THE SARMATIAN REVIEW Vol. XXXVI, No. 3 ______September 2016
Facts and Myths about the Polish Economy
A Warsaw shopping center nicknamed Złote Tarasy in winter. Photo by Edwin Dyga.
September 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW In this issue: Sarmatian Review Data...... 2021 The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059- Thank You Note ...... 2020 5872) is a triannual publication of the Polish Institute of Correction ...... 2020 Houston. The journal deals with Polish, Central, and Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Interpreting Poland . . . . 2023 Eastern European affairs and it explores their implications Rafał Malczewski, The First World War: Writer as for the United States. We specialize in the translation of Dictator in Zakopane, trans. by Adrian Lukas Smith documents. Sarmatian Review is indexed in the American (chapter 10 of Pępek świata) ...... 2032 Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, EBSCO, and P.A.I.S. International Database. From January Jacek Koronacki, Coming of Age under Martial Law: 1998 on, files in PDF format are available at the Central The Initiation Novels of Poland’s Last Communist and Eastern European Online Library (www.ceeol.com). Generation (review) ...... 2037 Subscription price is $21.00 per year for individuals, Barry Keane, Selected Drama and Verse by $28.00 for institutions and libraries ($28.00 for individuals, Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa (review) . . . . 2041 $35.00 for libraries overseas, air mail). The views James Edward Reid, Year Zero: A History of 1945 expressed by authors of articles do not necessarily represent (review) ...... 2040 those of the Editors or of the Polish Institute of Houston. James S. Pula, Kaleidoscope of Poland: A Cultural Articles are subject to editing. Unsolicited manuscripts and Encyclopedia (review) ...... 2042 other materials are not returned unless accompanied by a MORE BOOKS ...... 2043 self-addressed and stamped envelope. Please submit your contribution electronically and, if requested, send a printout About the Authors...... 2046 by air mail. Submissions and Letters to the Editor can be emailed to
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2020 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2016
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Russian opinions about Stalin and the Soviet Union in 2016 Percentage of Russians who think that Stalin played a positive role in the history of Russia: 54 percent. Percentage of Russians who believe that purges and the Gulag were “a political necessity”: 26 percent. Percentage of Russians who felt this way in 2007: 9 percent. Percentage of Russians who would prefer that the Soviet Union did not disintegrate: 66 percent. Source: Levada poll published 25 March 2016, as reported in Last News from Russia,
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Poland’s religious statistics Data from 2011 population census concerning religiosity and denominations in Poland: 87.58 percent declared themselves Roman Catholic, 0.41 percent Eastern Orthodox, 0.36 percent Jehovah’s Witness, 0.18 percent Lutheran, 0.09 Eastern rite Catholic, 0.07 Pentecostal, 0.03 Mariavite, 0.15 percent others, 2.41 percent nondenominational; 7.10 percent refused to answer. Drop in the percentage of Catholics between 1983 and 2011: 4 percent. Number of clergy in Poland in 2016: 153 bishops including four cardinals; 31,000 priests (there were 23,099 priests in 1990); 3,571 seminarians. Age of priests: in 2010: 57.7 percent were under 50 years of age. Number of monks and nuns in 2013: 12,291 and 19,037 respectively. Number of dioceses and parishes: in 2011 there were 41 Roman Catholic dioceses plus an extraterritorial diocese for the Polish Army. The number of Catholic parishes in 2011 was 11,019, with 3,162 parishioners per parish on average. Drop in baptisms between 1990 and 2014: from 569,000 to 370,000, mostly because of a catastrophic drop in the fertility of women. Mass attendance: between 2008 and 2014: 40 percent of Catholics claimed weekly Mass attendance, with 16 percent receiving Communion during Mass. Increase in percentage of persons rejecting abortion: from 35.7 percent in 1991 to 64.6 percent in 2012. Catholic charity institutions in 2014: 835 institutions conducting about 5,000 charity projects (aid for children and the homeless, shelters and soup kitchens for the poor). Source: “Polska najbardziej religijnym krajem Europy,” Portal
fiasco of the referendum on the single-member Interpreting Poland constituencies, which the Kukiz party advocated supports that view. As we observe the public Krzysztof Brzechczyn debate, we conclude that PO seems to be at a loss as to why it lost the election, PiS why it AN OUTLINE OF RECENT EVENTTS won, and the Kukiz-15 why it made it to parliament to begin with.1 he direction of political changes in DEMOCRATIC VERSUS OLIGARCHIC CAPITALISM Poland has recently been debated in the T European Parliament. Here, in a nutshell, In order to explain the turn of events in Poland I is the chronicle of relevant events. In 2015 focus on the concept of the system while using elections, a previously unknown candidate the theses and theoretical assumptions of the Andrzej Duda won the presidency while Prawo i social theory that can be named non-Marxian Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) received the historical materialism.2 In light of that theory plurality of votes. Two new parties, Kukiz-15 politics, economy, and culture constitute and Nowoczesna.pl, gained substantial presence autonomous but similarly organized realms of in the parliament. Significantly, after a twenty- public life. In each of them social minorities five-year presence on the Polish political scene, emerge that maximize their specific interests: the SLD (former communist) party did not make power regulation, profit, and spiritual it to the parliament, while the PSL (People’s supremacy, respectively. The foundation for the Party) barely reached the election threshold. appearance of social classes is material social Two small parties, Razem and Korwin, reached means. In politics they are means of coercion. the 3 percent election threshold, which made Depending on the position with respect to those them eligible for budgetary subsidies for parties; means, two social classes can be distinguished: a however, their role is negligible. These changes class of rulers that decides how to use and can be compared with the 2001 elections when distribute them, and a class of citizens that does the AWS and UW parties did not even enter the not have that ability. In the realm of economy parliament, and the new parties that did were people are either owners or direct producers, Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform), Prawo according to their access to the means of i Sprawiedliwość, Samoobrona (Self-Defense), production. In culture there are two social and Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish classes, defined by their relationship to the Families). After the 2005 election Prawo i means of persuasion (television, radio, press, Sprawiedliwość had to enter a coalition with and the Internet): the “priests” who decide which Samoobrona and Liga Polskich Rodzin to form a ideas are to be popularized, and the “followers” government. These two small parties are now who do not have that power. These antagonistic extinct. In 2007 a new coalition of Platforma pairs of social classes have contradictory Obywatelska and PSL was formed. The coalition interests: the rulers aim at maximizing power ruled for eight years and was defeated in the regulation, and citizens at maximizing social 2015 election. autonomy; owners tend to maximize profit, employees their own income; “priests” want the The 2015 competition had its dark horse: Paweł greatest possible spiritual domination and Kukiz, who unexpectedly took third place in the “believers” spiritual autonomy. first round of the presidential election. The slogan “fighting the system” gained him the In terms of the social theory assumed here, votes of people who viewed the coalition democracy can be defined as a class-balanced government of PO and PSL critically, but were society in which the classes of rulers, owners, not supportive of PiS. What is perplexing about and “priests” have similar influence and are able the phenomenon of Kukiz’s success is that his to realize their social interests without the slogan of “fighting the system” enjoyed instant support of the other dominant social classes.3 popularity, even though the “system” remained Social conflicts between rulers and citizens (in undefined, as did the methods of fighting it. The politics), owners and direct producers (in the
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September 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW economy), and “priests” and “followers” (in financial means, new political parties are at a culture) are solved by way of compromises and significant disadvantage in their competition of concessions made by the dominant classes on with the established ones. That restricts the behalf of the dominated. Moreover, the state of political market to a limited choice of social peace is strengthened by class alliances candidates. formed across the power line, whereby a class The oligarchization of the political and that is dominant in one realm of life offers economic realms also has a negative influence support to a class that is dominated in a different on ideological and worldview pluralism. Rulers domain. set the fees for radio and television broadcast For example, rulers intervene in economic life licenses and determine, together with and support direct producers in their conflict entrepreneurs, where advertisements will be with owners, in this way contributing to social placed. The oligarchization of social life is also peace in the economy. Owners, on the other manifested in economic scandals, corruption, hand, counterbalance the rulers’ advantage over clientelism, or favoritism, which distort citizens by helping the latter class limit the competition in the political, economic, and power of the former, bolstering social peace in media markets. politics. In turn, social peace in both the political In an oligarchic society the clashing interests of and social realms facilitates social peace rulers and citizens, owners and direct producers, between “priests” and “followers.” Peace in that priests and believers are reconciled by realm is conditional upon the dispersed disadvantaging lower classes by limiting their distribution of the means of indoctrination, autonomy, income, and intellectual freedom which ensures world-view and ideological which adds fuel to the social conflict. Such pluralism. oligarchization of social life leads to the It can be assumed that democratic capitalism creation of what was called a “system” in the is an empirical approximation of a class- 2015 election campaign. The beginnings of balanced society. In that form of government the system reach as far back as 1989, when everyone has the right to free elections, the Polish capitalism assumed, from its very creation of political parties, private property, the beginning, the oligarchic form.4 The core of creation of labor unions, and the freedom of this oligarchization was the process of the belief and religion. That fragile social balance “enfranchisement of the nomenklatura.” It can can be disturbed by a “horizontal” direction of be defined as “the exchange of current political social alliances formed not by a dominant and a privileges, associated with the position of a dominated social class, as is the case in a class- person in the administrative hierarchy of the balanced society, but between the dominant political apparatus, for economic capital.”5 The classes. main shareholders of nomenklatura companies were people from the ruling milieu––the higher For example, owners in economic-political officials of the Polish United Workers’ Party and oligarchization reach for political support of the administrative workers of the state––who their interests. That support can be given in became the actual owners of state assets with various forms. Rulers can limit the role of labor only a small financial input. A new company, unions, regulate the relationships between entering into an agreement with the mother employers and employees, lower the costs of company, took over some of its assets: office production (tax exemptions), or secure the space, warehouses, know-how, technological realization of extraordinary profits (concessions, lines. The new nomenklatura company public procurements). Rulers may use the specialized in the same branch of production owners’ material resources to weaken the as the mother company and took over some of control exerted over their own class by the civil its orders and clients and, consequently, society. For instance, since the high costs of profits. These initiatives served the purpose of running a political campaign can only be transferring capital from the state sector to the covered by political parties with sufficient private one, which would have been impossible
2024 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2016 if the people doing so did not have the political reach one-fourth of the salaries there.12 That influence to ensure the stability and safety of the disparity is also reflected in the percentage of transfer. As a result of these processes, corrupt employee salaries in the Polish GDP, 35.6 privatization and corrupt-clientelist economy percent, while in Germany it is 51 percent and in took root.6 Denmark 59 percent.13 The so-called “trash agreements” (umowy śmieciowe) that offer no This was facilitated by the shock therapy of benefits are becoming an increasingly popular economic reforms that have drastically lowered form of employment in Poland. Two million employee income and excluded a significant part Poles have emigrated for economic reasons. The of society from participation in the transfer of growing income inequality is not balanced by ownership. For example, in January 1990 social spending, which is well below the industrial production declined by over 30 European average and constitutes 18.1 percent percent and the national income fell by 11 of the Polish GDP compared to 29.5 percent in percent. In the years 1990–1991 the real income Germany and 34.6 percent in Denmark.14 from work on individual farms plummeted to 40.3 percent and employee salaries decreased to IS CAPITAL THE ONLY THING THAT DOES NOT 7 65.9 percent. The liberalization of foreign trade HAVE A MOTHER COUNTRY? ABOUT NATIONAL resulted in a flood of cheap foreign products and AND TRANSNATIONAL CLASSES contributed to the bankruptcy of national In the last decade in Poland the oligarchization producers who were not able to withstand the of capitalism has aggravated economic and competition, as well as to unemployment. In the social divisions and confirmed the peripheral years 1990–1992 the number of unemployed position of the Polish economy in the rose to three million people. According to international system of the division of work. Tadeusz Kowalik, it was “not so much a That phenomenon has not been eliminated by transformation-related recession, perceived as the accession of Poland to the European Union. the inevitable cost of great changes, but a Furthermore, globalization and integration recessive transformation, i.e., a great social processes have generated a new social change effected by means of a recession as a phenomenon: the separation of the heretofore tool for creating a polarized society.”8 uniform national and supranational social The assumed model of privatization favored classes. Generally speaking, members of a foreign capital and obstructed the formation of a dominant social class (rulers, owners, and domestic class of capitalists, other than those “priests”) realize their social interests primarily related to the state apparatus. According to within their national society that constitutes a Kazimierz Poznański’s calculation, state assets natural reference point for them. The scope of were sold for about 9 to 12 percent of their free- the realization of interests of a particular social market value.9 The shortcomings of domestic class is the result of the forces of juxtaposing the industry are reflected in the structure of Polish social classes operating in a particular realm of exports, of which the share of the profits from national social life: rulers and citizens in the sale of advanced technologies is presently 7 politics, owners and direct producers in the percent of GDP (in Germany it is 16 percent).10 economy, “priests” and “followers” in culture. Additionally, capitalism without domestic The creation of the transnational classes changes owners is less sensitive to employee pressure or the mechanism of realization of interests of the state regulations. The data of the National Labor particular social classes. This realization is not a Inspectorate show that during the first decade of vector of the social forces of antagonistic classes transition two-thirds of the controlled companies within one national society, but a consequence did not pay salaries to their employees on time of the global social interest of a transnational and did not have a union organization.11 class to whose wishes the local social classes Stanisław Gomułka estimates that the have to adapt. In conditions of globalization the productivity of Polish employees is equal to movements originating in one nation only have a two-thirds of the productivity of employees in small chance of succeeding. The pace and scope Western countries, while Polish salaries only
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September 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW of emerging national and transnational classes The Bauer Media concern has a 39 percent share vary depending on the realm of social life. For in the Polish press market. It publishes thirty- example, global corporations invest and move nine magazines specializing in luxury, advice, their operations to countries in which the local youth, computer, and women’s issues. The authorities offer the most attractive conditions Swiss and German concern Ringier Axel such as cheap labor, tax exemption, and Springer, with a 16 percent share of the market, desirable regulations of economic activity. publishes sports, information, social and key These globalization processes have brought political periodicals such as Fakt and Newsweek about the dominance of foreign capital in the Polska. The German concern Verlagsgruppe Polish economy. Foreign entities have a 60 Passau, with a 15 percent share of the Polish percent share in the Polish banking sector, market, virtually monopolizes the local press compared to 5 percent in Germany and 10 owning twenty out of the twenty-four most percent in Denmark.15 Over 83 percent of the popular regional daily newspapers in fifteen largest Polish companies are owned by voivodeships. These three German publishers foreign entities.16 Bartłomiej Radziejewski control 70 percent of the Polish press market. As estimates that “in the years 2001–2003, six regards the Internet, foreign capital owns the billion zloties were siphoned off from Poland. In three largest Internet portals. Onet.pl is the following three years this sum grew to 29 owned by Ringier Axel Springer; Wirtualna billion zloties, and in the last three years, 56 Polska by four shareholders: European Media billion.”17 In 2013 the economic entities with Holding, Orfe S.A., 10xS.A., and Albemuth foreign capital took 82 million zloties out of the Inwestycje; while Interia belongs to Bauer Polish economy, which is equivalent to 5 Media. These three portals are visited by 42 percent of GDP.18 million people each month. In the cultural realm there also are national The media influence should not be understood in and transnational classes of “priests.” While simplistic terms. A newspaper published by a they make the decisions about which ideas, German concern does not have to automatically views, information, and comments are to be represent the German point of view, however it popularized, they are not the authors of these is understood. Before arriving at such ideas or information.19 They transfer a part of conclusions, a comprehensive analysis of the their decision-making power to people who content produced by the foreign-owed media realize the assigned tasks of media production. should be made. To my knowledge, this has not These people are editors, department managers, yet been undertaken by anyone. But some and journalists who, by being employed in conclusions can be drawn. For instance, the media belonging to foreign capital, become the influence of foreign capital on the Polish media local link of the chain of the transnational class market is reflected in the way the aim of the of “media priests.” publishing activity is enforced. The first criterion of the selection of content of a Let us consider an example pertaining to the newspaper is its potential profitability. The press market. In 2014 746 million copies of information most likely to be published is that various press publications were sold in Poland. which is likely to be interesting to a wide They were published by nineteen media audience, not that which is socially valuable but concerns, of which nine were foreign and ten less likely to attract attention. Consequently the Polish. Foreign publishers own 138 magazines, foreign-owned media tend to trivialize issues of with a total circulation of 567 million copies, long-term importance to Poland and highlight while Polish publishers own 47 titles with a total inconsequential issues that distract and entertain circulation of 178 million copies. Thus 76 citizens. percent of the Polish press market is controlled by foreign-funded entities, while In the political realm, the network of EU domestic entities have only a 24 percent share of institutions is becoming an autonomous the market.20 environment in which the transnational political class is formed. The administration of the
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European Union consumes 6 percent of its corrective function in the legislative work of the annual budget and employs 89,000 people. In Sejm. Briefly said, the issue is power rather than 2013 there were 32,000 administrative the marginalization of the court. employees in the Directorates-General of the European Commission, one thousand in the In order to correctly assess the current political European Parliament, and five thousand in EU conflict in Poland, it is necessary to take a look agencies. The politicians from various European at the nature of a political party. The activity of countries who enter the structures of European each political party reflects two types of bureaucracy become members of the interests. The first is political in nature: it is supranational political class. The position and the maximization of power within the party. chances for advancement in its hierarchy depend That interest is realized in the relationships on how efficiently the directives coming from between the particular components of the party’s Brussels are realized in these politicians' leadership (the leader plus the elite plus the countries of origin. In contrast, the national party apparatus) and ordinary party members. fraction of the rulers’ class maximizes its Members of the party elite are loyal to the leader influence in its national society. It is in its in return for expected political profits. When a interest to strengthen and protect the sovereignty party is in opposition the reward can be, for of the nation state. instance, being placed in an appropriate position The process of the creation of a supranational on an electoral list (in the election to the rulers’ class is still in statu nascendi because the European Parliament, the national parliament, a creation of a rulers’ class presupposes, by regional parliament, a city council, or a gmina definition, possessing the appropriate means of council); or, after a victory in the election, being coercion. For the time being, the transnational employed in the office of a parliamentary class does not have such hard means of member. The loyalty of the local party apparatus influence at its disposal. This is why it is in its to the party elite and the loyalty of ordinary interest that the new rulers come from the two party members to the local party apparatus are strongest countries of the European Union: based on the same principle. However, the lower Germany and France, who also have the position in the party hierarchy the smaller the strongest military. However, these rulers will not expected political profits and, therefore, the abandon the interests of their particular lower the loyalty of party members to their countries. The end result is that they support leaders. When a party wins a parliamentary those aspects of European integration that are election, it gains access to a new field of power profitable for their countries of origin. This is regulation. The elite of the party becomes the characteristic of Germany in particular. The elite of the state, which decides who will occupy transnational rulers’ class already possesses a a certain number of government jobs. This set of strong arsenal of soft coercive means, ranging positions can always be broadened by creating from public admonitions to threats of sanctions new institutions or by reforming the old ones. and the withdrawal of financing for economic projects that can be used against recalcitrant The second type of interest in a democratic national authorities, as has been the case with state system is realized in the relationship Hungary. between the party and its electorate because in order to win an election and power and to be WHO STANDS TO LOSE AND WHO STANDS TO able to put selected people in government jobs, GAIN FROM THE POWER CHANGES IN POLAND? the party must mobilize its grassroots members The intensity of the political arguments and gain the support of the majority or at least concerning the Constitutional Tribunal in plurality of voters. For that purpose it must Poland may seem incomprehensible to those construct such a political program containing who have taken the trouble to study its political, socioeconomic, and socio-ideological history and limited importance. Over the last components as will mobilize party members and twenty-five years this institution has only had a motivate citizens to vote for the party.
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The main beneficiaries of political changes must be taken into account if the party is to be are the party elites. Even if political changes successful. improve the functioning of the state, which translates into advantages for citizens, it is the Therefore the dispute about the Constitutional party leadership that will be in charge of Tribunal in Poland should be seen as a typical implementing the proposed changes. They will political dispute between the party that has become the leaders of the state. The lost the majority in the parliament and the socioeconomic and socioideological parts of party that has gained it and, as a result, has the political programs are addressed to citizens, with power to fill posts in the state administration. the view of ensuring reelection. During the eight years PO was in power, it nominated fourteen out of fifteen judges in From the point of view of non-Marxian the Constitutional Tribunal. Before the end of historical materialism we can distinguish three the term of office of the old Sejm, on the basic varieties of party programs with respect to occasion of the amendment of the Constitutional the economic realm and the same number with Tribunal law, an additional five judges were respect to the cultural realm. As regards the selected whose terms of office were to begin economy, a leftist socioeconomic program with the term of office of the new Sejm, i.e., in presumes increasing that part of the social November and December, upon expiration of the income that is used for the benefit of employees, term of some of the present judges. In that way, as well as strengthening employee rights in fourteen judges nominated by PO would still be relation to their employers; a rightist program members of the fifteen-person Constitutional presumes deregulating the economy by lowering Tribunal. The PO obviously intended to use the taxes, which is beneficial for the owners’ class; Constitutional Tribunal to retain political power and a centrist program attempts to reconcile the after the anticipated electoral loss. interests of the two classes. By analogy, from the cultural point of view we can distinguish An amendment of the law introduced by PiS conservative, liberal, and centrist socio- restricted the number of PO-nominated judges ideological programs. A conservative program from fourteen to nine. The solutions suggested allows the state to support a certain set of social by PiS on that occasion were not dissimilar from ideas and functional approaches with a view to the solutions adopted in other European preserving society as a whole. A liberal program countries. As regards the entities that nominate leaves the issue of propagating ideas and the judges in a constitutional tribunal, the term attitudes to individual citizens. A centrist one of office of those judges, and their competence, incorporates both tendencies. different solutions have been adopted in the constitutions of various European countries that Let us now consider the relationship between the have that institution (some do not). The judges maximization of political and social interests of of a constitutional tribunal can be nominated by various classes comprising the party electorate. the president, senate, parliament, or a self- Since voter support is necessary to gain power in governing council of judges. The idea of moving a democracy, in the long run the maximization the Constitutional Tribunal outside of Warsaw, of political interest to the exclusion of voters’ criticized in the mainstream media, was inspired interest is not in the best interest of a party. If a by Germany, where the seat of the political party which has taken over the Constitutional Tribunal is in Karlsruhe. leadership of a state begins to prioritize its influence in the state administration over the Also, a conflict similar to the Polish one realization of the voters’ interests, it will lose to regarding the filling of three posts in a the opposing political party in the nearest Constitutional Tribunal, which lasted about a election. A party with a long-run perspective, year and a half, occurred in Italy without including the upcoming elections, will be aware attracting attention from any European of the fact that the realization of political institution. No member of the Italian Parliament interests must be mitigated and social interest
2028 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2016 or the European Commission demanded a debate not be as willing to realize the recommendations concerning the condition of democracy in Italy, coming from Brussels as it used to be (e.g., the or a new election, or the monitoring of the recommendation concerning the acceptance of situation in that country. Let us also remember refugees according to an imposed algorithm). that a country such as the United Kingdom does Bearing that in mind, it is no wonder that not have a constitution at all, yet no one accuses President of the European Parliament Martin that monarchy of being undemocratic. Schulz commented angrily that what has happened in Poland is a kind of a coup d'état. The one-sided engagement of foreign and Such remarks are not motivated by his national mainstream media in the dispute Polonophobia but by his interests: if PiS retains surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal is power, Poland may become less dependent on therefore greatly disturbing. The prime ministers Brussels and follow the example of Hungary. It of Luxemburg and Austria, president of the is symptomatic that the postulate of shortening European Parliament Martin Schulz, and the term of office of the Polish Sejm surfaced president of the liberal fraction in the European during a demonstration of the recently created Parliament Guy Verhofstadt are on record for “Committee for the Defense of Democracy” recommending actions against Poland that (Komitet Obrony Demokracji), and that it took cannot be accommodated in the original plan for place in the capital of Germany. the European Union. The numerous demonstrations organized in Poland and abroad 2. The transnational fraction of the owners’ under the slogan “defense of democracy” and class. According to the data quoted above, the recurring demand for preterm elections foreign entities have recently transferred 82 indicate that the issue is something more than an billion zloties out of the Polish economy, which ordinary political conflict between the winning amounts to 5 percent of the Polish GDP. The and the losing party about the filling of posts. promised banking and supermarket taxes, as well as a restriction of VAT exemptions, will My thesis is that the taking over of power by definitely restrict the profits of the supranational PiS not only limits the scope of the political owners’ class. influence of the previously ruling party––which is a standard outcome of a change of power in 3. The transnational fraction of the media democracies––but also threatens the interests “priests”’ class. The announced intention of a of other social classes in Poland and abroad. “repolonization” of the media and a change in The political change achieved by the PiS the advertising policies of government victory is much deeper than commonly institutions and agencies will limit the foreign assumed. It is not only a matter of power being media companies’ profits from advertising. In taken over by a single party for the first time the years 2010–2014 the twelve Polish ministers since 1989; this time power went from the spent about 260 million zloties on fraction of rulers oriented toward the advertisements in the press, radio, television, transnational rulers’ class to a nationally- and the Internet––twice as much as all the oriented fraction of rulers who promise a governments in the years 2006–2010. The significant redistribution of political power, following foreign companies are examples of economic profits, and intellectual influence. If income acquired via Polish government we assume that the above interpretation is advertising: Axel Springer (3.2 million zloties); correct, then the answer to the question of who Verlagsgruppe Passau (2.6 million zloties); lost when PiS came to power is as follows. Bauer Media Polska, the owner of the RMF radio (1.9 million zloties); and the French media 1. The transnational fraction of the rulers’ concern Groupe Lagardere, the owner of Radio class. The taking of power by PiS posits a threat Zet, Plus, and Antyradio (5.3 million zloties).21 to the scope of the regulations of the The ministries of the Polish government have supranational rulers’ class because Poland will placed commercials in foreign television networks as well: in CNN (amounting to 5.6
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September 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW million zloties), France (1.25 million zloties), “wars” on new fronts. Such a policy will result Financial Times (568 thousand zloties), The in the division of people into those who realize Economist (410 thousand zloties), and the flagship projects of the winning party (e.g., International Herald Tribune (184 thousand the Museum of Polish History or the Museum of zloties). the “Cursed Soldiers” in Ostrołęka) and those who will not be able to receive adequate support 4. The national fractions of the classes of because they are not associated with the current rulers, “priests,” and owners. I have already ruling class. mentioned the political damage to the party that has lost the election. The new rulers have 2. A realistic one. Having established control announced a change in the advertising policies over some government institutions and agencies, in national media. For example, in the years PiS will realize those elements of the socio- 2010–2014 13.8 million zloties was spent on economic program that will ensure the support advertising in TVN and 8.5 million in Polsat of the key electorate (e.g., the newly passed bill (with comparable viewership), while the Agora of 500 zloties a month for the second child and Company earned 5 million zloties.22 Those further children tax-free). The party will also try amounts may now go to other media, the to find a modus vivendi with regard to some in sympathies of which are more in line with those the leftist-liberal environment, contributing to its of the ruling party. The announcement of neutralization. changes in the tax law and the intention to scrutinize the decisions about VAT exemptions, 3. An optimistic one. Having established control which have amounted to a budgetary loss of 52 over selected state institutions and agencies, PiS billion zloties, or 3 percent of the GDP,23 may will put into practice the social elements of its limit the income of the businessmen associated socioeconomic program and will introduce with the previously ruling party. changes in the industry to make economic development more dynamic, stimulating the WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN POLAND? AN ATTEMPT creation of new technologies and workplaces. AT A PROGNOSIS The restoration of economic independence will require cooperation with academics and gaining We do not know if the coming to power of PiS the favor, or at least indifference of some leftist- will change the direction of the redistribution of liberal intellectual and artistic circles. political power, economic profits, and intellectual influence. There are three possible The realization of the first scenario will lead to scenarios that can follow. an electoral failure in the 2019 election. The realization of the second scenario will ensure a 1. A pessimistic one. The activity of PiS will be majority in the parliament, making it possible to restricted to the realization of the political and continue governing. The realization of the third socioideological components of its program. The scenario will allow the party to gain a majority, control over government institutions, intensified which will make it possible to change the by competition within the party, will lead to constitution. unrestrained replacement of “people from the previous coalition” with “our people” in an At present, PiS is at the stage of implementing increasing number of these institutions. That its political interests and taking control over the will reinforce the division into “us” and “them,” state institutions. The mistakes its inexperienced leading to growing resentment by members of ministers make (e.g., Minister Waszczykowski’s the losing party, their families, and their friends, unfortunate phrasing in an interview with a which will exacerbate the state of social conflict German paper), repeated by the hostile media, already fueled by the hostile media environment. unnecessarily antagonize groups of voters. If The conflict could be further aggravated by the these are only due to a lack of experience, there realization of a cultural policy consisting in is a chance that they will be eliminated.
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However, the situation will be worse if they are manifestations of a competition for political 3 This topic has been elaborated on in K. Brzechczyn, influence and posts in which PiS politicians play “Upadek realnego socjalizmu w Europie Wschodniej up to the expectations of their electorates a załamanie się hiszpańskiego imperium without regard for the party’s reputation and for kolonialnego w Ameryce Łacińskiej. Próba analizy Poland’s interests. porównawczej,” in: K. Brzechczyn, editor, Ścieżki transformacji. Ujęcia teoretyczne i opisy empiryczne. Poznań: Zysk i Ska, 2003; and “Dziedzictwo We can be sure of one thing. The reconstruction Solidarności a przebieg transformacji ustrojowej w of the Polish political scene is a symptom of the Polsce,” in: J. R. Sielezin, M. Golińczak, editors, diminishing development potential of the Solidarność i opozycja polityczna w Europie transformation that has taken place since 1989. Środkowo-Wschodniej w latach 80. XX wieku. The welfare state that has been maintained Wrocław: Wyd. Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2012, functioned only for the ruling classes. As pp. 217–240. 4 regards the masses, the state only performed the K. Brzechczyn, “O ewolucji społeczeństw function of a guard protecting the privileges of socjalistycznych. Próba wstępnej konceptualizacji,” in: T. Grabińska, M. Zabierowski, editors, Analizy the oligarchy. The masses now demand change. metodologiczne w nauce. Wrocław: Oficyna The parties and intellectual circles that will Wydawnicza Politechniki Wrocławskiej, 1997, pp. correctly diagnose Poland’s economic, political, 105–121; K. Brzechczyn, Kłopoty z Polską. Wybór and cultural problems and propose viable publicystyki politycznej. Poznań: WiS, 1998; K. solutions stand to gain in the Polish political Brzechczyn, “Kompromis przy Okrągłym Stole. scene. ∆ Próba modelu,” in: K. Brzechczyn, editor, Interpretacje upadku komunizmu w Polsce i w NOTES Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej. Poznań: IPN, 2011, pp. 87–107. 5 P. Strzałkowski, “Polityczne i społeczne uwarunkowania przedsiębiorczości ekonomicznej,” 1 One proof of that is what Witold Waszczykowski, in: W. W. Morawski, editor, Zmierzch socjalizmu the foreign minister of the new government, has said: państwowego. Warsaw: PWN, 1994, p. 349. “It is our only wish to cure our country of a few 6 T. Kowalik, “Polska transformacja,” diseases so that it can recover. The previous
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19 I rely on K. Niedźwiadek’s “Struktura i rozwój enjoyment and rebellion blowing through the momentu produkcji duchowej,” in: P. Buczkowski constituent countries of the Austro-Hungarian and A. Klawiter, editors, Klasy – światopogląd – empire and nations of the dying Holy Roman idealizacja, Poznań: PWN, 1985, pp. 17–46. 20 Empire. It acted from Trieste to Suczawa, from P. Grzegorczyk, Czy musimy repolonizować Bregenz to Dolna Watra. Galicia and Lodomeria media? Analiza zagranicznego kapitału w mediach, in: Jagielloński24.pl and the principalities of Oświęcim, Zator, and
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the town’s pocket. Many Poles, as well as Switzerland while the judge looked like a fool. Russian citizens, were astonished by the war’s He was a man from before the First World War, activities that cut them off from Warsaw, Łódz, an old-fashioned chap who did not realize how Młociny, and Piotrków. The richer and more easily one could liquidate people even when all courageous individuals faithfully lasted to the laws were ostensibly observed, if the time was end of the summer on Krupówki and in the right, and there was tacit approval from above, Tatras. In the autumn, the inhabitants of just because the season for nihilists was open. Congress Kingdom Poland had to return home Perhaps he saved us from an exploding bomb via Romania. The young people who were stuck that would make Hiroshima and Bikini look like under Giewont headed at the proper time to the mere fireflies. Lenin moved on to Switzerland, monarchy’s higher schools to complete their and the rest is history. At that time Zakopane studies. Galician universities were not had other troubles; who needed to worry about a mentioned, Lwów was in Russian hands, nobody like Lenin? Kraków prepared itself for a siege. Kraków With his herd of cadets Zaruski left for allegedly was a “professional defensive Piłsudski’s Legion. Orkan from Niedźwiedź stronghold,” and it was only then that its wanted to do something, so he trudged to Nowy inhabitants realized what that meant. An Targ via the summit of Turbacz, leading a cow inhabitant was allowed to return to his or her on a rope. He sold the cow at the market but was abode if he had proof that he possessed a few attracted to heavy liquor, so all the money for sacks of flour and grain, peas, sugar, a barrel of equipment was drunk away. Only when Lgocki, sour cabbage and a large cut of pork fat. During the district head from Łopuszna, helped him, did the so-called siege of Kraków in the winter of Orkan finally reach Oleandry. 1914 to spring of 1915 many Russian officers appeared at the Słowacki Theatre in Kraków. In the first phase of the war Zakopane froze with The front was garrisoned loosely; no one was fear. A dark future hovered over this so-called attacked. They had known that theater well Summer Capital of Poland. It was just as well, before the war; they admired Solski in Judas and then, that the people from the Congress Warszawianka. Obviously they came in civilian Kingdom were trapped while those from eastern clothing and pretended to smile naïvely. Ushers Galicia were blown over, especially large knew them from before the war. They smiled landowners. Some could be trusted to pay up discretly to the regulars. The theater building did and dig money out of their pockets because if not stay empty––private boxes were full and they weren't able to pay we knew where we even Russian officers paid tips. could get the property they owned from behind the army cordon. As time passed, Zakopane Something happened in Podhale at that time that recovered from its fear. The fronts moved deep changed the world. In the argument between the to the east, the governor returned to Lwów, there poet Jan Kasprowicz and the county judge, the were no fewer people ill with tuberculosis, this second was right; or so we think today. and that person tired of war settled with their However, from the perspective of 1914 the whole family in Zakopane. As we know, the county judge did something really foolish, or he mountains are special; they are safe, healthy, and made a big mistake. He was a local pedant who nobody cares about the rules. Even winters arrested the Poronin holidaymaker Vladimir began to be nice. Ulyanov (aka Lenin) at the outbreak of war and sent him to prison. Kasprowicz, who befriended At that time in Zakopane there was a private Mr. L., approached the authorities and showed school owned by Xavery Praus. He later became the senselessness of the judge’s action. They had the Minister of Religion and Public to let Lenin go, apologized to him and sent him Enlightenment in Moraczewski’s cabinet in free out to the world to carry out his work that blew Poland. The school was well run by clever up the tsarist system. The Austrian monarchy people who were amiable to youngsters. This obeyed the Polish poet: Lenin went to establishment was located in a villa called
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Wołodyjówka. We don’t known exactly what Séances took place at Kryvań, the Zaruski seeds of knowledge were dispersed in the family’s modest guesthouse. I don’t know adolescent heads; the memories of former pupils whether this was at the end of the war or a short of this school testify to how different this school time after Poland’s independence that a street- was from the school style of the Habsburg lamp on a rotten wooden pole fell into the Empire. Did it create human beings ready to middle of a darkened salon among many famous know how to live in this real life, not as people, with Władysław Reymont at their head. described in literature? We are obliged to No one knew where this lamppost had come answer! This school didn’t do what its leader from. The author of Chłopi, who was very wanted, and so hundreds of dreamers died not excited about the vibrating tables, was only from tuberculosis but also from the flabbergasted. We need to remember that the inability to adapt to existence in the world of lamp was an object filled with paraffin, torn crude Bolshevism. from somewhere in Zakopane’s streets. No one was able to determine where this lamp was In guesthouses they enjoyed themselves in originally located. Regiec, the mayor, who modest ways, as was appropriate during “those shortly afterwards was accused of being a spook struggles.” There were dances in amateur working for the Austrian Internal Security theaters and, of course, Damy i huzary organized ministry, hardly had the time to monitor by Dom Pod Jedlami, or the Pawlikowski municipal streetlamps. The unlucky man did not family. The Pronaszko brothers produced know that going through the intelligence and Wyspiański's Legion, featuring their own stage counterintelligence department of the Defense design) on the stage at Morskie Oko, every now Ministry would soon be considered like taking and again the actor Czarnocki from Lwów part in the Samosierra charge, or receiving the produced some new play at this same venue Order of the Garter, or drinking with the without success. He later founded a school of politician Wieniawa. elocution that many people aged from fourteen to sixty attended. This business did not make Egon Petri arrived in Zakopane for the first time. any money either. Fortunately Lwów was He was a great young pianist, a hungry liberated so they could hurry to larger theater Dutchman living in Berlin; he appeared with his stages. wife, Mrs. Mita. Who could have supposed then that he would permanently attach himself to Jan Gwalbert Pawlikowski, together with the Zakopane and the Tatras? He was not a Pole, but daily newspaper Słowo Polskie, his son Michał, would become a Zakopane citizen to the core. and the Russians, withdrew to Kiev. The Today he lives in California. He was introduced Austrian government had not confiscated the to Zakopane’s society; he liked to be a regular Pawlikowskis’ property in Medyka, and Jan socialite and to play. He would settle at the Gwalbert Pawlikowski Jr. was released from the piano after supper and only stop long past Austrian army so that he could maintain the midnight. country estate. Besides the great library and the collection of Chodowiecki’s etchings in Medyka Many artists and politicians hung out in cheap there was, among other things, rich soil waiting restaurants: Sroński, Kasprowicz, Żeromski; to be sowed. Junior did not like that kind of later Tetmajer, Sichulski, Solski, Kossak, work and sat under Giewont, writing Bajda o Axentowicz, Augustynowicz, the Pronaszko Niemrawcu (The Legend of a Clumsy Person). brothers, Tymon Niesiołowski and so on. None of us was astonished at that. No one talked Alcohol, no stranger to the Polish nation in good about collective responsibility and the times and bad, served them faithfully. At that confiscation of the property of enemy citizens. time vodka wasn't drunk neat in Galicia and Perhaps they made the distinction that a Pole is Zakopane. Vodka had to be with taste. What was not an Austrian and he wants to have his own neat was Aqua Ultra, homemade with smelly country, or perhaps this only concerned rich and dregs, suitable for simple folk. Rowan tree influential people. liquor and herbal vodkas were consumed, and of
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course many types of liquor including the county judge from Nowy Targ, the commissar of mysterious rosolis. the health resort, and smaller fry too––to lead them to a cleverly camouflaged small room. The Women’s League founded a teahouse in Here there were glasses full of liquor, plates of which legionnaires gathered, supposedly sipping sandwiches and meat pastries because it was late tea. These unknown faces became well known autumn, followed by fieldfare in broth, large and decorated the front pages of the capital’s goose thighs, small drumsticks in breadcrumbs, daily newspapers, and thus the photos became warm loins with red beetroots and Brussels ever more prominent. Wincenty Witos’s sprouts. The Commission returned to the capital supporters and the poor gathered there; anyone reporting that they were fiercely hungry in who had cash went to Karpowicz's, to the Podhale, especially in Zakopane. restaurant by the stream. Karpowicz appreciated artists; he didn’t poison them with vodka and his We should add that, as usual, the poor went cellar wasn't bad. Sichulski produced a series of hungry. The rich society that had settled for a satirical caricatures there under the influence of while at the foot of Giewont had connections; alcohol, war, and a plump host. they knew shop owners and were never short of sugar, white flour, tea, and coffee. The common Huge, dark slabs of meat began to appear more folk suffered from deprivation, not as bad as in and more often on the tables of guesthouses and Vienna or Berlin, but enough to antagonize them restaurants. This indicated that Podhale’s against the get-rich-quick merchants. poachers were venturing abroad, hunting on Duke Hohenlohe’s land in Jaworzyna Valley. Meanwhile, Zakopane received Legionnaires as Guards were stationed at the front, but no one guests, who appeared during the holidays. There guarded the wild game. Young men armed with also appeared soldiers from the regular Austrian rifles went to Świstowa and Czeska in Żabie army and summer holidaymakers from Galicia Stawy in Białczańska Valley and killed deer, and parts of recently liberated Congress fantastic cross-breeds of the Carpathian deer and Kingdom Poland. In winter there were ski Canadian Wapiti deer. As time passed, courses for members of the army. highlander poachers broke down four-meter- As we know, Zakopane possessed, and will high fences on Hohenlohe’s land. This meant always possess, people who have no income or that large and small animals crossed the border job. They don’t steal but live in a special way; not only of his land but also the country, and only they know how. For them, especially the entered the Valley of the Five Lakes, Morskie younger ones, ski courses held for soldiers were Oko, and Roztoka Valley. Not for long, a kind of salvation. The army didn’t care who however, because the poachers’ fury steadily served as the instructor or to which country or rose, especially when extreme hunger hit the race he belonged; they only wanted their skiing Great Powers. There was no way to starve the and speaking skills. Since the instructors were whole of Galicia; the Austrian civil servants, paid quite well and were awarded the rank of who were often Polish by birth and conviction, lieutenant for the duration of the course, these could not achieve this. ne’er-do-wells seized this new opportunity to get In vain they sent commissioners from Vienna to money from the “enemy country.” Not every confirm that pastries, paté, roasted meat, white instructor employed by the Austrian army bread and butter––all of which were forbidden belonged to this type, but Zakopane’s true locals fruit––were being served in Zakopane’s showed great skills, technique, and heart in restaurants. The ministry officials ate legal teaching newcomers how to ski. dinners on beautifully laid tables. Dinner I do not remember how often the Austrian consisted of scraps of meat and dark, tasteless soldiers were rotated; I heard every two months. bread and finished with barley coffee. At the For soldiers pulled from the front or from time same time, the restaurant host called out the in hospital it was a great windfall and a period of names of our people one after the other––the rest, as long as they didn’t work too hard on
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those damn skis. “Our boys” understood this As we mentioned, a great writer took power in straight away. The course took place every day Zakopane. It was on his hand that army officers in a nearby valley under the leadership of an swore their oath to be faithful to the Republic. instructor. They built a fire and prepared food Żeromski set up a council and wanted to be a they had brought with them. When there was fair ruler. Deserters returned from the some sun they stripped down to their underpants mountains; Zakopane was filled with long- and sunbathed. If the instructor was musical he forgotten faces. The poor and people without organized a choir that sang Polish, Ukrainian, connections rebelled; they wanted to punish Czech and German national songs. If he was shop owners who had traded on the black market musical the instructor conducted; often he during the war and rob the well-supplied cellars passed the baton on to a soldier and dozed off. of these illegal speculators. About 4 p.m., after a few exercises, the group The author-to-be of Przedwiośnie feared such made their way down to Skoczyska barracks. mob rule. Hearing such threats, which were Commandants, who were usually middle-ranked circulating widely, he created a citizen’s guard officers, were skilled at being lazy. They were to protect the goods of war-profiteering citizens. heavy drinkers and good mates. Every evening Lowlanders and law-abiding highlanders walked teachers met in any old cheap restaurant and to Krupówki at night and stood guard holding drank themselves blind. Before returning to the sawed-off shotguns and scaring the few and far- front they drank and skied recklessly at between passersby. The author of this book breakneck speed. If only they twisted or broke belongs to a younger generation; he would never bones, damaged a valuable organ, contracted dream of spending a cold night guarding the pneumonia, or suffered from contorted intestines sleep of someone who had profited from the they could go to a hospital and wouldn't have to black market. There were more such people – go back to the front lines. Zakopane’s instructors the whole of Kasprusie district where Żeromski helped as best they could, recklessly leading dwelled didn’t want anyone to disturb the peace their squad on tourist trails and very steep and wanted to get away from “being dictated to” slopes, skiing downhill to Jaworzynka or by the citizens’ guards. The author of Popioły Mechy. Not everyone had good luck; sometimes was angry with the rebels; he didn’t speak and they had too much. When one individual fell and looked away from them with his heavy black another person skied over him the skies pierced eyes. However, the writer’s power did not last him like an arrow and he died on the spot. long. Soon enough, those men who felt entitled appeared and young guards of the bureaucracy Global changes shook five continents. War, a began to sprout on Zakopane’s common soil. terrible war of exhaustion, began to run its course. In the small Zakopane backyard we had With hindsight and the prospect of a Third a gale of revolution besides the halny World War, the short-lasting caudilho and leader windstorm. Highlanders had escaped to the of Zakopane achieved more than the Italian mountains and hadn't returned from their writer d’Annunzio who conquered Trieste. He vacation for almost a whole year. Autumn came, did not harm anyone, and being a writer crazy and the folk prepared themselves for winter. about Polishness and at the same time a Highlander women delivered salt, flour, guns, gentryman with socialist beliefs, he was neither and bullets. For the highlanders, wild game was a Fascist nor a thug. enough: chamois, red deer, roe deer. It continued Without great introduction, when we think about like this until one day we learned that the Zakopane, it is evident that we leapt into Habsburg monarchy was no more, unwittingly freedom. However, what resulted belongs to slaughtered by its stepsons and their great allies. another chapter. ∆ Who could have foreseen that this signaled the death of an ordered world, and that we were NOTE marching toward great changes and crimes. This is the first English translation of chapter 10 of Rafał Malczewski’s memoir Pępek świata.
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Wspomnienia z Zakopanego (The Navel of the economy, all other things being equal, develop a World: A Memoir of Zakopane). Łomianki: different attitude toward work and life than of Wydawnictwo LTW (www.ltw.com.pl), 2010. Rafał those who entered adult life in the last years of Malczewski (1892–1965) was the son of Jacek communist rule in Poland. Yet, to quote Malczewski, a noted Polish painter. Enamoured of the village of Zakopane in the Polish Tatras, he Vassileva-Karagyozova, “the Polish '89ers seem became an intellectual guide to this unique place and to be on two completely different agendas only to the influential group of writers, philosophers, and at first glance. In fact, they are closely artists who resided there. The remarkable thing about intertwined and function symbiotically” (17). his memoir is its detachment from ideology: this is a A multitude of scholarly works on Polish diary of a private person who sees things that professional politicians and historians do not see. literature from 1989 until today has been This truly is a report of what life was like at that time published. Vassileva-Karagyozova is well aware and at that place. The end of the war meant more than of this fact and wisely relies on much of this just the cessation of hostilities: a new world was work. She is thus equally well aware that hers ushered in, but some of Zakopane’s inhabitants should not be just another minor addition to this remained blind to these changes well into the 1920s. legion. Her aim is much more ambitious, and Translated by permission. well described by Irena Grudzińska Gross on the book’s cover: “The author places the ‘developmental novels’ she discussed within their literary, cultural, anthropological, and Coming of Age under sociological contexts, thus moving her analysis Martial Law out of the realm of area studies and into the common language of scholars working on all The Initiation Novels of kinds of literatures and cultural phenomena.” Poland’s Last Communist In the first chapter Vassileva-Karagyozova Generation examines the political manifestations of the intergenerational conflict as depicted in the self- thematization narratives of the '89ers in the By Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova. Polish press between 2002 and 2014. She notes Rochester: Univ. of Rochester Press and Boydell and provides her own explanation for a kind of a and Brewer Ltd, 2015. viii + 224 pages. Index. leitmotif found in these narratives: “self-blame ISBN 13: 978-1-58046-528-1. Hardcover. for the inability of the group to organize itself as Jacek Koronacki a community with a unified and distinct voice and considerable social influence” (12). The author, who is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Vassileva-Karagyozova begins the second Kansas, argues convincingly that the cohort of chapter with a brief overview of the Poles born roughly between 1960 and 1975––the developments of the genre of the Bildungsroman since late eighteenth-century Germany to the '89ers, for short––forms a generational present time to focus on the post-1989 Polish community clearly marked by the experience of initiation novels. She elaborates on what she the cataclysmic fall of communism in 1989 and summarizes thus: “Instead of experiencing conscious of a shared experience of social healthy maturation and smooth integration into turbulence. This is so despite important an affirmative society, the young protagonists in differences between those born in the early Polish works adopt a wide range of escapist 1960s and those born in the late 1960s or early strategies to resist societal pressures urging 1970s. Indeed, it made a tremendous difference compliance with normative values and behaviors to live under communism and then see the leap and also as a means of psychological survival to democracy (of sorts) when one was a teenager (self-arrest in an infantile stage of development or in one’s twenties. It must have made those beginning their adult life under a competitive
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to avoid engagement with an intolerable experiences found in the initiation literature, reality)” (12). which give ample evidence of too much deficient and obstructive mothering in late- The analysis in the third chapter, titled communist Poland. Again, such testimonies are “Emasculated Men, Absent Fathers,” “focuses described both aptly and movingly. on the father-child dyad and illuminates the detrimental effects of the physical and emotional In the last chapter Vassileva-Karagyozova unavailability of the '89ers’ fathers (having been argues that “the post-1989 Polish initiation robbed of their manhood under communism) on novels reflect the Polish youth’s departure from the emerging subjectivity of their offspring” institutional Catholicism (which had become too (13). Vassileva-Karagyozova distinguishes conservative and inflexible) and their aspirations between three partly overlapping groups of toward a more inclusive spirituality. . . . On a paternal images in the initiation novels: fathers deeper level, these childhood narratives link the who are physically absent due to death, divorce, decline of organized religion with the emigration, or involvement in the Solidarity disintegration of the traditional family and, movement; fathers, who are intimately involved ultimately, with the demise of patriarchy” (13). with the Communist Party and have successful Dr. Vassileva-Karagyozova deserves much professional careers; and by far the largest group praise for this book, which is the fruit of much of fathers, who have failed to successfully outstanding scholarly work. That readers may on position themselves in the professional sphere rare occasions get confused as to what is the and have found themselves at the margins of author’s own stand on a given issue is both public and family life. She aptly and inessential, since it is hidden behind too many movingly describes testimonies of inadequate quotations from other researchers. She is at her fathering during late communism, which abound best in accounts of important and dramatic in the Polish initiation novels. The testimonies situations found in the initiation novels of the pertain to groups of fathers whose masculinity is Polish '89ers. She should be applauded for not either elusive due to their absence or only falling too easily into the traps of “officially” sanctioned (as with the party oversimplification and militancy set by feminists functionaries); or has been defeated (in the third and postmodern ideologues. As a shrewd group of fathers) leading to alcohol abuse, scholar, she not only notes that “female promiscuity, and physical violence. Vassileva- patriarchy dependence is now replaced with Karagyozova also describes psychological complete detachment from any roles that might consequences of inadequate fathering and hence potentially threaten women’s independence” deviant mother-child relations with father (129), but also realizes that nothing good can withdrawn and mother overburdened. follow from such detachment. In chapter 4, titled “Exorcising Mother-Demons: Yet when it comes to her general conclusions, The Myth of the Polish Mother Revisited,” the one cannot help but feel much disappointment. author turns to the presentation of Polish There is no doubt that women’s family problems mothers in the initiation novels. She begins with should be addressed with understanding and her account of the nationalistic myth of the compassion, but should we start addressing them Polish Mother to conclude that her analysis of from a nonmilitant feminist viewpoint, as Dr. fictional portrayals of socialist motherhood Vassileva-Karagyozova does, where everything shows that the '89ers’ mothers unconsciously that pertains to gender is expressed in feminist became collaborators in the political and social stereotypes and gender differences are in fact oppression of the younger generation and, negated, and where multigenerational extended ultimately, became their own children’s families, perhaps modestly and wisely victimizers. It should be emphasized that patriarchal, are fairy tales of sorts for senile Vassileva-Karagyozova does not refer back to elders? I hardly dare mention here Christianity is any feminist clichés but relies on the rather the only civilization so far to give a firm sincere testimonies of lived childhood
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foundation to women’s rights in particular and Catholicism with clericalism, and staying with human rights in general, and which––at least in tradition and cultural identity with aggresiveness principle––has made the lives of men and and politicization. She goes so far as to claim women in the West worth living. that the ultimate aim of the Church in the early 1990s was to establish a confessional state. More generally, except for references to literary Uncritically, she repeats postcommunist critique (Vassileva-Karagyozova refers to a host propaganda of that period, claiming that the of distinguished experts), her background on Church hierarchy ignored public criticism (what social and political issues seems too one-sided. specifically, she does not say), thereby Given that the author’s aim was more ambitious weakening its moral authority. Apparently Dr. than merely providing a new account of the Vassileva-Karagyozova does not know that this initiation literature, some omissions concerning was the time when the Church was under post-1989 literature produced by the '89ers are permanent attack by the influential Gazeta also surprising. Let me confine myself to two Wyborcza, and that remembering the past was examples, Rafał Ziemkiewicz’s (b. 1964) unwelcome, to say the least, within the circles Pieprzony los kataryniarza and Jacek Dukaj’s educated by the Gazeta, while the word (b. 1974) Xavras Wyżryn i inne fikcje narodowe. “patriotism“ (understood as “chauvinism” by While neither qualifies as a bildungsroman, postcommunists) was deleted from the both––one within science fiction and the other vocabulary. Admittedly, since the advocates of within the genre of fantasy––are good such views virtually monopolized the media and illustrations of how the two genres mentioned the university, many people lost their sense of have entered the field of serious reflection on direction and an ability to distinguish between nationhood, Poland, Polish patriotism, and so true and false or even right and wrong. on. If one writes about the process of Bildung among Polish '89ers, one cannot skip the work However, many of the '89ers neither fell victim of those who were happy enough to avoid the to this kind of confusion nor allowed themselves sad path to unrooted adulthood. Let me give one to become uprooted. To the contrary, writers, more example of the Bildung among the '89ers, philosophers, and publicists of the 1989 this time referring to a seventy-six-page-long generation associated with such journals or think essay “Rosja i rewolucja––Zygmunt Krasiński” tanks as Arka (later Arcana), Fronda, Teologia by Andrzej Nowak (b. 1960), now a Polityczna and Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej have distinguished historian but a twenty-two-year- been consistently shaping Polish culture and old student at the time of the writing. political and social thought with valuable Interestingly, the essay was first presented at a contributions. Unfortunately, except for one seminar held by Professor Maria Janion. opinion by Marek A. Cichocki cited by Dr. Vassileva-Karagyozova in a footnote (in which The aforementioned examples bring me to my he mentions, among others, Paweł Lisicki, Piotr main objection: Vassileva-Karagyozova’s one- Semka, Piotr Zaremba, Rafał Ziemkiewicz, and sidedness in her analysis of both the social Igor Janke), and a few references to Dariusz context within which the Polish '89ers were Gawin, no other insights of an intellectual from coming of age, and the intellectual landscape the circles mentioned are included in the book they formed in the 1990s and later. As has reviewed. already been emphasized, her study does justice to the hardships that many adolescent '89ers Overwhelmed by what she imbibed from authors endured, but the overall picture and explanations of the majority of initiation novels and the she offers do not tell the whole story, as these postmodern/postsecular publicists whose failed three examples already suggest. With her social conditioning and fragmented self- hostility toward the Catholic Church, borrowed identities she takes for the whole picture, Dr. from or shared with liberal/postmodern/feminist Vassileva-Karagyozova can neither provide a scholars and commentators, she equates full picture of the Polish 1989 generation nor explain in depth its attachment to or rejection of
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Polish Catholicism and the Polish way of being, court. Franciszka’s education was overseen by the latter seen by her as a set of Polish her father Janusz Wiśniowiecki, governor of stereotypes. However, this does not deny the Kraków who in his youth had undertaken the importance and accuracy of many insights that European tour and who himself had harbored can be found in her book. ∆ literary ambitions with a penchant for writing frivolities. Janusz would engender in his
daughter an understanding of literature that was Selected Drama And Verse seen as the possession of powers that were both by Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa formative but also self-creating; a perception that “the treasure must be there” (195).
Edited by Patrick John Corness and Barbara Perhaps because of her close relations with her Judkowiak. Translated by Patrick John enlightened parents, Franciszka was able to Corness. Introduction by Barbara spurn suitors and choose a husband who would Judkowiak. The Toronto Series 37 (The Other make an “impetuous advance.” The fortunate Voice in Early Modern Europe). Medieval and individual was Michał Radziwiłł (1702–1762), Renaissance Texts and Studies, vol. 478. who was both governor of Vilnius and Field Toronto, Ontario and Tempe, Arizona: Iter Commander of Lithuania, and whose residence Academic Press (Arizona Center for Medieval was in Nieśwież located in today’s Belarus. and Renaissance Studies), 2015. xv + 395 pages. Their marriage was a tender affair, and founded Illustrations, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0- on strong emotions and mutual regard, although 86698-532-1. Softcover. $45.00 from Franciszka would in time come to harbor Amazon.com. warranted suspicions about her husband’s fidelity, and conveyed to him in her letters and Barry Keane poetry complaints of his neglect and indiscretions: Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa (1705–1753) Men often break faith, so I have heard tell. is a remarkable historical figure of the late Deceive your eyes, they’re good at that as well. Baroque era, whose life and considerable literary Though onto his checks no cheat rouge applies, achievements have been explored, presented, The virtuous face mask conjugal lies. (“Response to and celebrated in this major work of scholarship her husband,” p. 357) and translational endeavor. Barely known to Polish letters, although nominally occupying the Franciszka experienced some twenty-nine title of Poland’s first woman dramatist, pregnancies, although she succeeded in raising Radziwiłłowa brought to her plays and poetry only three children to maturity. She undertook to the worldview of aristocratic women, which take a direct hand in the raising of her children proffered cautionary advice to young ladies on and the orphans of her close relations, and matrimonial issues whilst also providing a following her father’s example she engendered confessional perspective, in particular about the in her charges the importance of artistic challenging position of marital life for a woman achievement and self-fulfillment in respective surrounded by the “spying” eyes of court. fields. To this end, she established a theater at her residential court, which relied principally on Franciszka Ursula neé Wiśniowiecka was born the participation of family and friends. Needless into an influential noble family with historically to say, it came to be “a unique kind of school for royal links, and who possessed vast tracts of young actors and audiences.” As Barbara land in Ukraine. Indeed, many of the male Judkowiak writes, “these short plays, thanks to members of her family occupied the highest their clear, concentrated dramatic structure, were positions in the Polish-Lithuanian eminently suited to the formation of the Commonwealth, while the females were theatrical taste of an unsophisticated audience. charismatic and powerful members of the royal Their compactness was also better suited to the
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abilities of the youthful performers and audience We’ll gather news and runners will be placed including Radziwiłłowa’s children.” The plays in all our forests and fields; we’ll ride performed were often her own, some of which meanwhile together through the dark forest. (Love is were idiosyncratic reworkings of Moliere’s Born in the Eyes, p. 225) farces and comedies. Radziwiłłowa also What is most deserving of praise when it comes attempted mystery plays which incorporated to the translations is the degree to which they folkloric and classical motifs, indicating the seek to accentuate the authentic voice and idiom extent to which literary traditions inhabited the of Radziwiłłowa. The language of the poetry is spaces of the imagination and religious quaint in places and perhaps of its time, but the practices, and transacted with life’s realities. The intimations of disappointment with the present plays themselves represent a fascinating window and unyielding hope reveal what true-to-life into courtly entertainment taking place in the experiences and perceptions really meant for a furthest reaches of Europe in the early woman of Franciszka Radziwiłłowa’s ilk and eighteenth century. stature: Seven plays are included in the publication and If you can read the characters of people each and every one is an intriguing piece. They Their eyes will tell you straight away are also eminently readable and performable that world matters are quite different now. (“If you thanks in no small part to the considerable know how to read people’s character,” p. 354) achievements of the translator Patrick Corness. The play An Act of Divine Providence is a Altogether, a remarkable tome. ∆ dramatization of the Snow White theme, whereas Gold in the Fire is a version of the Griselda story, which first appeared in Year Zero Boccaccio’s Decameron. The literary merits and importance of the plays are wonderfully set out A History of 1945 by Barbara Judkowiak, who in an extensive historical-biographical introduction not only By Ian Buruma. New York: The Penguin incorporates interpretations of Radziwiłłowa’s Press, 2013. 368 pages. ISBN 978-1-59420-436- works but stakes a claim for their pioneering 4. Hardcover. aspects. The accounts, arguments, and interpretations here are both insightful and James Edward Reid perceptive, allowing the reader to understand the extent and context of Radziwiłłowa’s creative In Year Zero: A History of 1945, Ian Buruma achievements. The editor also convinces us that surveys much of the history that unfolded in a historical neglect has taken place and that it is Europe and Southeast Asia after the Second time to reassess the importance of “female World War concluded in 1945. He has also voices” at the beginnings of the Polish theater. made occasional forays into the history of the Patrick Corness’s translations of Radziwiłłowa’s years immediately before and after 1945. His dramas and plays should delight and intrigue survey is a challenging task, with notable gaps Baroque scholars, who will appreciate the extent concerning the war and postwar history of to which the translator has looked to explore and countries such as Poland and Ukraine. While elucidate the various literary traditions and reading Year Zero, I accessed some of this sources present in the works. General readers in missing history for Poland in recent works such turn will admire the strength and beauty of as Tony Judt’s Postwar: A History of Europe dramatic lines made for an actor’s delivery, lines Since 1945 and for Ukraine in Bloodlands: such as Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, (reviewed here in 2012) and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015), both by Judt’s I’ll see my realm is searched, the coast as well. colleague and good friend Timothy Snyder.
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A lesser writer might have been daunted by the boom that followed. I plan to lend the book to extent and complexities of surveying the my father. When he and his brothers removed histories in countries such as Indonesia before, their Royal Canadian Air Force and Army after, and primarily during 1945. Buruma uniforms and returned to civilian life at the end usually meets this challenge with telling details, of the war, they may have missed some of the lively character sketches, and his capacity for history of 1945 as it unfolded overseas. the ironic aperçu sommaire. Occasionally, A history of 1945 is a history that continues to however, his tone fails completely, as in the extend its long reach through more than half a following statement about the results of a century. Just before the turn of this century I was settlement by Britain, the United States, and the a member of a Canadian delegation that met Soviet Union: “The agreement, following with a delegation of government officials from decisions already made by Churchill, Roosevelt, Indonesia. One of the Indonesian officials and Stalin two years earlier at a conference in smiled as he reached out to shake my hand. I Teheran about shifting a large slice of Poland to smiled in response, and said, “My name is James the Soviet Union, was in keeping with an Reid.” As I clasped his outstretched hand in atmosphere of peculiar bonhomie” (154). Might mine, he smiled broadly and his eyes brightened the agreement atmosphere be more appropriately as he said with great pride “My name is Hitler.” described as taking place in another way? Surely the decision to abandon a large area of Second World War ally Poland and its citizens to the genocidal tyrant Stalin must have taken place in Kaleidoscope of Poland an atmosphere of callous obliviousness. A Cultural Encyclopedia Buruma also errs in his unfortunate references to the wartime service of Günter Grass. When By Oscar E. Swan with Ewa Kołaczek-Fila. Grass revealed in 2006 that he had served in Foreword by Adam Zamoyski. Pittsburgh: uniform in Germany during the war, his Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. xxvii + 366 revelation in Peeling the Onion (Beim Haüten pages. English and Polish indexes. ISBN 13- der Zwiebel) was greeted with a storm of 978-0-8229-4438-6. Hardcover. $39.95. controversy in Germany and beyond. Buruma does not clarify that Grass was in his teens when James S. Pula he was forced into service in Hitler’s Waffen SS near the end of the war, a time when Germany was drafting and sending boys and young men to Published as part of the University of Pittsburgh the front. Series in Russian and East European History, Kaleidoscope of Poland’s editor states that the Although Year Zero is an informative history in book should be “of particular interest to tourists many ways, it is not a traditional scholarly work. and foreign residents in Poland who want to It does not contain a bibliography associated acquire a broader context for the many with the almost 400 endnotes. These notes unfamiliar cultural terms they will encounter present article and book titles in French and while in the country.” This self-imposed German, which may be accessible to some audience seems rather small for a volume that readers; unfortunately, Japanese endnote titles ought to resonate with a broader spectrum of the are not translated into English, but are general public. While most of the genre of anglicized, leaving the reader puzzled by all of reference works focus on political events, here the Japanese titles, such as Morita Yoshio’s the emphasis is on material culture rather than Chosen Shusen no kiroku: beiso ryōgun no history or politics. The editor’s somewhat shinchū Nihonjin no hikiage. With these minor pedantic knowledge of the subject matter ix cavils aside, Buruma’s book is an accessible evidenced by the inclusion of such obscure introduction to the period between the end of the topics as the ritual first haircuts (unknown to Second World War and the postwar economic most Poles) or a bat sanctuary (ditto). It is
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unfortunate that there is no explanation of the Two of these are the November and January inclusion criteria. There appears to be a Risings in the nineteenth century, while the preference for contemporary individuals and other five reference anticommunist activities topics. Wigilia is included as an entry, but not with the last entry being August 1980. Why not święconka. Oczepiny is included, but neither include the Mierosławski revolt? Why not the stypa nor gwiazdka. Silesian or Wielkopolska risings? The Warsaw Rising in 1944? There is likewise a “Timeline of Kaleidoscope of Poland is an illustrated volume Polish Literary Figures Cited,” but it is arranged with images on glossy paper. As a volume by period rather than the author’s last name, so aspiring to serious presentation of things Polish, if one does not know that Gabriela Zapolska was it has considerable drawbacks. Entries suffer associated with Young Poland one has to look from the editor’s self-imposed limit of about 150 through the entire list to find her. Why timelines words which precludes adequacy concerning were chosen as an organizing principle for these such events as the Second World War or such is not stated. There is also a listing of “Major figures as Tadeusz Kościuszko. The latter entry Polish national and Regional Risings” (again by makes no mention of Kościuszko’s exceptional the Polish names) and a section listing service at the Battle of Saratoga in the American “Important Twentieth-Century Conferences Revolution, his participation in the Polish- Affecting Poland.” Russian War of 1792, or his famous attempt to free and educate the slaves. Although the book These are serious shortcomings. However, the contains a colorized cross-reference system, encyclopedia is attractively produced; the none of the entries are accompanied by any photographs are of good quality and include reference nor is there a bibliography, yet the portraits of individuals, images of food, famous editor identifies one of the book’s purposes as places, historical sites, and artwork. The being a reference source. boldfaced cross-references within the entries provide useful cross-listings of related topics. ∆ Using the volume can also be needlessly cumbersome. Although it is intended for English speakers, the entries are listed in Polish and MORE BOOKS there is a Polish index. While this poses no difficulty for such relatively well-known words as Piłsudski, listing “martial law” as “stan Cienie moich czasów [The shadows of my wojenny” or “the Second World War” as “druga time], by Bronisław Wildstein. Poznań: wojna światowa” is a great way to make sure Wydawnictwo Zysk (www.zysk.com.pl), 2015. that few readers will consider the volume useful. 451 pages. ISBN 978-83-7785-701-4. Paper. In These inexplicable choices are compounded by Polish. the use of the Polish alphabet which includes It is frustrating to review books like this. They diacritical marks rather than the English for reveal and teach so much, yet they are kept away arranging the entries. Would someone not from the vast sea of potential readers by being familiar with Polish know to look in a different written in a little-known language. Many place for an entry containing an e or an ę, an l or English-language readers are anxious to learn an ł? There is an English index in the back but what has really happened in Eastern Europe over no reference to it in the table of contents which the last half-century. So many mistakes, reflects only the page numbers on which the inaccuracies, and plain lies have circulated in different beginning letters of entries start. academia and the media about Eastern European history that books like this are like a breath of Similarly incomprehensible ways of presenting fresh air. Yet they are also irritating because the material are seen in the appendices. There is a reader knows that their content has so far been “Timeline of Polish Historical Months” (what’s locked up. that?) that includes seven major risings and crises, but why it is listed by month is uncertain.
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This autobiographical book tells the story of a to the needs of the empires in which they man who actively participated in the political originated. What is needed is a broader and social events in Poland starting with the pre- distribution of books written by the Eastern Solidarity period. He observed with his own Europeans themselves, as well as inclusion of eyes the transformation of people like Adam these books in the literary curricula of Western Michnik from promoters of anticommunist universities. How many chairs of Central and revolution to supporters of the former Eastern European literatures at American communist policemen and propagandists, such universities have recently been founded? Zero? as Czesław Kiszczak or Jerzy Urban. He saw Therein lies the problem. (JB) Lech Wałęsa give in to his enormous ego and Scriptorum: Fragmenty Pism, czyli uwagi o become a “salon clown.” One can also find here wojnie i pokoju [Notes on war and peace, 1660], paragraphs about Western pundits being by Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro. Translated spectacularly wrong in pontificating on Polish from Latin by Jagoda Chmielewski and anti-Semitism. The book does not lament the Bartłomiej Bednarek. Introduction and notes naivety of the Western cultural establishment by Marek Tracz-Tryniecki. Warsaw: that has reified Eastern and Central Europe Narodowe Centrum Kultury (www.nck.pl), beyond recognition, and has not progressed 2014. 845 pages. Index, notes, photographs. beyond the 1980–81 vision of naïve Eastern ISBN 978-83-7982-063-4. Hardcover. In Polish. workers trying to abolish communism. The author is too smart for that. Western readers Andrzej Fredro was excised from Polish could learn a great deal about how the world memory by colonialism. This is one of the works from reading this book. Needless to say, a hundreds of instances in which a wise statesman possible publisher for this excellent volume is and writer from whom generations of Poles and welcome to call. (SB) others could have learned a great deal has been thoroughly forgotten. Dropped in the memory Comparisons and Contexts: Essays on Central- hole. Under partitions of Poland there was no Eastern European Literature and Culture, institution whose task it was to publish and edited by Bogusław Bakuła, Dobrochna make known the great works of Polish literature Dabert, and Emilia Kledzik. Poznań: of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Biblioteka Porównań, 2015. 300 pages. Index, Normally, acountry takes care of promoting its photographs. ISBN 978-83-62298-75-4. writers. For nearly two centuries Poland, a midsize European nation, was deprived of this Published by the most active center for basic right because it was militarily occupied by comparative studies in Poland, this volume tries Russia, Germany, and Austria. No restitution once again to bring to focus the specificities of here. literatures in non-Germanic Central and Eastern Europe. Over a dozen essays address Fredro writes about society and politics. His methodological issues, postcolonial problems, learning is vast: he throws in comparisons from cinema, the Holocaust and its role in the the little known ancient and Renaissance writers, perception of Eastern Europe in the West, and concludes that in many cases the Polish Polish-German relations, and the literary canon. system has provided more liberty than any other The essays by Bakuła, Kledzik, Kołodziejczyk, and that it should therefore be treasured and and Skórczewski should be singled out because defended. Fredro did not anticipate that the of their outstanding value. Last but not least, it European Christian order in which he believed should be stressed that only through tomes like would disappear within two centuries. He this can Central and Eastern European literatures thought that countries within Europe would be introduced into the Western mainstream. The behave honorably toward each other. He was not secondhand opinions culled from Russian and a utopian thinker and anticipated wars, but he German writers that still circulate in academic could not imagine that three European countries circles in America falsify the picture according would cannibalize Poland by dividing her into
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three parts and absorbing each part, with the misconceptions about Old Polish literature. One hope expressed in the last partition treaty that of his examples of “metahistorical poetry” is the word “Poland” and “Polish” would Zbigniew Herbert’s Report from a Besieged eventually disappear from world vocabulary. City. That the nation survived under these circumstances should be a point of wonder and a Ojczyzna literatura: O środowisku skupionym source of strength for contemporary Poles who wokół Związku Pisarzy Polskich na Obczyźnie, grapple with the inevitable uncertainties and by Regina Wasiak-Taylor. London: Poets’ and storms of the postcommunist era. Was is Painters’ Press (Oficyna Poetów i Malarzy, 103 Poland’s Catholicism that made Protestant Colindeep Lane, London NW9 6DD), 2013. 294 Prussia and Orthodox Russia so hate the Polish pages. Index of names, biographies of writers, nation? Interestingly, it was the Catholic empire Reproductions of paintings and drawings. ISBN of the Habsburgs that was placed next under the 978-0-9570372-1-2. In Polish. guillotine of history. Austria, one of the This beautifully published volume contains partitioning powers, came out of Word War I articles and interviews related to the now- stripped of its non-Austrian possessions and legendary group of Polish literary émigrés in condemned to the status of a minor European London during World War II and afterwards. republic, eventually becoming less important Regina Wasiak-Taylor is a talented writer and than Poland who, in spite of strenuous efforts to interviewer whose style resembles Andrzej liquidate or corrupt its elites, emerged out of the Bobkowski’s Szkice piórkiem: it seems to barely two world wars renewed in many ways. scratch the surface, but the end result remains No, Fredro does not write about all this. But his vividly in memory. Among the writers book inspires these reflections. Much discussed are Melchior Wańkowicz, Bolesław recommended for those who enjoy serious Taborski, Stanisław Baliński, Florian Smieja, reading. (JB) Marian Hemar, Włada Majewska, Józef Garliński (who also wrote the preface), and a Historia według poetów: Myślenie couple dozen others. The book reads extremely metahistoryczne w literaturze polskiej, 1764- well, one of those little pearls of literary culture 1848 [History according to poets: Metahistorical that should be known to everyone claiming even thinking in Polish literature, 1764–1848], by minimal expertise in the subject of Polish émigré Andrzej Waśko. Kraków: Arcana, 2016. 515 writers or literary life in the mid-twentieth pages. Bibliography, index of names. ISBN 978- century. 83-65350-03-9. Hardcover. In Polish. The Quest for a Free Ukraine, by Olena Professor Waśko’s specialty is Romantic poetry, Chekan. Edited by Bohdan Rodyuk Chekan. a subject rather alien to those accustomed to the Vienna: Der Konterfei, 2015. 94 pages. ISBN exclusion of spirituality from contemporary 978-3-903043-04-6. Paper. In English and literary scholarship. He has written important Ukrainian. books on the transfer of Polish identity from The book consists mostly of interviews Baroque diarists to Romantic bards, and has now conducted by Ukrainian journalist and actress come up with an ambitious work outlining the Olena Chekan for Ukrainian Week. The volume spiritual dimension of the literary reflection of came out in memoriam, following Olena’s death Polish risings in the eighteenth and nineteenth from brain cancer on December 21, 2013. Her centuries. The book ignores the contemporary son Bohdan made an earnest effort to preserve trends in literary criticism and defiantly follows her memory. In addition to the interviews, he the style of writing that combines history with included in this volume notes about Olena poetry. Waśko persuasively contests the idées Chekan writted by Serhiy Trymbach, Maksym reçues of Polish post-Enlightenment writers who Striha, Volodymyr Melnichenko, and others. despised the achievements of the Polish Baroque The book’s cover features Olena Chekan in the and Renaissance. He corrects a number of
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September 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW
role of a woman from Kievan Rus, perhaps Better proofreading and more meticulous work meant to symbolize Ukraine. A reader with the English translation would have made undeterred by the book's vague title and a this volume more trustworthy. As it stands, the mystifying cover design will find inside a bits of trivia on Olena Chekan are repeated over collection of conversations with various and over. There are discrepancies in the English Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles on topics spelling of proper names owing to a lack of ranging from Ukraine, Russia, and Europe to consistency in transliterating from either Russian arts and politics, Holodomor, Chernobyl and or Ukrainian. These details are indicative of the Chechnya, solidarity and integrity, and the role Ukrainian situation today. Ukraine is a work in of the elites and ordinary citizens in society. progress, much like this cluster of interviews. These conversations suggest that Ukraine's quest Raw material may be cooked, a chrysalis may for a place of its own on the world map did not transform into a butterfly, and Ukraine may begin in 2013–2014 during the so-called Dignity achieve independence, prosperity, and an agency Revolution; this period only finalized one stage of its own. Undoubtedly Olena Chekan has been in a long journey toward the European family. In a part of this process. (Tetyana Dzyadevych) 2010–2011, or during Victor Yanukovych’s presidency, Ukrainian Week was able to provide a platform for discussion about Ukraine’s future. Olga Chekan belonged to both Russian and About the Authors Ukrainian cultures. She studied at the Boris Shchukin Theater Institute in Moscow, and her Krzysztof Brzechczyn is Professor of Humanities at the Institute of Philosophy at Adam Mickiewicz career was launched on the Soviet screen. This University in Poznań. hybridity is reflected in the biographical section: Tetyana Dzyadevych is Instructor in Russian at the the editor uses the Russian spelling of her name, Department of Slavic and Baltic Languages and Elena Vasilievna Chekan, adding the Ukrainian Literatures, University of Illinois at Chicago. version in brackets. The hybridity is confirmed Barry Keane is Lecturer in Comparative Studies in an article by Andrew N. Okara, a Russian- specialising in Polish and Baroque literature at the Ukrainian political and cultural analyst from University of Warsaw. Moscow, titled “Ukraine between Freedom and Jacek Koronacki is Professor of Statistics and an Iron Calf of an Empire.” The piece explores Director of the Institute of Computer Science at the Russian-Ukrainian relations, and it is not until Polish Academy of Sciences. He is also a political and social commentator and a regular contributor to the end that a connection is made with Chekan the conservative Polish bimonthly Arcana. herself. Rafał Malczewski (1892–1965) is a Polish painter The interviews are placed in a sequence that is and writer. neither chronological nor alphabetical. Some of James S. Pula is Professor of History at Purdue the interviewees are well known: Boris University Northwest and a noted specialist in things Polish. Nemtsov, Vaclav Havel, and Krzysztof Zanussi; James Edward Reid is a Canadian writer. His “On others, like Kerstin Jobst, Natalya Translation: An Interview with Peter Dale Scott” was Gorbanevskaya, or Ahmed Zakayev, may be published early in 2016 in Volume 42 of the journal question marks for the uninitiated readership. Paideuma at the University of Maine in Orono. The The volume gives voice to those representatives interview touches on Scott’s time as a Canadian of the Russian empire who are no longer diplomat in Poland in the late 1960s, on his contact welcome in Russia (Yuri Shevchuk); those who with Zbigniew Herbert, and. at some length, on his have been killed (Boris Nemtsov); and those relationship with Czeslaw Milosz. who, like the Chechen Ahmed Zakayev, live Adrian Lucas Smith is a Briton enamoured of abroad with their dream of an independent Zakopane. Chechnya.
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