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Stefan Zeromski's Ashes As a Postcolonial

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Stefan Zeromski's Ashes As a Postcolonial Historyka. Studia metodologiczne, T. XLII, 2012, ss. 77-95 STEFAN ŻEROMSKI’S ASHES AS A POSTCOLONIAL NARRATIVE Ewa Thompson abstract Stefan Żeromski’s historical novel Popioły [Ashes] (1904) is usually interpreted as a narrative about the Napoleonic wars, particularly about Napoleon’s campaign in Spain. The paper argues that the fast-moving war plot conceals the philosophical question to which Żeromski tried to provide an answer: did the Austrian empire represent a superior way of organizing human society, or was the liberty of the Polish “Sarmatian” republic a more appropriate answer to the question of how to live? The issue is indirectly contested by virtually all characters. It comes to a head in the relationship between two seemingly secondary characters, the Austrian tax collector Hibl and the Polish landowner Nardzewski. The former resembles William Faulkner’s Flem Snopes; the latter, the noble families of the Sartorises defeated in the Civil War. Like in Faulkner’s novels, there is an unmistakable suggestion of gloria victis in Żeromski’s opus. Unlike Faulkner, Żeromski brings to bear the issue of white-on-white colonialism in Europe, and the paper’s author suggests that the eighteenth-century seizure of parts of Poland by Europe’s three continental empires was an instance of European colonialism that delayed the development of non-Germanic Central Europe and eventually brought about twentieth-century European wars. KEYWORDS: colonialism, Galicia, Sarmatism, Stefan Zeromski, Jerzy Turowicz, liberty, republicanism, absolutism ••• During a trip to Poland in the 1970s I visited the headquarters of Tygodnik Powszechny in Kraków. Its editor, Jerzy Turowicz, proudly displayed in his office a portrait of Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and Hungary.1 From our conversation I learned that he was a great admirer of the Emperor. According to him, under the reign of the Habsburgs Kraków was a truly international city, and its artistic and intellectual life was flourishing. 1 The fact that the communist regime allowed the display of Franz Joseph‘s portrait while forbidding to display Józef Piłsudski’s pictures indicates the fostering of the suggestion that Poles are unable to maintain an independent state. Piłsudski was a symbol of such a state, while Franz Joseph symbolized submission to a foreign power. 77 Stefan Żeromski’s Ashes Turowicz was not interested in the fact that Vienna was also the capital of an empire obtained not by proclamations of multiculturalism, but in the customary manner: thorough violence.2 He did not want to know that Galicia was chronically underfunded and exploited by the Viennese authorities.3 He was not interested in the fact that, as an irate blogger stated recently, “there has never been any Galicia in Poland! It is an ahistorical and contrived name of the Austrian partition, administratively imposed and distasteful to the Poles”.4 Turowicz’s views were related to the fact that he was a patriot of the Enlightenment rather than a Polish patriot. He believed in the Enlightenment slogans of freedom, brotherhood, and equality, based on the premise that national identity is an obstacle rather than a prerequisite for building a just and successful society.5 In his time it was still possible to believe in such utopias, because the problem of white-on-white European colonialism had not yet penetrated the Weltanschauung of East European intellectuals. These concepts are difficult to accept today, when the world view of virtually all societies is permeated by postcolonial awareness and political scientists positing that the existence of a coherent national community is a necessary, although not sufficient, factor in safeguarding human rights in a given territory.6 After a visit to Kraków I went to the Polish Tatras, not to the well-known resort of Zakopane but rather to places whose names speak for themselves: Głodówka, Nędzówka, and Obrochłówka. (Hunger, Misery, Animal Fodder). Stefan Żeromski’s novel Ashes [1902-1903] adds Mrzygłód (Death-by- Hunger) to this list.7 The names of the villages stand in sharp contrast 2 Details of the Austrian seizure of Kraków and of the voivodships of Sandomierz and Kraków can be found in T. Mencel, Galicja Zachodnia 1795–1809, Lublin 1976, p. 14 ff. 3 Mencel concludes: “The brutal system of exploitation of Western Galicia by Austrians caused resentment and hatred for the new government, and the period 1806–1809 showed that under favorable circumstances the unexpired national sentiment would erupt in a powerful way.” T. Mencel, op. cit., p. 450. As Marc Ben-Joseph states, the situation did not change much in the second half of the nineteenth century: M. Ben-Joseph, Adversities of Autonomy: Bank Krajowy Królestwa Galicyi i Lodomeryi and the Politics of Credit in Galicia, 1870–1913, Kraków 1999. 4 http://forum.fronda.pl/?akcja=pokaz&id=2977249. 5 B. Wildstein, Apologia Kaczyńskiego, "Rzeczpospolita" Plus Minus, 5 December 2009. 6 M. Canovan, Nationhood and Political Theory, Cheltenham 1996. Today, however, Austrians seem to be completely insensitive to postcolonial problems, as demonstrated by a recent survey of history schoolbooks: M. Andrzejewski, Obraz Polski w austriackich podręcznikach szkolnych do historii, "Echa przeszłości", vol. 9, ed. by W. Gieszczyński, Olsztyn 2008, pp. 241–254. 7 S. Żeromski, Popioły, vol. 2, Warszawa 1983, p. 300 [Ashes, trans. by H. Stankiewicz, New York-London 1928]. 78 Ewa Thompson to the joyous identification of Polish Galicia with Franz Joseph, Viennese cafés and that gentle and happy atmosphere that supposedly characterized the late Habsburg Empire. Żeromski’s novel Ashes shows the unsightly side of that empire. It is a declaration of disagreement with idealization of the Austrian partition and the model of state management used in its territory. From the postcolonial point of view, it is a novel about people and territories forced, in spite of bloody resistance, to become the periphery of an empire. The Old Republic of Poland was not a glorious metropolis, but it was still a metropolis. Colonization transformed and divided this metropolis into provinces of three empires, with all the consequences that a 8 transformation of this kind brings. The so-called Polish Sarmatism, from which the heroes of Ashes derive endowed citizens of “Sarmatian” Poland with a sense of self-worth and liberty. Austrian colonization destroyed their liberty and compelled the Poles to serve the interests of their conquerors. Ashes is a narrative of the Sarmatian culture that survived among the nobility with pedigrees and estates, and was also potentially present among smallholders with no pedigree and no assets. The novel suggests that it is not necessary to be a noble to possess the sense of liberty that the Republic of Poland developed and cultivated. In Central and Eastern Europe the articulation of colonial processes and mechanisms is still inadequate. There is no awareness that colonialism differs from “ordinary” conquests that took place before the formation of national and language identities. The effects of precolonial conquests were not as traumatic as that of colonial appropriation.9 In contrast to those earlier conquests, European colonialism of white against white was exceptionally destructive. In the nineteenth century, i.e., the period of formation of modern societies, Polish society was obliged to expend its energies on defending identity rather than on normal multidirectional development. While German and French communities used their time, energy, and resources to develop economy and culture, countries such as Ireland, Scotland, Finland, and Poland wasted their social energy on responding to changes imposed on them by foreigners. 8 Metropolis and periphery are discussed in greater detail in E. Thompson,Postkolonialne refleksje. Na marginesie pracy zbiorowejFrom Sovietology to Postcoloniality, "Porównania", 5 (2008), pp. 113–126. 9 Ibid., p. 113–126. 79 Stefan Żeromski’s Ashes Ashes can be interpreted as a recognition of this process. This three- volume novel begins with a hunting scene in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, shortly after the third partition of Poland sealed the fate of terrritories near Kraków and Sandomierz. One of the main characters in the novel is Rafał Olbromski, whose parents and uncle live in the lands annexed by the Habsburgs. Rafał goes hunting with his uncle Nardzewski. Upon their return home they encounter a visitor to Nardzewski’s estate: an imperial official named Hibl, who arrived because Nardzewski was in arrears regarding state taxes. It should be noted here that in the eighteenth century the collection of taxes in Polish territory was a complicated issue. When the Austrian army entered the lands of the Republic, the issue of taxes was decided in an arbitrary manner unknown in Poland at that time. Additionally, some properties were taken away from their owners as punishment for participation in the uprisings.10 In the Republic all taxes had to be voted on by the Sejm (Parliament) in a manner similar to that prevailing in contemporary democratic societies. The king could not levy taxes without the consent of the Sejm. Part of the income from church properties was used to maintain charitable establishments. One can imagine the chaos and misery generated by taking these assets because an individual or an institution failed to pay the Austrian taxes. While in free Poland the income from royal estates supported the Polish army, in colonized Poland that income was sent to Vienna. The Austrians decreed that the nobility were obliged to see to it that the chimney tax and land tax (paid by peasants) as well as the 10 groszy tax (paid by the nobility) were send in on time.11 This last tax was passed by the Four-Year Sejm (the last free parliamentary gathering in Rzeczpospolita) but it was implemented only after Poland’s loss of independence, of course in favor of the invader. When the Republic was in decline Nardzewski did not pay this tax because the weakened central authorities did not have the means to put into practice the reform of the Four-Year Sejm.
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