THE SARMATIAN REVIEW Vol. XXXVII, No. 2 ______April 2017
The Search for Self-Definition in Poland Disparate Voices
At the top of this reconstructed bank building in Warsaw, the emblem of “fighting Poland:” the anchor used by the Polish World War II Underground as a symbol of the nation’s indomitable spirit. Photo by Edwin Dyga.
April 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW
The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059- In this issue: 5872) is a triannual publication of the Polish Institute of About the Authors...... 2076 Houston. The journal deals with Polish, Central, and Eastern European affairs, and it explores their implications Thank You Note...... 2076 for the United States. We specialize in the translation of Sarmatian Review Data...... 2077 documents. Sarmatian Review is indexed in the American Roman Graczyk, The Transformation of Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, Tygodnik Powszechny ...... 2079 EBSCO, and P.A.I.S. International Database. From January Bronisław Wildstein, Past Continuous: A Novel, 1998 on, files in PDF format are available at the Central translated by Christopher Zakrzewski and Eastern European Online Library (www.ceeol.com). (portions of chapter 1) ...... 2083 Subscription price is $21.00 per year for individuals, David Craig, Moved by the Spirit: An Anthology $28.00 for institutions and libraries ($28.00 for individuals, of Polish Religious Poetry (review) ...... 2093 $35.00 for libraries overseas, air mail). The views expressed by authors of articles do not necessarily represent Jude P. Dougherty, Considerations on the Essence of those of the Editors or of the Polish Institute of Houston. Man/Rozważania o istocie człowieka (review) . .2095 Articles are subject to editing. Unsolicited manuscripts and James R. Thompson, To Our Children: Memoirs of other materials are not returned unless accompanied by a Displacement––a Jewish Journey of Hope and self-addressed and stamped envelope. Please submit your Survival in Twentieth-century Poland and Beyond contribution electronically and, if requested, send a printout (review) ...... 2096 by air mail. Submissions and Letters to the Editor can be Virginie Magnat, Grotowski’s Bridge Made of emailed to
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Sarmatian Review Data
The shock therapy of the 1990s in Poland in figures Decrease in industrial production in the first two years of the shock therapy: 30 percent. Unemployment: from zero to 25 percent (in 1993), the highest in the European Union. Lingering unemployment for those younger than twenty-four years: 40 percent in 2006. Increase in poverty: in 1989, 15 percent of the population lived below poverty line; in 2003 59 percent of Poles fell below that line. Percentage of Poles in 1992 that opposed privatization of heavy industry: 60 percent. Number of Solidarity strikes by 1992: over 6,000. Amount of aid George H.W. Bush offered Poland to alleviate the Jeffrey Sachs-Leszek Balcerowicz shock therapy: 119 million dollars, or less than three dollars per person. Naomi Klein’s assessment of the shock therapy process in Poland: “A massacre.” Source: Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Picador-Henry Holt, 2007), 222–23, 241–44. Legacy of the shock therapy in postcommunist countries Percentage of population in postcommunist countries that experienced income growth below the average for those countries: 73 percent. Percentage of those who are at the bottom and who are worse off today than they were in 1989: 23 percent. Source: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Transition Report 2016–17, <2016.tr-ebrd.com>, accessed 19 January 2017. Legacy of Soviet colonialism in apartment availability Number of apartment dwellings per 1,000 population in 2016: Poland, 310; Germany and Switzerland, 500–600. Average in EU: 435 apartments per 1,000 population. Remedy: a government program to make Poland reach the EU average by 2030. Source: Polish Press Agency, as reported by portal
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More about the Polish media Percentage of Polish mass media market controlled by foreign capital: 76 percent. Name of the German-owned press company that controls 20 out of 24 regional newspapers in Poland: Grupa Polska Press. Name of another German press company that controls 33 percent of the entire newspaper market and 28 percent of the radio market, and at the same time is the owner of Grupa Inertia.pl, or the third-largest Internet medium in Poland: Bauer. How communism led to this anomaly: in the 1990s there was only one media owner in Poland, RSW Prasa Książka Ruch. This state-owned institution was divided into segments and sold by the liberal postcommunist governments of Poland, mainly to German firms. Bottom line: foreign owners control 138 Polish periodicals that sold 567 million copies in 2014, whereas Polish owners control 47 titles that sold 178 million copies. Ways of getting out of this dilemma: lowering the fees for the right to broadcast, and transparency in spending money on advertising in the media. Source: Ewa Wesołowska interviews Paweł Grzegorczyk, portal
Financing of the far-left and neo-Marxist organizations in Poland Percentage of funding that Krytyka Polityczna, a neo-Marxist left-wing periodical, receives from abroad: 90 percent. Exact quote: “My organization employs several dozen people and the majority of donations––90 percent, and it has always been so––comes from abroad.” Source: Krytyka Polityczna editor Sławomir Sierakowski in a Radio TOK interview, as reported by portal
Denominations in Belarus, according to Wikipedia Russian Orthodox: 82 percent; Catholics: 7.1 percent. Source; Lead article on Belarus, Wikipedia,
Polish help for Syrians Number of Syrian and Lebanese families that receive continuous help from Poland via Caritas, a Polish Catholic charity: 1,100. Source: Tomasz Krzyżak in Rzeczpospolita, 1 January 2017
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absorb what already happened and belongs to The Transformation the past. The new epoch will reabsorb the values of Tygodnik Powszechny that are permanent; among them, Catholicism.” While Tygodnik’s editor Jerzy Turowicz differed considerably from Father Piwowarczyk, he too Roman Graczyk subscribed to the program described above. He wrote: “As we scrutinize the roots of the hen in March 1945 Kraków contemporary European crisis, we discover that Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha lay its deepest and most substantial cause was the W the groundwork for a new periodical abandonment of Christianity. . . . This titled Tygodnik Powszechny (Universal Weekly), abandonment also meant the abandonment of the war front had not yet reached the Oder truth, and it was bound to lead to European River. The war was still going on, but it was disintegration and disunity. In the last decades already possible to speak in full voice of the before the war there were attempts to prevent the catastrophe that Adolf Hitler’s experiment had catastrophe by placing at the center of Europe’s brought to Central Europe––and, between the spiritual identity new and secular truths. But lines, how catastrophic was the ongoing Truth cannot be replaced. It can grow and experiment of Josef Stalin. The word develop and its understanding can deepen, but it “catastrophe” seems to accurately reflect the cannot be made subject to social engineering. state of mind of the thinking people at that time: New truths usually have little to do with Truth. only those who did little thinking could have The ruins of Europe now testify to the fact that assumed that one could shake off dirt and dust the attempts to engineer new truths failed and go on as if nothing unusual had happened. miserably.” Both Turowicz and Piwowarczyk After Katyń, Auschwitz, and the razing of agreed that theirs was a Catholic vision of the Warsaw the old world was thoroughly in ruin world, man, nation, and history; and that without not only physically but also, and primarily, such vision the task that they had undertaken spiritually. would be pointless. This is why Tygodnik’s subtitle, prominently displayed in the first and Tygodnik Powszechny’s founding fathers were subsequent issues read “A Catholic social and aware of this situation. They realized that the cultural periodical.” new Poland could not be a copy of the country that existed before September 1939––not only Until the first major confrontation with the because the Soviet-supported communists were communist authorities in 1948/49, the in power but also because the world needed a publication profile was mainly influenced by the new and stronger foundation, one that would not Rev. Piwowarczyk and his close collaborator crumble before adversity as the old one had Józef Maria Swięcicki. In early 1947 Swięcicki done. The founding fathers believed that wrote that “the Church is the trustee of Truth . . . Catholicism was the proper foundation for this and it cannot agree to place Error on the same new Poland. In the first issue Rev. Jan level as Truth. Thus the tolerance that the Piwowarczyk wrote: “Our attitude toward what Church advocates and supports is different from is happening can be expressed in two statements. the tolerance advanced by secularists. The First, the world, and Poland in it, not only have Church has in mind the tolerance of persons and to be rebuilt, but also restructured. And second, does not condone violating someone’s the Catholic Church has to play a particularly conscience but at the same time, it does not important role in this restructuring. . . Our task condone unlimited freedom of utterance and consists in . . . creating a new type of culture speculation, or propaganda of destructive that would accommodate such Western values as doctrines that poison human conscience. Its task the primacy of spirit over the material world, is to defend its members from infiltration of evil; liberation of the human person from the tyranny it therefore hopes and expects that the state will of conditions into which he/she was born, ethical approve the Church’s work in defending the meaning of life. . . . The archives of history will souls of citizens from ignominous ideas.”
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It is generally known that in subsequent years included Turowicz, Rev. Bardecki, Józefa Tygodnik abandoned this exclusively Catholic Hennelowa, Stefan Wilkanowicz, and Rev. understanding of truth. Beginning in 1949, Rev. Maliński. Some, including Turowicz, practiced Piwowarczyk and Józef Maria Swięcicki began what came to be called the ideas of Vatican II to play second fiddle in editorial decisions and long before they were proclaimed: Turowicz did were replaced by those professing Vatican II it in the prewar Odrodzenie and Mrs. Hennelowa views avant la lettre. After Vatican II (1962– in the Benedictine-sponsored youth movement 1965) these ideas entered the mainstream of in Wilno/Vilnius. Their pro-Vatican II attitude Catholic thought. But let us leave aside this shift was sincere and spontaneous, but it sometimes in the views of Tygodnik editors. What I want to led to conflicts with other currents in the Polish emphasize is that both groups of thinkers treated Church, including the one headed by Primate Catholicism very seriously, not only the Rev. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. Their understanding Piwowarczyk and his supporters, but also of the Church was somewhat different from that Turowicz and Stanisław Stomma with theirs: of Cardinal Wyszyński, but both they and he Antoni Gołubiew, Jerzy Zawieyski, Paweł kept the Church at the center of their activity. Jasienica, Rev. Andrzej Bardecki; the somewhat The Church was their home, and they wanted to younger generation of Jacek Woźniakowski, increase the spirit of community and respect for Tadeusz Żychiewicz, and Józefa Hennelowa; individuals in this home; they felt that these two and the group that joined the Tygodnik team issues were not given enough attention in pre- after October 1956: Stefan Wilkanowicz, Vatican II times. Althought they and Cardinal Mieczysław Pszon, Krzysztof Kozłowski, Wyszyński offered good arguments in suport of Bronisław Mamoń, Jerzy Kołątaj, Marek their views, this article is not the place to expand Skwarnicki, Jacek Susuł, Rev. Mieczysław on these arguments. The new Tygodnik people Maliński, and many others. All of them were of may not have been loved by the Primate, but the opinion that their Catholic credo was the key love of the Church was still their primary element of their engagement in public life. motive. Even though after 1956 the Tygodnik editors DEFENDING HUMAN RIGHTS made the momentuous decision to enter real At the turn of 1975/76 Tygodnik joined those politics, the Catholic foundation of the weekly who said “no” to the process of the further remained strong. However, attentive observers sovietization of Poland. This was to occur by could see a subtle shift. Tygodnik writers began changing several articles of the Constitution. to opine on political issues not “as Catholics,” The opposition to constitutional change was split but rather as those who took into consideration between Catholics and so-called revisionists. the point of view of “being Catholic.” The Among the latter the most prominent were the difference consisted in not claiming that they commandos of 1968 who in September 1976 represented the views of all Catholics or of the founded the Committee for the Defense of Church––hence, among others, their opposition Workers (KOR, later KSS KOR). Catholics to the formation of a Catholic party. In spite of were represented by the Clubs of the Catholic this shift, Tygodnik’s Catholic component Intelligentsia in Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, and remained strong. Its editors wrote and served as Toruń; the Poznań CCI did not participate. Even MPs or council members because being Catholic though communist authorities forced acceptance involved an obligation to get involved. of two constitutional amendments, the joint However, unlike their late 1940s predecessor KOR-KKI action paid off by consolidating Józef Maria Swięcicki, they did not proclaim the opposition forces. The CCI Catholics paid a necessity of acknowledging one Truth. They price: from that point on, they were not allowed still believed that Truth exists and that the to be candidates in parliamentary elections. shortest way to reach it was through the Catholic Owing to the fact that at this point communism Church, but they did not preach it. in Poland was in rapid decline, the price of not A good many members of the editorial board being allowed to run for parliament was not were enthusiastic about Vatican II. This group excessive. In fact, it soon became obvious that
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CCI people, including the Tygodnik Powszechny emerged around 1949. In my opinion, the team, were playing a more prominent role in difference between then and now should not be society than when they were officially allowed described by such words as “change of means” to participate in the Sejm. John Paul II was or “change of rhetoric.” The proper word is elected Pope, there came Solidarność, and the “breakaway.” The process of separating TP from communist system was visibly crumbling. The its roots has been gradual and subdued, yet very names of Turowicz, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, real. Andrzej Wielowieyski, Pszon, and Kozłowski In the early 1980s when I began to work for gained weight in circles of the “alternative” (i.e., Tygodnik Powszechny, it was taken for granted noncommunist) Polish elite. that we all participated in Easter missions, Long before Vatican II, members of the penitentiary reflection being part of them. These Tygodnik team, with the exception of Father customs went hand in hand with what Tygodnik Piwowarczyk and his friends, proclaimed that was printing for its readers. Although TP was Catholic rights should flow from citizens’ rights not a devotional publication, it did describe the and that a situation should not arise in which world from a Catholic perspective, or at least Catholics were granted certain rights on an based itself on a Catholic inspiration. After all, exceptional basis. This open and ecumenical collective participation in Eastern missions was attitude provided an acceptable foundation for not practiced by any other popular periodical. Of collaboration with the non-Catholic part of the course it was not a matter of ordering anyone to opposition to Soviet-style communism. As early attend; however, the fact that Jerzy Turowicz as the 1940s people like Stomma, Turowicz, was always present at Sunday Mass at St. Ann’s Zawieyski, Stefan Kisielewski and their younger and that he almost always took Holy colleagues from CCI held such views. It is Communion meant a great deal. Others thanks to the support from the Tygodnik group followed, not because they were afraid that their that Adam Michnik’s book The Church and the boss would look at them askance, but because Left (Kościół-Lewica-Dialog) gained so much they viewed themselves as members of a traction; it was because it found collaborative community of journalists who wrote for a partners on the Church’s side. Thus the Catholic periodical. This is how it was. Today collaboration between revisionists and Catholics this picture recalls a world that no longer exists. was forged and was gaining traction. The Toward the end of the 1980s one of our question is, how has this close relation colleagues, my contemporary, left his wife and influenced the identity of both partners? began to cohabit with another woman. He It is obvious today that the contemporary Polish automatically declared his readiness to resign his institutions and media outlets whose roots are in position on the editorial board without anyone the secular Left have not changed their urging him to stay. All of us understood that it foundational premises even the slightest bit would be inappropriate for him to remain. Ten since their inception. Such media outlets as years later a similar situation occurred, but its Gazeta Wyborcza, Radio TOK FM, and the protagonist did not leave. It was clear that the Batory Foundation have their ideological spirit of the community of the allegedly Catholic protoplasts in the March ’68 revisionists and in journalists had changed. Still later Jerzy Pilch, a the KOR (Committee for the Defense of notable writer who replaced Stefan Kisielewski Workers). Their rhetoric has changed because as columnist [Kisielewski died in 1991, ed.], the world has changed and priorities had to be decided to also write for the porn magazine rearranged, but the inspiration and goals have Hustler. He was ready to leave TP, but his remained the same. Can one detect a similar editorial colleagues asked him to change his permanence in Tygodnik Powszechny? I do not mind (I do not quite remember––he may have even have in mind the foundational years when already left and his colleagues asked him to the pre-Vatican II point of view of Piwowarczyk return). Among those who asked him to stay was and Swięcicki held sway, but the Tygodnik of Józefa Hennelowa, otherwise known as a person Jerzy Turowicz and Stanislaw Stomma that of conservative views.
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In the first decade of the twenty-first century occurrence. Does the Church really intend to Janusz Poniewierski left the editorial board. He limit the distribution of Holy Communion to was one of those who took TP’s Catholicism such a small elite?” (“Bishops travel to the seriously. Others also resigned: Tomasz Ponikło, Synod,” TP, 4 October 2015). Reporting about Maciej Müller, deputy editor Dariusz Jaworski the Synod's deliberations, Konrad Sawicki noted who was widely regarded as a possible that the majority of lay participants “keep replacement for Rev. Adam Boniecki, the editor- themselves within the traditional family in-chief. None of them fit the periodical’s new discourse” that is of little interest to the media. profile. What had changed? Let me provide an He went on to say that “it was good to hear from example. One day members of the editorial the happy and loving couples the story of board discussed two possible topics for a fidelity to each other and to Church teachings, forthcoming issue. Should it be the march of the but this does not change the fact that it is atheists then taking place, or a miracle in the necessary to hear from those lay people who Sokółka parish where the Holy Communion have the courage to inform the clergy how wafer allegedly changed into a substance things really are in today’s society and what resembling pieces of a real human heart in people really think” (“Czy biskupi zdążą,” TP, distress? The atheist march won. 25 October 2015). This last sentence clearly indicates the author’s priorities: first comes THE SYNOD OF HOPE FOR THE DIVORCED progressive discourse with its demands directed I think it is not by accident that many of the at the hierarchy of the Church, demands clergy who wrote for this new Tygodnik repeated ad nauseam by secular media. It is not Powszechny that advocated change and surprising that non-Catholic media conduct this “modernization” of the Church eventually left kind of discourse, but why has it been copied in the priesthood. Such was the case with Stanisław a Catholic publication? Artur Sporniak, and he Obirek SJ, Tadeusz Bartoś OP, and Tadeusz is not an exception, describes these “worldwide” Gadacz SP (Tomasz Węcławski’s case was desiderata as legitimate and calls them “the most different, in my opinion). Since these are but a urgent issues” (“Efekt Synodu,” TP, 8 few examples of what massively happened, November 2015). perhaps one can deduce from this repeated At the same time, Tygodnik did not offer process the course of destruction of the Catholic publicity or approval to such appeals as those Church principles that first attracted such people issued by the Forum of Catholic Communities or to Tygodnik Powszechny and then pushed them Jadwiga and Jacek Pulikowski’s speech at the onto the road of abandonment of their priestly Synod. The Pulikowskis evaluation of the vocation. “worldwide desiderata” has been as follows: In 2014 and 2015 in particular, during the Synod “The only effective way to assist sinners is to of bishops dedicated to the problems of Catholic help them in achieving conversion and cessation families the Kraków periodical did not fail to of sinning. The return to chaste life and take a stance. I would even venture to say that sacramental union with God will help them in this stance became its dominating feature. Let us regaining happiness in this world and the next.” look at the texts about the Synod. Not one of The Pulikowskis speak plainly: they say “yes” them expresses a traditional Catholic point of when yes is due, and “no” when they mean no. view. This point of view is mentioned, but only To Tygodnik writers this seems simplistic. They as an adversary with whom one should conduct want to put exceptions on the same level as a war of words. Virtually all texts published in rules, and indeed liquidate the notion of rules TP concerning the Synod stand in opposition to altogether. After all, the entire progressive world the Synod’s tenets, overtly or covertly. is waiting for Pope Francis to bless behavior hitherto considered harmful to preservation of Shortly before the Synod began, Artur Sporniak wrote: “In the future, marriage will have to the traditional family––shouldn’t we join them? become extraordinarily strong psychologically FRUITFUL AND FRUITLESS PEREGRINATIONS IN and spiritually, which will make it a rare THE WILDERNESS
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Here is my diagnosis of the illness to which The Polish version of this article appeared in Tygodnik Powszechny succumbed: this Rzeczpospolita Plus Minus, 11 December 2015. Translated by permission. periodical has gradually lost its sense of purpose as it increasingly tried to please its “outside friends.” As a result, it has reached the state of total barrenness. My impression is that those Past Continuous external friends became friends on the condition that TP distanced itself not only from the A Novel conservative Radio Maryja, but also from the Catholic mainstream as defined by authoritative statements by John Paul II or Benedict XVI in Bronisław Wildstein the past, and today by authoritative statements of the Conference of the Polish Episcopacy and its Editor’s Note: Bronisław Wildstein is a contemporary president Bishop Stanisław Gądecki. Tygodnik Polish novelist and journalist. A former dissident people seem to compete with one another in engaged with the Solidarity labor movement, he is the ingratiating themselves to their external friends recipient of many prizes including the highest award of the Republic of Poland: the Order of the White and they miss no opportunity to demonstrate Eagle (2016). The opening pages of his novel Past their openness to ideas. As a result, the Continuous (Czas niedokonany, 2011) initiate the periodical has not only become politically major plot lines of the novel, a work that is correct, but it has also ceased to have any autobiographical yet at the same time expresses discernible internal leadership. In the various better than any other work of fiction the societal debates about moral and Church-related issues dilemmas of late communism and postcommunism. Past Continuous, presently being translated into (recently the problem of so-called partnership English is a grand narrative that brings to mind Boris unions, or the entertainer Nergal tearing up the Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and Vasilii Grossman’s Bible, or Pope Francis), one knows in advance Forever Flowing. what the Tygodnik stance will be. It will be identical to that of Gazeta Wyborcza, wrapped up in some Church-related packaging. Tygodnik he flickering index numbers on Roman continues to be an intelligentsia periodical, but Brok’s monitor were taking a nosedive, one wonders whether it follows Emmanuel T apparently in free-fall. It seemed as though Mounier’s recommendation that it should serve the computer had gone mad and wanted to throw the people who have the courage to think off the virtual entities oppressing it. The screen independently. filled with red. Roman instinctively glanced over at his neighbors’ computer screens, visible behind Tygodnik’s attempt to walk a thin line between the flimsy, purely symbolic partitions that being and not being in the Church has always separated them, and had the impression he was in been debatable, but it was also a source of its a hall of mirrors. At vertiginous speeds, in the grip strength. “Peregrinations in the wilderness,” to of some nameless impulse, the machines were use Fr. Józef Tischner’s expression, can be devaluing the transactions encoded in their fruitful; those who walk in the wilderness often bowels. The brokers’ faces, as they turned to ask interesting questions. But it also can be exchange incredulous glances before turning back fruitless if these questions are answered only in to their screens, all displayed the same such a way as to please the contemporary world. astonishment, now tinged with panic. Tygodnik used to be fruitful when the deepest It occurred to Roman suddenly that the computer inspiration of its writers was Catholic doctrine screen was merely a thin sheet of glass. Beyond it, and when the goal was to articulate a Catholic beyond the plunging index numbers next to the perspective on the challenges of modernity. My names of the corporations that moved swiftly impression is that this Catholic perspective has across the tenuous surface, each accompanied by a been abandoned and an open perspective little red triangle pointing downward—beyond adopted instead. ∆ that abstract world of numbers and letters and symbols, he saw unfinished buildings crashing to
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW the ground, scaffolding collapsing, conveyor belts for him to propose they move in together. Roman grinding to a standstill, shops closing, job centre’s was in no hurry. He liked Nancy and they got filling up, lights going out, darkness descending on along well, but there was something about the people and cities. Then everything went quiet; he finality of the decision to live together that put found himself enclosed in a bubble of silence, all him off. Still, sooner or later he would have to the more astonishing because the stock exchange make up his mind. Nancy was going to present floor was a perpetual roar of debilitating noise. him with an ultimatum, that was clear. It was also The illusion lasted a fraction of a second. The roar clear that in the end he would do what she returned with redoubled intensity. In the stock wanted. The benefits far outweighed the costs. exchange all hell had broken loose. People were But Roman continued to put off the decision. screaming at each other and into phones, or in The letter was from his father. Roman plopped many cases just screaming, at no one in particular. three ice cubes into a glass of pure malt, added The floor was an image of chaos. Can we contain water from a long-necked bottle, flung himself this chaos? Roman thought. How did we keep it in into a black leather armchair and switched on the check before? Or have we ever been in control of television. As he flicked through the channels, anything? Perhaps we were just riding time’s every one of them was showing the scene he had turbulence, deluding ourselves that we were participated in a few hours ago. The steering the waves? commentators, sounding very unsure of He may not have been alone in asking such themselves, were all repeating the same warnings, questions: it was unusually quiet in “The Whaler.” couched in phrases cocooned in layers of Somewhere in the back someone was shouting, conditionals and dripping with caveats: that the someone else was laughing hysterically, but instead markets may continue to fall and that a further of the usual buzz a heavy silence filled the downward trend might have grave consequences restaurant. for the world economy. Beyond the windows, the lights of Manhattan continued to glimmer. Roman “Why are we surprised? Why the hell are we ripped open the envelope. surprised?!” Christina Lopez burst out at one point, expressing what everyone was feeling at *** that moment. “We’ve known for months it all had “I’ve decided to write to you, though I feel to come crashing down. It was a bubble, it had to uncomfortable in doing so. But you can’t say I’m burst, it couldn’t go on forever! But we went on badgering you – this is my first letter to you, after believing we could snatch a bit more, make a bit all. From time to time I sent you postcards; more – make money out of something that sometimes you answered them. We both know doesn’t exist! We should be surprised it didn’t go perfectly well the reasons for your bitterness – if belly-up until now!” that’s what your profound antipathy towards me No one contradicted her. can be called. A justified one, from your point of view. But in general? Except is there an “in And yet it really did take us unawares, mused general”? All my life I’ve ridiculed supposedly Roman as he left the restaurant after a few drinks objective and impartial points of view. The only and hailed a taxi. We’re more than surprised: we’re points of view here are yours and mine, mine and in shock. Shocked that something that was clearly your mother’s. And from my point of view… going to happen, was bound to happen, finally has Well, I’ve paid. But it’s absurd to waffle on like happened. He was still thinking about this as he this. There’s no point, and it’s not why I’m writing let himself into his apartment and fished out a to you. I’m writing because I’d like to see you. So letter from Poland from among the litter of I’d be glad if you could come to Poland, even for leaflets and junk mail in the hall. An express just a short visit. I can pay for your flight and delivery. The apartment was almost sterile – not cover the costs of your stay. I know you have like the apartment in Poland, he thought as he money, you have a career after all, but if it would extracted it from the post office packaging. Nancy help... In any case I’m anxious to see you, as soon had cleaned up before she left. She didn’t live with as possible. In the eight years since you moved to him, only stayed from time to time, but it was the States I’ve only seen you a few times, and very becoming increasingly clear that she was waiting
2084 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 briefly. The last time you were in Poland was four country erased from the map over a hundred years years ago. No, I exaggerate: almost four years ago. earlier), there lived a Jew by the name of Baruch On that visit you spent 23 minutes with me. I Brok with his wife Doba and five children. know because I checked my watch and made a All sorts of people lived there then: Russians, mental note of it. You were in a great hurry to get Poles and Jews. Jewish Orthodox, Russian to some important meeting, or maybe just one Orthodox, Catholic. They did not always know that held some attraction for you. That’s not a who they were. They only knew they were from reproach. You might reply that before you left we there. They knew which Catholic or Russian didn’t see each other that often either. That’s true. Orthodox Church they frequented and who It’s been that way ever since I moved out twenty- celebrated the services there. They lived alongside three years ago and left you, you and your mother. one another; sometimes they lived together. But But I didn’t want to be separated from you. It was the Jews were different. They knew who they your mother who didn’t want you to spend too were, and their neighbors’ knew they were much time with me. I can understand that – which different. They all lived under the same wide sky, doesn’t mean I agree with her. But until you were which spread its brightness over them in daytime fourteen we used to spend quite a lot of time and twinkled with lights at night. Sometimes it together. Remember? After that… it was up to clouded over or disappeared in fog, but the locals you. Your decision. Yours and your mother’s. It knew that it was there and would be back, that was a question of emotions and politics. A volatile they only had to wait and it would reappear, as mixture. But no point in theorizing. I just wanted always, in all its splendor. to remind you of the facts. And maybe justify myself a little. That probably sounds pathetic. But The Brok family was not badly off. They had a I don’t want to start crossing out and polishing nice house with a neat, well-tended garden, a and rewriting everything. I’m tempted to – I am a horse-drawn cart and a horse. Doba looked after journalist, after all. A columnist. But I decided to two cows and a fair assortment of poultry. They write to you the way I would talk. To talk to you lived on the edge of the village. Baruch was a on paper, if that’s the only way. merchant, trading in leather. But that was not his main occupation. He was a tzaddik; they called You know I don’t like to make a big drama out of him a miracle-worker. He would disappear from things. But I’m asking you to come because I want home for hours at a time, sometimes for half a day to see you one more time. Maybe things aren’t or more. When Doba asked questions, he just quite as bad as all that, but you never know. I’m smiled. Sometimes people saw him standing in the seventy years old. My father died when he was my fields, or in the forest, looking up at the sky. They age. I feel my time is approaching. Of course I’d said he talked to God. like more, but no one is going to ask me what I’d like. What more is there to say? I know you Matwiej saw Baruch one summer day around understand. noon. The Jew was leaning against a tree, looking straight at the sun. He stood there, quite I’m waiting. motionless, for so long that Matwiej fled, seized Your father” by an obscure anxiety he could not explain. “Anyone else, it would have burned out their *** eyes,” he said later, “but not him. He looked at me Manhattan was lit up; it was like any other day. On and smiled. His pupils were shining, as if the sun television they were talking of a financial crisis. It had come to live in them and decided to stay for was September 2008. good.” *** Piotr saw him in the little lake on the other side of the forest, about three hours’ walk from Kurow. It But that is not when this story begins. Perhaps it was spring. The leaves were a deep green and the began a hundred years earlier. In a place called flowers had bloomed, but the mornings were still Kurow, not far from Pinsk, on the broad, forested chilly. Baruch was standing in the water up to his flatlands, which at the time belonged to Russia armpits, looking up at the clouds. Morning mist (before that these lands had belonged to Poland, a was rising off the water. Piotr actually stopped to
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW ask if he needed anything, but then Baruch looked carbuncles, drain abscesses, ease pain. He stroked at him with his smile and he said nothing. old Kuzma’s hair until the pain that had been driving her out of her wits just went away. He Zosia saw him in a clearing in the forest. It had helped Szydlik with his back pain, which had left just rained and everything was glistening; the him scarcely able to move. They brought him a world seemed newly born. Baruch was walking young girl from the next village who had lost her around in circles, his arms up in the air, his fingers mind, was frightened of her family and tormented snatching at the sun’s rays. “Like he was dancing,” by evil spirits. Baruch just held her. She thrashed Zosia reported in an unsure voice, looking around and struggled and tried to break free, but he went at those present. on holding her until she calmed down. She Leon told them how he’d seen Baruch standing in stopped moving and they sat there for a long time, a field just by the forest when a wolf ran up to quite still, until Baruch kissed her on the forehead him. “He stopped less than a yard away, and then and let her go, whereupon she ran to embrace her he lay down on his belly like a dog. I thought it family. She was cured. was a dog at first, I even came a bit closer, but it One night the miller brought him his son. He had was a wolf, for sure. I swear. He leaped up, turned fallen ill a few days previously and was delirious, to me and snorted. And then he disappeared into with a high fever. Nothing had helped: not prayers the forest. I swear,” Leon insisted. or old mother Yevodka’s incantations, not herbs But the strangest reports came from some or nettle brews or concoctions from birch bark. peasants who were on their way back from the He kept getting worse, and that night he started horse fair through the first snows of the year, drifting in and out of consciousness. The family which had just fallen. In the distance, under the gathered around him to pray. That was when the grey sky, on a hill, they saw a man get down from miller decided to take him to Baruch. The Jew his cart and leap into a snow bank. He rolled looked at the boy for a long time. Finally he came around in the snow like an animal. Then he was and sat down beside him. He put his hands on the still. His horse stood there waiting patiently. They boy and went on sitting there. Beyond the window didn’t realize who it was at first; they drove up the autumn night flowed by. You could hear the because they thought something had happened to river. By morning the boy was better. He him. Then they came closer and saw it was recovered. Baruch, lying there in the snow, looking up at the Sometimes Baruch just shook his head sadly, to sky and smiling. And next to him was a crow. Just show there was nothing he could do. On those standing there. Baruch turned and they looked at occasions he wouldn’t even try, and you couldn’t each other: him and the crow. Man and bird. The persuade him. peasants didn’t move. They waited, astonished. It went on for a long time. No one spoke. There was He helped everyone, not just his own. But Jews only their breath and the steam that rose off them, journeyed from far away to see him. They came to humans and animals, up into the cold, darkening talk and to ask advice. The locals thought of him air, and the creaking of the wagons shafts as the as their own. He never asked for payment. They horses strained against them. Then the crow gave him whatever they had. Sometimes it was cawed and flew up into the air. Baruch followed it money, but more often food: eggs, milk, cheese, with his eyes for a moment, but then he saw them flat bread, occasionally vegetables or fruit. Or and his face changed, grew serious. He went on things they had made at home: cloths, blankets, looking at them for a long time and they started to bed linen. Sometimes he wouldn’t take anything. feel ill at ease. Suddenly he picked himself up, “I have what I need,” he would say; “you need it greeted them, brushed the snow off himself, got more.” into his cart and drove off. *** He healed both people and animals. He could set Far away, out in the distant world beyond, the bones, ease sprains, dress wounds. He knew how revolution was fizzling out. The losers were a to help ears that were failing and eyes that were strange bunch. They had wanted to depose the losing their sight. He could advise on the Tsar, our dear father the Tsar, and establish treatment of chronic illnesses, cure boils and
2086 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 common ownership of property, women and Bialystok, in Siedlce, the earth around their houses children. The Russian Orthodox, who were the turned into blood-soaked mud. Naked bodies, majority in the district, remembered others like half-stuck in the muddy ground, were strewn them. They had called themselves the true around the skeletons of houses. Feathers from Orthodox, claiming that only they truly loved God ripped bedding flew up into the air together with and therefore could not recognize any divisions the soot and the cries of the murdered. into what’s yours and what’s mine. But they didn’t But all that was still far away. True, some peasants want to impose anything on anyone, not by force. at the market in Konskie had beaten up some When people laughed at them and hurled insults, Jews, gone at them with their whips, and in they ran away. Luckowice they dragged out the innkeeper from The revolutionaries wanted to remake the world. behind his counter and beat him unconscious, and People listened to stories about them with wonder gave his wife a good hiding, too, when she came and fear, but sometimes they laughed. Well, of running to help him, and by the time they’d course you could kill the Tsar, they knew that, he finished there was nothing left of the inn but a was human, after all, and such terrible things have heap of stones, but that did not yet make a happened before. But to live without the Tsar? pogrom. But there was a feeling of unease in the The Tsar, who kept order, was the keeper of air. It was still cold; the first rains had not yet God’s order on earth? That seemed not only a come and the earth was hard. Everyone was terrible thing to want but stupid as well. No worried about the harvest. The sky was heavy and wonder the army and the police had put down this the clouds, rainless, scudded swiftly across it. The revolution. How could people have lost their wits light that came from behind them was dim and to this extent? Though you kept hearing, more alien. and more often, that it wasn’t people, it was the How could it have happened? It was a question Jews. That was what they were saying in the many later asked themselves, but were afraid to taverns and inns: it was a Jewish conspiracy, voice. Some men had come over from Stryczkow, because the Jews wanted to rule the world. Wise a nearby town; they had made friends at the people even knew about a book that had been market with some of our people. In Kurow they stolen from the Jews where it was all written went on drinking at the inn and stood rounds for down, how they planned to take over the world. the locals. Trade that day had gone well, they said. When people looked at Itzhak or Tevya, who had But then they started to talk about the Jews. lived among them even since they could Saying that something had to be done about them. remember, they found this hard to believe. But Finally one of them shouted, “You’ve got one of when they heard about Jews being Christ-killers, them right here, that you’re friendly with. they began to believe it, and anger bubbled up Pretending he’s a decent man like you, the sly, inside them. The word went round, from market slimy toad! That kind are the worst! He needs to market, fair to fair, inn to inn. putting in his place.” Reports began to arrive that people were rising up “But he’s a good soul, even though he’s a Jew,” against the Jews. Assaulting them, beating them one of the locals protested. up and destroying their goods. Silly to destroy perfectly good things, but you couldn’t take them “You’re defending a Jew?!” the man shouted. – that would be no better than stealing. This way “What’s he done, befuddled your wits, or what? they got their punishment fair and square. Though Or maybe he’s bewitched you? They say he knows they say some people did take things, because, magic.” after all, taking from a Jew – well, you wouldn’t One by one the others in the group from really call it stealing, would you? Stryczkow began nodding their assent. The locals The violence increased, and the reports of it also started to feel ashamed of defending a Jew. became more violent in tone. There was anger and How did it come about that they left the inn in a shouting and rage. And then there was blood. group, armed with heavy sticks – thick, knobbled Flames from burning houses lit up the sky. More lengths of wood – and went to the Broks’ house, and more blood. They started killing Jews. In guided there by one of the locals? They shouted as
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW they walked, as if they needed to screw up their pitched like a woman’s, yelled, “Get him, let’s courage, though they were a large group. They finish him off, the Christ-killer Jew! Kill him!” A called for others to join them. “We’re going to put clod of hard earth hit the window and there was the kikes in their place,” they cried. One or two the sound of broken glass. For a moment longer people ran out after them; one or two more joined no one moved. But then the door of the house the group. The others locked themselves in their opened and Brok’s wife appeared, a child in her houses. Darkness was falling. arms, and stumbled out screaming, desperately shouting his name: “Baaaruch!” They stopped in front of the Broks’ plot. The dog was barking insanely. They smashed the gate, Brok turned abruptly. “Doba, go back!” he shouting. And then Baruch came out of the house. managed to cry before the one who had tried to He walked halfway across the courtyard and circle him lifted up his wooden truncheon and stopped a pace away from the man who had with both hands brought it crashing down on the guided them there and who was now standing Jew’s forehead. In the sudden silence there was a immobile, a heavy stick in his hand, as if at a loss soft sticky smacking sound. Baruch had not yet as to what to do next. had time to fall to the ground before the man in front of him smashed another one into his face, “Quiet, Blackie!” Baruch said to the dog, which then leaped up to stamp with both booted feet on hunched low on the ground and began to whine. his body as it lay thrashing on the ground. The “What do you want, people?” he asked, and they others crowded round, trying to reach him with all heard him, though he spoke in a low voice. their sticks or their boots. They were finishing him “Why have you come here?” off the way you finish off a dog chained to his “You… Jew!” the one standing in front of him kennel and trying to break free as the blows rain finally shouted, almost spitting out the words. He down on him. Screams filled the courtyard. Doba made as if to raise his stick, but only lifted it up was screaming as she ran to her husband, there off the ground and repeated, “Jew!” was the scream of the little girl, who had run out of the house behind her mother, but they were “Yes, I am a Jew,” Baruch answered calmly. “You drowned out by the deafening shouts of “Beat the know me. I’ve always lived among you. My Jews!” and in the background the terrible howling parents lived here and my grandparents before of the dog. them. And there was always peace between us, even though we pray differently. And you?” he The sticks were beating Baruch’s lifeless body into asked, shifting his body as if intending to move the ground. One of the crowd aimed a vicious closer to the stranger, who looked as though he kick at the place where his head had been. “Much would have liked to step back when Baruch’s gaze good it did you, talking to God, eh?” he snarled. bored into him. “I don’t know you. I haven’t done Doba didn’t make it to her husband. She was you any harm. It was anger that brought you here, brought down by blows from the sticks, which that brought all of you. But we are not to blame. also hit the infant in her arms. Her broken hands We have done nothing to deserve your anger. could not hold him. When they were finishing her Think about it. Nothing has happened yet. Go off, the child was thrashing around on the ground, away. Tomorrow you’ll be relieved you did.” and its screaming drowned out the shouts of the No one spoke. You could hear their breathing and attackers until it fell silent, squashed under more the intermittent whining of the dog. It was getting boots and more blows. The little girl fell several dark, but they could still see each other. times under the hail of blows, but managed to get up and was trying to hobble away, whining “Get the Jews! Beat them to a pulp!” cried one of pitifully. More blows brought her down again, but the strangers in the crowd. Another, standing just she was still alive and now crawled around on the behind him, his gaze locked on Baruch’s, took a ground, moaning. For a moment her moans were step forwards, lifting his stick slightly, clearly all that could be heard: the howling of the dog, intending to sidle round behind him. Baruch now mashed into a shapeless pulp, had ceased, turned towards him and he stopped. And then and the attackers’ throats were sore from their someone else in the crowd, it may have been a woman because the voice was thin and high-
2088 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 shouting. They stood over her, panting, as she He organized the funeral of Baruch, Doba and the tried feebly to crawl out from between their legs. two children in a neighboring town. He had their house repaired and renovated so that it was “We should finish her off. So she doesn’t suffer,” unrecognizable. Some time later he sold it. The someone said. Someone else aimed a kick at her people who moved in did not wonder what had back with a heavy, metal-capped boot. There was happened to the previous inhabitants. a crack like a dry twig snapping. The girl stopped moaning and was still. A group of Jews came to the funeral. Even the old tzaddik from out by Baranowicze came. After the Now once again there was silence, the only sound funeral he came up to Abram and made to the panting of the men. One of them ran into the embrace him, but Abram, a great strong hulk of a house; a few others followed, shouting. There was man, gently plucked the old man’s hands from his the sound of breaking glass. Various household arms, as if they were the hands of a child. items and furniture flew out through the broken windows. But the excitement was wearing off. “Don’t say anything, rebbe. I know what Someone ran outside with an oil lamp, smashed it happened and what you want to say to me. I know against the corner of the house and was about to it’s always been like this and always will be. I don’t set the oil alight when one of the locals knocked want comfort.” the lighted match from his hand. “You want to The tzaddik shook his head. burn down the whole of Kurow?!” he yelled. The wind was rising. “Beat up the Jews! Where’s the “It’s always been like this, but I have a feeling that next lot? Let’s go get them!” one of the strangers now it will be different.” He raised his hand cried. But there was only silence. They dispersed towards the grey sky. “Bad times are coming. The without speaking and each went his own way in Lord is turning away from us and we understand the night. less and less.” The next day Abram, Baruch’s younger brother, Two of his students took him by the arms and arrived in Kurow. In the forest he found eleven they moved away together. Abram turned his year-old Jacob, frozen to the bone, with his two expressionless face to the sky. younger brothers – Joseph, nine, and Adam, three He had left Kurow a dozen or so years earlier, – whom he had managed to get out of the house. when he was only eighteen. He started trading at Apparently their father, when he realized what was the same time as his brother, but quickly overtook happening, had told his wife and son to take the him. He bought leather all over the district and whole family out into the forest. Someone had sold it far away, for big money, it was said. He warned him, some people said. But Baruch moved to Pinsk, where they say he bought a two- himself would not go. He just told Doba to run storey house, and then a store on the main street. away and hide and not come back until it was safe. But it wasn’t enough for him. Nothing could ever Doba took the children into the forest, but when satisfy him. He began traveling to Kiev, and then she heard the shouting she turned back. She told to Warsaw. He traded with Berlin. He set up the children again that they must hide and shops and exchange houses in more and more entrusted Jacob with their care. But as she was cities. He traded in leather, but later also in gold running back towards the house, six year-old and precious stones. But he made his real money Golda broke away from Jacob and ran after her. in the weapons trade. Some said he did more than Abram drove his nephews to the neighboring trade. That he was involved in huge, illegal town and left them with a family he knew. Then financial operations, and even that he did deals he came back with two helpers. He spent some with bandits, as a fence, selling on their loot for time walking around the house and grounds as them. Others, or maybe the same ones, said he though he wanted to register everything in some was a wizard who had sold his soul to the devil in mental inventory. He looked at the bodies beaten exchange for magical powers. Though what would into the earth and his face was expressionless. He the devil want with a damned Jewish soul? did not pray. He personally placed the bodies in Abram Brok adopted his nephews as his own. He the cart. He had the corpse of the dog buried. never married. And he never went back to Kurow.
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The day he came to take away the bodies of his But the affair was soon forgotten. No one wanted brother and his family was his last visit to the to speak of it. Only the local Russian Orthodox town. priest said something once during a sermon about innocent blood calling out to the heavens for *** vengeance, and that the guilty, and all those who In Kurow they didn’t talk about it. They weren’t had stood by and looked on, would one day pay. even sure which of them had joined the group of He made no reference to anyone or anything in strangers, whom they continued to bump into at particular, but everyone understood. the Stryczkow market, at the Orthodox church, That year spring would not come. The light and in other places. The locals went on trading couldn’t break through the clouds; snowstorms and drinking with them, but no one wanted to continued up to the end of April. The sun refused speak of those events. In private, within their own to make an appearance. The hungry gap stretched four walls, people in Kurow said that some of out: a long, lean time. The sky disappeared out of those he had cured, even those whose life he had sight. saved, had taken part in his killing. Leon, whose horse Brok had saved; the blacksmith’s son, *** whose chronic ulcers he had cured; his neighbor It was not until the doors slid open and Roman Stach, whom he had taught to walk again. But Brok emerged into the arrivals hall that he realized which of them had really been there and seen the how much the airport had changed after the sticks crashing down on Brok and his family? construction of the new terminal. His last visit to A few years later a policeman from Stryczkow, Poland had been over three years ago. He drinking at the inn with some passing travelers, let stumbled along, a little befuddled after the night slip while in his cups that a few days before the flight, peering at strange faces, watching people as events in Kurow he had had a visit from his they fell into each other’s arms and hearing their superior, the district police commander, who had cries of joy at being reunited. Something inside told him to go and put the fear of God into Brok. him kept repeating that he was there to say “Why him?” asked the policeman, whose niece goodbye to his dying father and then to make the Baruch had cured. “He’s a good Jew, no funeral arrangements. He tried to drive the connection with the revolution.” The commander thought away, but to no avail; it only grew lost his temper, shouted: “The authorities know stronger and seemed to take firmer root. He had a what they’re doing!” and closed the interview, feeling of coming back. For eight years, without having put his subordinate in his place. But a little thinking about it, he had been growing further and later he went on: “It’s the ones everyone likes who further away from this country. His visits only are the most dangerous. People trust them, and confirmed the facts: Poland was becoming an they wait for years, hatching their plans, biding increasingly faint and distant memory. Now it their time, until one day they start stirring up surrounded him again. discontent, setting the locals against the On the plane he had woken up when the other authorities. Maybe he is a decent man,” the police passengers were still asleep and raised the window commander added, “but he comes from a blind. A stream of sharp, blinding sunlight had poisonous tribe. He’s got to be made to see that poured in. The masses of clouds below sculpted he can’t hide from the authorities. And everyone themselves into mountain ranges, hidden cities or has to be made to see that a Jew is a Jew.” fantastic buildings that dissolved as the light hit The policeman even got some money for the task them and transformed themselves into different entrusted to him. So he met with the cleverest and shapes. On his first long-haul flights Roman spent sliest of his narks, whose trade in stolen goods and hours looking at the clouds, the sun, the sky. But other shady dealings he overlooked in exchange soon he got used to it and stopped noticing what for information, and explained the job to him: he was beyond the window. Now, as he gazed out at was to give Baruch and all who had dealings with the clouds, it was a few minutes before he him a good fright. Anatoly just kept nodding. The realized, with surprise, how absorbed he was by policeman never dreamed how it might end. the sight – as if he were seeing it all for the first Afterwards even Anatoly looked a bit frightened. time. Over the Atlantic the sun was showing the
2090 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 way towards the old world. The sky was widening. research and reconnaissance. Everything looks Someone was guiding him back. He felt tense, and good. The changeover to digital opens up new concentrated on the changing shapes outside. possibilities. So? Shall we sign an initial contract? We’ll cover your expenses, and you’ll be paid on a The strange feeling was still there when the plane percentage of profits basis. That means more risk landed in Warsaw. In the chaos of the arrivals hall for you, but also more money if you do well. Well? Roman tried to impose some order on his Shall we hammer out the terms?” impressions. Someone was observing him, but it wasn’t any of the strangers in the crowd, whose He walked slowly through the hall, past strangers gaze only slid over him and then passed on. He who might be people he had once known. His realized he was returning to the past, a past he gaze slid over the face of an elderly woman who thought he had left behind for good. It lurked was laughing, laughing aloud with happiness. even here, under the new airport terminal. Roman had half-turned away but she was already running towards him, with a bounding, almost He recalled his conversation with Taggart. “It’s youthful step, and it was only as she drew closer actually perfect, works out very well, you know? that he recognized his mother. When he felt her We were thinking of proposing that you go out thin arms around him and held her frail body, there anyway. We appreciate what you did in bending down to receive her kisses on his Russia. It didn’t work, the deal fell through, but forehead and cheeks, the images, sounds and you did well. We want to get into the Polish smells of the past came flooding back to him. In television market. Not just Polish, actually, but his mind he saw her, a beautiful young woman, Poland is interesting, and its potential is striding through a sunny field, a happy two year- underestimated. Germany and France have old by her side, holding her by the hand. He stopped developing, nothing new will ever happen looked at the old woman before him and his there. Europe as a whole…” Taggart dismissed throat tightened. A smell he could not pin down Europe as a whole with a disparaging downward reminded him of home. sweep of his hand. “But the periphery, the outskirts of Europe, now that’s a different story. His huge suitcase would not fit in the boot of the Worth taking a closer look at. And Poland – old, rusted Opel Corsa, which was strewn with anything could happen in Poland. Besides, packages of some kind. Finally they managed to television nowadays is a lot more than just get it onto the back seat. The inside of the car television. Not many people understand that. looked no better than the outside. During his last Television is about ideas. And ideas,” Taggart visit he had offered to send her money for a new mused out loud as he looked out at New York one. She was offended. “As a gift,” he had said, through the glass walls, “ideas are the biggest trying to convince her. “In that case you can business there is. It’s about what’s important, present it to me tied with a red ribbon. Otherwise what’s fundamental. Take ecology. It’s important I won’t take it. And if you try to send it to me, I’ll to fight pollution, to live in a clean world. But you send it back at your expense.” She delivered have to explain it to people, you have to make herself of this declaration in her typical tone of them see it.” Taggart was growing increasingly voice, which could mean she was joking or deadly serious, but somewhere in his voice you could serious; you never knew. The Corsa had looked a hear a gleeful giggle bubbling up. Later, when lot better then. Sending a car over was too events forced him to think back on it, Roman complicated. He had stopped thinking about it. would recall this conversation, or maybe just “So. Tell me everything,” she demanded, turning imagine what it must have been. “If we could get a the key in the ignition and lighting a cigarette. He piece of the new energy markets… Now that realized suddenly that the car reeked of smoke. would really be good business. A time of crisis is a The smell was overpowering, stronger even than good time for serious initiatives. We’ve looked at the reek of petrol, and was mingled with the smell the market. There’s a television called WTV. of her scent. Good reputation, well known, and they’ve cornered the market, but they over-invested and “I forgot you don’t smoke,” she said, glancing at now they’re desperately looking for capital. It’s a him and rolling down the window, with some good opportunity. We’ve done some initial difficulty. “Just a few more puffs and I’ll throw it
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW away,” she assured him, a note of almost childish immobile mask of bitterness and pain. Now she lit regret in her voice. another cigarette. “It doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it,” he said. “Your father could always fall on his feet. Let’s His head was spinning from the smoke, but he hope he still can.” decided to suffer heroically. His mother inhaled She’s being unfair, Roman thought. She may have with relief. cause for bitterness, but here she’s being unfair. “Well, so how are things with you?” Or perhaps that’s just what I’d like to think, he wondered as she nervously changed lanes, “With me... Well, you know… Everything’s provoking a furious burst of the horn from a car changing. It’s like an earthquake. I don’t know if that was advancing on them with dangerous I’ll stay at the stock exchange. I’ve had a few speed. Maybe I just want to defend my image of offers. One of them in Poland. For the moment my father, and there’s so little left to defend? I’m taking a long holiday. Father couldn’t make it?” As he asked the question he realized it was too “What about you? Are you still working at the soon. But it was done. His mother’s face assumed same weekly, “Renaissance”, wasn’t it?” he asked, its usual pinched look, the look it had had for the though he knew the answer. past twenty-three years. He had counted and “Are you asking if it still exists? Yes, it does. I’m reconstructed those years much later, but he surprised myself. The weekly is still there; I’m still remembered perfectly the first time he had seen there. Of course it’s not like your father’s that look on her face. She almost never talked to “Republic”. That became the paper of the him then; all he got was a muttered word or two, intellectual elite, the leading light of the trendy tossed out to get rid of him. Her long periods of literati. Whereas we… We paid a monstrous price apathy alternated with effusive demonstrations of for that police informer, Stawicki, and then we tenderness, embarrassing for a ten year-old. It was were ostracized, and since then… Well, never from then on that the very sound of his father’s mind. You don’t understand. Our little quarrels name, the mention of him in even the most casual don’t interest you. From the American point of conversation, always brought the same pinched view… “ She switched tack and tried to make her look to his mother’s face. Roman knew that now irony a little less bitter, her voice a little warmer. “I there would be a pause in the conversation, a brief don’t want to bore you. I only want to tell you respite which his mother needed before she could about the things that really interest you. A lot has go on. changed in Poland since you were last here. “Your father…? I don’t really know. I think he’s Though on the other hand, who knows? Maybe in hospital.” After a moment she added, “I hope nothing has changed. Maybe it all just seethed and it’s nothing serious. He was never a bubbled for a bit and then went back to the way it hypochondriac, I’ll give him that.” This last had been. Back to the same stagnant filthy pond. sentence was said in a tone edged with malicious And I – we – we’ve been shunted out to the irony. periphery. An increasingly remote periphery. We’re being pushed further and further out. Time She might have got over it by now, Roman is pushing us out, too. And soon it will push us thought. He had thought this at every meeting out definitively – out to the cemetery.” She with his mother, for years. If she couldn’t forget, laughed drily and threw a challenging glance at her she could at least come to terms with it somehow, son. face what had happened. No one was asking her to forgive, but she should stop this constant When the idea came to him, it seemed as obvious dwelling on it. With bat-like sensitivity she would as it was sudden. Roman felt ashamed he hadn’t seize on anything that evoked even the most thought of it before. He should have done it years remote association with her ex-husband and ago. He could afford it, and easily. In Florence concentrate on it, rehashing everything in recently on a week’s holiday in Italy he had exquisite detail, worrying at it as if it were a thorn recalled his mother’s fascination with the Uffizi burrowed deep under her skin and contemplating gallery. He had been looking at the Cellini statue her suffering. Her face would harden into an in the gallery opposite the museum: Perseus with
2092 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 the head of Medusa. A beautiful, lithe young boy contemplating his trophy, the severed head of the Moved by the Spirit woman monster, held aloft in his hand, his arm An Anthology of Polish Religious outstretched. His mother had heard about the sculpture from her father, his grandfather. He was Poetry on his deathbed, talking about his unrealized dreams, the things and places he would have liked Edited by Adam Czerniawski. Belfast: to see, the trips he would have liked to take. He Lapwing, 2010. ISBN 978-1-907276-51-4. 156 must have been not much older than Roman was pages. £15.00. now. As he gazed at the sculpture he had started telling Nancy the story, but although she listened David Craig patiently, she didn’t seem particularly interested.
“Mother! Here’s an offer. One you can’t refuse. or readers unfamiliar with Polish poetry and As soon as I’ve seen dad, seen how things are… Fw ho thirst for the sacramental, this book is a talked to him… well, as soon as I’ve done that, I’ll huge find. A far cry from American take you to Tuscany. To Florence. You’ve always Puritanically based poetry––The Oxford Book of dreamed of visiting the Uffizi, seeing Cellini’s American Poetry comes to mind–– Perseus. And there are some other interesting Czerniawski’s collection offers a continuously places to see in Tuscany. Like Siena. I was there alien (Catholic) spiritual point of view. For just a while ago. Passing through. I’ll take you on a Poland, the “good but disordered” Catholic week’s holiday. One week. I won’t take no for an perspective always underscores the innate “God- answer.” carrying” value of creation, of people, of the His mother turned to him and smiled, and for a unconscious. Even while our editor tries in moment her face, the face of an old woman, was some way to emphasize poems that are only lit up by the smile of a young girl, evoking nominally or secularly religious, his enterprise memories of her as she had been decades ago. fails beautifully. There are no depraved sons of Adam here. Each poet struggles through his “That’s so sweet of you. I’m really very touched. “place of passage,” to lift from John Paul II, in a That you thought of me. But you know I won’t wonderful selection of poems that reveal each come. I’ve seen everything in Florence. I could time what it means to be both Polish and lead guided tours around the Uffizi. I could write Catholic. an essay about Cellini’s Perseus.” There is one other point worth making before we “You know it’s not the same.” dig into the poems themselves. One cannot help “Of course it’s not the same. And that’s why I but note a skewed time line. After offering one know it’s too late. Everything has its proper time. sixteenth-century poet and two nineteenth- That seems so obvious to me, it’s hard to explain. century poets, the editor then offers nine poets If you haven’t done something when the time was born between 1921 and 1936. While that may right for it, it’s too late: you can never do it. seem suspicious, upon closer scrutiny it makes People who rush to realize their unfulfilled dreams great sense. All nine of those poets experienced – I think they’re pathetic, ludicrous. I’m too old to both Hitler and Stalin; in fact, the editor, go running around building a store of memories. I Czerniawski may be the last significant Polish will never go to Florence. I’ll stay here. ∆ poet who can say that. The idea is a good one since who has experienced the cross like these people. We see that reflected in the poetry, overtly religious or not. True, the divine person of Jesus can become a little more distant during Modernist times of intense suffering, but that is how things always are in our dark nights, whatever our personal situation.
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What has lasted here is the Polish spirit; that is see hope fade with the Gestapo here, but it does what Czerniawski has given us. Every orthodox not disappear. Consider “Chestnut,” a poem that American Catholic should buy this book. Simply yokes childhood innocence with the going off to put, it offers what our national poetry is either war: unable or too bigoted to provide (“the last while God almighty who mixed in acceptable prejudice”): authentic Catholic bitterness with the sweetness voices. It’s no accident, for example, that the hangs on the wall helpless only “devoted Catholic” poet acknowledged by and badly painted the above mentioned Oxford book is Fanny Howe, a poet whose voice falls more in line with childhood is like the worn face traditionally agnostic and political (leftist) verse on a golden coin that rings than it does with the devotedly Catholic. true. Thomas Merton, surely the most important Death seems to have come to every family American Catholic poet in the postmodern during the war and the occupations. Leon period, is not granted any space. Zdzisław Stroiński’s “Warsaw” ends with the Moved by the Spirit begins with Jan line, “Can you hear more distinctly the heavy Kochanowski’s lamenting (“Tren XVII”) the rhythmical tread of God’s steel-shod boots.” death of his young daughter. Ben Jonson comes Jan Darowski picks this up idea up. Every to mind, but there is perhaps a deeper sense of Christian must know the cross and suffering; the real here: “The Lord’s hand touched me,/All truly, he lets no one off the hook for the joy’s gone.” Suffering must be borne, lived Holocaust: through; it is not something we can escape via faith. This is the cross, and it is, through the eyes In this conspiracy we were the oldest, not bound by silence even, of faith, something we all must bear in one way we ate common bread, drank or another. To his credit, Kochanowski does not from self-same rock, their hands touched us, try to short-circuit his grief. In fact, he often the blood-drained hands of biblical traitors–– blames himself, something most fathers would probably do: “Hiding our folly, we flaunt our Czerniawski does a great job of delivering scope wits/To dazzle simple souls.” here. One need not be an expert in Polish literature to feel the change. True, the greats are Cyprian Kamil Norwid also offers a breadth of represented––or at least those with whom experience. He seems even more overtly outsiders are probably more familiar, religious than Kochanowski, as least given the Szymborska and Herbert. However, they only selections here, but these choices are lovely and serve to add to the vision; they do not dominate. deliver life as it comes, not as we would wish it. In praise of the tolerant ruler in “To Emir Abd The editor includes a few of the latter’s Pan El Kader in Damascus,” the poet is generous and Cogito poems. In his “Thoughts on Hell” we get vast. But there’s more; there’s something a delightful truth: artists are not safe here either. apocalyptic in these lines: Everyone has a life to deliver: His foot is in the rainbow’s stirrup, Beelzebub loves art. He rides to Judgment day; * * * * * * Beelzebub supports art. His artists are guaranteed Then let your tent be broader peace, good food and total isolation from infernal Than David’s cedar groves; life. For of the Magi you were first Czerniawski ends the collection with his own To mount your horse upon the hour! work. This kind of thing is often cause for Perhaps Norwid was being prophetic: what concern since some poets see all previous work would eventually come surely must have felt as the necessary steps leading to the revelation like the last days. With Tadeusz Różewicz we they alone are privy to. However, our editor move into the horrible twentieth century. We does not go there; rather, he includes five poems that like the previous poems, are beautifully
2094 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 sacramental despite their “secularity.” Again, that group, Fr. Wojtyła prepared written versions the Polish soul has its final say. This, fittingly of his lectures for dissemination. enough, comes across with a sixth poem, “St. The lectures not only reveal much about Sebastian.” It was written to honor a sixteen- Wojtyła’s own philosophical training and year-old, a young person who experienced teaching, but are as relevant today as when they “scorched flesh.” Was this in a German Nazi were written. His lectures were prepared from camp or was it a gift from Stalin? It is not clear, what may be called an Aristotelian/Thomistic but what is clear is that Jesus knows the journey: position. He offered them as an alternative to While after death Lazarus the Marxist dialectical materialism promoted by Led a quiet life. the communist regime at the time, and as a At table he and Martha rebuttal to Darwin’s evolutionary account of Served the deathbound Lord. man’s origin that accompanied it. And so we see it again, a Polish sense of the Wojtyła’s lectures begin with a defense of the sacramental. A crucified Lord has made the first principles of knowing and being from a whole way a holy journey. The pain, the realist point of view. Things are, and things are hideousness have all been transformed, made what they are (the principle of identity). With new in its pain. that recognition he goes on to say that they are What would it take for America to deliver intelligible to the extent that they exist. They something like this, to feel the depths of Christ have an essence or nature that the human crucified? Perhaps we got some of that in intellect is powerful enough to discern. That Stevens after the Second World War when his essence or nature is not given in the sense report family began dying off, but more than likely it of their existence, but there is more in the sense will come sometime in the future, when our own report than the senses themselves are able to peculiar brand of secular humanism ends in appreciate. It is not the senses but the intellect something more hopeful than a cloaked that grasps the nature of the thing. totalitarianism. ∆ The recognition of these basic principles leads Wojtyła to the affirmation that there is such a thing as “human nature.” Man’s fate is in great Considerations on the Essence measure the consequence of that nature which of Man/ Rozważania o istocie determines both his potentialities and his limitations. Wojtyła goes on to give an account człowieka of the key Aristotelian doctrines of substance/accident; of change; and of the four By Karol Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II). Dual causes, i.e., material, formal, efficient (making), text translated by John Grondelski. and final. Lublin/Rome: Societa Internazionale Tommasco Like any substance, man is composed of form D’Aquino, 2016. 211 pages. ISBN 978-83- and matter. Like any living thing, man has a 60144-92-3. soul, a unifying principle that makes the living
thing be what it is. Thus we can speak of a Jude P. Dougherty vegetative soul, an animal soul, and the human soul. We sometimes speak of man as composed his short work is the result of the discovery of body and soul, but that is imprecise. We T of a set of unpublished manuscripts that should rather speak of man’s immaterial soul were under the ownership of Teresa Skawińska. and the matter it informs, making him be what Texts that she kept were preserved in the he is. “Each of us,” Wojtyła explains, “possesses archives of the John Paul II Institute in Kraków. a certain experiential knowledge of what it Ms. Skawińska was the leader of an academic means to be a human being through an study group to whom Father Wojtyła frequently awareness of our own I as well as through lectured. At the request of student members of comparative observation of other people. That
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW experience becomes ever greater the longer and Whether they realize it or not, students and more intensely a man lives and reflects.” others who heard these lectures were exposed to Developing that theme, he notes that “man is a a valuable course in Thomistic psychology. rich, complex, and multifaceted being. Many While Fr. Wojtyła was ever faithful to the texts empirical sciences study man as their object but he was explicating, one can detect in these it is man who possesses an immediate lectures his signature touch, or the personality apprehension of the totality of his nature, the that subsequently endeared him to a worldwide totality of the I.” On the other hand, no properly audience when he became John Paul II. human cognition is purely sensory. Even man’s This reviewer would be remiss if he did not spiritual or intellectual experiences are never recognize the very readable English translation purely immaterial but always have some of John Grondelski. ∆ connection to the sensory.
Wojtyła then makes a subtle point. We do not come to know our souls directly and immediately as a result of introspection. We To Our Children experience the self in an indirect way by Memoirs of Displacement drawing conclusions from the way we A Jewish Journey of Hope and Survival in apprehend things. Put another way, philosophy Twentieth Century Poland and Beyond arrives at an apprehension and explanation of human nature not through direct experience but By Włodzimierz Szer. Boston: Academic by reasoning and inference. But that is not all. In Studies Press (www.academicstudiespress.com), our quest to know what man is, our Catholic 2016. xii + 219 pages. Index, illustrations. ISBN faith adds to the picture. Faith proclaims the 978-1-61811-478-5. Hardcover. immortality of the human soul, a truth intimated by philosophy but beyond philosophical James R. Thompson demonstration. he author and main hero of this first-person In the course of his lectures Wojtyła spends narrative was born and raised in pre- some time explaining St. Thomas’ treatment of T Second-World-War Poland. Like a large the passions of the soul, what he calls “the majority of Polish families at that time, his sphere of desire and aspiration.” Cognition, he family was poor but not destitute; it aspired to explains, is directed to the thing itself, to the higher education for its children. These were the object, whereas aspiration is directed to its times of the Great Depression that Poland value. St. Thomas divides the rich material of experienced no less than the United States. human feeling into the eleven passions animae Włodzimierz Szer’s family lived in Warsaw of which six belong to the desiring sphere of the before Germans and Soviets attacked Poland in soul: love-hatred, desire-dislike, joy-sorrow, and September 1939. When the war started five to the sphere of urges: hope-despair, fear- Włodzimierz’s father raced off to the Soviet- bravery, and anger (for which there is no occupied part of Poland, whereas he and his opposite). Obviously, one can find and mother remained in Warsaw. When in the distinguish in the orbit of each of those feelings German-occupied part of Poland (including a higher or lower form of emotional experience. Warsaw) Germans ordered Jews to wear the Star In a subsequent discussion of freedom Wojtyła of David on their sleeves, Włodzimierz was displays knowledge of the empirical studies of shipped off to the east to join his father. Wilhelm Wundt, Herbert Spencer, and William It should be added that unless he/she were a James. He acknowledges their insights in renegade and member of the prewar communist pursuing his own study. One must add that this party, hardly any Polish Catholic would dream early study is reflected in his later published of escaping to the Soviet zone: it would mean work, especially in Love and Responsibility. instant death or being shipped off to the Gulag. The Soviets considered Polish Catholics to be
2096 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 enemies slated for liquidation. These were the city was wiped out while the Soviets watched years of Soviet-Nazi friendship, so from the other bank (General Berling was not correspondence and relocation were possible. At allowed to cross the Vistula). The Red Army that time the Soviets were bosom friends of the simply waited for the Germans to destroy the Nazis, and it was Polish Christians who were insurgents and the Polish capital. dispossessed, deported, or murdered wholesale The invasion of Poland by Germany and Russia by both Germans and Russians; the Jews were in September 1939 was an unprovoked partition next in line, but did not know it yet. The fate of of the country. It is generally understood that the the Szers in the USSR was difficult but, in Poles were not pleased by the Russian comparison to what happened to other deported occupation, but it may be thought that the Polish families, it was bearable: they were Russian occupation was a minor annoyance deported not to the Gulag, but to the depths of compared to occupation by the Germans. In his the Soviet Union where Włodzimierz continued book Revolution from Abroad, Jan Tomasz his education. He chose a Russian school rather Gross carefully and with excellent than Polish. Being a noncommunist Pole in documentation shows how wrong this notion is: Soviet Russia was a bit like being Jewish in the German-occupied zone. These very conservative estimates show that the Soviets killed or drove to their deaths The Germans betrayed the Russians and three or four times as many people as the attacked them in June 1941. They were initially Nazis from a population half the size of that victorious, and Stalin became frightened. He under German jurisdiction. This comparison called on the remnants of the several hundred holds for the first two years of the Second thousand Polish Christians whom he had World War, the period before the Nazis previously placed in the Gulag or in Asian began systematic mass annihilation of the Jewish population. (Revolution from sovkhozes and allowed them to form a Polish st army to fight the Germans. He even allowed a Abroad, Princeton Univ. Press, 1 ed., 229) Polish Consulate to be opened in Kuibyshev. Gross shows that for Polish Catholics the General Władysław Anders was dispatched from Soviets were even worse than the brutal Nazis. England to create that army. Włodzimierz and Essentially all the Polish professional and his father were both of military age, and they semiprofessional classes (doctors, lawyers, both applied, but, the book implies, were teachers, engineers, managers, foremen, farmers rejected for anti-Semitic reasons. It should be holding beyond a few acres) were rounded up by remembered that 40 percent of those Poles who the Soviets and then either killed immediately or applied to the Polish Consulate in Kuibyshev retained in prisons for shipment to slave labor were Jewish (Norman Davies, God’s camps in Siberia and Central Asia. Gross writes: Playground, II:265); this was out of proportion “In Lwów, twenty-eight people living in a 11.5 with the Jewish population in prewar Poland (10 sq. m cell relied on the geometrical skills of a percent). It is therefore doubtful that anti- gifted high school student who fitted them most Semitism was the sole issue. A large number of ingeniously by size into an intricate pattern” Jews in Anders’s army defected as soon as the (161). Sanitary conditions were appalling, with army reached Palestine. Anders had the option inmates frequently forced to urinate and defecate of prosecuting the defectors: it was wartime and on the floors of the cells. defection was punishable by death. He chose to What was the situation of the Jews in the lands not do so. One of the defectors was Menachem occupied by the Soviets and what was, by and Begin, the future prime minister of Israel. large, their attitude toward the occupiers? Gross The younger Szer joined the Soviet-created writes the following about September 1939: Berling army, an organization entirely different “Jews greeted the Soviet army with joy. The from Anders’s army. He became an officer, but youth was spending days and evenings with the not before receiving training in Marxism- soldiers. . . . Jews received incoming Russians Leninism. He was in the Berling division when enthusiastically, they [the Russians] also trusted the Warsaw Rising of 1944 took place and the them” (Revolution from Abroad, 32). Gross also
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW quotes Celina Konińska: “It is hard to find did not destroy their families and force them to words to describe the feeling — this waiting and seek refuge in faraway countries. this happiness. We wondered how to express It is hard to empathize with others while one is ourselves — to throw flowers? To sing? To being unjustly treated, and Szer generally avoids organize a demonstration? How to show our accusing his native country of heinous crimes great joy? I think the Jews awaiting the Messiah against persons of Jewish descent. But there are will feel, when he finally comes, the way we paragraphs in the book that seem to be added by felt” (34). Szer’s father was not in that number; a copyeditor, rubbing in accusations of anti- he was a Bundist rather than a communist, was Semitism in Poland sponsored by the Catholic deeply suspicious of the Soviets and was Church. There is no question that old-fashioned eventually arrested by the NKVD. But the anti-Semitism existed all over Europe before the scenes described by Gross were common, and Second World War. In Poland it was the Polish Christian reaction to them predictable. particularly visible not because Poles were more What happened to Szer’s mother who stayed in anti-Semitic than Germans or Frenchmen, but Warsaw? We are slowly introduced to real anti- because the percentage of Jews among the Semitism, one sponsored by a free and population was ten times that of Germany and independent state (Germany) and unpunished by France. Thus the number of encounters between criminal law in that state. Szer’s mother was Christians and Jews was much more numerous killed in the Holocaust together with other than in other countries, and bullying in school or prewar friends and relatives. It was only toward other acts of sometimes criminal nastiness were the end of the war that Szer learned of the scale more abundant. Furthermore, as Szer mentions of murders not just sanctioned but organized by in the book, in prewar Poland only 20 percent of a free nation, i.e., Germany. I emphasize free, Jews bothered to learn Polish (21). A minority because citizens of a country under foreign that does not bother to learn the language of the occupation are not responsible for policies majority is going to be viewed with suspicion by forced on that country by the occupiers. the majority. Germany was not occupied by the Nazis: it Włodzimierz Szer came back to Poland in a generated the Nazis and then surrendered to Soviet military uniform, as did many other Jews them. After the war Szer came back to Poland that survived the war in the USSR and returned as a military man, and he was assigned to the either of their own volition or because they were city of Łódź where he also began his university designated by the Soviets to occupy important studies. Upon receiving his doctorate in positions in the Polish government and security biochemistry, he began to work for a military apparatus (Stefan Korboński, a Pole honored by establishment first in Łódź and later in Yad Vashem, writes in Poles and Jews in World Rembertów. He also married and had two War 2 that in the Ministry of Security the children. By the standards of Soviet-occupied minister and all directors of departments were of Poland, he and his wife Felusia were doing very Jewish background). For a crushing majority of well; however, life under communism involved Poles the Soviet uniform indicated “enemy.” so many restrictions that when an opportunity Those Polish partisans who were still active in came he emigrated with his family to the United the 1940s and `50s killed people who came to States. He was helped by Jewish relatives Poland in Soviet uniforms not because of their already in New York. His Polish Christian background but because they were perceived as colleagues bid him farewell with regret. serving the enemy. It is grossly unjust to accuse From the book there emerges a modest and those partisans of anti-Semitism. They honest man, a fine scholar uninterested in themselves were soon to be killed by the Soviet- politics and able to look at the world objectively. controlled security apparatus. One involuntarily thinks of the thousands of A particularly egregious accusation––again, it such men and women who would have been seems that it was inserted by an editor rather happy and productive citizens in the country of than by Szer himself––is directed against a saint their birth if politicians, in their mad criminality,
2098 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 of the Roman Catholic Church (canonized by theatrical and posttheatrical research. Dominika John Paul II) and a hero of Auschwitz, Fr. Laster makes clear from the outset that her Maksymilian Kolbe, coeditor of a prewar objective is to analyze as precisely as possible religious newspaper for the less-educated the complex nature of Grotowski's work through segment of the population. It is said that this an examination of his own perspective and that daily published anti-Semitic lies on its title page of his closest collaborators, especially Thomas in virtually every issue (75). I doubt that Szer’s Richards whom Grotowski designated as his editors have bothered to read this publication, heir. The challenge in doing so lies in the yet they allowed these allegations to stand. Their necessity of quoting these artists at length so as lack of familiarity with the subject shows in to avoid taking shortcuts by means of inevitably their confusing the alleged sequel to this daily reductive paraphrasing. Consequently the reader (Nasz Dziennik) with a Polish liberal paper is required to patiently and attentively follow the published in New York (Nowy Dziennik), not to author-guide as she skilfully navigates the mention neglecting the fact that the accused idiosyncratic terminology rooted in th practical priest (Fr. Rydzyk) has founded a chapel in investigation of performance. To some extent, Toruń dedicated to Poles who lost their lives then, the necessity to stay focused and remain helping Jews survive during the German vigilant, to take on the roles of witness and co- Holocaust. Jonny Daniels (“From the Depths”) participant, and to be open to the unknown is one of the promoters of this chapel. through a letting-go of habitual discursive reflexes that inhibit experiential inquiry, in order Such persistent attempts to present Poles as anti- to approach the practice this book seeks to Semites detract from the value of this book, explore. which is written in a level-headed and calm tone by a person who knows how to make fine Aware of the limitations of preestablished distinctions. Without these distinctions the theoretical frameworks when attempting to grasp horror of what the Soviets and the Nazis did in the subtleties, tensions, and contradictions that Central and Eastern Europe remains sustain this ever-evolving praxis, Laster boldly incomprehensible and unredeemable. It was asserts the importance of becoming immersed in “the milk of human kindness,” so hard to come the creative depths and multiple layers of by in hard times, that allowed some members of Grotowski's approach if one is to credibly assess the Szer family to live and survive. Throwing its artistic value and historical significance. She accusations at the minor players (and victims) of proposes investigating embodied memory, the two totalitarian states is not a good way to which she argues connects all the phases of deal with memory. ∆ Grotowski's research and that she links to body- memory, body-life, organicity, impulses, and
associations, key terms that recur throughout his Grotowski's Bridge Made of work. Grotowski asserts that “body-life goes beyond memoryˮ and encompasses potentialities Memory because it is linked to “an important experience, Embodied Memory, Witnessing and that occurred or that should take place ˮ (25). Transmission in the Grotowski Work Richards suggests that “the body is memory [since] all of our experiences have been lived by By Dominika Laster. Calcutta-London-New our bodyˮ (26). Laster specifies that they both York: Seagull Books, 2015. xviii + 163 pages. consider body-memory to be connected to “the Index, bibliography. ISBN 978-0857423177. totality of life experiences that are encoded in the bodyˮ and seek to rediscover a territory that Virginie Magnat precedes social forms of conditioning by creating “the conditions in which a deconditioningˮ can occur (27–28). his book will be of particular interest to T performance scholars and practitioners The posttheatrical period is marked by already familiar with Jerzy Grotowski's Grotowski's shift to the transgenerational
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January 2017 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW transmission of collective memory, as It might have been productive to consider the exemplified by the research he conducted for the extent to which Grotowski's understanding of “Theatre of Sourcesˮ in Poland and abroad, as the Haitian tradition also informs this conception well as for the “Objective Drama Projectˮ of relationality given that Vodou ritual processes developed at the University of California, Irvine. are experienced by practitioners as an embodied During this transitional time, Grotowski focused connection to their African ancestors, a on ritual performance and began to explore the phenomenon described by Western vibratory qualities of songs linked to the Haitian anthropologists as spirit possession. Indeed, as tradition. This was an area of inquiry that noted by Laster, Grotowski sought to explore became central to the final phase of his research this tradition through visits to Haiti, meetings known as “Art as vehicleˮ that he carried out at with Vodou practitioners, and collaborations his Italian Workcenter with Richards, whom he with Haitian artists. In the final chapter of her encouraged to reconnect with his Afro- book, which is the most provocative, she Caribbean ancestry through the practical scrutinizes various sources pointing to investigation of these songs. Laster explains this Grotowski's conviction that he was related to a shift by stating that for Grotowski what is Polish Legionnaire employed by Napoleon encoded in the body is “not limited to the Bonaparte for his colonial military campaign in cultural conditionings of one lifetime but Haiti and who chose instead to support the slave extends back through one's imagined ancestral uprising that led to independence. She goes on to line,ˮ and can be experienced as “a deep observe that beyond his connection to Haiti, connection that finds its expression in extremely “whether through real lineage or affective precise performative actionsˮ with the song kinship,ˮ Grotowski envisioned ancestry in a functioning as a means of remembering (45). very broad sense that “encompassed ancestors to Significantly, the realization of one's potential whom he could not draw any blood ties,ˮ hinges on the ability to rediscover this including playwrights such as Juliusz Słowacki connection in the here and now: “Organicity, and, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, with whom he aliveness, being in the moment, and entered in dialogue through his theatre remembering are all inextricably interwovenˮ productions (132). She argues that Grotowski’s (45). unorthodox conception of transmission through an imagined ancestral lineage “destabilizes Vigilance is another recurring theme that Laster romanticized notions of 'authentic' oral envisions as being pivotal to the periods of transmissionˮ (141), as evidenced by Richards's theater productions, participatory paratheatrical acknowledgment that he found a means of experiments, and ritual arts: “Vigilance is reconnecting to his “so-called African line of proposed as an alternative mode of being within tradition from a Polish man with a white beard, an action in which an expanded receptivity may in California and Italy, [who had] worked in replace the conventional understanding of both depth with practitioners from many culturesˮ the spectator as passive receptor and the (142). performer as the active agent of actionˮ (88). Becoming vigilant is about acquiring a Laster infers from her analysis that “while the heightened awareness, defined by Grotowski as coming into (one's own) being through the “the consciousness which is not linked to otherˮ is pivotal to the embodied research that language (the machine for thinking), but characterizes Grotowski's praxis, this work on Presenceˮ (96). Laster suggests that perhaps due oneself is actualized through “numerous and to his longstanding interest in Eastern complex lines of transmission conceived as a philosophies and the early Christian Gnostic multidirectional process of relationality with the tradition, Grotowski conceived of expanded (imagined) ancestorˮ (149). Having cogently receptivity as a form of relationality that binds demonstrated the interconnectedness of memory, vigilance, awareness, and presence, and that vigilance, witnessing, and transmission within transcends the boundaries between subject and Grotowski's “complex understanding of self- object, Self and Other (115). developmentˮ (149), Laster concludes her study
2100 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2017 by emphasizing that the embodied knowledge the Nobel Prize. There are economists like gained thereby is “rooted in practice [that] grew Ludwig Erhardt and masters of spirituality like intuitively and organically,ˮ an experiential St. Augustine. Three Polish persons are noted: mode of cognition whose validity is “impossible Marie Curie, Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko, and Capt. to either 'prove' or 'disprove' on a theoretical Witold Pilecki. One suspects the latter’s story of levelˮ (150). Yet she asserts that Grotowski’s “bravery beyond measure” would not have made practice-based research nevertheless articulates a its way into this book, were it not for Terry radical conception of the self that constitutes a Tegnazian and her Aquila Polonica Publishing “deliberate and literal unsettling of the House. boundaries between self and otherˮ whose O jedność Europy: Antologia polskiej XX- social, political and theoretical implications wiecznej myśli europejskiej (For the sake of deserve to be further explored. Europe’s unity: An Anthology of Polish writings Throughout her compelling argument about the on European unity), edited by Sławomir significance of embodied memory in Łukasiewicz. Introduction by Łukasz Machaj Grotowski’s contested legacy, Laster addresses and Marek Maciejewski. Warsaw: Ministry of issues of tradition, identity, transmission, and Foreign Affairs, 2015. 290 pages, photographs, creativity that are critical to understanding his index of names. ISBN 978-83-63743-38-3. work but have eluded conventional scholarship Hardcover. In Polish. that privileges theory over practice. She thereby rinted on expensive paper and lavishly opens up promising possibilities for future bound, this volume consists of eighteen investigations of Grotowski’s groundbreaking P essays written by Polish diplomats, politicians, yet largely underestimated contribution to historians, literary scholars, and assorted embodied practice as a way of knowing within activists of the twentieth century. In addition to the field of performance studies. ∆ the predictable “Poland and Europe” type of essay, the collection contains some worthwhile analyses of the political situation in Europe MORE BOOKS before and after World War II. Altogether, it seems more appropriate for freshmen and high Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of school students rather than as a voice in Courage, Character, and Conviction, by international debates. The reason is obvious: Lawrence W. Reed. Wilmington, DE: ISI none of the authors has wielded enough political Books (www.isibooks.org), 2016. xii + 279 power to be noticed by anyone outside his pages. Drawings of book subjects. ISBN 978-1- country. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 61017142-7. Paper. $12.00 plus postage from seems to specialize in this sort of book— the publisher. addressed to no one in particular, whose his is not an academic book, yet academics usefulness in education remains uncontested but T can benefit from reading it. It consists of the whose role as an international voice is dubious. life stories of forty remarkable individuals, from Citizens and Statesmen: An Annual Review of antiquity to the present day, whose lives spelled Political Theory and Public Life, vol. IX, “achievement” in diverse areas, from spirituality edited by Bradley C. S. Watson to economics, from physical to moral courage, ([email protected]). Latrobe, persistence, love of liberty––in short, all the Pennsylvania: Center for Polish and Economic features that human beings admire and consider Thought at Saint Vincent College, 2016. 200 heroic when served in large doses. The book pages. ISBN 978-0967371771. opens with Cicero and Cato the Younger, and ends with a person totally unknown: one Larry political and philosophical journal Cooper who spent twenty-eight years in jail for A published by a small college. Would that aggravated assault and other trespasses. Some every college in this country and in Poland Nobel Prize winners are included in the book, embarked on a similar enterprise. Vol. IX but not many––in particular, no writers who won contains articles on the place of religion in
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American public life, the Founders’ ABOUT THE AUTHORS understanding of the Constitution, the Federal Reserve Bank, and a review of Adam Bellow’s David Craig is a Professor of English at The State of the American Mind. Franciscan University of Steubenville. He also is the author of nine collections of poetry. Przywracanie pamięci (Restoring memory), by Adam Wierciński. 2nd ed. Opole: Opole Jude P. Dougherty is a Professor and Dean University Press, 1997. 153 pages. Emeritus of Philosophy at the Catholic Bibliography, drawings. ISBN 83-85678-79-4. University of America. The author of many Paper. In Polish. books and articles, he is presently Editor of The Review of Metaphysics. hile after the Second World War Poles W unquestionably surrendered Lithuanian, Roman Graczyk is a Polish journalist and Belarusan, and Ukrainian territories to the writer. He worked for Tygodnik Powszechny in nationalities that have claimed them, a good deal 1983–1991 and held the position of Editorial of Polish memories and culture is associated Board’s Secretary in 1988–1990. His books with these territories, acquired by the Polish include Cena przetrwania? SB wobec Tygodnika state by dynastic arrangements in the fourteenth Powszechnego (2011). century. These memories concern architecture, Virginie Magnat is an Associate Professor of universities founded by Polish kings, notable Performance at the University of British Polish families that lived there, and simply the Columbia. Her monograph Grotowski, Women, landscape and the land itself. This book taps into and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with these memories. Chapter after chapter, important Remarkable Women (Routledge 2014, events and personalities are recalled, especially http://www.routledge.com/9780415813594) and those that come from the formerly Polish its companion documentary film series, featured Lithuania. Leaders like Józef Piłsudski, poets on the Routledge Performance Archive, are such as Adam Mickiewicz and Czesław Miłosz grounded in four years of embodied research and came from families rooted in Lithuania for multi-sited fieldwork supported by two major centuries. It is not a question of genetic but research grants from the Social Sciences and cultural background. No matter where you were Humanities Research Council of Canada. born, the culture you embrace decides your nationality, and you have the right to reminisce James R. Thompson is Research Professor of about your fathers and grandfathers. The book Statistics at Rice University and author of does just that. fourteen books on statistical and historical subjects. Sweet Days and Sour, by Rafal Pomian. Ottawa: Baico Publishing Inc. ([email protected]), Bronisław Wildstein is a Polish novelist and 2016. 225 pages. ISBN 978-1-77216-065-9. journalist. His articles frequently appear in the Paper. leading Polish periodicals. fascinating novel about conemporary A China, fast-moving and amazingly knowledgeable about Chinese customs and life. The author has produced a thriller showing that the Chinese are subject to the same human vanities and emotions as the rest of us. A Chinese dictator decides to destroy the western world and he almost succeeds, but human emotions interfere. The author is a talented yet unknown novelist who deserves reviews in the We encourage our readers to look up the Sarmatian major media. Review Facebook Page. Facebook.com/SarmatianReview.
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