THE SARMATIAN REVIEW
Vol. XXX, No. 2 April 2010
Benedictine Labors
Christopher Zakrzewski, professor of Latin at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay, Ontario, Canada and author of a new translation of Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz. Winner of the 2010 Sarmatian Review Literary Prize. 1488 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059- In this issue: universities have skyrocketed, often 5872) is a triannual publication of the Polish Devolution in Academia...... 1488 over fifty times higher than those Institute of Houston. The journal deals with of untenured instructors. In the first Polish, Central, and Eastern European affairs, Sarmatian Review Data ...... 1489 and it explores their implications for the United Sarmatian Review LiteraryAward. 1491 decade of the twenty-first century, States. We specialize in the translation of Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz, over twenty universities paid their documents. Sarmatian Review is indexed in the Book 3, translated by Christopher A. presidents over one million dollars. American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, EBSCO, and P.A.I.S. Zakrzewski ...... 1491 Even in comparison to full International Database. Since September 1997, Barbara Fedyszak-Radziejowska, professors who often retire without files in PDF format are available at the Central “People’s Poland” in the Third Polish achieving a six-digit salary figure, and Eastern European Online Library Republic...... 1500 (www.ceeol.com). top administrators are paid Brian Domitrovic, The Maid and the Subscription price is $21.00 per year for exorbitant salaries. In the “good old individuals, $28.00 for institutions and Messerschmidt (review) ...... 1502 libraries ($28.00 for individuals, $35.00 for BoÏena Karwowska, Polish Literature days” any professor could become libraries overseas, air mail). The views expressed from 1918 to 2000 (review). . . . .1504 dean or president of his/her by authors of articles do not necessarily represent university through election by his those of the Editors or of the Polish Institute of Joanna Rostropowicz Clark, The Houston. Articles are subject to editing. Church and the Communist Power— colleagues. There used to be a Unsolicited manuscripts and other materials are IPN Bulletin no. 45 (review) . . 1506 faculty vote for such positions. not returned unless accompanied by a self- BOOKS ...... 1508 addressed and stamped envelope. Please submit Presidents were scholars and not your contribution electronically and, if Antoni Chołoniewski, The Spirit of fundraisers or lawyers. Today the requested, send a printout by air mail. Polish History (excerpts)—SR partial selection of university presidents is Submissions and Letters to the Editor can be e- reprint series ...... 1510 shrouded in mystery. The mailed to
Sarmatian Review Literary Award
ver the years, Sarmatian Review has published a Pan Tadeusz Onumber of translations by Christopher Zakrzewski, a polyglot who teaches Latin in a Canadian college. Over the years, Mr. Zakrzewski chiseled and by has perfected his translations of Pan Tadeusz. His final prose version seems to us the best of all: a contemporary reader can best savor Pan Tadeusz as a stylized and Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) incredibly elegant tale of country life in Polish-speaking Lithuania in the early nineteenth century. Zakrzewski’s translation is a major achievement. The older Book Three translations are too remote from the rhythm of contemporaneity. We have been publishing his new translation in installments. Coquetries Zakrzewski has also translated portions of Canto Five of Juliusz Słowacki’s Pan Beniowski for Argument: Sarmatian Review (SR, April 2002), the only substantial portion of Pan Beniowski available in English. For The Count’s sally into the garden. these achievements Mr. Zakrzewski receives the 2010 A mysterious nymph tends the geese. Sarmatian Review Literary Award. The Award consists The mushroom gatherers. of a wooden plaque and a check for $500.00. The A comparison with the wandering plaque is inscribed with the following: shades of Elysium. Varieties of wild mushroom. 2010 Telimena at the Temple of Musings. Consultations touching Tadeusz’s future. Sarmatian Review The Count as landscape painter. Tadeusz’s picturesque views on trees and Literary Award clouds. The Count’s thoughts on art. is given The bell. A note. to A bear, my lordship!
Christopher A. Zakrzewski Translated by Christopher A. Zakrzewski
of Our Lady the Seat of Wisdom Academy, Canada he Count had turned for home; yet he kept drawing for artistic excellence in translating into English Trein to look back at the garden. Suddenly, he caught the Polish Romantic poets a glimpse of the mysterious white dress in the manor Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki window. Once again some weightless object seemed to float to the ground, streak across the garden, and flash Polish Institute of Houston among the green cucumber leaves. So a fugitive sunbeam drops through an opening in a cloud only to glance off a flat flint in the field or a sheet of still water in the meadow. 1492 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 Alighting from his mount, the Count dismissed his grillwork wrought of silver and gold; and yet everything men and ran stealthily back to the garden. In no time he was light and airy like a breeze-blown drape. gained the fence, found an opening and, like wolf stealing Over this polychrome of ears and stalks there hung, into the fold, slipped inside—only to blunder into a row floating like a baldachin, a radiant mist of mayflies—or of dry gooseberry bushes. The rustling twigs seemed to dames as they are locally called. Barely visible, the insects startle the little gardener. She turned and looked around, danced on four gauze-like wings as clear as glass; and but saw nothing to alarm her; all the same, she made for though they gave off a humming sound, they seemed the far side of the garden. Meanwhile, the Count, having scarcely to stir. The girl held a tuft of grey ostrich plumes slipped sideways through the great leaves of wild rhubarb in one hand; she was waving it over the heads of the tots, and yellow dock, dropped down on all fours and, hopping as if brushing away the golden swarm. Clasped in her frog-fashion through the grass, crept noiselessly up to other hand was a gleaming horn-like object—plainly a within a few yards of the girl. He raised his head. A feeding vessel, for she was lowering it to each of the little marvelous prospect burst upon his eyes. mouths by turns. The vessel brought to mind Amalthea’s There stood in this corner of the orchard a sparse golden horn. assemblage of cherry-trees. All around them grew a grain All the while, still mindful of the disturbance in the patch artfully sown with a wide assortment of crops: gooseberry patch, she cast backward glances. Little did wheat, maize, broad bean, English pea, bearded barley, she know that her prowler had crept up from the opposite millet, and even the odd flower and shrub. Contrived as side and was even now worming his way across the garden a covert for the manor’s free-ranging poultry, the garden beds. Without warning, he leapt out of the burdocks. was the brainchild of the bailiff ’s wife, a famous She looked up to see him bowing low before her just housekeeper by the name of Kocky of the house of Turcky. four beds away. Instantly she turned, threw up her arms, Her invention signaled an epoch in the annals of domestic and prepared to take flight like a startled jay. Already her husbandry. Today it is household knowledge, but then it feet skimmed the leaves; but then, alarmed by the intruder was still a novelty, known only to the few initiates. and the flight of their mistress, the little tots raised a Eventually, it made its way into the pages of the almanac frightful wail. On hearing their cries, the girl thought under the title, Remedies for Hawks and Kites: A New twice about abandoning them to their fright. And so, Method of Raising Poultry. This was that garden. faltering, like a reluctant sprite drawn by a sorcerer’s The crested rooster, strutting his watch, had only to charm, she retraced her steps; back she ran to attend to come to a halt, cock his beaked head sideways (the better the shrillest of her charges. Crouching down, she pressed to sweep the clouds with his eye) and, spying a hawk, the tot to her bosom, fondled another, and calmed them sound the alarm. At once the entire flock of birds—hens, all with soothing words. Even as chicks seek shelter under geese, and peafowl—would scurry for cover in the grain the brood-hen’s wing, so the tots wrapped their arms patch; even the startled doves, finding themselves cut off about her knees and huddled around her. from the manor roof, sought shelter there. “Come,” she chided them, “is it nice to be crying so? For the moment no enemy hovered in sight; the fierce Is it polite? Why, you will scare the gentleman! He had summer sun blazed alone in the sky. The birds sought no intention of startling you. He is no nasty old beggar, out the shade of the covert. Some basked in the grass, but a guest, a nice gentleman. See how handsome he is!” others wallowed in the sand. And she looked for herself. Rearing but a head above the birds was a group of The Count, clearly delighting in these flatteries, smiled barenecked little human folk with tow-white, short- at her sweetly. But the girl, suddenly remembering herself, cropped hair. Among them, standing taller by another fell silent and, mantling deeply like a rose, lowered her head, and with longer hair, was a girl; and behind them, eyes. fanning the broad hoop of its iridescent tail covert, sat a He was indeed a comely gentleman: tall of stature, peacock. Set picturesquely against this dark-blue with a longish face, gentle eyes of cornflower-blue, cheeks backdrop, the white heads stood out in bold relief. The pale yet fresh, locks long and fair. Tufts of grass and leaves, eyes of the peacock’s tail flashed out around them like a gleaned from his passage across the beds, clung to his garland of stars. All this appeared as in a shadow play: temples like an unraveling wreath of bays. through a translucent screen of golden grain stalks, silver- “You!” he declaimed. “By what name shall I honor veined ribbon grass, coral-red amaranth, and verdant you? Deity! Nymph! Shadow! Apparition! Speak! Do you mallow. The blend of shapes and tones suggested a walk this earth of your own free will or does another’s bind you to this terrestrial vale? Stay! Let me guess! A April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1493 spurned lover—some rich baron or jealous guardian— But by now she had fled under the canopy of the grove. holds you bewitched in this park. For beauty such as yours For an instant longer he imagined he saw a pair of eyes paladins entered the lists. Of such heroic stuff romancers flashing at him through the avenues of flowering trees. spun melancholy lays! Reveal, fair damsel, the secret of Left alone, the Count lingered on in the garden. Even your cruel misfortune, for even now your preserver hangs as the earth grows cool after sunset, so his soul began to upon your beck. Even as you reign in my heart, so shall shed her ardor and take on darker tones. He lapsed into you reign over this arm!” And he stretched forth his arm. a dreamy state, but his dreams were far from pleasant. Blushing girlishly, yet beaming with joy, she listened He roused himself angrily. But who to blame? How little to him speak. As a child rejoices in a book of gaudy had come of it! His hopes had run too high. With a pictures or takes pleasure in a handful of glittering game burning brow and throbbing heart he had crept his way counters even before knowing their value, so, without across the beds toward his shepherdess. All those charms grasping the burden, she delighted in the sonorities of ascribed to the mysterious nymph; all those wondrous his speech. qualities imputed; all those surmises made—and all so “Sir, where have you come from?” she replied at last. wide of the mark! True, her face was pretty, her figure “What are you seeking here among the flowerbeds?” supple, but how out of place! The lively glow and The Count’s eyes grew wide with surprise and plumpness of her cheeks bespoke a surfeit of simple bliss: bewilderment. For a moment he stood speechless. Then a sign that her mind and heart lay as yet inactive and lowering his exalted tone, he replied: dormant. And her replies! How coarse! How rustic! “Please excuse me, miss, I seem to have spoiled your “Why delude myself?” he cried out. “My nymph’s a fun. Forgive me. I was hurrying to the house for breakfast. common gooseherd!” It is running late and I wanted to arrive there on time. As With the girl’s disappearance, the entire bewitching you know, the road takes a roundabout route. If I am not shadow play took on a whole new aspect. Alas, could all mistaken, the way across the garden is shorter?” this charming ribbonry and grillwork wrought of silver “There is your way, sir,” she said. “Only do mind the and gold be nothing but straw? He wrung his hands, beds. You will find a path in the grass yonder.” gazing on the little bentgrass broom, which he had taken “Right or left?” for a tuft of ostrich plumes. He recalled the golden vessel. Raising her eyes, the girl seemed to study him closely. Amalthea’s horn was— a carrot! Even now one of the The house stood in plain view not a thousand paces off, village urchins was busy dispatching it. So it was farewell and yet here he was asking the way. But the Count was to the charm, the spell—the wonder. Even so a boy, when set on drawing her into a conversation. he spies a dandelion, feels drawn to the soft and delicate “Do you live here, miss?” he pursued. “Close to the head. Eager to touch it, he approaches, blows upon it, garden? In the village then? How is it that I have never and the whole flower dissolves into a cloud of down, seen you in the house? Have you been here long? Visiting leaving nothing to the over-keen eye but a stark grayish- perhaps?” green receptacle. The little gardener shook her head. Ramming his hat over his eyes, the Count spun on “Forgive me, but is that not your room by the window his heel and returned whence he came, though he yonder?” shortened the way by cutting across the vegetables, Meanwhile, his thoughts ran this way: “Perhaps not a flowers, and rows of gooseberry bushes. Only after romantic heroine after all. Still, she is pretty and young. clearing the fence did he take time to catch his breath. Not seldom does a great soul lie hidden away like a rose But then he recalled he had spoken to the girl of breakfast. in the forest; but bring her forth into the world, expose Perhaps word of their meeting in the garden so close to her to the light of day, and she dazzles the beholder with the house had already got out? What if they had a thousand shades of hue.” dispatched servants to fetch him, only to learn that he Without a word, the little gardener rose to her feet, had run off? No telling what they would think. Yes, it scooped up the tot that clung to her arm, took another behooved him to go back. by the hand, and, driving the rest like a flock of geese Keeping low along the fences, he skirted the boundary before her, went forth into the orchard. strips and patches of weed. At last, to his relief, after taking “If you please, sir,” she said with a backward glance, a thousand detours, he emerged on the road that made “be so kind as to drive my scattered birds into the grain straight for the manor courtyard. He followed the fence patch?” without glancing at the garden. So the grain pilferer, “Me!” cried the astonished Count. “Drive your birds?” betraying no sign of his deed or intention, averts his gaze 1494 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 from the granary. Such was the Count’s circumspection, in autumn or winter. The Chief Steward sought out the though there was no one about to observe his movements. fly agaric. On he walked, his head turned away from the garden, Other common varieties of mushroom were shunned eyes to the right. for their inferior taste or injurious effects; yet even these Here stood a birch grove, clean of undergrowth and were not without their utility. They provided the fauna richly swarded. Gazing into the trees, the Count saw— with food, the insect with a nesting place, and the glade gliding over that verdurous broadloom, weaving in among with adornment. Like a table service they stood ranged the silver boles under a canopy of low-hanging leafy on the meadow’s linen: the round-edged russulas, silvery, branches—a host of shadowy shapes. Like spirits in the yellowish, or ruby-red, like goblets brimming with various moonlight executing strange, dance-like motions they vintages; the yellow boletes, their caps dimpled like the roamed, bizarrely clad, some sheathed in black, others bottoms of upturned cups; the funnel clitocybes, slender draped in long flowing robes as white as snow. One wore as champagne stemware; the fleecy milk cap, round and a broad-brimmed hat as wide as a cooper’s hoop. Another white, broad and flat, like cream-filled teacups of Dresden went bareheaded; still others walked as if wrapped in porcelain; and the spherical puffballs, squat as pepper- vapors, their headgear trailing in the breeze like a comet’s pots, replete with a powdery black spore mass. tail. Each struck a different pose. One stood rooted to The rest had names found only in the tongues of hares the forest floor; only his lowered eyeballs moved. Another and wolves. Human folk had not yet christened these, stared straight ahead, moving like a somnambulist, yet they grew in profusion. No one touched these feral swerving neither to the right nor left, as if walking a line. varieties; and if someone mistakenly stooped to pick one, The figures kept bending down in various directions, as he angrily snapped off the cap or trampled it underfoot; if making profound bows. Upon approaching each other though in so sullying the sward he behaved quite unwisely. or crossing paths, they exchanged neither word nor nod— Telimena picked neither the feral nor human varieties. so absorbed were they in their task; so deep was their Bored and distracted, her head thrown back, she stood distraction. The shadowy forms put the Count in mind gazing up around her. The Notary testily observed that of the Elysian shades: bereft of pain and cares, they roam she was rooting for mushrooms in the trees. The more the blessed fields in quiet yet mournful tranquility. spiteful Assessor likened her to a broody bird spying out Who would have recognized in these silent folk so a place to build her nest. frugal of movement—our friends, the Judge’s But Telimena seemed to be seeking out a place of companions. Having concluded their stormy breakfast, silence and solitude. Slowly she drew away from her they had gone outdoors to observe the solemn rite of companions. Straying deeper into the forest, she mounted mushroom gathering. Being sensible folk, they knew how a gentle slope where the trees grew thicker and shadier. A to curb their speech and fit their gestures to every place grayish rock crowned the knoll; a stream flowed from and season. And so, before following the Judge into the beneath it. Out it gushed and fled away, as if seeking woods, they had assumed a new demeanor and a change shade, to water the tall rank grasses that grew all round. of clothing. Over their robes the men had thrown loose There, swaddled in the herbage, couched in a bed of linen smocks. Straw hats covered their heads; hence their leaves, unseen, untroubled, and motionless, the nimble pale aspect reminiscent of purgatorial souls. Most of the rascal purled. So a querulous child lies tucked in its crib, younger set had also changed. Only Telimena and a few while its mother, bestrewing the pillow with poppy leaves, of the others still had on their French attire. laces up the cradle’s green drapes. Here was a lovely nook The unrusticated Count could make nothing of it. indeed. Telimena often sought refuge here. She called it Intrigued to no end, he struck out with all speed for the her Temple of Musings. birch-grove. Stopping by the rill, she cast off her scarlet shawl and The woodland teemed with mushrooms. The lads let it float to the ground. As a bather bends down, bracing picked the rosy-cheeked chanterelles—objects of high herself for the plunge, so she dropped to her knees, sank praise in Lithuanian songs, for they are called emblems slowly to one side, and, as if swept up by a coral tide, of maidenhood. Worms never gnaw at them; nor, strange flounced down and sprawled at full length on the green. to say, do insects alight on their caps. The young ladies There she lay with her elbow on the grass, her temple sought after the shapely bolete, which the folksong calls resting on the palm of her hand, head bent at an angle, the “King of Mushrooms.” All hunted for the smaller eyes poring over the gleaming vellum of a French novel; saffron milk cap. Although less exalted in song, these were and, as she read, her black ringlets and pink ribbons the tastiest of all, for you could eat them fresh or salted, danced over the alabaster pages. April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1495 A quaint picture she presented: her scarlet shawl spread On hearing this, Telimena turned pale. She closed her over the emerald sward, she disposed upon it; her frame book, tried to rise, but then sat down again. sheathed in a long coral-red frock, set off at either end by “So help me, dear brother!” she cried. “Have you taken her black hair and slipper and enhanced by the leave of your senses? Can you be so heartless? Make of shimmering white line of her kerchief, stocking, and arm. Tadeusz a sower of groats? Is that the sort of benefactor A distant viewer might easily have mistaken her for a you are? Why, you will stifle the lad! Depend on it, he gaudy caterpillar sprawled on a maple leaf. will end up cursing you one day. The idea of burying Alas, no expert was at hand to appraise the merits of such talent in the backwoods and kitchen gardens! Why, this charming scene. Absorbed in their pursuit of even from what little I know of him, I can see he is a mushrooms, none of the gatherers paid it the slightest bright lad. What he needs is to see the world. You would attention. Only Tadeusz took notice. Casting sideward do better, my brother, to send him to the capital, to glances at Telimena, yet loath to approach her directly, Warsaw, for instance, or—do you know what I’m he crept cautiously toward her. So, pushing before him thinking?—why not Saint Petersburg? I expect to be his two-wheeled blind woven from branches, the hunter traveling there this winter on business. We could plan stalks the bustard. So the plover shooter, resting his gun his future together. I am acquainted with a good many on his horse’s saddle or neck, approaches his prey. Like a people in Petersburg and have influence there. What plowman drawing his harrow or skirting a balk he better way of getting ahead in the world?. With my help, advances. Each step brings him closer to his quarry’s he will gain admittance into the finest houses; and once resting place. Such was the lad’s circumspection. he comes to know people of note, he will find a berth— But then his uncle upset his ambuscade. Striding earn a ribbon. Then, if he so wishes, he can resign his briskly up toward the stream, the Judge cut Tadeusz off. post and come home. But by then, he will be somebody The fitful breeze played upon the tails of his white sarafan and know the ways of the world. What say you to this, and the voluminous handkerchief knotted to his belt. my brother?” Secured by a string, his hat waved up and down like a “True enough,” averred the Judge, “a change of burdock leaf, beating over his shoulders and eyes. So, scenery, a chance to study men and manners can profit a plying his massive cane, the Judge bent his steps toward youth. In my own youth I saw quite a bit of the world. I the stream. After squatting down to wash his hands, he have been to Dubno, and Piotrków too, where as a seated himself on a large rock opposite Telimena and, member of the bar I pleaded cases at the Royal Assizes. leaning forward on the ivory ball of his prodigious ferule, To promote my affairs I even traveled to Warsaw. Yes, began to speak. there is much to be said for it. I should very much like “You must know, my dear, that ever since young my nephew to see the world, but rather as a traveler or Tadeusz arrived, I have had no end of worries. I am old an apprentice, for a term of years, that he might learn and childless. The dear lad is my one solace in the world, the affairs of men—not for the sake of rank and ribbons! the future heir to my fortune. God willing, I shall leave You will pardon me, my dear, but what kind of distinction him a handsome inheritance befitting a gentleman, but are Moscow’s ranks or ribbons? Since when did our gentry he too must give thought to his prospects and learn to of old (or even now, for that matter)—since when, I say, stand on his own two feet. Now consider, my dear, the did the wealthier squires of our district care for such trifles? straits I am in. You know what a strange fellow my brother Here we hold men in esteem for their gentle birth, good Jacek—Tadeusz’s father—is. His intentions are hard to name, and office, by which I mean an office won by a read. He refuses to come home. God knows where he is vote of the local citizenry—not through someone’s good hiding now. He will not even allow his son to know he is influences!” alive, yet still he insists on running his affairs. First he “If that is your view,” broke in Telimena, “then so wants Tadeusz to go for a soldier and join the legions; much the better. By all means, send your nephew into that caused me a great deal of grief. Then he agrees that the world as a traveler.” he should stay home and take a wife. That will not be “You see, my dear sister,” said the Judge, ruefully difficult to arrange. I have my eye on a certain party. No scratching his head, “I should like nothing better. But one among our fellow citizens boasts a better name or set there is another snag. Jacek insists on taking charge of of relations than the Chamberlain. His elder daughter, his son; and now he has burdened me with his friend Anna, is eligible; she is fair and well dowered. I thought from across the Vistula—the Bernardine, Robak, whom I might launch the process.” he has taken completely into his confidence. They have already decided Tadeusz’s future. They want the boy to 1496 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 wed, to take Sophie, your ward, as wife. In addition to “Well, my dear,” he said, “nothing more to be said. my fortune, they will receive a handsome portion from God knows I have tried to raise this matter without rancor. my brother. As you know, my dear, Jacek has capital in If you will not give your assent, then you are quite within store. It is by his grace that I own the greater part of the your rights. Sad it is, but anger is out of place. I urged estate; so he is entitled to take the business in hand. And the suit for my brother’s sake only, but no one is forcing so, my dear, think how best to smooth the way. They the match. Since you see fit to refuse Tadeusz’s suit, I must become acquainted. True, they are rather young, shall inform Jacek in writing that notwithstanding my especially little Sophie. But there is no harm in that. best efforts, a betrothal between Tadeusz and Sophie Anyhow, it is high time she came out of confinement, cannot take place. Now the Chamberlain and I shall take for she is growing out of childhood.” the matter in hand. We shall start the process and push it Telimena was aghast, almost in a panic. She struggled to a swift conclusion.” to rise to her feet, but succeeded only in kneeling down But by now Telimena’s fervor had begun to cool. on her shawl. Although disposed to listening at first, she “Now just wait a minute, dear brother!” she broke in. was now signing disagreement with her hand, waving it “I am refusing nothing. You said yourself it was too soon; about her ear, as if driving the swarm of unpleasant words that they were too young. Let us bide our time and ponder back into the speaker’s mouth. the matter. There is no harm in that. The young couple “What is this? What is this I hear?” she retorted hotly. shall become acquainted, but we cannot leave the “Sir, what is good or ill for Tadeusz you may decide for happiness of others to chance; and, I must warn you, my yourself. He is nothing to me. Make what plans you like. brother, to refrain from putting any ideas into Tadeusz’s Make of him an overseer; consign him to a public house. head. No forcing of his attentions on Sophie! The heart Let him serve drinks, fetch game from the forest. Do as is no slave. Love brooks no master; no chains shall you please with him. But as for Sophie, what concern is constrain it.” she of yours? Whom she marries is for me, for me alone, With that the Judge rose and walked away, deep in to decide. The fact that Jacek pays for her education and thought. Meanwhile, drawn by an imaginary trail of affords a modest yearly allowance (and promises to give mushrooms, Tadeusz approached from the other side; at more) does not entitle him to treat her like bought the same time, the Count bore slowly up in the same chattels. Besides, it is still widely known that your direction. generosity toward her is not without self-interest. You All this time, the Count had stood observing the Judge Soplicas must know that you bear the Horeszko family a and Telimena from his vantage point among the trees. debt.” Deeply stirred by the scene, he produced paper and pencil The Judge heard this part of her speech with from his pocket (he never went anywhere without his incomprehensible dismay, sorrow, and visible revulsion. drawing materials), spread the paper over a leaning trunk, As if dreading to hear the rest, he hung his head and and busied himself with sketching essays. waved assent, blushing deeply all the while. “Arranged as if by design,” he muttered to himself. “I have been a foster mother to her,” pursued “He upon the rock, she on the sward. A picturesque Telimena, closing her argument. “I am Sophie’s kin, her ensemble! Distinctive heads! Contrasting lines!” only guardian. No one but I will provide for her He drew nearer, halting from time to time to wipe his happiness.” lorgnette and daub his eyes with a handkerchief, yet never “And if she found happiness in this match?” ventured dropping his gaze. the Judge, raising his eyes. “If she took a fancy to “Must this lovely, enchanting tableau vanish or be Tadeusz?” transformed on closer scrutiny?” he mused. “Will that “Took a fancy! A fig on a thistle! Fancies! What do I velvet sward resolve itself into a patch of poppies and care for fancies! Sophie may lack a dowry, but she is no beet-tops? Shall I in yonder nymph discover a bailiff’s country-bred wench—or just any gentlewoman. She mistress?” springs from nobility. She is a Castellan’s daughter; a Although the Count had often seen Telimena at the Horeszko on her mother’s side. Yes, we shall find a Judge’s house (for he was a frequent caller there), yet he husband for her. Just think of the effort we put into her had never paid her much attention. What was his rearing. But here? Why, she would run wild in this place!” amazement now when he placed the model of his sketches! The Judge listened to Telimena attentively, without The beauty of the setting, the grace of the woman’s lowering his eyes. His features seemed to soften, for his posture, and the tastefulness of her attire had transformed reply was rather cheerful. her almost beyond recognition. Anger still smoldered in April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1497 her eyes. Enlivened by the breeze, by the recent quarrel the forest floor like the ruinous columns of an ancient with the Judge, and now by the sudden appearance of necropolis. the two youths, her face flushed with tones all the more Tadeusz fidgeted and squirmed, bored to no end by vivid and intense. this long discourse in which he had no part. When they “Please forgive the bold intrusion, ma’am,” said the began to sing the praises of exotic groves and rhyme off Count. “But I come bearing both apologies and every species of tree—orange, cypress, olive, almond, expressions of gratitude: apologies for stealthily haunting cactus, aloe, mahogany, sandal, lemon, ivy, walnut, and your footsteps; gratitude for the honor of witnessing your even the fig—and then enlarge on their respective shapes, musings. A grave offense committed, a heavy debt blossoms, and textures of bark, Tadeusz did nothing but incurred, for I intrude upon a moment of your musings huff and puff. At last, he could contain himself no longer. and stand obliged for several more of inspiration. Such Though he was a simple youth, he knew how to delight felicitous moments! Now censure the man; but the artist in natural beauty. His imagination set ablaze by the sight awaits your grace. Having risked a great deal, I will risk of his native forest, he began to speak his mind. still more. Be my judge!” And kneeling beside her, he “I have been to the botanical gardens in the city of handed her his landscapes. Wilno. I have seen those celebrated trees that grow in Telimena appraised his essays courteously yet as one the Orient or down south, in that beautiful Italian land knowledgeable in matters of art. Though slow to praise, of yours. But pray tell me, which of them compares with she was quick to encourage. “Bravo!” she exclaimed. “I our own native trees? Surely not the aloe? Its twigs stick congratulate you! There is talent here. Only see you do up like lightning conductors! Or the dwarf-like lemon not neglect it. Above all, seek out lovely natural settings. with its gilded knobs and lacquered leaves? Lemon-trees Italy’s sunny skies! Rome’s imperial rose-gardens! Tiber’s are short and squat, like little old ladies, rich—but ugly! classic cataracts! Posilipo’s awesome caverns! There, my Your vaunted cypress? Why, that tall, gaunt, and dear Count, is your land for painters! Here? Lord have emaciated tree expresses boredom rather than sorrow! mercy! A child of the Muses suckled at Soplica Manor People say the cypress looks so mournful standing over a would starve to death. Dear Count! I shall have your grave. I say the thing is like a German lackey liveried in sketches framed or place them in my album together with grief, loath to move a limb or nod his head for fear of several other drawings I have picked up along the way. breaching funeral etiquette! By now I have quite a collection in my escritoire.” “Is not our honest-hearted birch comelier? Picture her They began to talk of azure skies, murmuring seas, as a village woman, a mother grieving her son, or a widow, scented breezes, and craggy peaks. Here and there, in the her husband. She wrings her hands. Her tresses spread manner of many a traveler, they dropped scornful remarks wildly over her shoulders cascade to the ground. Mute and poked fun at their native land. with grief she stands, and yet by her posture how Yet all around them, in all its imposing splendor, expressively she weeps! If painting is your passion, sir, stretched Lithuania’s forest! All around them stood the why not paint the trees whose shade you now enjoy? You bird cherry with her festoonery of wild hop; the rowan, will be the laughingstock of the district if, biding in fresh and mantling like a shepherdess’s cheek; the maenad Lithuania’s fertile plains, you paint nothing but craggy hazel with her verdant thyrsi wreathed in grape-like peaks and desert wastes.” clusters of pearly nuts. Beneath them grew the forest “My friend,” replied the Count, “natural beauty is children: the guelder rose in the clasp of an alder, the but the form, the backdrop—the raw material, so to black-lipped bramble entwined around a raspberry bush. speak. The soul of art is inspiration. Art ranges on the Leafy-fingered trees and shrubs stood with nearer hands pinions of invention. Taste must polish it; sound joined, like village maids and their swains poised to tread principles ground it. Nature is not enough; nor are fervent a measure around the married couple. And in their midst, spirits, for the artist must loft himself into the realm of surpassing the forest party in comeliness and charm of the Ideal! Not everything that is beautiful lends itself to hue, there stood the wedded pair—a silver birch, the the painter’s brush. All this you will learn in good time beloved, and her groom, a hornbeam. Farther back, like in the course of your reading. As for painting, know that elder folk silently watching the rising generation, sat the a picture requires a point of vantage, grouping, venerable beeches and matronly poplars. Beside them arrangement, and, above all, a sky—an Italian sky! So it towered a great oak, hunchbacked and bearded with moss. is with the art of landscape. That is why Italy was and Bent under the weight of five long centuries, he leaned continues to be the birthplace of painters; which explains on the petrified trunks of his sires, which reared from why, apart from Breughel—not Van der Helle, mind, but 1498 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 the landscapist (there are two Breughels)—why, apart The gunmetal barks from afar, and all is thrown into from Breughel (and Ruisdael too), we in the northern confusion, chaos, and turmoil, and then fades away.” latitudes boast of so few genre painters of the highest And gazing tenderly at Telimena he asked, “What order. Skies! It is skies we need!” remains?” “Take our painter Orłowski!” broke in Telimena. “Memories!” was her reply; and to sweeten his sadness, “Now there was a man with Soplica taste! (You should she handed him a freshly picked forget-me-not. The know that this is a disease among the Soplicas; they have Count raised the flower to his lips, then pinned it to his but one abiding love—their native land.) I refer to bosom. Meanwhile, on the opposite side, Tadeusz was Orłowski, the famous artist, who spent his years in engaged in parting the leaves of a shrub. A white object— Petersburg. (I keep one or two of his sketches in my a lily-white hand—had thrust its way through the leafage. escritoire.) He lived very near to the Emperor’s court. He seized it up and kissed it. Like a bee in a lily cup, his What a painter’s paradise! Yet, my dear Count, you would mouth sank into the hollow of the hand. A cold object not believe how he pined for his land! He loved nothing touched his lips. It was a key and a scrap of white paper— better than to reminisce on his youth and sing the praises a little note twisted into a cone. He snatched up the of everything Polish: the fields, the skies, the forests.” objects and put them in his pocket. He had no idea what “And rightly so!” rejoined Tadeusz hotly. “From what the key signified, but the little card would doubtless shed I hear, those clear blue Italian skies of yours are like water light on it. frozen over! Are not gales and inclement weather a The bell continued to clank. A thousand shouts and hundred times lovelier? Here you have only to look up. cries answered like echoes from deep within the silent No end to the sights! Consider the pictures and scenes wood. It was the sound of people seeking one another unfolding from the play of clouds alone. Each has a out, hailing and hallooing, a signal that the day’s different shape. Take the autumn cloud. Like a lazy mushrooming had come to an end. Yet these echoes were tortoise, it moves along, great with showers. Long anything but sad or mournful as it seemed to the Count; streamers fall to the ground like unbraided tresses: the indeed, they had a prandial tone. Every day at noon, from rain streaming down! And take the hail cloud. Dark-blue under the manor gable the bell rang out, summoning and round, with a yellow core, it flies on the wind like a the guests and the servants to luncheon. Many of the ball, and all around you hear the thunderous clatter. Take older domains observed this custom, and Soplica Manor even our everyday white clouds like those up yonder. See held fast to it. And so the party of mushroomers emerged how changeable they are! Like a flock of wild geese or from the grove. All carried chip or wicker baskets tied swans they scud along. Swooping down from behind, down at each corner with a handkerchief. The baskets the falcon-wind bunches them up; they mass together, brimmed with wild mushrooms. Each young lady held a swell, thicken, and lo! they grow curving necks and manes, magnificent bolete like a folded fan in one hand and a put out rows of legs, and fly across the heavens like a bundle of honey fungi and russulas of various hues—all herd of steppeland ponies—all silvery-white. Yet another tied together like a nosegay of wildflowers—in the other. change! Now masts erupt from their necks, the manes The Chief Steward held his fly agaric. Telimena walked belly forth into broad sails, and the herd of ponies empty-handed. The two youths brought up the rear. transforms into a magnificent seagoing schooner. Serene The guests entered in orderly fashion and formed a and leisurely, she glides over the azure face of heaven.” circle around the table. The Chamberlain took the seat Telimena and the Count gazed up at the cloud. of honor. (It was the privilege of his post and senior years.) Tadeusz was pointing to it with his right hand; but even He bowed to the ladies, elders, and youth. At his elbow as he did so, he was gently squeezing Telimena’s with his stood the Bernardine and the Judge respectively. The left. Several minutes of quiet contemplation elapsed. The monk recited a brief prayer in the Latin tongue; the men Count spread a sheet of paper over his hat and reached took vodka, and all sat down and fell to, dispatching the for his pencil. Just then, the mournful sound of the manor chilled borsch in silence. bell burst upon their ears. Instantly, the silent forest broke The noonday meal proceeded more quietly than out into a tumult of shouts and halloos. usual. Despite the entreaties of the host, no one was in “So with the tolling of the bell,” declaimed the Count, the mood to talk. The two sides embroiled in the great shaking his head, “does Destiny bring all the things of dispute over the greyhounds thought only of tomorrow’s this world to a term. The reckonings of great minds, the contest and wager. (Great thoughts have a way of inventions of ranging fancy, the tender amusements, the compelling lips to silence.) Telimena chatted constantly delights of friendship, the outpourings of gentle hearts! with Tadeusz, while not failing to lavish attention on the April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1499 Count as well. Even the Assessor was vouchsafed an “Guns!” they cried one and all. “Have the guns ready!” occasional glance. So the fowler keeps his eye on both “Lead! Bring me lead!” the Assessor kept yelling, “I snares: one set for the goldfinch, the other for the sparrow. keep a bullet mold in my bag.” Both Tadeusz and the Count felt very pleased with “Inform the priest,” added the Judge, “that holy mass themselves. Both were happy, both brimmed with hope, will be said in the forest chapel at daybreak tomorrow— and so neither of them felt an inclination to talk. The for the success of the hunt. Aye, Saint Hubert’s Mass, the Count eyed his forget-me-not proudly. Tadeusz glanced one with the short office.” furtively into his pocket to ensure the key had not slipped These orders issued, the guests relapsed into silence. away. He even took it into his hand and fingered the They assumed a thoughtful air and began to turn their note; as yet he had not had the time to read it. Meanwhile, heads, as if looking for someone among them. Slowly the Judge waited attentively on the Chamberlain. From everyone’s gaze converged on the sober face of the time to time he squeezed his lordship’s knee and topped Steward. Clearly they were seeking out a leader; and the up his glass with champagne or Hungarian wine; yet even honor of bearing the master huntsman’s mace had fallen he lacked zest for talk. Clearly he was burdened by private to the Chief Steward. Acknowledging the will of his cares of his own. The plates and dishes came and went in comrades, the Steward rose to his feet. With a solemn silence. blow he struck the table and, reaching deep into his Suddenly, an unexpected guest broke the tedious flow bosom, drew out by its gold chain a pocket-watch the of the meal. It was the forest ranger. Heedless of his size of a large pear. intrusion on the lunch hour, he walked hurriedly up to “Tomorrow, at half past four,” he said in a grave tone, the Judge. From his bearing and expression, you could “our hunters and beaters shall rendezvous at the forest tell he carried tidings of great and unusual import. All chapel.” eyes turned on him. With that he hurried away from the table; the ranger “A bear, your lordship!” he gasped out, after catching followed close on his heels. They had business at hand. his breath. They had to plan and organize the hunt. Even so generals The rest they could surmise for themselves. Everyone inform their troops that battle will be joined at first light. understood that the bear had forsaken the heart of the In the camp, the soldiers clean their arms, chew on their old forest; that he was striking out for the woods across rations, or, putting their cares aside, sleep on their saddles the Niemen; that they must hunt him down without a and greatcoats, while the officers plot strategy in the moment’s delay. Instinctively they knew this; neither silence of the tent. council nor reflection was needed. A single thought No more thought of lunch! The rest of the day was informed the brisk gestures, the torrent of clipped words, spent in shoeing horses, feeding the hounds, collecting and the welter of orders, which issued simultaneously and cleaning firearms. Scarcely anyone bothered to attend from as many pairs of lips; every directive tended to a the evening meal. Even Bobtail’s and Falcon’s backers single purpose. ceased to occupy themselves with the great lingering “To the village!” cried the Judge. “Ho there! To horse! dispute, for now the Notary and the Assessor were arm Summon the foreman! Have a troop of beaters ready at in arm, busy hunting for lead. daybreak. Volunteers, mind! Who shows up with a spear Worn out by the day’s events, the rest of the company is released from two days’ road-work and five of corvée turned in early, so as to be up at the peep of dawn the labor!” following day. “Bustle about!” barked the Chamberlain. “Saddle my grey, ride post-haste to the house and fetch my two bulldogs; aye, the pair the whole neighborhood talks about. The male answers to the name Constable, the bitch, Mouthpiece. Muzzle their snouts, throw them in a sack, and bring them here on the double! On horseback, so as not to waste time!” “Vanka!” cried the Assessor to his servant boy in Ruthenian. “Run my Sanguszko hunting knife over the whetting stone. You know, the one I received as a gift from the Prince. Then fill my cartridge belt; and see to it that every round is armed!” Nineteenth-century barn with pond belonging to a country manor. Louise A. Boyd, Polish Countrysides (NY, 1937). 1500 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 “People’s Poland” in the Third feature of that system? The vertical monopoly of the Polish United Workers Party [Communist Party]. Only Polish Republic one party wielded power, while the remainder were a show of appearances. Barbara Fedyszak-Radziejowska The Round Table sucked communist mechanisms into the structures of the Third Republic. This address was delivered at the Veritas et Scientia Foundation conference in Warsaw, 4 June 2009. It was Now let us look at the situation today. It appears transcribed by Filip Rdesiƒski and published in the quarterly that in all of the recent elections there has been only Nowe Paƒstwo (http://www.nowe-panstwo.pl/14.php), no. one party that “deserved” power in the opinion of 2 (2009). Translated with permission by the SR staff. certain powerful members of the elite. It was variously named: Freedom Union [Unia WolnoÊci], or would like to reflect on the problem of easy Democratic Union [Unia Demokratyczna], or Civic acceptance by my younger colleagues—those in I Platform [Platforma Obywatelska]. Occasionally, the their thirties and forties—of certain mechanisms Union of the Democratic Left [the former communist of social life disadvantageous for democracy and for party] also received the designation of being worthy. the Polish community. From whence comes their ever- In slapping such labels on a certain group of parties, increasing consent to the imperfections of democracy the elites have behaved as if political parties were not in Poland? in a sense “equal,” but rather arranged in the same way Whenever I am confronted with long-winded in which they were arranged in Soviet-occupied Poland. statements saying that marketing, persuasion, public This is a replay of the People’s Poland vision of one, relations, globalization, and the media help usher in enlightened, and excellent party that is the most innovation and change the world for the better, I hear progressive and most forward-looking of all. This old-fashioned propaganda not unlike that so freely narrative existed in People’s Poland, and it is being distributed in People’s Poland. reintroduced today. As one observes persons in public life and their image in the media, one comes to the The “fit to govern” conclusion that the opinion makers take it for granted I see “People’s Poland” [Soviet-occupied Poland, that only one party is enlightened, only one is conceived 1945–89, Ed.] as a structure in which the mechanisms by the best minds and is supported by the best people. of power left deep tracks in the social fabric, and in the However, since democracy requires that there be way society is envisioned by the elites and sometimes more than one party and more than one proposed by ordinary people. These tracks are so deep that, in solution, these “other” parties have begun to appear in spite of many achievements of the last twenty years, the public square in the same order in which the we apparently skid back into them all too often. They supplementary “parties” did in People’s Poland. The are beginning to determine the direction in which we arrangement there was not horizontal but vertical. We move forward; and it is not a democratic direction. are beginning to duplicate this in free Poland. The People’s Poland was a country in which a single alleged legitimacy of this one-and-only party has its political party enjoyed the monopoly of power and roots in ideology rather than achievement—and that where elections amounted to the play of appearances. too duplicates the situation in People’s Poland. The Yes, there existed a fake “united front” of several tenor of public discussion suggests that there exists only parties; and one could also say that there are different one correct ideology, only one narrative about the past, kinds of democracies. Some are based on competition present, and future. In People’s Poland one could in and contest, others resemble a cartel of elites. In private say that the Polish officers in Katyƒ were Germany one observes a consultative and deliberative murdered by the Russians, but such private talk was of democracy in which SPD formed a grand coalition with no consequence. What was important was the dominant CDU and CSU while putting aside grand competition. narrative that kept repeating what was obligatory in But People’s Poland can be described as a political those days—namely, that Katyƒ was a German crime. entity where there was one dominant party that We do not have to say that today, but there are other “concessioned” a certain number of Catholics, issues that “the leading party” and the leading media members of ZSL [United Peasant Party], and members suggest are beyond discussion. of SD [Democratic Bloc]. What was the defining April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1501 Manipulating self-assessment World War the Polish sense of self-worth was dealt a In People‘s Poland demos, or the people, had no powerful blow. The trial of sixteen leaders of Polish controlling mechanisms at its disposal. It was Resistance in Moscow [18–21 June 1945] was impossible to put into motion a procedure that would organized in such a way as to make it impossible for introduce social control of the establishment. This was anyone in Poland to proclaim that they were heroes the very essence of totalitarianism in Soviet-occupied and not criminals. Heroes were declared to be criminals, Poland. Perhaps there exists a certain continuum they were imprisoned and hanged. Hardly anyone in between totalitarianism and democracy. Look at Russia; the West wishes to remember the weight and in spite of all the drawbacks Russia has political parties implications of the Moscow trial and execution of and an almost independent press, and so it is somewhat sixteen members of the Polish political elite in June democratic. There is a different kind of democracy in 1945. Few nations have had so many reasons to be Mexico, and still another in the United States. All these proud of their behavior in the Second World War; few democracies have their characteristic mechanisms that experienced the taking away of this glory so brutally. allow a measure of popular control over the elites. With Why? It was necessary to paralyze the nation and make regard to Poland, the question is which mechanisms it disbelieve in its own strength, for this was the are excessively present here, and which are lacking. condition necessary to tyrannize it for many years and In order to rule People‘s Poland, the communists get away with it. needed a society that did not believe in itself and thought badly about itself. To use a psychological The indignant students expression, it needed a society whose members had It appears to me that in spite of the end of communism low self-esteem individually and collectively. A society and its ideology “suported by the working class,” the whose identity was degraded, whose Polishness was mechanisms of power developed in those times still degraded. People who trust in themselves and have a present a danger. They lead to a revival of structures sense of self-esteem demand a great deal from those that have little in common with democracy, the sense who rule them. It is relatively easy to rule a society of self-worth of individual members of society, and that perceives itself as worse than others. In such a the common good. Those who are trying to persuade society citizens do not imagine themselves as as acting Poles that there is only one “correct” narrative of subjects, as individuals generating events and steering postcommunist times, that the Round Table and the them. Mazowiecki government are the most important This sense of self-worth has also been under attack elements of this narrative, still dream of reintroducing after regaining freedom, and it is related to the issue of a narrow and self-perpetuating elite, the one-and-only only one party being worthy and respectable. An group of people that allegedly acquired at the Round example that comes to mind is related to the recent Table the permission to rule Poland. But this proposed elections to EU Parliament. At that time, the Germans narrative pushes aside other events, infinitely more engineered a series of events aimed at lowering the important than the Round Table. sense of self-worth in Poles [the author has in mind The elections of June 4, 1989 were an event whose issues related to Erika Steinbach and the Center significance cannot be overestimated. Sixty-two commemorating the expulsion of Germans from percent of Poles went to the voting booth, and from Eastern Europe after World War II. Ed.]. These series the choices on the voting list they selected only those of steered events were truly masterpieces. We were that spelled real democracy. They voted exclusively reminded by the Germans—watch out, you dears, a for the Solidarity candidates. They rejected the Round bit more cheek and you will become the makers of World Table. They did something wonderful and to this day War II, the cause of German and Jewish suffering. I they do not know that they did. They do not know that am not indignant. I see a technique of social they should celebrate the Fourth of June. But the manipulation in this, a brilliant technique. What is the narrative they are fed by the big media insists on a best method of increasing one’s own sense of self- different story, one in which the Round Table is central. worth? Find a group of people sufficiently incapacitated Why is vetting [of former communists] impossible to be unable to respond in kind to one’s concerted effort to accomplish? Why is it so difficult to defeat to rewrite their narrative about themselves. corruption? Because both vetting and the fight against People’s Poland was constructed with the use of corruption are mechanisms serving to control the elites. similar psychological techniques. After the Second What is vetting, from a sociological point of view? It 1502 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 is a test asking whether certain citizens deserve to be The Mermaid and the members of my country’s elite. The process cannot be brought to a conclusion for the reasons sketched above. Messerschmitt The Round Table sucked communist mechanisms War Through a Woman’s Eyes, into the structures of the Third Republic. It assured that the process of vetting could not be completed. It 1939–1940 implicitly declared that vetting is unnecessary. But what is vetting? It is a process in which demos, or ordinary By Rulka Langer. 2nd edition. Los Angeles, CA people, dare to exercise its control over the elites and and Crowborough, Sussex, UK: Aquila Polonica says, “I am checking your credentials.” And what is (www.AquilaPolonica.com), 2009. 485 pages. the struggle against corruption? It is an effort by the demos to check how you govern the country. Not where Illustrations. ISBN 978-1-60772-003-3. you come from, but how you govern. Hardcover. In my pedagogical work I meet students who are indignant over the fact that a law exists in Poland that Brian Domitrovic allows people who offered a bribe to report on the person who took it, and not be punished for offering a You know. . . I always thought that the trouble with bribe. In other words, some of my students consider it “me was that I had led a too-protected life. Home, scandalous that one can fight corruption. They consider school, the university, [my job at] the bank, well, all it a provocation and demand punishment for the bribe that is not what people call real life. I used to crave for giver even if the goal was to catch the bribe taker. How some real experience. I certainly have it now. If you could you have done this to Mrs. Sawicka [a public only knew what I’ve seen. . . I can’t tell you. . . it’s too personality involved in taking bribes], they say. These atrocious, but. . . I didn’t know human bodies contained students are not communists, they are simply students so much blood.” These words were spoken to Rulka majoring in administration and finance. They will work Langer by her friend and co-worker Tomek in the public sector. Why do they think this way? Małachowski in Warsaw in late September 1939. Four Because they have been persuaded that the elites should weeks before, at the beginning of September, the two not be controlled. Mrs. Sawicka was a member of the friends were at work at a bank when news came that elite, and therefore she should be untouchable. The the children of one of their office mates had been killed, elites should be immune to the process of having their and his wife maimed, by a German bomb. The most credentials checked. the two friends could do was shake hands with this And yet, without the egalitarian ethos democracy gentleman. Between these two occurrences at the withers. Why cannot we make that ethos more beginning and end of September 1939, as Germany pervasive? Let us look back at People’s Poland. It was attacked Poland, there was only more of the same across then that the vertical construct of the “multiple political Warsaw and the nation at large: bombs, fires, building parties” came into being. These parties were not equal collapses, panic baptisms in tent-city maternity wards, and could not compete for power. Power was reserved want, death, dismemberment, mania. And it was, of for the “enlightened” elite, or the communist party. The course, only the beginning of Poland’s troubles. others were assigned roles on the stage. Is a similar In 1942, a remarkable book was published in the system in place today? I invite you all to ponder that United States, in English, by the first-hand witness to question. ◊ these events, Rulka Langer. In The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt Langer chronicled her experiences in the Warsaw maelstrom, from August 1939 until her departure in early 1940 for the United States, where her husband was on diplomatic assignment. Last year Mermaid was republished by Aquila Polonica, the publishing house dedicated to resurrecting rich but forgotten memoirs of the extreme Polish experience of 1939–1945. It is impossible to read The Mermaid and the A Polish country manor in the Wilno area before World War II. Messerschmitt without two thoughts coming to mind. Louise A. Boyd, Polish Countrysides (NY, 1937). April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1503 First, Poland had built up quite a tidy civilization for counterfire was almost always fruitless. So the bombs itself by 1939. Rulka Langer was one of those engaging kept coming and coming. personalities particular to the high days of urbanization and modernization. This book makes plain that those The old standby explanations of World War II days had indeed come to Poland in the two decades really do not have the ring of truth anymore, and since its independence in 1918. Langer’s profession future volumes from Aquila Polonica will only was the iconic one of twentieth-century chic– further destabilize received wisdom. advertising—and the bearing Langer and her colleagues maintained on the job was the stuff of easy urbanity. Occasionally the Germans would amuse themselves, The witticisms they relate to each other are funny, the given the ease with which their plan was being tastes they have for the finer things in life are appealing, executed. The photograph Varsovians rallied around and the work ethic they display bespeaks a society in these weeks was of a girl of ten kneeling over the gaining momentum. It has been said many times that blood-stained corpse of her sixteen-year old sister, a Warsaw was one of the most attractive cities in Europe winsome lass who had just skipped onto a field to pick before 1939. Given Langer’s beguiling moderne potatoes. She had been strafed with gunfire by one of personality, one even feels a certain fondness for the the bombers. In the photo, the younger girl’s hands are blocky skyscraper that goes up in town, a Prudential at a loss as to how to cradle the head and hair of the building. Over the first 100 pages of Mermaid one gains dead girl. And yet what these hands were eerily framing a similar sense as when reading John Lukacs’s Budapest was the question why. 1900: something very winning and very civilized is Why is the second question, the pounding question, going on here. that haunts the reader of this book. Langer herself does And then, of course, the place gets bombed to not address it. She is too normal, too enthusiastic about smithereens. Sated as we are today with images of the the challenges and opportunities of each new day “Nazi juggernaut,” we are apt to forget that Varsovians (though psychological stress did hit Warsaw; there are believed in early September 1939 that the invaders suicides in this book), too bored by the untoward. But would meet their match. After all, in the “Miracle on of course the reader pages through this book building the Vistula” nineteen years prior, the Red Army was to a crescendo of horror, outrage, and anger. Why is routed. In this instance, the victorious powers of the the question that demands to be addressed after 400 Great War—Britain and France – had made a pledge some pages of text, plus a new epilogue by George of hellfire on Germany should the frontier with Poland Langer, Rulka’s little boy who endured the invasion be crossed. In the first week or so of the German attack, with pluck and amusement and today lives in Colorado. Langer and everyone else she describes thus made The old standby explanations of World War II really tactical adjustments to their routines, expecting to pick do not have the ring of truth anymore, and future up their normal, glorious Varsovian life in relatively volumes from Aquila Polonica will only further short order. destabilize received wisdom. The Freudians and the By the second week, however, a brute conclusion was Frankfurt School hung it on psychological factors— rapidly becoming inescapable. The Germans were over-rapid modernization in the context of limited bombing the city with abandon. The explosives just political reform led people over the cliff. Such started crashing in everywhere. There were shelters, explanations ring with bizarre irrelevance on digesting but these could be caved in by structures above, as in works such as Mermaid. The Germans had territorial one case Langer describes where seventy-six persons claims and wanted to punish the thieves of Versailles. were left alive, but unable to be rescued because of the What, then, were they doing on a vector through rubble. These individuals surely all wasted away to Stalingrad? Who were they going to meet out there death in that space. As for Polish defenses, the army way past the Volga, on their “journey to the east”? was out in the pitch of battle, leaving anti-aircraft fire Prestor John? the only recourse against the bombs in the city. But as It is high time to take seriously the argument the people of Warsaw quickly ascertained, most bombs introduced some years ago by historian Stephen J. were dropped from planes flying higher than the reach Tonsor, an argument that has considerable currency of anti-aircraft fire. When the odd dive bomber through independent origin in Poland—that recourse appeared, it was such a screaming moving target that to the diabolical, the “demonic” in Tonsor’s phrase, is necessary to make sense of World War II. The two 1504 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 regimes that attacked Poland were vicious agents of luminously as time went on to 1939, showed that all paganism and atheism. The Nazis made little secret of these things can coalesce together. their goal of undoing the historical processes of Those determined to vanquish tradition and religion, civilization and religion. By driving into the east, really given modernity were therefore beset with quite a far into the east, to the proverbial origin, the “oriental puzzle, quite a challenge, in Poland. It soon came about point” of culture, the processes of civilizational and that Poland’s challenge would be effaced via brutality. sacred history would be metaphorically undone. They But in the course of events Poland reverted to the role would be practically undone too, in that what was to of mustard seed, and mountains were moved. Germany, follow the smash to the east was a trail of complete on defeat, rediscovered religion, fixed itself to the destruction and perfidious crime (Stephen J. Tonsor, Rhine, and in a few decades Jürgen Habermas was “Liebe Hitler,” Modern Age, 40, no. 4, Fall 1998, 406– paying obeisance to Joseph Ratzinger. Russia is the 410). sadder case, its populace the vehicle abandoned by Mephistopheles, reeling in a brutalized and used state Poland was effectively demonstrating that religion with life expectancy under sixty, the birth-rate far below and modernity could surge together hand-in-hand. replacement, and horrid addictions to drink, corruption, and abortion. As for the “Bolsheviks” (Langer’s preferred term), Perhaps a new large chapter in Polish history is they wanted to regain the old czarist lands in the west opening up. The antemurale christianitatis may be so as to build some shred of legitimacy as a government becoming an obsolete notion. What Russia needs today back home among the Russians. But as Lenin had is the balm of charity, hope, and revivification. Perhaps always made plain, the real goal was western Europe— now is the time for a new vector to power into the east. the Miracle on the Vistula being the only evidence Over the past several decades, Poland has husbanded needed to support this view. Poland and Lithuania had considerable resources of holiness, piety, and for centuries rallied themselves to be the antemurale cheerfulness toward modernity. This is good as far as christianitatis that would prevent the center of western it goes. We are at a moment in which these resources Christian civilization from being overrun by ruffians could be leveraged enormously by dedication to from the East. Thus World War II was a double assault Christian evangelization of the heirs of those seized to on the stoutest defenses of Christendom. There was a perpetrate Katyƒ. Sacred history, as St. Augustine possessed outsider ramming the walls once again, this taught, is necessarily progressive. A very big onus of time assisted by a possessed insider wrecking havoc responsibility may well have recently passed to modern on those walls from the other side. When it was all Poland, described so felicitously as on the edge of over Mephistopheles would just leave, as the swine in fulfillment by Rulka Langer seven decades ago. ◊ the Gospel of Mark and Dostoevsky’s Possessed. The pitiable human agents who had been occupied would be left to wither after such an experience. Polish Literature from 1918 to The question remains of why Poland. Why would Poland attract no less than the greatest exertions of – 2000 the devil? Here Mermaid helps us out quite a bit. There An Anthology is only a little religion in the book—heroic priests here and there, Masses packed to the gills. Langer herself By Michael J. MikoÊ. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008. was a fairly diffident believer, at one point even xiv + 490 pages. Bibliography, photographs. ISBN 978- questioning the communion of the saints. However, the 0-89357-352-2. Hardcover. $44.95. portrait she offers of Polish life at the juncture of the invasions shows that Poland was very dangerous to anyone uninterested in true human progress. Poland Božena Karwowska was effectively demonstrating that religion and modernity could surge together hand-in-hand. This his volume completes Michael J. MikoÊ’s project indeed is the civilizational message of the icons of Tof a six-volume history and anthology of Polish Polish modernity including the skier-Pope. The radical literature from its beginnings to the end of the second Enlightenment had insisted that modernity must be a millennium. The tome under review consists of two solvent of tradition and religion. Poland, ever more parts: the first presents the interwar literature (1918– April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1505 1939), while the second covers the postwar period from In addition to the choice of writers and texts, 1945 to 2000. Each section begins with an introduction Professor MikoÊ had to make other important decisions. familiarizing the reader with the historical, cultural, The currently published double volume covers two and literary background, and the presented authors are distinctive periods that differ significantly and have introduced by short biographies and some thoughts been differently presented to the English-speaking about their writings. As a result, readers get a world. I have in mind the interwar period on the one comprehensive and well-rounded overview of Polish hand, and the post-1945 period on the other. During literature since 1914, or a good foundation for further the first period Polish literature was written almost studies of the period and its authors. exclusively in Poland, but after the Second World War The task undertaken by the translator and author of it began to include works written by émigrés living on the volume was overwhelming, but as he notes in the the other side of the Iron Curtain—as well as works introduction to the last part of his work, the editor of written in Soviet-occupied Poland. After 1989 there an anthology has to be prepared to be criticized for the was a heated discussion in Poland regarding the choice of works included and excluded. This is “unification” of both streams and the implications of especially true in the case of contemporary literature such a unification. MikoÊ should be complimented for since the critical processes have not yet established a including both currents and for seeing and presenting literary canon respected by interpretive communities Polish literature as one. and readers alike, and the anthologist’s decisions are therefore seen as especially significant and influential. At North American universities one observes a MikoÊ’s task was further complicated by the problems trend to eliminate a second Slavic literature as the of translation; his choices regarding the anthology had required subject of study for PhD candidates in to take into account the fact that some authors have Slavics. already been presented to English-speaking readers in representative selections (Czesław Miłosz’s and Although Professor MikoÊ successfully dealt with Wisława Szymborska’s works are available in several dilemmas concerning the selection of texts translation almost in their entirety), while others are included in his anthology, the parts introducing Polish totally absent from the English reader’s market. While literature to the readers seem to be devoid of the some writers are present in English through the voice perspectives offered by new critical approaches and of a single translator (such as Miłosz, who took almost points of view shared by contemporary critics and complete control over his translations), others, such as scholars in Poland and abroad. The anthologist presents Tadeusz RóÏewicz or Zbigniew Herbert, had several the historical, cultural, and literary facts in a very independent translators. Within the anthology’s limited traditional manner. He expresses the belief that Polish space, it was obviously tempting to exclude or severely literature is best understood through awareness of the limit the presence of authors already well represented nation’s history and international politics, and that such in English, and thus prepare an anthology of lesser a background provides the appropriate and necessary known Polish writers. This was especially challenging tools for comprehending literary processes. The in the case of contemporary poetry that has already background information contained in the introductions evoked considerable interest in the English-speaking is detailed and comprehensive, but the book would world. Poets such as Czesław Miłosz, Zbigniew benefit from critical essays incorporating, for instance, Herbert, Tadeusz RóÏewicz, and Wisława Szymborska feminist and postcolonial approaches and ideas. A have been declared by some Anglo-American critics critically informed discussion of Poland’s situation as as the leading contemporary writers offering poetry that a multinational state in the interwar period and the touches on universally important questions. MikoÊ presentation of issues connected with Russia’s and the decided to include the most famous and well translated Soviet Union’s imperial and colonial practices would authors, but they are represented only by a limited have made the introductory essays more attuned to the number of texts, with references to the already available interests of contemporary English-language readers and translations of their works in the bibliography. His scholars. solution seems correct to me, because it allows him to With the current trend to eliminate a second Slavic introduce in the four hundred pages of the anthology literature as a required subject of study for PhD over sixty writers represented by some two hundred candidates at North American universities, and with literary works. the closing or combining of Slavic departments with 1506 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 other European programs, it would be difficult to argue nonambivalent opposition was the Catholic Church. that MikoÊ’s work provides both students and teachers Its premise, as well as its weapon, was starkly simple: with a long-overdue academic tool for (no longer the communist ideology is altogether a lie, proved by widely offered) survey courses in the history of Polish its practice. Therefore, the ever-resilient truth of literature. Moreover, though the poems and short prose Christianity will perservere. pieces can be used selectively in various other academic There were obstacles, of course; the struggle was classes, the translated fragments are not suitable as tough. The regime had all the material power, the stand-alone teaching materials. This, combined with Church only the spiritual. Threre were many victims the availability of works by many major Polish writers among the faithful, but also some traitors. That none in English translation, poses the question of the purpose of the aspects in the history of those struggles should of the volume and its intended audience. But the pass from memory is the theme of a discussion and of academic limitations also mean that the dissemination several artcles in this issue of Biuletyn Instytutu Pami∏ci of Polish literature and the instruction of literary and Narodowej (Bulletin of the Institute of National cultural processes have to be done also outside of Memory). For the leading article, “PrzejÊcie przez colleges and universities, or at least outside of their Morze Czerwone” (The Red Sea Crossing), the major programs and courses. MikoÊ’s work should be Bulletin’s editor, Jan Ruman, invited two historians of warmly welcome for this reason alone. As in any world twentieth-century Polish Catholicism, professors Jan literature, in Poland there are great writers of Îaryn (Institute of National Memory) and Ryszard international esteem, and there are those of local or Terlecki (Institute of History of the Polish Academy of limited fame. Great Polish poets, such as for instance Sciences). They recall a gradual approach in post-World Szymborska or Herbert, are quite well known in the War II Poland of the communist regime toward its goal West, but not necessarily understood within the context of full control over the Church’s activities and of their own native literary and cultural background. influence. At first, personal persecutions were rare Let me add here that before translating and publishing because the first item on the agenda was brutal his own poems, indisputably the most famous Polish destruction of armed political resistance. But from 1947 poet in the English speaking world, Czesław Miłosz, until the so-called “thaw” after Stalin’s death in 1953, prepared a selection of contemporary Polish poems that the Church became the main target. Professors Îaryn familiarized English-speaking readers with the literary and Terlecki discuss delegalization of all social and tradition from which he comes. This is exactly what charitable organizations affiliated with the Church, the Michael J. MikoÊ’s impressive anthology continues to closings of Catholic schools, the much-lamented order do. ◊ to remove crosses from classrooms (I remember!) and hospitals, and of terrorizing parishes and monasteries The Church and the Communist (the notorious arrest of a group of Jesuits headed by Power Father Tomasz Rostworowski). Slight differences of opinion appear in the discussion Biuletyn Instytutu Pami∏ci Narodowej, no. of Catholic publications. Professor Îaryn’s highest 4(75), April 2007, 116 pages. praise goes to the openly defiant Tygodnik Warszawski (closed in 1949), while the more flexible Tygodnik Joanna Rostropowicz Clark Powszechny whose editors resigned under pressure in 1953 (they were replaced by another set of editors, and ### the original team regained the publication in 1956), is wenty years after the fall of communism we look given a good if guarded review by both discussants. Tback at its dark history with a clear vision of the They share scorn for collaborationist Słowo right and the wrong sides in the struggle ended that Powszechne and DziÊ i Jutro, a daily and a weekly with the victory of the former. But such clarity was far published by PAX, an created by prewar from common in 1945, at least for the average person. organization militant nationalist Bolesław Piasecki with the intention We won and we lost the war. The West betrayed Poland; of providing a platform for nonadversarial coexistence socialism, though imposed by the Soviets, in our of the Catholic and communist ideologies, also to version might work well. The brutality of the regime but save his neck (his choice was collaboration or death). is appalling but it will ease, and social reforms are Îaryn and Terlecki admit that the PAX beneficial. The new order may be short-lived, or it may Although periodicals and its publishing house gave employment last for generations. . . .The only force that held fast to April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1507 to many marginalized members of Catholic great cardinals, Wyszyƒski and Wojtyła. They end the intelligentsia and published books by Catholic writers coversation on two notes: that no circumstances (which was unthinkable elsewhere behind the Iron excused those clergymen who agreed to work for the Curtain), their judgment is unforgiving. The price paid security apparatus—and that despite some weaknesses, for those positive achievements was, Professor Îaryn the Church did carry the millions of faithful Poles concludes, “monstrous.” Professor Terlecki is more “across the Red Sea” and significantly contributed to apologetic: everybody hated PAX but loved the books. the defeat of communism not only in Poland but Even Stefan Cardinal Wyszyƒski, Terlecki notes, who worldwide. forcefully opposed PAX, had his liaison man for contact with Piasecki. The society at large understood the game: The communists used a gradual approach in their it had been played before, during over one hundred goal of full control over the Catholic Church in years of partitions. Poland. The discussants continue on the theme of collaboration, as they bring up the story of so-called Following the discussion are scholarly articles that “patriot priests” (an expression introduced by the focus on specific battlegrounds in the regime’s war communist authorities) from the early period of PRL, against the Church. In “Likwidacja salezjaƒskich then move to the much longer chapter on recruitment zakładów wychowawczych” (Liquidation of the by the security apparatus among members of the clergy Salesian Educational Institutions), #Father Jarosław in a variety of ranks and positions. If the latter subject Wàsowicz, PhD, a Salesian archivist and educator, has already attracted enormous publicity—the former chronicles the harassment, then closing of Salesian seems, at least psychologically, far more interesting. schools and orphanages. One of the destructive methods Who were these priests who dared to disobey the entire that failed to work was an attempt to enroll students hierarchy of the Church and allow themselves to be and wards into communist youth organization. This seduced by the arch enemy, and did it openly? Professor fascinating article includes personal stories of educators Terlecki recalls that at the core of that group were and the institutions’ alumni. In “RóÏanystok 1954” priests who during the German occupation experienced Father Adam Szot, PhD, the director of Archdiocese camps, often torture, and came out broken men. Others Archives in Białystok among other functions and served as army chaplains and would therefore have distinctions, tells a heartbreaking story about the been particularly sensitive to the prospect of further creation in 1949, and brutal liquidation in 1954, of the violence. But one wonders if fear and indoctrination RóÏanystok seminary. Moved from Wilno, the were the only motives, if some of those priests— seminary, run by Salesian Brothers and Sisters, perhaps sons of poor peasants, perhaps readers of too schooled candidates for priesthood, but also boys whose many books—might not have become genuinely parents desired a Catholic education. Situated in the attracted to socialist ideals or influenced by the eastern part of Poland and employing former residents stampede of the intelligentsia (notable prewar Catholics of the territory that was annexed by the Soviets, the among them) to support “new reality”? The Church, seminary was of particular concern for the regime and Professor Terlecki notes, allowed such renegade priests its Kremlin supervisors. to remain at their posts but, ostracized by the faithful In “Metoda stopniowego werbunku duchownych” and of little use to their communist handlers, they (The Method of Gradual Recruitment of Clergymen), ceased to matter. More sinister methods of recruitment Filip Musiał, PhD (IPN Kraków), presents a review of “confidential collaborators” (Tajny Współpracownik, of SB (Security Service) pamphlets that provided its or TW) would soon be employed. In addition to functionaries with detailed instructions on how to lure blackmail there were tangible rewards, such as much- priests into collaboration. Blackmail, psychological desired passports for travel to Rome. manipulation, and a variety of material rewards that Other topics in this discussion include a profile of could include vital necessities such as medicines for the Catholic Club (feeble) in the Sejm and the rise of ill relatives, are analyzed with keen attention to the legitimate Catholic communities. From the 1960s torments of guilt and denial experienced by the onward, Poland developed an increasingly vocal renegades. Much attention has been paid to this sore Catholic intelligentsia and an active movement of subject, but less well known are betrayals on the young Catholics. In a few paragraphs the discussants government side. In her well-researched and compare the different styles of leadership of the two entertaining “Przecieki i wycieki” (Leaks and 1508 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 Drippings), Łucja Marek, PhD, (IPN Katowice) was to replace all religions. In this article Professor describes a large number of instances in which Îurek returns to the subject of collaborators. functionaries of government, and security provided Provided with this issue of Biuletyn is a DVD of useful information to offices of the Church. Kryptonim “PoÏoga” (Cryptonym“Blaze”), a In “Tygodnik Warszawski i jego Êrodowisko,” documentary on the persecutions of the Polish historian and musician Mirosław Biełaszko (IPN) population in Volhynia by Ukrainian nationalist forces profiles the brief and turbulent history of the most in 1939–1945, and the counter offensive by units of principled Catholic newspaper in postwar Poland. Two the AK (Home Army). ◊ of its founders, Father Zygmunt Kaczyƒski and Antoni Antczak died in prison; others—all remembered here— BOOKS and Movies Received endured long incarceration. The article includes Stanisława Orzechowskiego i Augustyna Rotundusa Cardinal Wyszyƒski’s notes about his efforts—and debata o Rzeczypospolitej [1564] (Stanisław grief—to intervene on behalf of Father Kaczyƒski. Orzechowski’s and Augustin Rotundus’s debate about “Ryzykowna Gra. Jak Aleksander Bocheƒski the Polish state), translated from Latin by Elwira przyczynił si∏ do powstania tygodnika DziÊ i Jutro” Buszewicz and edited with an introduction by (Risky Game: How Aleksander Bocheƒski contributed Krzysztof Koehler. Humanitas: Studia to the founding of Today and Tomorrow) is Ryszard Kulturoznawcze Series, vol. 1. Kraków: WAM and Mozgol’s (IPN Katowice) profile of a prewar Ignatianum Publishing House (wydawnictwowam.pl), nationalist in communist Poland who attempted to wed 2009. 284 pages, illustrations. ISBN 978-83-7614-008- his radical right to the radical left. Quoted here—among 7 (Ignatianum) and ISBN 978-83-7505-362-3 (WAM). other sources—is Czesław Miłosz, who called Paper. Bocheƒski “a quintessential collaborator.” But the his tome consists of five related items: two ground prepared by Bocheƒski would be delivered to Timaginary conversations between a Catholic, a Bolesław Piasecki, and thus was born DziÊ i Jutro, a Protestant, and Orzechowski himself; two polemics quasi-Catholic weekly sponsored by PAX. From the between a Pole and a Lithuanian the Pole dark corridors Warsaw and Kraków the reader is in which of argues for the superiority of the Polish system of to the countryside in Robert Derewenda’s transferred government based on law, as opposed to the Lithuanian (PhD from the Catholic University of Lublin and an one based on the prince’s absolute rule; and a bilingual archivist) “Bezpieka wobec ruchu oazowego” (Security (in with a Polish translation) apology for the Apparatus vs the “Oasis” Movement). The movement, Latin Quincunx, or the primacy of spirituality over executive initiated in the late 1960s by Father Franciszek power in a properly conceived state. These Latin essays Blachnicki, was a loose congregation of grass-root s were first published ca. 1564 and had never before been Catholic communities whose activities evolved around translated into the vernacular. Professor Koehler is to be retreats, pilgrimages, and various ecumenical contratulated on his effort to bring together translators endeavors. Intense efforts to undermine its growing s and archivists to this volume that unveils a bit of popularity by infiltration and provocation—reaching produce Sarmatian which the communists strove so fiercely to the offices of Cardinals Wyszyƒski and Glemp— Poland to uproot and drop in the memory hole. failed, though there remain questions about until today In his introduction the editor stresses the dialogic who had been used in the campaign of smears. character of Polish political thought; unlike say the The last article, “Komunistów wizja KoÊcioła” (The Germans, Polish theorists did not present a “seamless” Communists’ Vision of the Church) by Jacek Îurek, system that called for abandoning previous systems, situates the policy of the communist state toward but rather tried to engage their adversaries in a dialogue. religion, organized and not, within the framework of Hence the Pole tries to persuade the Lithuanian to adopt one-party system of government. He points to the a better political system, while at the same time historical precedences, in France after 1789 and in Nazi listening to his adversary’s argument in favor of a Germany. The Soviet model went farther: what could principality ruled by an absolute . At the same not be subdued must be destroyed. sovereign Initially there were time, the Polish system and its spokespersons (such as attempts at different to different approaches Orzechowski) argue from a Catholic position to the denominations (e.g., the Eastern Rite Catholics, unici, effect that a system not based on a Quincunx (here or the Protestants), but eventually obligatory atheism symbolizing the cross) will not stand. Characteristically, Orzechowski writes in the Second April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1509 Quincunx: “No outside enemy could ever defeat the sixteenth century. The political disasters of the Polish Crown; but it can be defeated by internal lack eighteenth century and subsequent loss of statehood of unity, that is, our homebred heresy and departure influenced the self-image of Poles in a negative way, from true faith” (90). He then compares the Polish adding to it a sense of failure and the element of unjustly situation to that of the ancient Hebrews who allowed imposed suffering. While low self-esteem began to Midianite women to mix with Hebrew men which show itself in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, brought about God’s wrath. “The Polish Kingdom is one observes a reconstruction of identity in the sacred in its king, its priests, its altars, and its Christian twentieth century. The author’s generalizations are faith. . . but we accepted into Poland from Germany based on hundreds of memoirs, letters, and other texts heresies and fornicators of our souls, and thanks to this spanning four centuries. A fascinating work. unfaithfulness we shall surely fall and decline. We do Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, not need Turks or Tatars or Muscovites; we shall do it 1939–1950, edited by Alfred J. Rieber. London- ourselves through our acceptance of unfaithfulness” Protland, OR: Frank Cass (www.frankcass.com), 2000. (90). vii + 197 pages. Index. ISBN 0-71465132 X (cloth). It would probably have been better if the editor had ine scholarly papers detail the repressive been able to find a Polish translation for the term N population transfers into the USSR, Poland, quincunx. There is no such term in the Polish dictionary Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Hungary from the of foreign words, and a Latin dictionary translates the USSR, Slovakia, Czech lands, and Poland. The word as “five spots on a dice” or “five-twelfths of a expelled millions never received international attention whole.” It also might have been useful to stress the (except recently the Germans), but they had to endure uniqueness of debates like those presented in this book. millions of individual tragedies, broken families, In the mid-sixteenth century, the idea that political premature deaths, and demographic decline. The first opponents should sit down to a discussion instead of essay by Russian scholar N. S. Lebedeva details the calling in their armies and slaughtering each other was forced transfer of the Polish population from territories rare. The tenor of this book resembles ancient Athens occupied by the Soviets. She points out that the and its republican system; however, the Polish system differences in estimated numbers (from 400,000 to was a unique political flower of Catholicism. It was 2,000,000) stem from assumptions of researchers: some only within the area of Catholic values that this kind include “all the Poles removed from territories annexed of political system could be conceived in the by the Soviet Union in 1939 [those forcibly drafted multinational surroundings of Europe. Hopefully, the into the Red Army or labor battalions, those sent to forthcoming volumes in the series will argue these the east in the earliest months of the war in the period points in an even more explicit way. (SB) of evacuation, those dispatched for work in the Urals and so forth], or only those deported in the first four Kształty polskiej toÏsamoÊci: Potoczny dyskurs mass deportations in 1939–41. . . . Irrespective of narodowy w perspektywie etnolingwistycznej (XVI– [numbers], the documents testify that the actions were XX w.) [Shapes of Polish identity: The daily national an inseparable part of the politics of the Stalin regime discourse in an enthnolinguistic perspective, from the aimed at undermining Polish statehood and the gene sixteenth to the twentieth century], by Aleksandra pool of the Polish people” (44). Niewiara. Katowice: Silesian University Press (www.sbc.org.pl), 2009. 386 pages. Summaries in Dzieła zebrane, by Józef Tischner. 2 vols. Vol. 1, English and Russian. Primary and secondary Studia z filozofii ÊwiadomoÊci. Kraków: Instytut bibliography, index. ISBN 978-83-226-1880-6. Paper. MyÊli Józefa Tischnera, 2006. xiii + 461 pages, ISBN In Polish. 83-922957-3-0. Index of names. Hardcover. remarkable scholarly book tracing the form and Vol. 2, Etyka a historia: wykłady. Kraków: Instytut Acontent of Polish national identity over the last MyÊli Józefa Tischnera, 2008. xv + 565 pages. ISBN five hundred years. Its orderly summary contains 978-83-922957-3-0. Index of names. Hardcover. graphs and tables showing changes in self-perception ózef Tischner belongs to those controversial Catholic and valuation of Polish identity. The author concludes Jphilosophers whose orthodoxy was once questioned that the seventeenth-century Polish self-perception by Rome. A radical anti-Thomist, Tischner found consisted almost entirely of positive characteristics, inspiration in Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and related perhaps to Polish political successes in the Lévinas. He started his philosophizing as a 1510 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 phenomenologist and moved on to his own theories pages. ISBN 978-0-98211427-5-2. Photographs, index based on the concept of “agathology,” or the Good. An of names. Paper. excellent speaker and a popular media figure, Tischner iółkowska-Boehm is a popular Polish writer with was a staunch anticommunist and played a role in Za gift for empathy and a praiseworthy articulating the ethics of Solidarity. industriousness. Her books are numerous. By an Hippocrene Polish Dictionary (Polish-English/ accident of life she encountered American Indians and English-Polish), by Jacek Fisiak, Arleta Adamska- decided to dig deeper. The result is a very readable Sałaciak, Michał Jankowski, and Renata account of their plight and tragedy. While the tragedy Szczepaniak. New York: Hippocrene Books is irreversible, it is good to see a book that gently (www.hippocrenebooks.com), 2009. Appendices. ix lectures the winners. Ziółkowska-Boehm’s book makes + 608 pages. ISBN 978-0-7818-1237-5. Paper. us reflect on the injustices of life and fate, perhaps ne always welcomes new Polish-English/English- prompting us to do a few small things to remedy them. OPolish dictionaries; there are never too many. This Dwór w KraÊnicy i Hubalowy demon, by Aleksandra one is aimed at persons who have some knowledge of Ziółkowska-Boehm. Warsaw: PIW, 2009. ISBN 978- both English and Polish. As do most Polish-English 83-06-03221-5. 303 pages. Index, notes. Hardcover. dictionaries, it is oriented toward American English and book about heroes of World War II: the owners is advertised as based on a larger dictionary published Aof the KraÊnica country manor and their guest, by the Kosciuszko Foundation. the legendary Major Hubal, who fought against the A cursory search for recent terminology in both Nazis and, when the Soviets conquered Poland, against languages yields mixed results. Absent are words the Soviets. The book covers several generations; it related to computer work and electronic begins before the war and extends to Soviet-occupied communication. Oprogramowanie does yield software, Poland. A useful addition to the historical library that in both directions; but the Polish word for hardware is details damage done by the Soviet occupation of missing, and hardware does not appear on the Polish Poland. side. There is no reboot, either in Polish or in English. The Polish małpa is translated as monkey, with no Rare and Forgotten Books—SR Partial Reprint Series attention paid to the fact that it is a common word for The Spirit of Polish History @. Polish words such as spolegliwy, obciach, or leming do not appear at all, even though a look at Polish newspapers indicates frequent usage. In other words, Antoni Chołoniewski the dictionary compilers took the easiest route and simply copied an older dictionary without doing any Translated by Jane Arctowska research on new usages and new words. Antoni Chołoniewski (1872–1924) published Duch dziejów Polski in Kraków in 1917. The book was translated into English OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED in 1918 and published by the Polish Book Importing Company Powstania narodowe: czy były potrzebne, by Ryszard in New York. WorldCat indicates that hard copy can be found Surmacz. Lublin: Wyd. Drukarnia LiberDuo in forty-three American university libraries; in addition, Google ([email protected]), 2009. 226 pages. Notes, index of put this public-domain book online. Chołoniewski has been names. ISBN 978-83-61301-74-5. Paper. quoted by such Polish historians as Piotr Wandycz and spirited defense of the Polish striving for liberty Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, and his insights continue to be relevant. Ain the nineteenth century, in the midst of nations He himself quotes historians who are seldom quoted today, not such as Germany and Russia that had no conception of because they had nothing important to say but because their liberty among their national values. Also, a views clashed with the powers that be. Below is a chapter titled included “The significance of Polish history at the present time.” We useful summary of Polish historiography of the last updated the punctuation and inserted editorial clarifications two centuries. It dusts off some names and titles, such in square brackets. as those of Antoni Chołoniewski (whose work appears in the current issue of SR). oland was struck from the map of Europe [in 1795]. Open Wounds: A Native American Heritage, by PThis violent suppression of a great State, full of Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm. A translation of the vitality, whose only aspiration was toward Polish edition published in Bielsko-Biała: Debit development, had ill-fated consequences for the whole Publishers, 2007. Printed in Pierpont, S.D., 2009. 325 system of European connections. April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1511 In a note to Metternich in 1814, Charles Maurice de the peoples, slavery and tyranny imposed on a nation Talleyrand expressed the opinion that the made the idea of violence commonplace and the dismemberment of Poland was the cause of all the realization of the desires of despotic governments, who commotion that followed in Europe. [Karl] von were using this vigorous method with their own Rotteck, that remarkable German historian, wrote in subjects, was made easier. Then, the States hastened 1828: “The downfall of Poland proclaimed in a voice to enlarge their military forces, some because they of thunder the total overthrow of European equilibrium, feared the fate of Poland, and others because they were the victorious reign of violence and the utter destruction tempted by aggressive policies to satisfy their appetites of international rights.”[1] According to the profound whetted by the acquisition of Poland. All this: words of Johann von Müller [1752–1809], “God would antagonisms awakened by the division of the spoils, reveal the moral value of the powers of the world; a the immoderate increase of one on the ruins of others, somber future appeared to thinkers, showing them the the building up of the gigantic Russia on the ashes of advent of infinite distress and the prospect of appalling Poland—all this was the supreme reason for the consternation, needful for the reestablishment of right universal armament, so characteristic of the nineteenth and justice.” Today, these prophetic words have found century. their terrible confirmation. “Russia with millions of servile people at her disposal,” writes Professor Wacław Sobieski, “Could, After the partitions, the attempts to justify the because of the partitions of Poland, advance far into crime of which Poland was the victim corrupted the Europe; she advanced yet farther in 1815, and reached minds and moral sense of the peoples. . . and its very heart, in 1831, after having crushed the Polish governments of Europe. army. In place of the old Republic that had no wish to keep up a standing army, it was Russia that entered the For minds that see into the heart of things it is evident lists and spread terror by the continual onward that between the great international crime of the movement of her troops and forced the neighboring partitions of Poland and the monstrous conflict of today, States to put themselves on guard and keep up their there is the undeniable relation of cause and effect. Lord standing armies.”[4] Eversley states in his recently published book [The Partition of Poland] that “the partitions of Poland, The partitions of Poland, although remote and although remote and indirect, are the essential cause indirect, are the essential cause of the Great World of the Great World War.”[2] The crime committed War. . . . The dismemberment of Poland . . . has against Poland, the tortures that were systematically hindered the progress of civilization of all the inflicted upon her, have had disastrous consequences peoples of Europe. on the Europe of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. George John Shaw-Lefevre, First Baron Eversley (1831–1928) When the autocratic powers combined against the French Revolution, Poland was no longer able to go to The partition of Poland hastened in yet another way the aid of the French, although her traditional love of the armaments. Every violent conquest necessitates liberty, her republican and democratic organization, her watchfulness over the occupied territories and the cult of the rights of the individual and the sovereignty subjection of the vanquished population—especially of the people responded to the ideas proclaimed by of a population so imbued with freedom as the Poles Revolutionary France. [3] were. The German military writer Max Jähns expressly Napoleon, who changed the nature of the ideals of declares that “Prussia was forced to enlarge its armies the Revolution but adopted their principles and spread because of the occupation of the Polish Republic.”[5] them broadcast over Europe, admitted in his Memoirs In 1795, Frederic William II instituted a Commission that his greatest error was in not having revived Poland. of Military Organization” (Immediat-Militär After the fall of Napoleon the authors of the partitions Organisations-Kommission) that not only felt the need laid at the Congress of Vienna the base of the Holy of enlarging the army but also of instituting a general Alliance that was for thirty years to smother every recruitment. liberal idea, hinder the development of peoples, and The exhaustion caused by the Napoleonic wars was thus leave such a deplorable impression on the whole not yet over when it became necessary to apply nineteenth century. themselves to watching the Poles who waited only [for] The attempts to justify the crime of which Poland a favorable moment to regain their freedom. was the victim corrupted the minds and moral sense of 1512 SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010 Nicholas I could not master his impatience or his men killed, twelve million more wounded, and three anger when he exclaimed in 1831: “Only to keep the and a half million invalided. The civilian mortality Poles in hand I am obliged, at great expense, to maintain behind the lines increases in a terrifying manner. “The a whole army.” infinite distress” that Karl von Rotteck foresaw is an The advance made by the Russians west of the accomplished fact. Vistula, after 1831, filled the Prussians with such Sobs are choking millions of breasts; millions of concern that, contrary to their custom, instead of families have lost their support, the specter of death disbanding the conscripts after their term of service, advances over the ruined cities and villages. The specter they kept them under the colors two years longer. of famine rises up threatening the Europe that yesterday When the principle of nationalities and of national was so proud of her wealth. The sacrifices that war unions appeared in Europe, electrifying once again the imposes on all peoples surpass imagination. Poles, Alexander II put four army corps on a war The obligation to make everything subordinate to the footing and reinforced all the garrisons in Poland. These aims of war extends to all domains of life. The measures did not fail to awaken the distrust of Prussia. individual has been repressed to an inconceivable William, the Prussian Regent, mobilized troops at degree, until he has become nothing but the wheel of a random (1859), doubled his permanent army, monstrous engine. lengthened the duration of military service and made it obligatory. The First Polish Republic. . . was an island of These are facts that prove in an obvious manner the freedom in the midst of a sea of absolutism . . . [it] recoil of the dismemberment of Poland on the placed Law above the Crown. development of contemporary militarism. As Lord Eversley says, “the armed peace—an indirect but Under the empire of the instinct of self-preservation, essential consequence of the subjection of a great people— humanity can only face with horror the possibility of a becoming amplified by other factors, has in the course of renewal of such a catastrophe. She demands the time taken on huge dimensions and hindered the progress revision of the system that has caused such disaster, of civilization of all the peoples of Europe.” the institutions of tribunals of arbitration, that being The States, each and all, armed themselves and the subject to international control will decide disputes, world, in truth, became a stage for “a competition of and lastly the elaboration of an international penal code, armaments.” according to which every attempt to disturb the peace The greater part of the population, from the social will be considered as the greatest crime.[6] point of view, was turned from productive work. The And now, just one more glance backward. In the budgets destined for the development of industry, of perspective of time we see the resplendent Polish public instruction and hygiene were notably reduced Republic; in the olden time so full of vitality and later in favor of military budgets that more and more so brutally destroyed. But in the Polish heart this consumed the State revenue. Republic has never ceased to live—this Republic that The course followed by the European States, after two centuries ago had already realized many dreams the downfall of Poland, so authoritatively described of modern humanity, that never manifested rapacious by [Karl] von Rotteck, “led the powers to keep six instincts, that detested all shedding of blood, that million men under arms, condemning them to inactivity instructed her parliament to decide on war and peace, during the strength of their manhood.” It is the people that put real value on the conception of equity in the who have been obliged to furnish these six million men rules of international relationships, that gave the name and it has been the people who have been charged with of “Great” to Kings who were “constructors” and not the upkeep of these armies, costing billions. And finally, to Kings who were “plunderers,” that taught the young this State militarism has ended in the monstrous not to confound treachery with politics or heroism with massacre that has covered the whole of Europe with violence, that never persecuted people for their origin blood and destroyed so much of what had been created or their faith, that freed people and confederated them by human activity during generations. maintaining the equality of rights, that was an island This cataclysm has surpassed all preconceptions: at of freedom in the midst of a sea of absolutism, that the end of the third year [of the Great War], forty million respected the right of the individual; that placed Law men have been called to arms, at an expense of three about the Crown, that was centuries in advance of other hundred billion francs; there have been five million States, not only in realizing the different principles for April 2010 SARMATIAN REVIEW 1513 which they struggled later on, but also, in realizing a number of those that other peoples are only just now beginning to foresee. About the Authors Considering all these original creations emanating Joanna Rostropowicz Clark’s most recent novel is from the political genius of the Polish people, we can Cichy las (forthcoming in 2010). She writes frequently now understand, face to face with the appalling reality, for American Slavic periodicals. what humanity has lost by the disappearance of the Brian Domitrovic is assistant professor of history at Polish Respublica and how greatly the absence of Sam Houston State University and author of Poland’s help has been felt in the realization of the Econoclasts: The Rebels Who Sparked the Supply-Side common aims toward which civilization tends. ◊ Revolution and Restored American Prosperity (2009). Barbara Fedyszak-Radziejowska is professor of NOTES sociology in the Institute of Rural and Agricultural 1. Karl von Rotteck (1775–1840), a German historian, author of General History and other works. Development, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw 2. Lord Eversley, “Future of Poland: A Great Problem,” New and a noted political commentator. York Times, 15 June 1915 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/ BoÏena Karwowska is associate professor of Slavic abstract.html?res=9E03E0D91631E733A05754C2A9609C946496D6CF); Languages and Literatures at the University of British Lord Eversley, The Partitions of Poland (London: T. F. Columbia. Her work on sexuality in German Unwin, 1915). concentration camps has earned her worldwide 3. Chołoniewski’s knowledge of what the French Revolution recognition. did to the people of France was obviously deficient. Perhaps Agnieszka Kreczmar is a Polish-English translator his intention was to emphasize that had Poland helped the residing in Warsaw. people of France, the trail of murders and executions that Leo Yankevich is an American poet. the Revolution left behind would not have been created. 4. Wacław Sobieski (1872–1835) was professor of history Christopher Zakrzewski, a graduate of the University at Jagiellonian University and author of numerous works of British Columbia, teaches at the Our Lady Seat of on seventeenth-century Polish history in particular. We were Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay, Ontario, Canada. not able to identify the quote. 5. Ms. Arctowska footnotes Max Jähns’s Heeresverfassungen und Völkerleben, but does not furnish bibliographical details. Max Jähns was a nineteenth-century Prussian writer and a war enthusiast who believed that war Letters regenerates peoples and awakens dormant nations. Deportations of Poles to the Gulag in 1939–1941 6. Here Chołoniewski is referring to institutions such as the As I was reading “Deportations from Lithuania” United Nations or the prewar League of Nations. He memoirs published in April 1998 issue of Sarmatian conceived of these institutions before they were actually Review (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/498/ implemented in Europe. remembered.html), I came upon the name of my grandfather, Dr. Andrzej Wierciƒski of Wilno. Corporal Cracow Józef Rodziewicz stated in his account “From Wilejka Leo Yankevich to Riazan” that Dr. Andrzej Wierciƒski died. I believe ## # # for Meghan # # # # # # # # # # # # this is not correct. He had survived the ordeal and ended This dawn of fog and lingering dreams, you feel up in England where he served in the Royal Air Force. the centuries in your waking body. Cracow After the war he returned to Poland and reunited with lies on a river at the foot of a hill. Light and bells awaken senses. Black now his wife Olga and daughters Danuta (my mother) and in shadows, hawkers fill the market square. Halina. He lived in Olsztyn and worked in TB Pigeons greet your nose and eyes, and flowers. sanatorium there. I believe he died in 1967. His younger You give a gnarly woman coins, and stare daughter Halina Iwaƒska lives in Warsaw. up at the sky, and see the fairy towers, Lech Slocinski, Ukiah, California the malachite-green roofs, above which rooks We are happy to hear that one of the victims survived. fly north from Brno, Prague, or Budapest. Ed. A fiddler plays his violin, and looks up toward you, knowing you’re too soft and green to pass him by. Your senses cannot rest. The day begins, old, musty and serene. 1514 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2010
Adam Mickiewicz