dragged from trains and Poland as the result of antisemitism. He cites three murdered. Chodakiewicz does not relate these attacks reasons that Poles killed Jews: resistance to Jewish to interwar Polish antisemitism, which predated the communists, to Jews determined to execute Poles who postwar Communist occupation, and which included a had collaborated with the Nazis, and to Jews attempting demand for a Jew-free Poland. In insisting that these to reclaim property expropriated by Nazis and since brutalities were motivated by Polish anti-Communism claimed by Poles. rather than Polish antisemitism, Chodakiewicz begs the To prove his points, Chodakiewicz cites material question of the nature of hate. The black men who, often not cited, and attempts to investigate claims of during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, dragged innocent killings made by other scholars. Among others he cites truck driver Reginald Denny from his vehicle and John Sack, whose journalism has proven very tortured him before news cameras do live in a country controversial. Many other scholars in this field would with a white supremacist history; their action was a not cite John Sack. Less controversially, Chodakiewicz protest against white supremacy. Those facts do not 1022 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 negate that these black men were also violent, centuries of attitudes, stereotypes, and practices. unjustifiable bigots. In this same way Polish partisans Antisemites would like to negate that impact of the who murdered Jews who may or may not have been Holocaust. They do so by arguing that the Holocaust Communists and also murdered their certainly innocent was matched by an equivalent and specifically Jewish children, may not have had a “pure” anti-Communist genocide of Christians. A December 2003 Google motive, but may have acted from an anti-Communism search of the phrase “Jewish communists murdered made more explosive by antisemitism. It is also just as Christians” immediately turned up countless websites likely that anti-Polonist Jews who, as Communists, purporting to expose Communism as a specifically persecuted Poles, were not acting from pure Jewish phenomenon directed at the mass-murder of Communist spirit; anti-Polonism may have honed their Christians. One such website announces, in no zeal to a sharper ferocity. There is no clean line of uncertain terms, that Jewish victims of the Nazi demarcation where justice leaves off and hate begins; genocide deserve no sympathy because Jews between what one viewer assesses “justifiable themselves committed a “holocaust” against Christians. revenge,” “self-defense” or “rationally motivated extra- One can safely wager that the makers of such websites judicial executions” and another calls “lynchings,” will pounce on Chodakiewicz’s book; he should have “pogroms,” or “irrational racism.” A scholar dealing preempted such exploitation with a complete with postwar Poland must be willing to address this renunciation. murky terrain. Finally, there is another unaddressed question. As has This lack of psychological penetration brings to mind often been remarked, an unfortunate feature of the a book that Chodakiewicz should have engaged, but terminology “Jews” and “Poles” is that it tempts one did not: Michael C. Steinlauf’s Bondage to the Dead: to regard the two groups as mutually exclusive. Plenty Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust. of Jews considered themselves just as Polish as their Chodakiewicz never mentions that Poles would have Catholic neighbors; many Polish non-Jews also ample reason to doubt their own conclusion that Jews, embrace Jews in their understanding of Polish identity. qua Jews, had great power: Poles had just witnessed Polish-Jewish Communists were an entirely valid the Holocaust. Steinlauf points out that this proof of expression of one aspect of political and social thought Jewish powerlessness did not alter the stereotype of in postwar Poland. Their enemies figured them as Jews as being powerful enough to make and break utterly non-Polish and, indeed, anti-Polish. But they governments. The widespread Polish perception that were not, necessarily. Their hostility to a Poland of Jews, as Jews, rather than as pathetic puppets of Stalin, unbreachable walls between classes and faiths, a Poland could on their own volition alter Poland’s fate is where antisemitism could play a prominent role, was a irrational; yet it was powerful enough to give birth to valid expression of Polishness. Some were as idealistic the Polish term “zydokomuna,” or “Jewish-communist as the Armia Krajowa, and wanted to create a better conspiracy,” in Chodakiewicz’s translation. Using work Poland. Even their ugliest acts of vengeance are by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, Steinlauf argues that comparable to acts committed by Christians driven to Poles underwent, under the Nazis, not only their own violence by the betrayals of the war. Any understanding trauma, but the trauma of witnessing the genocide of of these Jews as external to definitions of Polish the Jews. This psychological scar, Steinlauf argues, identity, and therefore worthy of exclusion or death, is played a role in a post-war antisemitism that cannot flawed. ∆ always be explained away as anti-Communism. For example, some who hid Jews did not want to be The Noonday Cemetery and identified as rescuers, for fear of their neighbors’ condemnation; some Jewish children were kept in Other Stories hiding up to a year after the Nazi defeat. After the Holocaust suffers from another lack. Like it By Gustav Herling. Translated from Polish by Bill or not, the argument that more Poles were killed by Johnston. New York: New Directions Books Jews than vice versa raises an unavoidable problem, ([email protected]), 2003. 281 pages. Hardcover. one unaddressed by Chodakiewicz. The Holocaust was, inter alia, a wake-up call to Western Civilization. $25.95. “Antisemitism is a bad thing,” the Holocaust said, loud and clear, forcing people of good will to interrogate Janet G. Tucker January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1023 This volume by Gustaw Herling (Gustaw Herling- Barabbas, released when Christ was crucified, is linked Grudziƒski) consists of thirteen stories of varying with the devil (or vampire) through his reliquary tooth. length written in the 1980s and 90s. The narrator of all We get a sense of a relic à rebours, its holy, healing the stories exists in a strange land, a Polish Jewish power given over to evil, in a tale in which an unsettling intellectual/ refugee in Italy, where he virtually feels truth lurks beneath the surface in the unseen world. at home. The tales are about different worlds—from The sense of pervasive evil is akin to what we see in varying times and place—that collide and are unified Nikolai Gogol’s world, where the devil pulls the strings. by the narrator. Herling pairs life and death, faith and Herling is clearly anticlerical, a mood captured irony, love and anger in tale after tale, almost all set in pointedly in his next story, “Beata, Santa.” The young Italy, hence by and large sharing a unity of place. They Polish protagonist Marianna, gang-raped by marauding are also united thematically, with memory and an Serbian soldiers during the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, undercurrent of death, even violent death, running is pregnant by one of them and has chosen to have her through them. Loneliness plays a significant role as child. Only the narrator can communicate with her, a well. But the principal theme encountered throughout role he plays more than once in this collection. He is that of the hidden life—the secret, or the concealed alone becomes partially privy to a hidden realm. narrative or journal—the discovery of which brings Herling stresses the role played by the local Catholic disaster or brings a disaster from the past to light. That clergy eager to demonstrate Beata’s “near sainthood” secret frequently involves a love affair, sometimes an to the world. The narrator sets a negative mood early illicit one, with horrific consequences. At times the on (“Potenza is an unsightly city”), and we expect a secret relationship is not erotic but rather unexpected. tragic ending. We are not disappointed. Marianna’s Herling exploits literary references to underscore his unfortunate habit of sleeping soundly condemns her to main theme. We are frequently left with an open-ended burial alive following the birth of her son, who will tale, or else one containing mysteries not revealed to then be brought up by the Church clerics. Herling’s the reader. There is a Hoffmannesque sense here that ironic touch is evident throughout, but nowhere more Herling is recounting actual events rather than creating than at the end, when we are informed that the Church’s fiction. His stories are marvelous, each a small gem canon law allows for beatification of only those persons opening onto a seemingly infinite complexity. whose last conscious moments were witnessed by “The Noonday Cemetery: An Open Story,” first in others and whose state of mind before death can be the present translation, has associations—exploited to attested to by witnesses. good advantage—to Paul Valéry’s poem “Le Cimetiere “The Height of Summer: A Roman Story,” deals with marin.” Herling recounts secret, complex loves: a the annual rash of suicides hitting Rome every August widow’s for her husband and his gravedigger, the 15th, known as Ferragosto. The narrator trains his gravedigger’s for the widow and his cemetery. We are sights on a few victims. Two are a lonely couple whose never given the details of the mystery and can only parrot has died. The next is Italian, but “displaced” by guess at events leading to the widow’s and homosexuality and broken by the departure of his lover. gravedigger’s deaths, with Herling’s reference to Henry Then we have the rape and murder/suicide combination James a reminder that an author can leave things of the young American couple, with the man’s secret unexplained. of AIDS and probable bisexuality, followed by the The James “frame” resonates in other stories as well. suicide of an older couple in the ancient Roman ghetto. In “A Hot Breath from the Desert,” the frame is illness, Typically, Herling’s narrator penetrates beneath the specifically, heart disease, as two narrators in a hospital mute surface of the evidence, attempting to unlock the recount in turn a harrowing and mournful tale of mental secrets of these drastic acts. The narrator himself decay and murder. As in “The Graveyard” and virtually almost falls prey to this “suicide-itis,” and is saved all the other stories in this collection, the protagonists from self-destruction by passing the night in an open (like the narrator, and author) are “refugees” in a foreign boat. The hint at a symbolic journey suggested by the land. Herling’s use of illness and the hospital, where boat, combined with the closeness to heaven during a everyone is a stranger in a strange land, underscores night under the stars, juxtaposes life and death. the central theme of displacement. An undercurrent of lurking violence breaks through In “The Eyetooth of Barabbas,” the narrator in “Ashes: The Fall of the House of Loris.” The secret, combines religion with the macabre in the form of yet another family curse, is the deafness of Loris’s relics, the specific relic here being Barabbas’ eyetooth. twelve-year-old daughter, an angry young girl whom— 1024 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 as with Marianna—the narrator can, for a period, reach. of the evil concealed at the heart of characters and He loses her in the end, for she dies of a drug overdose situations. Here evil eventually manifests itself as the in India. The pain—typical in Herling’s work—fuels a evil eye, with the famous afflicted surgeon Fausto double sense of tragedy, as her father comes one day Angelini enjoying for some years a reputation as an too late to save her. With her mother’s cancer, her loss expert healer. He has successfully operated on the spells the fall of the House of Loris, reminiscent of narrator himself, but the doctor’s own sister perishes Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. That Loris has under his knife. The evil eye and a related portrait of a translated Poe emphasizes the theme of doubling, tied similar “gifted” predecessor recalls E.T.A. Hoffmann’s in with hidden worlds and refugee status. novel Die Elixiere des Teufels and Nikolai Gogol’s story In the “Notebook of William Moulding, Pensioner,” “Portret” (“The Portrait”), two works in which evil, set in London, the narrator is twice removed from his manifested as an evil eye, wreaks deadly havoc. native land: having moved to Italy, he finds himself “Suor Strega” again explores the borderland between briefly in London, a city he strongly dislikes. This good and evil. Suor Strega enters into a love affair very antipathy leads to alienation and a sense of with a priest, runs away from her convent, and becomes separation. William Moulding has left a journal, giving the guardian of a subterranean reliquary. As with “The here, as elsewhere, a sense of double narration. He is Eyetooth of Barabbas” and “Beata Santa,” the Church- a hangman, forced eventually to live under an assumed related stories speak of death, decay, and evil. name to escape public wrath. His ploy meets with “A Madrigal of Mourning” once again links love, mixed success. Moulding’s eventual torture and murder decay, and mystery. The narrator is in love with Anna at the hands of young men knowing nothing of his F., a half-Pole, half-Russian enamored of a long-dead history resonates with irony that is typical of Herling’s composer of madrigals (rather, the narrator informs us, stories. like the great Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva’s love “The Silver Coffer” combines mystery with theft, for Aleksandr Pushkin the poet and the man). But this decay, incest, and death: a triple murder set back in final tale, in contrast to others in the collection, time, the deterioration of the modern protagonist, the concludes on a somewhat elegiac note rather than one disintegration of a manuscript (symbolic of the decay of concealed horror. of the literary text?), and the “demise” of the silver In sum, this is an intensely interesting collection of coffer. The narrator’s love and eventual disaffection stories. Herling is complex and subtle, penetrating for the coffer hints at the frailty of human emotions beneath the surface of apparent reality to a layer of and human existence. secrets that hint at hidden evil and sadness. The narrator The historical parallelism inherent in “The Silver of the stories plays a significant role throughout. An Coffer” figures centrally as well in “Ugolone da Todi: expatriate himself, Herling reminds his readers that we Obituary of a Philosopher,” a story about a are all strangers in the mysterious dream land of life. contemporary philosopher alluding to a thirteenth- His stories, in Bill Johnston’s masterful translation, century figure. The narrator compares Ugolone’s should give Herling a deservedly wide audience. ∆ decline and eventual demise with Kant’s, once again noting the unseen, mysterious links between the A Man Who Spanned Two Eras: The contemporary and historical worlds. The theme of hidden and corrupting evil emerges yet story of bridge pioneer Ralph again in “The Exorcist’s Brief Confession.” In the Modjeski opening frame, Herling’s narrator leads a furtive existence that prepares us for the main character’s— By Józef Glomb. Translated by Peter Obst. Father Ulderico’s—equally secret life. A priest specializing in exorcisms who initially succumbs to Philadelphia, PA: The Philadelphia Chapter of the passion and then reacts violently, Ulderico is defrocked Kosciuszko Foundation, 2002. 90 pages. Paper. and tried, and is given a suspended sentence. The ending underscores Herling’s main theme running Ashley Fillmer throughout: life for all of us is but a suspended sentence. Although the bulk of bridge engineer Ralph Modjeski’s The surgeon of the eponymous tale “Don Ildebrando,” projects are permanent fixtures on American interstates also known as Fausto Angelini, reminds us yet again and railroads, the story behind their creator remained January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1025 in Poland until 2002. Józef Glomb’s biography of character foundation for the future engineer. There are Modjeski first appeared in Poland in 1981, and suggestions that Modjeski learned at an early age to celebrated the little-known American of Polish endure hardships and rise above present challenges, background through an exhaustive, disorderly account but there is also a great deal about the family’s affluence of his life and work, creating a difficult task for and unwavering emotional support. Obst also describes translator Peter Obst, chapter president of the how Modjeski hesitated between taking music or Kosciuszko Foundation in Philadelphia. His proposed engineering as a profession, and for all of the translation of A Man Who Spanned Two Eras garnered information on his gifted mother’s theatrical success attention from Modjeski’s relatives and the Modjeski there is no satisfactory conclusion as to why he chose and Masters engineering firm, and received continued engineering in the end, save for a mention of a support from historian Edward Pinkowski. Despite childhood interest in the Panama Canal. But choose various publishers’ lack of interest in the book’s engineering he did, and instead of an education at the devotion to a twentieth-century century engineer, Obst conservatory, Modjeski relocated to the Ècole des Ponts persisted and eventually incorporated new material into et Chausses in Paris and earned a diploma as engineer the existing book, including a foreword by Polish of roads and bridges. Ambassador Przemysław Grudziƒski and Modjeski’s engineering school experience was complementary preface by professor of mechanical accompanied by wotmessomg the construction of the engineering Zbigniew Marian Bzymek. Eiffel Tower and complemented by daily travels Obst began the translation with the hope of publishing through Hausmann’s city design. The Paris scene was before the 75th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin Bridge an explosion of modernism, but this piece of historical in 2001. The final product followed one year after the significance is glossed over as an influence to the young bridge’s grand anniversary celebration, but still met engineer. His early bridge designs borrowed the thorough acknowledgment from the American Polish boundary-breaking elements of modernism but did not community. First ladies Laura Bush and Jolanta retreat from pure functionality in their esthetic design. KwaÊniewska of Poland received the translation in He leapt into the middle of a great push toward ceremony, giving the nearly forgotten engineer some modernizing American transportation, designing posthumous recognition and Obst reassurance that his bridges that stretched further and supported more than translation project was worthwhile; he includes a reprint any preceding structure. But he was not the first to of Laura’s official White House thank you after the employ the methods seen in the great works of translator’s note. American bridge engineering; the famous suspension A worthwhile effort it was, as Modjeski’s engineering design of the Brooklyn Bridge was common and feats were monumental for his time. The book’s reader, cantilevered construction standard. With the modernist however, might find it difficult to understand exactly era of architecture and engineering already in progress, how Modjeski accomplished what the title states. Obst it is difficult to assume that Ralph Modjeski was the apparently aimed at reaching two audiences: the novice man that built an essential bridge into a new era. engineers and Polish American biography enthusiasts. He did, however, introduce methods into modern The text rarely delves into the principles of structural bridge building that paved the way for greater and safer engineering and is replete with praise for Modjeski’s bridges around the world. Even during the swell of roots. The first two chapters are almost entirely devoted modern engineering, construction procedures were to his Polish upbringing. At times it is uncertain whether dangerous due to flaws in bridge design. But it becomes Modjeski or his mother, a famous actress on the Polish only too slowly apparent that this hastiness of and American stages, is the focus of the biography. The modernization is the first “era” alluded to by the title. reader gets a mild sense of Polish affluence and cultural Modjeski conquered the challenges of building the tradition under imposed Austro-Hungarian influence Cecilo Bridge on unstable foundations through the yet- and begins to wonder if this is perhaps the first of the untamed Oregon wilderness, calculated seismic two eras the Modjeski family experienced. The interference for the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, Modjeskis later traveled across the ocean to settle in redesigned the Quebec Bridge, and broke world records post-Reconstruction America. in cantilever and suspension bridge spans, all within The author’s subsequent attention to the minute the perimeters of newly adopted safety standards. details of the Modjeskis wanderings and personal lives Increase in bridge span, introduction of new after immigration are tiresome and only provide a weak construction materials, and refined techniques to 1026 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 achieve strength and form are the bastions of exemplary. Foreigners are usually directed to the Modjeski’s career. showcase establishment for blind children in Laski near The main elements that contribute to Modjeski’s fame Warsaw, but there are many others worth visiting and only appear sporadically throughout the text, confined writing about. The establishments for the handicapped in clear detail to the last few paragraphs of the book. in Łódê, Niegów-Samaria, Ełk or elsewhere are unique. An understanding of his accomplishments is discernible This writer visited half a dozen such establishments in only through steadfast, disciplined reading through the which hundreds of children and handicapped adults minutiae of Modjeski’s life and bridge building. There lead—surprisingly—an apparently happy life. In one are refreshing moments of lucid writing in which the such establishment, a bundle the size of an infant with author, or the translator, provides analysis of the a large head responded to a smile with a hearty smile engineer’s work and reflects on different periods of of its own showing its large, healthy, but evidently aged his personal life, allowing the reader brief insight into teeth. When I asked why the teeth seemed “used,” I the significance of Modjeski’s career. At these points was told that the bundle was twenty-something years it is apparent that he is not being praised simply for his old. It—and its companions in deformity—resided in Polish roots or seeming lack of public cleanliness, enjoying white bed linen in a room that acknowledgement. By the end of the biography we are was not permeated by foul smells. Those who could privy to Modjeski’s many amazing technological walk did, playing and signing songs under the maneuvers that elevated bridge engineering to a new leadership of their wychowawcy (mentors and standard. An engineer’s precision and inventiveness caretakers). If the degree of civilization of a country is brought Modjeski success and he deserves a more measured by the treatment it affords to its weakest cohesive attention to his bridge works and biographical citizens, Poland ranks close to the top. details. ∆ This Catholic culture has produced a slew of Catholic publications ranging from the sophisticated monthly Znak and the academic quarterly Ethos to hundreds Our Take of popular publications. The spread of sociopolitical choices is likewise wide, from the prudent and American Catholic Parochialism thoughtful Tygodnik Powszechny to the generally poorly-edited right-wing publications. There is enough religious poll commissioned in March 2003 by substance in these periodicals to introduce important Athe leading Polish daily Rzeczpospolita indicated corrections to the American Catholic discussions about that in terms of declared allegiance, Poles are the most the role of Church in society. The youth movement religious nation in Europe. Sixty percent stated that “Oases” initiated by the late Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki they are observant Catholics, while 35 percent said that could be a model for similar initiatives in America’s they believe in God but do not always agree with the suburbs and inner cities. Virtually nothing concerning strictures of their Churches: they wish to believe “in these developments has been reflected in English- their own way.” Two percent said they are atheists, and language publications. One negative feature of the three percent were not sure. Altogether, 95 percent of Polish Catholic initiatives is their timidity—their Polish citizens stated that they are religious believers. leaders all too readily concede the top place at the table The number of Protestants and Eastern Orthodox in to the French, German, or Anglophone movements, Poland does not exceed 3 percent, while Jews and periodicals, or individuals. The latter are only too happy Muslims command a statistically insignificant to oblige—and to deal with the rest of the world as if it percentage. Thus the vast majority of the respondents were in need of their tutelage. were Catholics. In addition to being the most religious, The biographies of some of these Polish personalities Poland is also the most Catholic nation in Europe, if are awesome. Consider the above-mentioned only in terms of declared allegiance. Franciszek Blachnicki. Born in 1921, he was arrested Such statistics have their consequences. Poland is in 1940 by the Germans for participating in the Polish home to numerous Catholic religious orders, many Resistance. He was sent to Auschwitz as prisoner #1201 of them founded in Poland. Polish monks and nuns and spent a month on death row, Auschwitz-style. He work in hundreds of charitable and religious was later transferred to hard labor and spent the establishments in dozens of countries remainder of the Second World War in other German (www.zakony.katolik.pl/zz/stat). The work of Polish death camps. He was liberated by General Patton’s women religious with handicapped children is January 2004 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW 1027 army, returned to Poland, and became a priest. Arrested On balance, the Polish Church must be doing for anti-Communist activity in 1961 in Soviet-occupied something right. It survived Communist persecution Poland, he was sentenced to three years’ probation. He and none of its bishops engaged in collaboration with completed his habilitation thesis at the Catholic the Communist secret services. Its contributions to University of Lublin, but the communist Education architecture, art, and literature are outstanding. To offer Ministry refused to recognize it. Blachnicki led an American Catholics a view of the vibrantly Catholic extremely active pastoral and intellectual life as a culture which it has helped create seems worthwhile. creator of the Oases Movement, or small groups of Why then do Catholic intellectual publications lament youths operating in ways appropriate for a society so loudly the nakedness of the public square in America whose ideology was anti-Christian. While in Carlsberg while studiously avoiding a look at a public square that in West Germany, he started the movement later called has not yet been stripped bare? ∆ “Light and Life” (Âwiatło i Îycie). He died in 1987 leaving a rich legacy of disciples and writings. The editors of the American Catholic periodicals all but ignore such Catholic personalities, movements, and About the Authors developments. When one peruses their publications one Ashley Fillmer is a graduate student in Slavic Languages sees an endless string of Anglo-Germano-Irish names and Literatures at the University of Illinois-Urbana. pontificating on issues large and small. The remoteness Danusha V. Goska’s dissertation on Polish-Jewish of these monologues from the actual history and relations, completed at Indiana University in 2002, has problems of Catholic Christianity seems obvious to been accepted for publication by the Polish and Polish- those who are not imprisoned in the upper-middle-class American Studies Series at Ohio University Press. strata of American society. An inability to rank-order John Guzlowski is a poet and Professor of English at issues is glaringly obvious in these publications. They Eastern Illinois University. He is the recipient of the 2001 keep writing about topics and groups of people on Illinois Arts Council Poetry Award. His essays on whom attention has been bestowed by the non-Catholic contemporary fiction have appeared in Modern Fiction media, while others are not even mentioned by name. Studies, Critique, The Polish Review, Shofar, and other The impression left after reading such periodicals is journals. that the editors strive to retain at any price the Kevin Hannan received his doctorate from the University sympathetic attention of those who are in a position to of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Borders of Language bestow or withhold recognition in American society. and Identity in Teschen Silesia (1997) and teaches at the Their editors seem to desire so strongly that University of Łódê, Poland. Catholicism win that they lose sight of “first things” Andrzej Karcz is Assistant Professor of Polish at the while declaring their allegiance to them. Yet the goal University of Kansas. of Catholicism is to be faithful rather than to win. It is Christina Manetti received her doctorate from the the striving after too much worldly wisdom that ails University of Washington-Seattle. Her article is excerpted these periodicals. from her PhD dissertation.1 She is presently doing research Not that the blame is totally on one side. The Polish in Poland while working as a translator. Church and Polish Catholic intellectuals are not very Janet Tucker is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages helpful in putting their best foot forward when it comes and Literatures at the University of Arkansas. to representation abroad. In the United States, the Polish Catholic parishes (headed by Polish-educated priests mainly from the Society of Christ) have done precious Correction little to integrate Polish Catholicism into the larger In the previous issue of SR (“About the Authors,” Catholic context in America. In many ways, these September 2003), Anna Czarnowus was incorrectly Polish parishes cultivate ghetto attitudes which the identified as an ABD in Polish Literature. She is an ABD authorities believe are supportive of their members but in English Literature at the University of Silesia-Katowice. which in fact prevent them from exerting their share of influence on society. Suffice it to say that there exists
1234567890123456789012345678901212345678901234
1234567890123456789012345678901212345678901234
1234567890123456789012345678901212345678901234 no translation into English of the Polish Christmas 1234567890123456789012345678901212345678901234
1234567890123456789012345678901212345678901234 carols, among which there are some poetic and musical masterpieces. 1028 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW January 2004 Thank You Note to those who donated to the Sarmatian Review Publication Fund: Mr. Jim Burns; Professor and Mrs. Ralph Frankowski; Mr. Stanley Garczynski; Dr. Agnes M. Guthrie; Joseph A. Give where it really counts: Jachimczyk, M.D., J.D.; Mr. & Mrs. Jan & Hanna Karon; Mr. & Mrs. Ewa & Andrzej Prokopczuk; Ms. Caroline G. support Ryzak; Dr. Barbara Z. Surmaczynski; Dr. Kenneth Walpuck. The Sarmatian Review All donors are acknowledged in the Thank You Note. Donations are tax-deductible. Publication Fund. Donors who donate $50.00 or more will receive a Letter of Thanks including information about the recent Web and jour- nal reprints of texts from Sarmatian Review. Donors who donate $5,000.00 or more will be acknowl- edged on the masthead of the journal as its Sponsors. Such donors will enable us to upgrade the format of our journal. RADIO COURIER Announcements and Notes Polish American Radio Network Join PAHA P.O. Box 130146, Houston, Texas 77219 Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) seeks Polish Language Program new members. Membership in associations such as PAHA Saturday 11:00 AM, 1520 KYND is essential to keep the Polish American discourse going. tel./fax: (281) 872-1062 We appeal to your sense of civic responsibility, just as we email: [email protected] do when asking for subscription checks for Sarmatian Review. Membership forms can be obtained from Dr. Karen Majewski, PAHA, St. Mary’s College, Orchard Szwede Slavic Books Lake, MI 48324. Post Office Box 1214 Technology for your kids Palo Alto, CA 94302-1214 Kopernik Space Education Center in Vestal, New York is 650-780-0966 a regional center for science education specializing in as- [email protected] tronomy, earth science, and technology programs for stu- www.szwedeslavicbooks.com dents in grades 1–12. Major program funding is provided One of the world’s great Slavic bookstores by the Kopernik Polish Cultural Society of Broome County. The tradition in Central Europe has been to stress hu- The Anya Tish Gallery manistic rather than technological education (we are tired 1740 Sunset Boulevard. Houston, Texas 77005 of hearing about Polish kids who want to study psychol- phone/fax: 713-523-2299 ogy or archeology). Yet postcommunist Central and East- Artwork and paintings ern Europe needs technological and scientific graduates from Central and Eastern Europe most of all. The Kopernik Center offers an opportunity to developGive technological where and scientific it really interests in your children. For more information look up counts: TAG TRAVEL