I don’t know if people know, but I have several WordPress blogs. (Must be something with the cool WordPress themes. Whenever I can’t decide on one I begin another blog!) One of them is brand new, and it’s meant to be about the Old (First) Republic of Poland that existed up to the late 18th century.

While I’m likely to ramble around the eras, I don’t mean for it to be a blog about the 19th and 20th centuries misery, but rather an attempt to show where we, as a nation, are coming from.

There was a very long time when Poles self-governed via democratic measures, and when many of our present attitudes were created. Since our history considerably differs from that in other European countries, often our present attitudes are misconstrued when being seen via the prism of those elsewhere.

I mean to begin with general stuff, like the borders, laws, the political system etc, but, in the end, I hope to focus on the society, which should explain how we see ourselves today. I want to write about women too, and how their lives differed, about our literature and culture, and about the various historical events or the lack of them. Incidentally, I think that Poland’s history is pretty uneventful, but I want to show the reasons behind it.

The blog is partly inspired by new historiography, in Poland and abroad. The way we see history of various nations is a mixture of world histories, political ideologies, and myths. Many myths about Poland are being deconstructed now. For one, because history often serves as a kind of appeasement, justification, and inspiration. Poles needed another kind of history when they fought for their independence, and they need another one now when they’re free again and they need to self-govern rather than complain. Similarly, more and more Jewish scholars turn to the Early Modern period in Poland, because the borders are open and archives are available, and because they too want to have a richer history of their nation than the short story of the Zionist movement (a pretty marginal development when one looks at the whole).  Lithuanians, too, begin to change their mind about the period, with the May 3 Constitution being now officially celebrated in both countries. Tatars, the only ancient Muslim minority in the Christian Europe, publicise their history too.

Revisionism in the domain is not limited to Poland. There are Brits who take a Whiggish or non-Whiggish approach for example, but it’s a new thing for Poland, and in a way more fascinating, because, while in the West only people’s motives are revised, the entire shape of Europe is being changed here, as well as various nations’ role in it.

In other words, what happens nowadays is a very interesting development in the academic approach to Poland’s history, with a broader and more impartial view than what was done before. It’d be a shame to miss it!

Go to Res Publica to read more.

That doesn’t work. If I don’t say what I think people are going to ascribe certain opinions to me and then argue with me against what they think I think.

So OK, to avoid confusion: I don’t mind pride parades. I think that gays, and all other people, should be allowed to voice their opinions in any manner they wish. I don’t like parades as such so I never join them. I don’t go to the feminist Manifas either, and I wouldn’t go to any other unless Poland is hijacked by some evil country and it’d be for its independence and against that country. Parades, in my view, are organised ‘against’ rather than ‘for’.

I don’t think that I’m alone in my view for the reasons stated in my previous post. I think that Poles, in general, don’t like parades because they have bad experiences. I never feel like “Hurray” about a parade. Rather it’s something like “Oh no, let’s avoid that part of town today”. It’s when they close the streets and you can’t get anywhere.

However, no matter whether I’m right or wrong in my assumption about the reason why Poles don’t like parades, one thing is certain: they really don’t like pride parades. And if I wrote about it it was not to discourage people from the parades in general, only to look for causes.

The attitude of Poles to gays is very bad. However, they mind the parades much more than they mind gays themselves, and that’s what I think deserves some thought if the gay movement is to achieve anything.

For the purpose of this post some terms should be defined:

Tolerance – to Poles it doesn’t mean approval. It means that they don’t like something but they are going to tolerate it. I.e. as long as you leave me alone I’ll leave you alone too.

Acceptation – is a full recognition of something as equally good even though it’s not what one chooses for oneself.

In this vein some Poles only tolerate other religions, by giving them equal rights and not showing them any interest, while others show full acceptance, i.e. Catholics and Muslims praying together in the intention of Islam, Catholics renovating old Jewish cemeteries, or Catholics and Greek-Orthodox believers blessing Easter eggs together.

The vast majority of Poles don’t accept gay relationships, but many more are ready to tolerate them. However, the situation doesn’t seem to be improving, but rather changes for the worse.

Gay Marriage

Gay Civil Union

Shared property, inheritance laws, one’s right to decide about their partner’s health etc.

As above plus tax benefits

* Gay Civil Union legislation as proposed in Sejm in 2003: Yes 34%; No 56%

As above plus children adoption

Tolerance

Parades

*54% agreed that the abolition of pride parade in Poznań was appropriate, 35% was of the opposite opinion

Gay Life Style Manifestation in Public

Any sympathy from people the parades received was due to their being abolished in Kraków, Warsaw and Poznań in 2005. It doesn’t mean that more people really likes them, rather that they think that they should be allowed as a matter of freedom of speech.

At the same time, the growing tolerance isn’t this kind of tolerance as in Holand for example, because while 60% of Poles are ready to tolerate gays, at the same time only 37% think that gays should be allowed to have sex!

Their tolerance is in accord with the teaching of the Catholic Church, and has close to nothing to do with the efforts of gay organisations in Poland:

Chastity and homosexuality from the Catholic Catechism

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,¹⁴¹ tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”¹⁴² They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

All that I can see is that back in April 2001 (before any parade) 58% of people were ready to accept gay civil unions, and 45% accepted such unions with tax benefits, while today the number is 25%. Nothing that is really important for gays improved, on the contrary, things get worse. So what I wanted to say is that perhaps, if people say over and over that they don’t like the parades, keeping them is not the best means of promotion.

Of course it is just one of many things that may be the cause. Gays too aren’t tolerant towards Catholics, so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the number of their enemies grows. And, naturally, many people simply wouldn’t accept any public appearance of gays. But, to be sure, not all of the people who don’t like parades are even Catholics, and as many as 50% of those who personally know gays and would give them various rights still oppose the parades. And, the vast majority of gays in Poland don’t even join them.

Yet, it is in gays’ best interest to meet with people. Only 15% of Poles says they know a homosexual person. Will the parades help change the situation?

Sources:

CBOS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

GfK Polonia 1, 2

During the decades of communism several times a year there was a great parade, with people carrying flags, banners, balloons, and colourful scarfs.

For the most part they looked something like this, with people going there just because there always was someone there checking the list.

But in larger cities, like Warsaw, there were even special shows performed by artists on platforms. There was music and the communist youth sang joyful songs.

The idea was to show the proud and happy nation that the People’s Republic of Poland was.

Naturally people hated them yet back then, and they were glad when the parades ended. Especially the May 1 parade that no one could have avoided. Parades are passe. Anyone who wants to make a difference in Poland has to come with something more creative than that.

Marek Kotański had his Chain of Pure Hearts, Jerzy Owsiak holds the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, and city mayors celebrate all the main national days by organising concerts, polonaises, new records breaking, battle enactments etc etc. Do anything but don’t parade.

Who still parades in Poland? Communists on May 1, feminists on March 8, and gays on May 1 (out of all days!) in the years 2001-2003, and only since 2005 they moved it to later dates in May or June. Needless to say all three have very little support, and likely it doesn’t help that the only political party actively cheering both gays and feminists are the post-communists.

It seems rather obvious that the mental link that the majority of Poles (largely disinterested in the postulates of the three anyway) will make is going to be highly unfavourable. That’s what I was trying to explain to Pawel, who believes that Pride Parades are just the thing because they help in the West so well.

To my arguments he said:

OMG I would LOVE to see Stalin in drag, Brezhnev and Honecker kissing and waving rainbow flags… effeminate miners and farmers holding hands:) Rosa Luxembours with moustache… That would be so fun to watch such a communist parade!

Actually it’s not difficult to do, and I don’t think that Pawel would shock anyone if he used these pictures during the parades. After all the majority of Poles still remember the images very well.

Brezhnev and Honecker kissing:

although Brezhnev and Gierek look so much more romantic:

Stalin in drag, promoting gay marriage to boot:

It’s not as easy with Rosa Luxemburg. Either she linked moustache to Sarmatism, or nature didn’t want to cooperate, but I couldn’t find such a picture. Actually I think that lesbians find the idea of imagining them with moustache quite offensive, but what do I know.

Yet, nothing beats the farmer kissing his liberator – an image that Poles love!

Wikipedia gives this description to it:

Peasant kissing a soldier of the “Army of Liberation” on a Soviet propaganda poster issued after the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland. According to Soviet propaganda, the Red Army entered Poland to liberate and protect the “Ukrainian-Belarussian brothers”. The text reads: “Our army is an army that liberates workers”, signed “J. Stalin”.

In other words, perhaps it’s worth considering that certain methods and images that in the West are interpreted in favour of gays will bring the exact opposite effect in Poland. And indeed it seems they do if one believes the opinion polls.

ETA: This post appeared to stir some emotions. People assumed that I wanted to criticise gays and prevent them from public appearance. It’s not the case. Read my other post where I try to explain why I think that the parades aren’t the best form of promotion. It doesn’t follow I’m against any promotion of gay culture. I’m just suggesting a better (more effective) one should be found.

Posted by Sylwia

It’s not true, at least not in Polish. While a man may aspire to having many women, and other men may envy him, women and some other men may call him words. I’ve seen it done many times, and those words aren’t new, which means it was done in the past, long before women were granted equal rights. Moreover, those words tend not to have their female equivalents, so their target were always men.

Some of the mildest ones are bawidamek and flirciarz.

Bawidamek is someone who entertains the ladies, or rather too many of them. It’s not yet said that he sleeps with them, but his judgement is scorned for lack of discernment. At the same time the word is a diminutive, which is condescending in itself.

Flirciarz means ‘flirt’, and this one has a female equivalent flirciara. Both denote the same kind of behaviour, however, I think it’s less scornful in case of a woman. She is only not serious in her feelings and may be deceiving men without giving them anything, while he is laughed at for taking too much effort and lowering himself to a level a real man would not stoop to. Words like donżuan from Don Juan, and kasanowa from Casanova can have the same meaning.

Pochlebca – flatterer – deprecates for lack of dignity. Its female form pochlebczyni is rarely used if ever.

Alfons – pimp – is a really harsh one, and its diminutive alfonsik is pure derision.

Then there are these that are counted on undermining a man’s sexuality and potency directly.

Lowelas from Lovelace – the fallen hero of Richardson’s “Clarissa” – took on its own life in Polish. Clearly the rapist was laughed at here, as to be called a lowelas in Poland means to be an impotent, indolent libertine. A man who brags of his contests and fancies to be very successful with women, but in fact both his contests and prowess are imaginary. Lowelas is a ridiculous fop no woman would ever go to bed with. Likely Poles assumed that if Lovelace were a man he wouldn’t have to stoop to rape in order to have sex at all.

Which also brings another interesting notion to mind. There are no sexual predators in the Polish classical literature (or at least I really cannot think of one Pole abusing a woman in a Polish novel, drama or poem from the 18th or 19th century), while there are plenty of them in the English one.

Jebaka is a man who has sex for sex’s sake. That is one who’ll engage in a sexual intercourse with about anything.

Gawędziarz-jebaka is a mixture of jebaka and lowelas. A man who has sexual adventures one would rather not hear about and they exist only in his own tales.

Przydupas – ‘near one’s arse’. That’s a truly sore case – a man taken by a woman in order to provide her sexual satisfaction. This one shows that the double standard might not be as universal. For example two contemporaries – Maria Walewska and Stanisław August Poniatowski, king of Poland – were met with an exactly opposite treatment. Maria Walewska is a national heroine for becoming Napoleon’s mistress, Stanisław August is Poland’s disgrace for becoming a przydupas of Catherine the Great. Walewska’s story is romanticised, Stanislaw August – well, Poles didn’t even want to bury him properly, and that in Poland speaks volumes. Even though the king is applauded for many other things. We never speak of the tsarina as the king’s lover. It’s always he who submitted himself to her.

Kochaś – although generally meaning ‘love stricken’ can also be used in the sense of przydupas.

Utrzymanek is a male equivalent of ‘kept mistress’.

The above three are fairly often used by women gossiping among themselves, so men, beware!

Finally there’s also męska prostytutka – male prostitute. This phrasal noun, although not a diminutive, is especially denigrating by not granting men the male form of it. In Polish, where every word can have either its male or female form it’s not a problem to call a man of this profession simply prostytut. Yet this female form doesn’t allow men to escape any of the connotations the word might carry in reference to woman.

All the above words refer to the image of proper masculinity. True, a man could have even 10 lovers, but he should be at least discreet about it, and a contest alone is not enough – he should show some discernment, because the choice of his lovers speaks about him.  He should not allow a woman to use him without being offered at least partnership, and his courtship should be limited to one woman at once. He should also be able to provide for himself. Otherwise a man becomes a boy, is emasculated, and his dignity and reputation suffer.

I don’t encourage anyone to undermine men’s masculinity, but, for example, lowelas is an archetype in the Polish literature. Pumpkin from Aleksander Fredro’s “Zemsta” (The Revenge) is so famous a character that when Andrzej Wajda proposed the role to Roman Polański he accepted it at once.

Are there English equivalents? What do they mean and how are they supposed to be offensive? Is the image of man the same? And why on earth the English invented the archetype of sexual predator? Even vampires and aliens are sexual predators in the Anglo-Saxon culture. Whenever English speaking people talk about libertines they put emphasis on any promiscuous sex, including rapists as well. How the word came to be so misconstrued?

Posted by Sylwia

Przyjaciel is like one’s shirt – “close to your body”. The word jaźń means ego, self, so przy-jaźń is “near your self”, and ciało is body, flesh, so przy-ja-ciel is “the body near your self”. In Polish it’s really safer to think of friendship as a love without the sexual aspect, because it encompasses all of its elements, with the exception of eros.

Kolega is like all of the cloths of the same kind. All shirts, skirts or all trousers, or sometimes an intermediate between them, i.e. if someone fancies that kilts are either like skirts or trousers. So it can be anyone with whom one’s on equal terms in some domain. It can be friendship – the equality of minds, but it can be school, work etc. When a parent says to his 14 years old daughter “zaproś kolegów” he means that she should invite her schoolmates – people in the same age. If an 18 year old boy shows up the father might say the boy is too old to be her kolega. However, at work age doesn’t matter, so one can say koledzy z pracy, or address them all as Koleżanki i koledzy meaning Ladies and Gentlemen in reference to the narrow group. Kolega po fachu is someone doing the same kind of job, no matter where. Every translator all over the world is Pinolona’s kolega po fachu even if she doesn’t know them.

Znajomi is like all cloths, no matter their kind. When one uses znajomi in plural it’s because one’s koleżanki and koledzy rarely are from the same group. I.e. one can go to the movies with three people: one from one’s school, one from work, and one – a private friend. The first would be kolega ze szkoły, the second koleżanka z pracy, and the third just koleżanka or even przyjaciółka, but they can’t be all grouped as trousers or skirts. And there’s always a chance that one of them brings someone new, and then one wouldn’t call him kolega at all. On the other hand one would say that one went there with koledzy ze szkoły. In this case one doesn’t even need to like them all. They just happen to go to the same school.

Znajomy is also anyone one barely knows. If a lady who sells obwarzanki tells me a story, and I repeat the story to someone else, I’ll say that znajoma sprzedawczyni told me…

Literally znajomy means “someone I know”.

All three have their verbs. One can poznać, zakolegować się or zaprzyjaźnić się with someone else. There’s also zaznajomić się that is rarely used in reference to people, although would be well understood. It usually means that one learns the content of something, a book for example. One can “zaznajomić się z tematem” meaning one knows what a topic is about, without necessarily going into any detailed knowledge. The English equivalent is familiarize. Poznać kogoś means to get to know someone, without stating the level of the knowledge. Zakolegować się means to create an equal relationship on a certain level. Zaprzyjażnić się means to become friends, and must include liking the other person, not just knowing him or her.

The word znajomy doesn’t hint on one’s closeness to the person at all. It can be one’s best friend as well as someone one met only once. One’s hairdresser is one’s znajoma, as well as one’s mother’s neighbour, and someone one has known for years and been close to, and one’s lover can be one’s znajomy too. The use of the word depends not only on one’s relationship with the person who is the subject of the conversation, but also on one’s relationship with the person one is talking to. It’s a defence against “kiss and tell”, or “too much information”, because if you’re speaking to someone you barely know you don’t really want to inform them that this guy is your lover, and that girl is your life enemy. You simply conceal the relationship and the emotional part of it, because it’s an umbrella word that can mean either your pants or your overcoat.

When talking to a stranger one uses the word znajomy most often, and defines the various relationships referred to more narrowly only when one wishes to or feels safe to do that. When someone asks you where did you get that great painting from, you say that your znajomy is a painter. Now, it’s Poland, so it means that znajomi znajomych do favours to each other, but one can refuse a znajomy, while one would never refuse a przyjaciel, so you say znajomy because you don’t want to hear in the next sentence “Super! Możesz mi taki załatwić?” (Great! Can you get me one?) If you said przyjaciel there’d be no return. Znajomy gives you the buffer, so you can come up with a white lie, and say you don’t know the painter that well, and it was given to you in return for some favour or on some special occasion etc. Or even you can suggest to ask the painter how much a painting like that would cost. Something you wouldn’t propose between two przyjaciele, because money in friendship is a taboo. However, even from your kolega the person you’re talking to would expect some discount. Otherwise one can go to a gallery and just buy one. And if they ever discover they didn’t receive a discount they’ll consider it your failure. So znajomy is safer for all purposes, especially with people who assume their own relationship with you is closer than you think it is.

Yet, if the person you’re speaking of is present you’ll use kolega, because you won’t pretend you don’t know them. That of course refers only to people with whom you’re on first name terms. Pan/Pani means a deference existing, no matter one’s age, genre, or common work. You’ll always call him znajomy, and you’ll always speak of him in his presence as Pan Tadeusz, Pan Kowalski etc. Note also that we use koleżanka instead of using the first name. I.e. when I’m talking to Pani Kowalska about my friend Małgosia who stands beside us, I’ll use koleżanka instead of Małgosia or I’ll add Pani before her name, because Pani Kowalska is not on first name basis with either of us. It doesn’t matter much when one’s very young, and so one’s addressed by their first name by everyone anyway, but it begins to matter with time, when one begins their professional career and doesn’t want to be addressed in a too familiar way anymore.

Then there are the stages of narrowing the meaning. Per rule Poles won’t narrow it if they can help it. So znajomy is safer than kolega, and kolega is safer than przyjaciel. However, there are situations when one has to narrow it like the one above. And most likely a good friend will always be called koleżanka in a conversation with another friend, although she might be dubbed znajoma in a conversation with a stranger.

The word przyjaciel is used when the conversation calls for giving your motivation. I.e. you say that you’re tired, but your znajomy throws a party and you have to go. Someone asks whether you can refuse, and you say no, he’s my przyjaciel. You might never call him that in other circumstances, and he may be even unaware that you consider him your przyjaciel, but in this case this one word is enough for all of the reasons why you can’t refuse. If he’s not your przyjaciel, but you have other reasons, you’d say that he’s your good kolega and he helped you in other circumstances, and you know that he really cares that you came, so you need to go. You don’t want to disappoint him. That takes much longer, but if he’s not your przyjaciel, you need to have other motivation in order to put yourself under the torture.

The narrowing stages are:

• znajoma sprzedawczyni is a seller you know – you know her only as a seller, but not privately
• znajoma ze sklepu is a seller with whom you’ve had some private chats, but you still know her mostly as a seller
• znajoma, która pracuje w sklepie is someone you know privately and happens to work in a store – your relationship can be slight, or she can be your best friend, you keep the person you’re speaking with in the dark
• koleżanka ze studiów is someone you know from your university, but you don’t say how well, and you can always call her znajoma ze studiów as well; koleżanka suggests that she’s at least your fellow student, while znajoma could be a secretary from the rector’s office
• koleżanka alone is someone you know privately, and you hint that she’s closer than znajoma or koleżanka z… but still leave some details unsaid
• so koleżanka, która pracuje w sklepie can help you find some great stuff but she doesn’t need to be your dobra koleżanka
• bardzo dobra koleżanka is practically a friend for all purposes only that you don’t use the word przyjaciółka, and usually she’d be called just koleżanka anyway, but you can say it when you want to add your motivation and still avoid the word przyjaciółka
• and przyjaciółka is the word used rarely, either to add motivation to your choices, to tell a story about your special relationship, or to let your best friend know that you consider her your best friend, but overusing it is like bragging, and your friend may not wish to be bragged about; it’s especially tricky when your friend is of the opposite gender and your repeating that he’s your przyjaciel to others can ruin his love life designs along with your friendship

A stranger who sees you with someone else will refer to her as your koleżanka, without assuming any closer relationship. If a stranger sees you with a man and speaks of him as Twój chłopak, it means he crosses the line, unless he saw the two of you kissing. Saying przyjaciel would be only one step less, but still too much.

However, people who are in a love relationship are usually open about it, so you could call your boyfriend mój chłopak even while talking to a stranger, and certainly you should do that while talking to people you know better. He might take offence if he ever learns you did not, assuming that you downplay the relationship.

Here Polish is short, because it lacks the English word partner in reference to people living together. While the words partner or partnerka can be used in this meaning, it might be confusing, because partner can mean a partner in business, dance or sex. It’s the same as in English, but I think that English is more accustomed to the use of the word in the meaning of concubinage than Polish is. People will often say narzeczony or narzeczona (fiancé or fiancée) no matter whether they’re engaged, or even mąż or żona (husband or wife) when they’re not married.

The first can be done in a humorous way while talking to friends even when the two people don’t live together, but the latter is used only while talking to strangers. Similarly to the case with znajomy it’s a simple way to define one’s relationship without going into details. I.e. a man can say that his wife will be home to deal with everything in his name, meaning she has all of the permissions needed, without explaining whether they’re legally married or not and why. When you rent a room for a weekend in mountains and the hostess asks if the man is your husband it’s not to make sure you two are one flesh in the eyes of God, only to ask you whether she should put you in a double bed without enquiring whether you’re actually shagging the man.

The narrower words are used more often when someone wants to scorn you. “Ale z Ciebie przyjaciółka!” means that someone considers you have no right to refuse. “Ale z Ciebie koleżanka!” means that someone thinks you haven’t played fair. “To mają być przyjaciele!?” means that a third party thinks that you invested in those people much more than they deserve. “Koledzy!” said with derision, means that they’re mean pigs who tell on you to your boss.

Generally Poles aren’t very eager to familiarize too quickly, because once they do there’s no return. It’s just safer to take the longer path. One can always become one’s przyjaciel later, but one cannot revert to being his znajomy without becoming his enemy. Similarly, while talking to someone else they don’t open all of their cards at once. They wait and see how much they want to tell.

Posted by Sylwia

Although it’s not easy to translate something so culturally specific, Maciej Stuhr’s “Lektor” should be understood to anyone who knows even very little of Polish.

Lektor in itself is particular. The majority of foreign films in Polish TV are neither subtitled or dubbed, but read aloud by a ‘lektor’.

This show parodies the fact that English swearing words tend to be omitted in translation, which, in itself, is a curious cultural occurrence, since Poles are much more lenient in censuring sex and nudity than Americans or even Brits, but much more strict when it comes to curses and violence.

(In case you need a translation from Polish it’s provided below.)

Translation:

- This show is dedicated to translators of dialogues in American movies.

- Brooklyn, NY, 11:48 pm.

- Gosh, man!

- What the heck are you doing here?

- Not your snotty business.

- Silence, silence!

- Go away.

- Terefere.*

- Terefere you too.

- &*V@! The text is unreadable.

* Terefere dudki is something children say in a silly banter about who’s right or wrong. Perhaps an English equivalent would be when someone puts one’s hands against one’s ears, saying “I can’t hear you”.

We sat in a small restaurant in Białowieża when I translated from Polish my short conversation with a waitress:

- What will you have?

- Pancakes for me and a salad for my colleague.

My friend asked why I didn’t call her “my friend”, to which I began explaining the difference between przyjaciółka and koleżanka in the Polish language, and as it appeared just now I quite failed in it.

Thankfully I found this post at Polish Blog that quite proved my innocence, but I could lose a friend over a language incompatibility.

Poles almost never use the words przyjaciel or przyjaciółka, but all dictionaries translate them as friend – a word used in English so liberally it almost means nothing.

There are only three people I’d call my przyjaciele in an intuitive way: a girl whom I’ve known from sandbox (longer than my conscious memory ranges in fact), a classmate from my primary school and a girl who’s a year older but also from my primary school. All three are closer to me than 99% of the people I’m related to.

There was one more person but he got scratched from the list some ten years ago.

Then there are the people I met in lyceum out of whom two might be called my przyjaciele at one point, but one got scratched from the list some ten years ago as well. So the overall list consists in 4 names.

When in my 20s I met another boy who might be called my friend, but since I’ll never have an opportunity to go with him through so much as with the others I apply the word much more carefully.

And then there is my American friend with whom I’m very close, and we’ve been talking on IM daily for several years now, and yet I called her koleżanka.

In truth, due to our frequent communication, for several years I’ve been closer with my American friend than the remaining five Poles, but a Pole needs several years to even apply the word przyjaciel. When I go to cinema with my przyjaciółka and her boyfriend, I’ll say that I went there with znajomi (acquaintances) even though I’ve known her boyfriend for years and I like him a lot. We just don’t use the word so easily.

Moreover, people don’t usually say that someone is their przyjaciel while talking to strangers, so even if I sat in the Białowieża restaurant with my childhood przyjaciele I’d still use the word koledzy. Przyjaźń is an intimate relationship, even though platonic, so boasting of it to strangers is like boasting of sex.

There are also other aspects. For a man to call a girl his przyjaciółka implies that there’s more than just friendship between them, and although he can do that to emphasise the existance of a deep friendship, most likely he’d have to add tylko przyjaciólka – nothing more than a friend, or people would assume there’s a sexual relationship as well. Some men call their female friends by the masculine przyjaciel in order to avoid the confusion.

My American friend took it to heart, as apparently it’s offensive not to be called a friend by someone who’s close to you. I made an impression of a person who wants to keep her at a distance. At the same time, the majority of Poles will thank you for not calling them your przyjaciele. It just comes with such a huge responsibility people don’t want the burden apart from very few exceptions. It’s more than a loan, it’s like usury. You get a lot of dough, but you may be sure you’ll never be able to pay back.

Why then dictionaries translate such a loaded word into English as something used so commonly as “friend”? If I didn’t learn the word as such back in my teen years I’d never make the blunder. It should be said that the word doesn’t have an English equivalent, while friend should be translated as kolega/koleżanka which it really is. In English one can’t call too many people one’s friends, in Polish one can’t call przyjaciel too few of them.

And don’t even get Poles started on the word ‘love’!

The mystery of Ireland’s worst driver

Details of how police in the Irish Republic finally caught up with the country’s most reckless driver have emerged, the Irish Times reports.

He had been wanted from counties Cork to Cavan after racking up scores of speeding tickets and parking fines.

However, each time the serial offender was stopped he managed to evade justice by giving a different address.

But then his cover was blown.

It was discovered that the man every member of the Irish police’s rank and file had been looking for – a Mr Prawo Jazdy – wasn’t exactly the sort of prized villain whose apprehension leads to an officer winning an award.

In fact he wasn’t even human.

“Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence,” read a letter from June 2007 from an officer working within the Garda’s traffic division.

“Having noticed this, I decided to check and see how many times officers have made this mistake.

“It is quite embarrassing to see that the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities.”

The officer added that the “mistake” needed to be rectified immediately and asked that a memo be circulated throughout the force.

In a bid to avoid similar mistakes being made in future relevant guidelines were also amended.

And if nothing else is learnt from this driving-related debacle, Irish police officers should now know at least two words of Polish.

As for the seemingly elusive Mr Prawo Jazdy, he has presumably become a cult hero among Ireland’s second largest immigrant population.

I bet he has! Knowing Poles, it’s very likely they have actually told the policemen that it’s their very name. Perhaps the 51st just wasn’t able to do it with straight face.

The Irish police might want to learn a thing or two about the Polish grammar. Female first names always end with an ‘a’. That’s the law! Male first names tend to end with a consonant.

Words ending with an ‘o’ indicate the neutral gender, so it’s neither he nor she, only it. Dziecko – baby, mleko – milk, miasto – city, ciasto – cake, prawo – law.

The one exception worth bothering with is Mieszko, however, the majority of guys boasting of this name look something like this.

Make sure he doesn’t carry a sword behind the passenger’s seat.

Permis de Conduire printed at the top of the licence isn’t a name either, even if some fancied it’s an Earl Permis of Conduire.

The Irish police might also want to check how many times an individual named Dowód Osobisty (Personal ID) caused them all kinds of troubles.

Rzeczpospolita Polska is not a woman, even though some claim to the contrary.

Caution: Gregorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz could be a real name, but there exists a great danger that its owner is charged with all possible diversions, including the direct outburst of WWII. Make sure he’s not similar to this man.

According to George Sand and George Brandes Forefathers’ Eve was the greatest realisation of the Romantic drama theory, among such works as Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Manfred by George Gordon Byron

The original is written in the elegant thirteen syllables rhyme used by Polish romanticists. I didn’t even attempt imitating it, the translation reflects only on the content. Similarly, I didn’t use the play writing manner of marking who speaks before each sentence. I transformed it into prose instead. It is far from perfect, but to my knowledge no other English translation is available.

Forefathers’ Eve, Dziady in Polish, is a feast performed on the eve of All Saints’. Its equivalent in the Western world is Halloween that is stripped of its original spiritual dimension. Since Poland has always been a multireligious country some pagan traditions were never suppressed, merging with Christianity instead. Forefathers’ Eve was especially popular in the eastern parts of the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth. Today this region is in Belarus, where the tradition is still alive. The people who perform the rites in Mickiewicz’s rendition are Greek-Catholics.

Parts I, II, and IV were influenced by Byron, and are perhaps the most similar to the Gothic style in English literature within the Polish romantic writing.

At the end I added annotations mixed with elements of Mickiewicz’s biography, his views, some people from his acquaintance, and his feminist attitude.

~~~~~

Forefathers’ Eve

Part II

1823

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

The shaman entered the chapel, ordering its doors locked. Hurrying people to quench the candles, shut the windows deaf, cutting out the white beam of the moonlight.

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

The people gathered around a coffin, and the shaman started his rites:

“The souls of Purgatory! In any side of the world: whether you are burning in tar, freezing at the bottom of a brook, or for a severer punishment you are implanted into austere wood, while being bit by embers of a stove you cry mournfully and moan. Each of you hurry to join our herd! Let the herd meet. We are having Forefathers’ Eve!

“Descend into the holy place; where the alms, prayers, food and beverages await.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Give me a fist of the distaff; I fire it, and you, as soon as the small flame shoots up, drive it with your light breaths. Like this. Like this. Go on. Go on. Let it burn in the air.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“First you, with light souls, who at this vale of darkness, storms, misery, pain and crying, shone and burnt just as the fist of distaff. Those of you, who in the windy maze did not fly to heavenly gates, we call with lit gesture, exhort.”

Tell us what is it that you miss. What you want. What you need.

“Look, ah, look up. What is it shining there under the vault? Here two children flutter with their golden feathers. Just as a leaf with a leaf in waft, they spin under the church’s crypt. As a dove with a dove on a tree, just a cherub’s game with his kin.”

One of the angels turned to a peasant woman standing in the crowd.

“To mama, we fly to mama. Why, mom, you do not recognise Joe? It is me, Joe, and my sister Rose. We are now flying in Eden. There is better there than at home. Look, our heads in golden glow, dresses out of the beams of dawn, and butterflies’ wings adorn our shoulders. Everyday we have another toy, wherever we stand grass grow, and wherever we touch a flower blossoms, but though we have everything aplenty, we are bothered by boredom and fears. Mom, the way to Heaven is closed to your dears.”

“What do you need, little soul, to get to heaven’s door? Do you ask for God’s glory? Or perhaps a sweet reward? There are donuts, cake, milk, berries. Whatever is it that you want?”

“Nothing, there is nothing we need. We are unhappy with the earthly sweets. All my life I knew no grief. Caresses, bounties, plays. To sing, jump, run in the fields. All my work was to gather flowers for Rose, and hers to dress her dolls. We came for Forefathers’ Eve. Not for prayers. Not for feast. We ask for two grains of gall, and the deed so small will be enough for all. Listen, and heed the advice, for Godly command says one who never knew bitterness will not know Heavenly happiness.”

“Angel, little soul! What you wanted you have got. And now go away with God. You do not need victuals or drinks. Leave us in peace. Begone, begone!

“The terrible night is coming. Close the door and padlock it. Hold aloft the torches. Place the kettle filled with vodka in the middle of the room and on the signal of my walking stick, let the vodka catch fire.”

It burst, boiled, and went out.

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Now, you, the heaviest souls, chained to this vale of crime together with body and soul. Although the angel of death is calling you, your life cannot tear away from your bodily agony. If such a severe punishment can be eased by people a bit, and save you from the infernal hollow, to which you are so close, come. We call you, we exhort. Come through your element. Through the bonfire!”

Tell us what it is that you miss. What you want. What you need.

Behind the window a voice was heard, “Hey, ravens, owls, eagles! You cursed gluttons! Let me go to the chapel. Let me take at least two steps.”

“What a ghost, what a monster! Can you see the phantom? Pale like an old bone. Smoke and lighting in his mouth. His eyes shine like coals in ashes.”

From behind of the window the voice called again, “Children! Do you not know me? Look at me closely! I am your master. It was my village. Today, hardly the third year is gone since you put me in my tomb. Ah, too heavy is God’s hand! I am in the powers of bad ghosts. I suffer terribly. I am the subject of eternal hungers. And who will feed me? The greedy birds yank my body. There is no end to my tortures!”

“What is needed for you, miserable soul, to spare you this sore fate? Do you ask for Heaven’s glory or the Holy Matrimony? We have food and drink. Pray, what do you need to get to Heaven’s gates?”

“Heaven? Your profanities are absurd. No! I do not want to Heaven. I only want my soul to leave my body. Hell is better than continuous wandering with impure ghosts upon the earth, watching the marks of old joys, memories of old life. From sunrise to sunset and from sunset to sunrise, agonising from hunger and thirst, and feeding the greedy birds.

“Unfortunately my sentence says that till one of you, my serfs, feeds or waters my ragged body, I must carry my condemned soul in it. Please, just one drop of water or two seeds of wheat.”

The night birds interrupted, “In vain he cries and begs. Here, we, owls, ravens and eagles, once your servants, starved to death, will eat the food, will drink the water. Even if you hold it in your teeth we will use our claws to rip. You knew no mercy, master. Today we know no mercy. When we eat all your food we will get to you.”

The raven proceeded, “You do not like starving! Do you remember how one Autumn I came into your garden? The pears were ripe, the apples red. Three days I had no food in my mouth. I took several fruits, but your gardener made havoc and chased me with dogs as if I were a wolf. You made a case. And about what? The fruits that God gave to people free like water and fire? But you wanted to hold a performance. Called people to come and watch. Each of my bones was beaten severely! You knew no mercy, master!”

The owl added, “You do not like starving! Do you remember how during the severest winter I stood with my child at your gates. ‘Master!’ I called out in tears, ‘have mercy on orphans. My husband long dead. Give us allowance!’ You told your servant to drive us away. He pushed me with child to snow. Beaten and cold I could find no shelter, I froze with my child along the road. You knew no mercy, master!”

The birds joined, “Hey, owls, ravens, eagles, let us know no mercy as well! Let us rip the food. And when the food ends, let us rip the body to tatters. Let the bare bones show!”

“There is no help for me,” the phantom said. “You offer the dishes for nothing. Not for me the Forefathers’ Eve. I have to suffer for centuries. Justified God’s sentence is. Who was not a human even once, cannot be helped by humans.”

“Since there is nothing we can do for you, go away, you wretch. You do not take victuals or drink. Leave us in peace. Begone, begone!”

The phantom disappeared, and the shaman held out his stick, “Give me, friends, this wreath on the end of my stick. I fire the blest herbs. Up smoke. Up gleams!”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Now you, the middle ghosts, who at this vale of darkness and storms lived with people together, but free from human flaws. You lived not for us. Not for the world. Just as these savouries and mallows, no fruit from them – not a flower. Weaved into fragrant garlands, they are hanging high on the wall. This high, ladies, you held your eye and bosom. Thee, who till now, with her wing pure, did not pass the Heavenly doorway. With this light and incense, we call you. We exhort.”

Tell us what it is that you miss. What you want. What you need.

“What is it? The icon of Madonna? The angelic form? Just like a gleaming rainbow runs through clouds to a lake’s waters, such is she glowing in the chapel’s space. Her white robe encircles her legs, whips of hair with which breezes toy, bilberries glitter in her smile, but there is a tear of calamity in her eye.

“Flowery wreath on her head, a little twig in her hand, a lamb runs before her, a butterfly flies over her. She calls the lamb endlessly, chases the butterfly with the twig, but they evade her.”

The girl said, “I used to, in the mornings of Spring, wander through forests endlessly. Immersed in my songs and musings, I would not give a thought to the living. Once a boy, for a pair of doves, wanted to kiss my mouth. A gentleman offered me his hand and heart, but I only laughed. Yes, I was a carnal loveliness, but even at my age of twenty years I refused matrimony. I died not knowing the earthly bliss.

“I lived in the world, but not for the world! My thoughts too winged and never touched the common grounds. Chasing the breeze, flowery leaves, never a lover. I enjoyed listening to the men’s words of praise, but I loved none of them.

“Now, after my death, I do not comprehend what is happening to me. I am glowing with strange fire. Though I amuse myself at my will. I fly where the breeze takes me. Nothing saddens me. Nothing pains me. Where does the boredom come from?

“I am longing for someone at every rustle. Ah, and I am always alone! I am sorry, but the wind is endlessly lifting me like a feather, wafting me. I do not know whether I am from this or that world. Wherever I go the wind is always blowing me away. And so, amongst the timid wave, flying the eternal road, either rise up to the heaven or touch the land I cannot.

“What do you need, pretty soul, to get to Heaven’s door? Do you ask for God’s glory? Or perhaps a sweet reward? There are donuts, cake, milk, berries. Whatever is it that you want?”

“Nothing, there is nothing I need. Let the boys come to me. Let them catch my hands. Let them pull me to the ground. Let me frolic with them. Because listen and heed the advice, according to Godly command those who did not touch the ground even once can never go to Heaven.”

The shaman saw the men running to her, “You run in vain. Those are only mere shadows. In vain she offers her hands. The wind carries her away.

“Now I call all the souls together with my last command! For you is the tiny meal. I throw fists of poppy and lentils into every corner of the chapel. Take what you want. What you miss. What you need.

“It is time to open the chapel’s door. Light the candles. Midnight is gone. The rooster crows. The sacrifice is at its end, and the girl needs to go away.

“Stop! One more ghost!”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Look, the floor is falling, the pale wraith arises. He takes steps to the shepherdess, stands at her side. He turns his pale countenance to her, wild and saddened, drowned completely in her eyes. Look, ah, look at his heart! He pointed out his heart to the girl, but did not speak a word.

“What do you need, young soul, to get to Heaven’s door? Do you ask for Heaven’s glory, or the Holy Matrimony? There are donuts, cake, milk, berries. Whatever is it that you want?”

The wraith was silent.

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Answer me, you pale wraith. Why, he is silent?

“Since you detest the mass and pierogi, go with God. You did not want meal or drink. Let us be. Begone, begone!

“Goodness! What a wraith. He does not go away, he does not speak!

“You soul, damned or blest. Leave the holy rites! Here is the open floor. Take your return road, or I will curse you in the name of God.”

The shaman paused, “Go away. Cross forests. Cross rivers. Begone for ages!”

The wraith did not move.

“Goodness, what is it? He is silent and does not disappear! In vain I ask, in vain I curse. He is not afraid of my words. Give me the sprinkler from the altar… No difference! The tormented soul stays, speechlessly dumb. Immovable, like a stone out of a tomb.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“This is beyond human understanding! Shepherdess, do you know this person? There is something horrid in it. Who are you mourning? Your husband and kids are well. Why, you do not say a word?! Why are you smiling? Why? What is so joyful about him?

“Give me the stole and the blessed candle. I will light it, I will consecrate… It is no use…

“Take the shepherdess out of the chapel.

“Why are you smiling, why? What is so charming about him?

“Goodness, the wraith follows her. Where we take her he is there.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

~~~~~

Some notes:

Forefathers’ Eve is a strongly political drama, and was censured both by the 19th century Russian tsarist government and the communist authorities. An attempt to stage it in 1968 ended with social tumults, expelling of students and professors from universities, arrests of nearly three thousand people, and a purge of Jewish members from the communist party.

The drama, never finished, comprises of four parts usually read in the chronological order rather than the numeral. The second part goes first, followed by fourth, first and third. Each of them centres on another aspect of Mickiewicz’s worldview.

Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)

The Part Two above expresses Mickiewicz’s philosophy of life, based mainly on folk morality and his own thoughts about love and death. The three ghosts summoned to the feast symbolize major moral virtues necessary for salvation.

The angelic children cannot enter heaven because they have never suffered. Since suffering was an inevitable effect of the occupation of Poland it became an important part of Polish romanticism. Till today martyrology is a significant aspect of Polish national identity.

The cruel master, who used to own the village and the serfs, cannot enter hell because he has never shown humanity. In 1791 the government of Poland proclaimed the May 3 Constitution abolishing serfdom. Poland’s neighbours – Austria, Prussia and Russia – used it as a pretext to further partitions of the country, and as soon as they annexed the lands they reverted the law, bringing serfs back under the power of the nobles. The move was supported by those who weren’t happy with the Constitution that expressed the views of the majority of nobles, but not all of them. Mickiewicz addressed his scorn to both the occupants and the cruel Polish lords.

The girl cannot enter heaven because she has never experienced earthly love.

Maryla (Marianna) Wereszczakówna

Mickiewicz was a great poet and thinker, but a weak man. He summed up his own life along these lines:

My tears poured, copious, pure
Onto my childhood, blissful, angelic
Onto my youth, haughty and foolish
My age of mature, age of failure
My tears poured, copious, pure

He had an endless number of lovers, both married and maids, but for the most part he didn’t seem to have reached the emotional maturity necessary to enter marriage. The one woman whom he loved, and who became his early muse, Maryla Wereszczakówna, was already engaged when they met. She wasn’t thought to be a beauty, but she was intelligent and very well educated. The feeling was mutual, and they had an affair soon after her marriage. Yet, Mickiewicz was arrested for his political activity, and exiled to Russia proper. He’d never see Maryla again, nor return to his family site.

Years later, when he finally married, he seemed to have made the worst choice possible. It’s often said about female writers that marriage would end their writing career, in this case, the marriage put an end to his.

Celina nee Szymanowska, emotionally unstable, became mentally ill four years after their marriage. Neither their living conditions (a tiny three room Paris apartment), nor his lukewarm affection for her, seemed to promote happiness early in the union. His wife treated him with derision. She was one of two persons in whom he ever confined and presumably she used his own confidences against him in their domestic quarrels. She spoke to him only to bite. At one point, after six weeks of a continuous nightmare, he was driven to a point when he wanted to hit her. The realisation scared him. He hid in the cook’s room. When Celina found him there he was ready to attempt a suicide.

He brought her to a hospital, and the situation would repeat in the future. Their living conditions would get even worse. In winter, in a cold apartment, with his wife away and even their servant becoming ill from the freezing temperature, Mickiewicz would be left to nurse his kids on his own.

Yet his treatment of her was not better. He was kind. He’d fulfil her various requests or buy her presents, but he wouldn’t befriend her. That place would be eventually taken by Xawera Deybel, a governess to their children, who’d become Mickiewicz’s muse, friend, and sexual partner for years. Unlike Celina she wasn’t pretty, she’s said to be extremely short and perhaps even crooked, but to Mickiewicz she was an endless inspiration.

Both Celina and Mickiewicz would do better if they never married. She was not the strong, energetic, purposed woman with whom he could have been happy. If she were, perhaps she’d divorce him, sparing them both the continuous misery. Celina’s mother divorced her father and began her European career. But maybe that was Celina’s problem, she grew up in the great world, but she was unlike her mother.

No matter how much Mickiewicz failed in his personal life he was a feminist. Women in his works take prominent roles. They’re strong, brave, heroic, intelligent and just.

In 1848 in Rome Margaret Fuller wrote:

The Poles have also made noble manifestations. Their great poet Adam Mickiewicz has been here to enroll the Italian Poles publish the declaration of faith in which they hope to re-enter and re-establish their country and receive the Pope’s benediction on their banner. In their declaration of faith are found these three articles:

1. Every one of the nation a citizen, every citizen equal in rights and before authorities.
2. To the Jew, our elder brother, respect, brotherhood, aid on the way to his eternal and terrestrial good, entire equality in political and civil rights.
3. To the companion of life, woman, citizenship, entire equality of rights.

This last expression of just thought the Poles ought to initiate, for what other nation has had such truly heroic women? Women indeed, – not children, servants, or playthings.¹

However, Mickiewicz’s view on women went further than universal suffrage. In his opinion women should exercise their sexuality in the same way men did.

Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller, an American feminist, was of an opposite opinion when they met in Paris in the 1840s. She viewed her virginity as a necessary condition to keep her independence. Nonetheless, she and Mickiewicz agreed on many other points, and by the time she left France he promised to correspond with her.

Mickiewicz found in Fuller a “true person”, the only “woman to whom it has been given to touch what is decisive in the present world and to have a presentiment of the world of the future.” But that meant to him that she needed still more rooting in the physical present. In his first letter to her he wrote:

For you the first step of your deliverance… is to know whether you are permitted to remain a virgin.²

When she wrote to Mickiewicz about having met Ossoli he urged her to deepen the relationship.

Prolong your good moments. Do not leave those who would like to remain near you. This is in reference to the little Italian you met in the Church.

(…)

Try to bring away from Italy what you will be able to take of it in joy and in health. There is nothing else to take!¹

Ossoli proposed to Fuller early in their acquaintance, but she refused, judging them very unfit. He was ten years younger, and from an aristocratic family. She fled. But Mickiewicz wrote again, telling her she must not limit her life to books and dreams:

You have pleaded the freedom of women in a masculine and frank style. Live and act as you write. … I have seen you, with all your knowledge, and all your imagination, and all your literary reputation, living in a bondage harder than that of a servant. … The relations that are right for you are those which develop and free your spirit while answering the legitimate needs of your body. You are the only judge of those needs.

Mickiewicz argued that if she was to become a woman of the new epoque she must part from her American friends and seek freedom.

A few months later Fuller returned to Ossoli, to soon become his lover. She was happy, she felt freed, but she became pregnant. Her anxiety diminished when she assured herself that Ossoli would remain by her side, but she was conflicted, unable to agree her own views and condition with the restraints of the society.

I’m not sure whether Mickiewicz could fully understand her position. To him it was simpler, but so it was to the women he knew. The situation would cause some gossip within the Polish society, but the woman would retain full respect, she would not become an outcast, she would keep her literary reputation, and her chances on the marriage market would not be threatened. After all Mickiewicz had many affairs with both virgins and married women from the Polish nobility. Chopin lived with George Sand in a free relationship for many years, both attended Mickiewicz’s lectures in College de France regularly. Mickiewicz lived in a threesome for a good part of his marriage, and Xawera Deybel, originally hired by Celina as a governess to their children, became an important persona in the Polish literary circles. She accompanied Mickiewicz everywhere, they had a daughter, and yet she still married afterwards. Maria Szymanowska, a divorcee, Mickiewicz’s mother-in-law, was known to not have a nun’s disposition. Maria Walewska was regarded as a heroine for agreeing to enter into an adulterous affair with Napoleon. Countess Delfina Potocka divorced her husband with whom she had two daughters, and became a friend, muse and lover to Polish romantics. Chopin dedicated his Minute Waltz to her. Her love affair with Krasiński lasted even after he had married Countess Eliza Branicka, and they still remained friends afterwards. Antoni Malczewski (a friend of Byron’s to whom he told the story of Mazeppa) engaged in an ill-fated affair with Zofia Rucińska, the wife of his friend. Countess Ewelina Hańska, who first wrote to Honoré de Balzac accusing him of uncomplimentary portrayal of women, kept her correspondence with him for nearly 10 years until her husband died and they finally met. They went on several voyages together during which she gave birth to a still born child. Afterwards he came to Ukraine to meet her family and marry. Count Aleksander Fredro fought for 10 years for the divorce of his beloved so that he could marry her. Out of female writers Narcyza Żmichowska, considered the first Polish feminist, was gay and never married. She was published even though she was fired from her governess position after the parents of her charge accused her of an affair with their daughter. She was active in the Polish conspiracy and became jailed for some time. Afterwards she went to study at Sorbonne. She argued against the notion of her American colleagues that men use their power over women, but then indeed, Polish men did not. Maria Wirtemberska or actually Maria Anna nee Czartoryska Duches von Württemberg-Montbéliard divorced her husband over politics after he had supported the enemies of Poland.

In England some affairs would happen only within the aristocracy, the USA had no aristocracy, but Poland had no middle class. Everyone was a noble within the Polish society, everyone was welcome in the highest spheres, even the impoverished Mickiewicz and Chopin. Sex was fair game. The only famous virgin of those times was Countess Emilia Plater who died at the age of 25 after having organised her own regiment and joining the Polish army against Russia in the November Insurrection, 1830. She was one of many women who fought for Poland since the late 18th century, but she was the first one promoted to the rank of Captain and given a commanding position in the army.

Emilia Plater and her scythemen (click to enlarge)

For Fuller, with her American background and conservative social links, things weren’t that simple. It’d take a few more years before she and Ossoli would decide to live openly together. During her pregnancy she was scared and depressed.

For several weeks in February and March, Adam Mickiewicz was a comfort to her. He came to Rome to raise a Legion of Polish exiles to join the Italians in their fight for national sovereignty. For him and his idealistic colleagues, Italy’s liberation was only the first step in a world revolution to liberate all oppressed people and inaugurate a new era of human freedom. Mickiewicz took rooms on the Via del Pozzetto, only a few blocks from Fuller’s apartment. He encouraged her to view her condition as a cause for rejoicing instead of guilt and morbid musing. Her depression, he told her, was no more than a fear of the future; a woman who had written so compellingly about the better world ahead should not suffer from melancholia. Pointing out that it was “very natural, very common” to be pregnant, he accused her of carrying on in an “extravagant manner”. Once she regained her morale, her physical sufferings would diminish.¹

Mickiewicz wasn’t a libertine, he never seduced a woman, he avoided lies. Before proposing to Celina he gave her a detailed confession of all of his weaknesses and dealings with women. But he fully believed that woman’s freedom must equal that of man’s in everything, including the sexual sphere, over 100 years before the sexual revolution in the USA. His writings, the most important and the most widely read in Poland, shaped both the Polish national feeling and the self image of Polish women.

The fourth ghost differs from the previous three. He came uninvited, breaking social rules. The people gather to help some ghosts of their former neighbours and family members. They decide who is invited, and offer them food and other ailments that could help their situation. The kind of responsibility for one’s ancestors is still very strong in Polish culture, just as the tradition of mourning is, not whiny, but quiet and full of reflection. The ghost, however, is unsocial. He comes uninvited, refuses to speak, and he doesn’t want anything from them. He refuses to leave either.

This is beyond human understanding!… There is something horrid in it.

Those sentences reflect people’s fear at someone’s daring to break the old established rules of the society.The shaman was about to tell the History of Forefathers, but the entrance of the fourth ghost puts an end to the mysterium and begins a drama.

This is a romantic hero, a Werther-like character. He rejects the society, and the society doesn’t understand him. He suggests to have felt an adulterous love to the shepardness, and he dared to have taken his own life.

From an additional poem, linking parts II and IV we learn that indeed that was the case. Mickiewicz offered a continuation of Werther’s story. The man is punished for suicide, and that means that every year he must return to the living for a month’s time, see the woman again, without the possibility of speaking to her or touching her, and then again he must leave her. The agony that led to his death will repeat over and over.

He resembles Gustaw, the main hero of Part IV.

When Mickiewicz made the acquaintance of Goethe this part was already written. I wonder whether they spoke about it.

Mickiewicz and Goethe shared their admiration for one woman, although certainly with a different feeling. Goethe was rumoured to have fallen deeply in love with Maria Szymanowska, the great European piano virtuoso and a pre-romantic music composer, who became Mickiewicz’s mother in law.

Maria Szymanowska, piano virtuoso and music composer

Wikipedia gives a short summary of the remaining parts of the drama:

Part IV is believed to be Mickiewicz‘s manifesto of his romantic philosophy of life, and also a story about his love to Maryla Wereszczakówna. The main reason for associating the bard’s and his hero’s biography is the resemblance in what Gustaw (the protagonist of the drama) says about his tragic youth. He met a fine girl, with whom he fell in love. Unfortunately, she married a rich duke and, subsequently, Gustaw committed a suicide. A similar situation took place in the poet’s life, but he managed to forgive his lover. When he was depressed, he wrote the fourth part of Forefathers’ Eve, one of the most beautiful Polish poems about love, and also a fascinating example of the romantic poetry. The action of the drama is divided into three episodes – the hour of love, the hour of despair and the hour of admonition. The book shows dangers of people’s romantic nature and reading sentimental masterpieces, which do not show the real world. On the other hand, Gustaw is presented as an owner of the metaphysical knowledge. It is him, not his teacher, who eventually notions to the philosophy of Enlightenment and visualises the true picture of the world, which is the reality conducted by paranormal laws.

Part I, published after Mickiewicz‘s emigration to France, was probably written in the early 1820s, although never finished. Meant to be a picture of “emotion of the 19th century people”, it was immediately given up by the author. It shows a young couple, feeling confused and trying to choose between the sentimental idea of love, adjustment to the society and respect to own nature.

Part III is thought to be the most significant one, or even one of the finest poems in the Polish literature. The main character bears a resemblance to Gustaw from part IV, but he is no longer a ‘romantic lover’. The drama was written after the fall of the November Insurrection, an event that strongly influenced the author. In the Prologue the protagonist of the drama writes on the wall “Gustavus obiit – hic hatus est Conradus” Today Gustaw died, today Conrad is born. Conrad is the name from Mickiewicz‘s earlier novel, Conrad Wallenrod. Wallenrod sacrificed his life and happiness for his own country’s sake. Gustaw transforms from a woman’s lover into his country’s lover.

Mickiewicz dedicated his work to people fighting for the freedom of Poland in the 1830s insurrection and especially to those who were exiled to Siberia by the Russian emperor. The book describes the cruelty of tsar Alexander, and persecutions of Poles. It has many mysterious episodes and, among historical characters, the reader can find ghosts, angels and also the devil. Poland, according to Mickiewicz‘s vision, was meant to become “Christ of Europe” and the national suffering was to result in releasing all of the persecuted people and nationalities, as Christ’s death has brought salvation.

The characters of the drama are chiefly prisoners, accused of conspiracy against the Russian conqueror. The self-named protagonist, Conrad, is a poet. In his vision, commonly known as “Wielka Improwizacja” – Great Improvisation – he talks to God about his patriotic feelings and the intention of becoming a leader of the nation. His love and suffering make him a symbol of the Polish soul. Nevertheless, in God’s opinion he is too proud to free his country. Another character, a priest called Piotr, also has a vision. When he happens to foretell the country’s future, he says one of the most mysterious words of the whole drama. Describing a person who will bring back the freedom of Poland, he says: “The Son of a foreign mother, in his blood old heroes And his name will be forty and four”.

The mysterious numerical name of the hero is easily deciphered with the Hebrew alphabet.

Adam = דמ, where ד Daled = 4, and מ Mem = 40.

(Mickiewicz’s wife, Celina, came from a Frankist family. Frankists were a Christianized Jewish sect. In the 18th century thousands of Frankists were brought to nobility.)

Adam Mickiewicz did not bring Poland’s freedom via his direct actions, but thanks to his writings Poles remained Poles for over 100 years of occupation, and forced russification and germanization. Thanks to him they didn’t forget what it means to be Polish.

Further Wikipedia writes:

The whole drama brings back the hope of Polish independence and gives a great picture of Polish society in so difficult a moment.

Our nation is like lava. On the top it is hard and hideous, but its internal fire cannot be extinguished even in one hundred years of coldness. So let’s spit on the crust and go down, to the profundity!

Great Improvisation and Prisoner’s Return from Part III in professional English translation.

¹ Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller by Joan Von Mehren

² The Woman And The Myth: Margaret Fuller’s Life and Writings by Bell Gale Chevigny

Krzysztof Rutkowski about Xawera Deybel (in Polish)

Back at school the phrase Rocky collapsed in the corner seemed totally hilarious to us. There’s no particular reason, only that we found the sound of it truly very very funny. It was such a favourite of some of my friends’ that we began casually translating it as Rocky kolapsnął w kornerze,  which naturally was even funnier. Surprisingly the phrase was perfectly understandable even to those who never learnt English.

A cool animated video to the song:

BTW My dear American friend, who’d come to Poland and have my head if she knew that I’m blogging instead of writing with her, told me today that she noticed that I seem a bit more ESL (she’s a polite American, so read: a whole lot more) than I previously had become, and that I had better talk to her more and begin writing something again.  She added that I’m out of practice somewhat, and that not that that is a bad thing, but I am reverting! (Surely it’s not a bad thing, I hoped to be reverting.)

I just love that she thinks that Americans are very straighforward! I guess it’s where the difference between their straighforwardness and what some call the Polish rudeness is. Anyway, I strongly suspect that she is right, so I had better heed her advice.

Let it be my new year resolution!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Alas, she can’t buy pierogi where she lives. She says that the only kind available there are some potato ones, that seem a poor imitation of our ruskie pierogi that are with cheese and potato (sometimes erroneously translated as Russian pierogi, but ruskie means Ruthenian – Ukrainian or Belarusian), while her favourite kind are the meat ones.

Pierogi is the plural of pieróg. They originated in Finland, but we have long developed our own recipes. They can be either sweet or non-sweet. Out of the non-sweet three kinds are the most popular: with cheese and potato (the ruskie ones), with meat, or with cabbage and mushrooms.

The only solution for my friend we found is to make her own, so I found a recipe by Maciej Kuroń, one of the famous chiefs in Poland, and with my friend’s help prepared the English translation. Perhaps others might like to cook them too. They’re really easy to make, and one really can eat them all the time.

Meat Pierogi

Filling:

500g (about 1 lb) of boiled bouillon meat (it’s the meat one used to make broth: beef, chicken and veal)
2 onions
30g (about 1 0z) of butter
Salt and pepper

Dough:

500g (17.6 oz) of flour
250ml of water or milk (about 1 cup)
1 tablespoon of butter
Salt
1 egg (optional)

To prepare the filling:

Grind the meat. Dice/mince the onion into very small pieces and fry it in butter until it becomes transparent. Add the salt, pepper and the meat to the onion and sauté briefly to blend the flavours. If the filling is too dry you can add 50g (1.5 – 2 oz) of ham or smoked meat.

To prepare the dough:

The ingredients should be at room temperature before making the dough. Sieve/sift the flour onto a board. Make a small hollow in the middle and add the egg (adding the optional egg will make the dough firmer) and the tablespoon of melted butter into it. Slowly pour in the water or milk. The amount will depend on the humidity of the flour. The dryer the flour the more fluid it will need. Knead the dough, first with a knife, then with your hands (about 15-20 min.) until it becomes a uniform, smooth mass. A well prepared dough should be elastic and smooth, and after being cut through it should have air holes. Cover it with a bowl for half an hour to let it mature, and then split it into 2-3 pieces and roll each to a thickness of 2 mm (0.08 inches).

Cut circles from the dough (use a form or a wide glass), put some filling into the middle of each, fold into half circles and seal them carefully by pinching the edges together with your fingers. Put the pierogi into boiling, salted water. After they float to the surface keep boiling them for 3 more minutes. Take them out with a slotted spoon.

They can be eaten at once, or you can pan fry them, which makes them even better. (My friend agrees with the frying and says, “Yum!”)

Here performed by Anna Maria Jopek and Grzegorz Turnau

Words in Polish and English follow.

Gaj

W splątanym gaju rąk i nóg
szepczemy słowa święte,
jak szeptał kiedyś Młody Bóg
bogini niepojętej.

Ole, ole, ole, ola, oli, bogini niepojętej.
Ole, ole, ole, ola, oli, bogini niepojętej.

W czerwonym żarze rzewnych żądz
płoniemy jak pochodnie
i opadamy w niebo, śniąc
niewinnie i łagodnie.

Cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, niewinnie i łagodnie.
Cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, cyt, niewinnie i łagodnie.

W żałobnym chłodzie znanych ust
szukamy pocieszenia,
słuchając jak nam stygnie puls
i mylą się znaczenia.

To nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, to mylą się znaczenia.
To nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, to mylą się znaczenia.

Dopóki demon smutku śpi,
niech żyją młode żądze.
Dopóki życie w nas się tli,
dopóki są pieniądze.

To nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, niech żyją młode żądze.
To nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, to nic, dopóki są pieniądze.

Ole, ole, ole, ola, oli, niech żyją młode żądze
Ole, ole, ole, ola, oli, dopóki są pieniądze.

~~~~~

Woods

In entwined woods of hands and legs
We whisper those sacred words
That were once whispered by Young God*
To his unfathomable goddess.

Ole, ole, ole, ola, olee, to his unfathomable goddess.

In the red glow of weepy wants
We flame like torches
And we decline into heaven, dreaming
Innocently and softly.

Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, innocently and softly.

In mournful coolness of known lips
We look for soothing,
Listening to how our pulses chill
And the meanings get confused

It’s naught,  it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s just the meanings get confused

As long as the demon of grief sleeps
Long live young desires
As long as life smoulders in us
As long as there is money

It’s naught,  it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s naught, long live young desires
It’s naught,  it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s naught, it’s naught, as long as there is money

Ole, ole, ole, ola, olee, long live young desires
Ole, ole, ole, ola, olee, as long as there is money

* Young God – Młody Bóg in Polish – means a virile, potent man. Czuję się jak Młody Bóg means ‘I feel I can do anything’.

This short film tells the story of the performance.

And here I imagined that the famous British violinist would speak English like a hero from a BBC costume drama.

The CD i available from Amazon. Polish Spirit, indeed!

Nigel Kennedy – Polish Spirit

~ Emil Młynarski (Composer), Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (Composer), Mieczysław Karłowicz (Composer), Jacek Kaspszyk (Conductor), Polish Chamber Orchestra (Orchestra)

Track Listings

Also in MP3 Downloads.

Kids in Polish schools learn that there are four calendar seasons, those officially marked in a calendar, and six natural ones. That’s true for Poland, the nearby area in Germany, some Baltic States (Latvia and Lithuania), and Belarus.

The seasons, each lasting about two months, are:

1. Zima – winter – January, February

2. Przedwiośnie – pre-spring – March, April

3. Wiosna – spring – May, June

4. Lato – summer – July, August

5. Złota Polska Jesień – Golden Polish Summer – September, October

6. Jesień – autumn – November, December

Why six?

Of course what needs to happen in the Polish weather to go all the way from winter to spring or from summer to autumn is no different than in other countries, however, the clue is in the length of the processes. Since przedwiośnie is so totally different than either winter or spring, and Złota Polska Jesień resembles a cool summer more than autumn, and each of them takes about two months, they deserve recognition.

At the same time both Polish przedwiośnie and autumn may resemble English winter more than anything else, hence people expect snow, since that’s how they think of Polish winter. Nothing more misleading! Przedwiośnie and autumn in Poland are the periods of the ugliest weather, and naturally people complain that this year’s spring is late or winter failed. However, if they compared the weather year by year they’d notice that it’s pretty normal.

For those of weak faith there are always the old folk proverbs that prove the rule. Winter ones:

• Styczeń styczeń wszystko studzi ziemię, bydło, ludzi. – January cools everything: land, animals and people.

• Idzie luty podkuj buty. – Hobnail your boots before February.

Przedwiośnie ones:

• W marcu jak w garncu. – In March it’s like in a pot.

• Kwiecień plecień co przeplata trochę zimy trochę lata. – April entwines bits of winter and summer.

December ones for comparison:

• Grudzień to miesiąc zawiły, czasem srogi, czasem miły. – December is a baffling month, sometimes severe sometimes nice.

• Gdy w dzień Adama i Ewy mróz i pięknie, zima wcześnie pęknie. – If Adam and Eve’s day is frosty and beautiful winter will break soon. (This may not be obvious to English speakers, but the nameday of Adam and Eve is on Christmas Eve). This saying shows that around the time people are only expecting winter to come, not assuming it should be there already.

The pagan year.

In the old good times, when our pagan ancestors weren’t yet aware of the need to observe the calendar seasons, but rather used to look around and notice things as they were, they marked the Polish six seasons correctly, and we still can trace the beginnings of them to their holidays and celebrations. Whenever possible I’ll try to show the correlation between the old Slavic customs and their equivalents in English or generally Western tradition.

Winter in Poland – January and February – means snow and freezing temperature, usually between -20-0C, but it can be around -40C in Suwałki area. It shouldn’t rain at all, unless it’s a mild, ugly and sloppy winter.

A Baby Wisent Playing in Snow. Winter, Białowieża Wilderness.

The beginning of winter was marked by the Festivities of Sun, or Mating Day. Even today in some regions of Poland Christmas is called Gody (wedding). It’s the time when Sun and Moon touch each other, and Sun, the most powerful force, wins over Moon. Styczeń (January) comes from stykać (to touch, contact). The celebrations used to last more than ten days, and today it’s the period from Christmas Eve to the Twelfth Night. Of course, as usually, Christianity imposed their holidays on the pagan ones, but some elements of decoration and food still remained: yuletide, hay and strow – the symbols of the previous fruitful harvest, eggs – the symbol of life and sun. In England Christmas chicken symbolized the same that eggs in Poland – new life.

Przedwiośnie – March and April – means temperature above 0C, with some warm days, many cold ones, snow melting, and timid plants blooming. It’s soggy, grey, and seems to last forever! April can be either warm or cold, with temperature anywhere between 5-20C. There’s no rule. It can be sunny, or hot. Rains are frequent, and sometimes it snows. By the end of April, however, it’s usually green, and we say that spring came (in Poland it comes on foot btw ). Kwiecień (April) literally means blooming.

Young Wisents In Przedwiośnie Scenery, Białowieża Wilderness.

The beginning of przedwiośnie till today is marked by the drowning of Marzanna. A female doll is produced by kids and drown in a river, lake or sea. Marzanna symbolizes Mara, the goddess or demon of death, night, and winter. To pagans winter was a hollow time, not a season of a year, but the period of void in between. In English Mara is still present in the word nightmare, in Polish mara nocna.

Another Przedwiośnie Scenery

Spring – May and June – is usually warm, however, there are burze majowe (May storms), so normally one should expect lots of thunders and rain, but there is also deszczyk majowy (light May rain) that is warm and pleasant. May is also the month of majówka (picnic) that in the Polish mind means a blanket and sandwiches taken to a forest on a fine Saturday or Sunday. June is similar, only a bit warmer and dryer. Spring temperature usually varies between 15-30C.

Spring in Janowski Forest

The beginning of spring was marked by Zielone Świątki (Green Holidays). The name is still used today in reference to Pentecost.

Zielone Świątki were observed by the performance of the so called wiosenne porządki (spring cleaning) when people used to burn all of the unnecessary stuff, old leaves or dry branches uncovered by melted snow, and clean and decorate their houses with fresh green branches. Women painted eggs, now known as Easter eggs, but in the past a part of pagan tradition. The Catholic Church prohibited eggs painting for some 200 years during the medieval era, but in the end they gave up, and now people carry the eggs to church in order to have them sprinkled with holy water before Easter. Ukrainians believe that if they don’t paint eggs the world will end!

Summers – July and August – tend to be hot, however, there is a possibility of a mild summer, when it winds from east. Then it can be pretty cold and wet. But usually they are good solid summers. Sometimes it doesn’t rain for weeks, and I personally suffer, but for those who like it hot the temperature can get up to 40C, with many days above 30C, and hardly ever below 20C.

Summer in Mazury

Summer begins with the pagan Noc Kupały (Coupling Night) or Noc Świętojańska (St. John’s night), and is nothing else but the Midsummer Night – night of love and fertility – as depicted by Shakespeare. Fires were burnt to perish the spring ghosts and water demons that were needed for vegetation during spring but would spoil summer fruits. It’s also when girls plaited their wreaths to attract boys. In the past it was the night in a year when maidens and bachelors could flirt freely. Ukraść wianek (to steal a wreath) means defloration. The reference to flower in English seems obvious.

We still celebrate Midsummer Night in Poland, and in Latvia it’s even a day free from work.

Wreaths Floating on Water on Midsummer Night

Traditionally summer is a good time for beating up the Teutonic Knights. Poland-Lithuania wins every year since 1410, which isn’t without reference to our pagan-weather musings, since it was this victory that allowed us to tell the Church and Holy Roman Emperors to stay away from our pagan customs.

Battle of Grunwald, July 15th, Every Year. The Holy Monks Minutes Before Their Yearly Demise.

Złota Polska Jesień – September and October – takes its name from the colours of the leaves. It’s pretty much like a two months long Indian Summer. September temperatures vary between 20-30C and October ones between 15-25C. It’s usually warm and pleasant, with a reasonable amount of rain. It’s the season I favour.

Złota Polska Jesień in Bieszczady Mountains

The beginning is marked by Babie Lato (Old Widows’ Summer) and Harvest. Yep, people had fun and festivities because of their newly gathered riches. Still celebrated today.

Autumn – November and December – begins around Forefathers’ Eve, the Polish equivalent of Halloween. No doubt the old pagan holiday came from the fact that the weather changes abruptly around that time. Suddenly it’s cold, windy, and sloppy. Temperature drops to around 10C and lower. Days are short and trees bare-branched. Even if the weather was nice the day before one may expect a cold All Saints’ when Poles pilgrim to the graves. Listopad, Polish for November, literally means fall of the leaf, that used to be recognised in English English as well. From the OED:

2. (In early use also more fully fall of the leaf.) That part of the year when leaves fall from the trees; autumn. In N. Amer. the ordinary name for autumn; in England now rare in literary use, though found in some dialects; spring and fall, the fall of the year, are, however, in fairly common use.

Moreover, the particularly fine autumn weather also used to have its recognition:

b. [Summer] Applied, with qualification, to a period of fine dry weather in late autumn; see ALL-HALLOW(S 7, INDIAN SUMMER, MARTIN³ 3c; St. Luke’s (little) summer, little summer of St. Luke, such a period occurring about St. Luke’s Day, 18 Oct. (Cf. Ger. altweibersommer.)

7. All-Hallown Summer: a season of fine weather in the late autumn; also fig. brightness or beauty lingering or reappearing in old age. Apparently Obs., but worthy of revival, as much superior to its equivalents, St. Martin’s Summer (from French), and the Indian Summer of America.

1596 SHAKES. 1 Hen. IV, I. ii. 178 Farwell the latter Spring! Farwell, Alhollown Summer!

In the old pagan beliefs the period of autumn (fall of the leaf) was dead in nature. Hence the conviction that it’s haunted by ghosts. It’s the time when people think of and fear death more, mourn the dead, and connect with them.

Autumn in Bieszczady Mountains

Forefathers’ Eve (Dziady in Polish) is a feast for the ghosts. In the Catholic belief those are those guys whose souls are caught in Purgatory, but obviously our pagan ancestors also had an idea or two about it, and while in the Anglo-Saxon world the old tradition became trivialised into the form of modern Halloween, in the Polish-Ruthenian one (never strongly suppressed by Catholicism and free from Puritans) it merged with Christianity, receiving a feel of gravity.

We don’t observe Forefathers’ Eve in practice any longer. In the past it was a feast, held in cemeteries or old chapels, where the ghosts were invited, and asked what help they expected from the living. The ghosts, as presented by Mickiewicz, could be of various kinds, from innocent children, who could not enter heaven without having experienced grief, to the undead, like vampires. Usually they were offered some kind of food, or some deeds had to be performed for them. Hence ‘trick or treat’ in Halloween.

Fire and candles, still present in the Anglo-Saxon tradition as the candles in pumpkins, used to indicate the direction to the dead, so that they would not wander to the houses of the living. Today Poles continue the tradition by leaving candles on the graves of their ancestors. The special feel of mourning, that can be observed in Poland on Zaduszki (To Ghosts) and All Saints’ Day, that is neither sad nor merry, but resembles a kind of national reflection, is a remnant of the old tradition.

Zaduszki (To Ghosts) in Poland. Communists renamed it to the Day of the Dead.

So that’s when Polish autumn begins, and it’s dark, with the feel of stillness and hollowness in nature. It ends around the end of December or the beginning of January, with the first serious snows. If it snows on Christmas it’s usually an early snow, and not an obligatory one, so don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t, and don’t normally expect it much earlier than that.

If that weren’t enough, December is the month of Advent, that in Polish tradition is observed much more strictly than in the West. Advent is the time of waiting, and again, Poles link waiting to mourning and reflection. A general preparation for the birth of Christ. If you work in a large company, with many workers from outside of Warsaw, and plan a Christmas party, don’t expect many of them to dance or drink. They don’t in Advent. They came because they thought they had to, but it’s not their time for celebration. Likewise, traditionally, Poles decorate their houses for Christmas very late, and there are people who hate all of the Christmas trees in shopping malls starting from Thanksgiving. What Thanksgiving anyway?

Long time ago, when the Polish countryside was still wild and beautiful, there was a small village on the banks of the Wisła river, inhabited by kind people, who spent all their days occupied with fishing.

One evening, when Wars was collecting his web and fish before going home to retire, he heard a quiet song coming from old willows, the branches of which washed in the river. He sat again and listened. It was a beautiful song. Mysthical. As if not sang by a human being. Wars could not understand the lyrics, but he sensed it was a song about wildness, life, and the beauty of nature. He was mesmerised. So much that he forgot about the world around him.

Suddenly the song stopped. It felt as if a busket of cold water was thrown on his head. Wars realised it was deep night, he had to go back home, across a wild and dangerous forest, to his small house at the end of the village. But anyway, he told himself he would come back the next day. He must hear this song again. And again…

The next evening, when his work was accomplished, Wars sat at the bank of the river and waited.

Suddenly he heard that song. Nearer than the day before. And more beautiful. So beautiful that he had to stand up and go there. Closer to the sound. He must see the owner of the silver voice.

He did not know where he was or how found himself there. Or even what time it was. But finally he saw the singer. It was the most beautiful lady in the world. She had long golden hair, and skin as white as snow. It shined in the moonlight, as did her… fish tail.

When he saw that tail, his first thought was to RUN! But the second one told him to stay.

Unfortunately she heard the rustle of leaves, and disappeared beneath the water.

Wars waited for her every evening, hoping she would come back, but she did not. She must have thought him dangerous.

After several years, when Wars lost all hope and almost forgot his eerie adventure, his ears were reached by the almost forgotten sound. He took his web and hurried to the spot where the song came from. Once more he saw the most beautiful woman in the world. This time he was prepared for her appearance, so he did not move when she exposed her silver tail.
At a convinient moment he caught her into his web. She screamed and cried, trying to escape, but she could not.

Wars took her to his house and began to wonder why actually he caught her. What told him to do that?

Silver tears went down the siren’s face. She looked at him with so much sadness in her blue eyes. “Let me go,” she whispered. “Please, let me go. Why did you do that?”

Wars wondered and wondered, and finally the answer came to him. “Because I love you.”

“If you truly love me, you must let me go. I cannot live without water, without swimming and nature. I will die here, imprisoned.”

“But I cannot live without you.”

“So I will die because you want to have me inside your house? I can come to you and sing every evening, if you want me to. I can defend you and your village so that no harm will come your way. But let me go.”

Wars could not stand her tears anymore. He took her to the river and let her go.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Sawa,” she answered and disappeared in the waters of the Wisła river.

From that day on Sawa sang to Wars and his children, and then their children. And defended them from any danger. Today there is the city of Warsaw in that place, named after the two lovers: WarsSawa.

The city’s coat of arms features a siren with a shield and sword.

The Coat of Arms of Warsaw

Warsaw’s coat of arms includes the order Virtuti Militari, awarded to the city after WWII to honour the bravery of its citizens, and the motto Semper invicta (Always invincible).

For a different and funnier version of the legend, written with expats in mind, go to Warsaw-life.com.

For the last two weeks we’ve been watching the trip itinerary of Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland.

For those uninformed it looks something like this:

The Government: “It’s not a holiday season, Mr. President”

President, stomping his foot: “I wanna go.” Boooo…

The president wants to go to an EU summit and have his say in our politics. The thing is that not everyone can have their say. Neither the president, nor you, nor I. There is the government, with the prime minister, chosen in democratic elections, and they are the only guys who have the right to say anything about how the country should be governed.

The president seems to think that the word “president” before his name implies that he’s some kind of George W. Bush. Well, no, not in Poland. The president of Poland is nothing like the American president. He can accept or reject the government’s propositions, but if he rejects them the Senate can outvote him. He can send our army to a war… And that’s pretty much all he can.

Otherwise he’s not like a president, he’s like the British Queen, and I don’t recall Elizabeth II go to EU summits and decide about the UK’s politics.

Unfortunately Mr. Kaczyński isn’t the only person oblivious as to his competencies. An average Pole has about the same picture of the presidency in Poland. They vote for people who have certain opinions about politics, while all they should do is to choose the best looking candidate. The president, like the English royalty, should be just for representing us at various functions, looking nice, smiling a lot (or as much as a Pole can), and chatting up other kings and queens about weather.

Who should be our president then?

The Pontiff seems an obvious choice. Unfortunately he’s dead, but then we might use one of the many monuments, and let his moral authority do the rest.

It was proven that Polish girls aren’t gorgeous, but surely we could find one. How about Ms. Szapołowska?

Grażyna Szapołowska

She’s not very clever, but that might be for the best. She can act though, and that’s even better!

We might also go sentimental and get ourselves a king. Following the May 3 Constitution here’s our guy:

Prince Alexander of Saxe-Gessaphe

See? He smiles!

OK, I know, he looks rather German, but then he is German, like the British royalty anyway. On the other hand he’s Catholic. Wait! A German Catholic? That’s like the pope! Which leads me to…

Since we’re such a Catholic country anyway, why not give the crown to Vatican?

Emblem of the Papacy

There are very good points for:

1. Our king would be above all other kings.
2. He would have a cool triple crown.
3. And a genuine power via God’s grace.
4. He’d be the best of all Catholics!
5. Father Rydzyk and alike would be successfully prevented from criticising the head of our state.
6. Our king would care more about heavenly wisdoms than earthly goods.
7. All popes would learn Polish.
8. No newspaper would laugh at Polish kings without risking offending all of the Catholics in their country.
9. Our country would be supported by over billion people all over the world.
10. He’s already rich, so he’d cost us less than presidents. We’d save on bodyguards too. The Swiss take care about it.
11. He’s already the head of Vatican, and you don’t hear that they’re going bankrupt any soon.
12. The papal emblem would have the Polish eagle.
13. Our kings wouldn’t be boring. I heard the next one will be black.

… 100. The pope already has a plane!

Are there any againsts? Nope. There’s no reason to suspect the king of Poland of any mischief, because traditionally our kings have nothing to say, and the popes, unlike the Kaczyński bros, are famous for their adherence to tradition.

We might also go the Polish route and choose a Czartoryski. That would be this one:

Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski

Guess where he lives! Yep, the Isles. He smiles the Polish way though, and he’s the Spanish king’s first cousin.

But then since we can give the crown to anyone, why not choose freely? How about…

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Just think of the hectolitres of cheap fuel!

Sometimes I happen to translate Polish poems. For various reasons, mostly to let others understand the words. I thought I might as well post them here.

Note: After I had translated them they’re not good poems anymore. The English version can be read only for their general meaning, but not the rhythm, rhymes, or word choice. Feel free to correct me if you have better ideas.

Like by Edward Stachura

Like white clouds gliding over woods across a night sky
Like a wind scuffled scarf on a wanderer’s neck
Like your starry arms stretched there above
And here ours are, and here ours are

Like a dry sob in this drizzly night
Like a guilty or not guilty remorse of your conscience
That you’re alive when so many had died

Like a dry sob in this drizzly night
Like when you lick precisely aimed wounds
Like when you glue your heart, shattered to dust

Like a dry sob in this drizzly night
A forty pound stone, a forty pound stone
I’ll stand on it, it’ll stand on me
It’ll stand on me, I’ll stand up from under it

Like a dry sob in this drizzly night
Like a golden sphere over waters
Like a dawn under your swollen eyelids
Like gentle beams, pretty clearings

Like sun’s breast
Like carrying your hump
Like to you, foggy sisters,
This howling singing

Like when you run till the very end, later you’ll rest, you’ll rest afterwards,
Wondrous wilderness, wondrous, wondrous wilderness

~~~~~~

It’s a song too. Sung by Stare Dobre Małżeństwo (The Good Old Married Couple)

It’s my firm opinion that all of the psychological tests are crap, and people take them only as a kind of scientifically justified horoscopes – that is to read how great and talented they are. Anytime one feels down one can take a test and there’s a good chance one will be flattered.

That’s what I did last night, and boy, am I flattered! I appear to rank with Einstein!

Anyway, they also said something about my manner of communication. If I ever piss you off blame it on the test:

Architects are rare – maybe one percent of the population – and show the greatest precision in thought and speech of all the types. They tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies instantaneously, and can detect contradictions no matter when or where they were made. It is difficult for an Architect to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker’s error. And in any serious discussion or debate Architects are devastating, their skill in framing arguments giving them an enormous advantage. Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many.

Ruthless pragmatists about ideas, and insatiably curious, Architects are driven to find the most efficient means to their ends, and they will learn in any manner and degree they can. They will listen to amateurs if their ideas are useful, and will ignore the experts if theirs are not. Authority derived from office, credential, or celebrity does not impress them. Architects are interested only in what make sense, and thus only statements that are consistent and coherent carry any weight with them.

Is that why half of my jokes never come through? Hmm…

Feel devastated? Go ahead, humour yourself!

This is the first (and likely the only) joke in my life I actually managed to memorize, and I still remember it, even though I was maybe 14 when I first heard it. It’s from the repertoire of the Bez Jacka (Without Jacek) cabaret. Commercials, as we all know, refer to product promotion – something virtually unknown in Poland back then, with this one exception:

A brisk stream winds down the deep tundra or taiga scenery. A deer nibs on grass on a nearby meadow. Birds sing a cheerful tune. The sky is blue and clear.

There, at the brook’s bank a woman crouched, and with sweeping movements of her hands washes her cloths, pressing the fabric against a stone.

Suddenly, a Cossack emerges from behind a tree, and tiptoes towards her. When he takes his hold of her from behind, she screams: “Help! They f*ck me!”

Off voice: “They f*ck you, and they’ll keep f*cking you, as long as you don’t buy an automatic washing-machine.”

That more or less explains Russian methods of persuasion and enticement as seen through Polish eyes. It might be not certain whether we need those missiles, but it’s certain that we wouldn’t need them at all if we weren’t f*cked by them so often. In the end one needs to buy the automatic washer anyway, the only difference now is that we can choose our supplier.

The second joke refers to Public Relations that is how information is being presented:

- Is it true that Victor Semyonych won a car in a lottery in Leningrad?

- Yes, it is. – Yes, it is. But it wasn’t Victor Semyonych it was Fyodor Kovalenko, and it wasn’t in Leningrad it was in Moscow, and it wasn’t in a lottery it was in the Red Square, and it wasn’t a car it was a bicycle, and he didn’t win it but they stole it from him.

One might think that Russia bitches now over the missile defence system because they’re unhappy. While I don’t know whether they’re happy or not, I know that in Russian tradition it’s always good to bitch when one has a good pretext, even if it’s not necessarily a real reason.

Of course the anti-missiles in Poland are not a threat to Russia in the least, but there are other benefits coming from bitching that should be considered:

• it’s always good to make some rumour – people notice you

• it’s good to present yourself as a victim, especially when your usual image is more of an oppressor

• it’s even better to do it in order to turn everyone’s attention from Russian troops in Georgia – at least not all of the news lately were about the victims of Russia, some were also about Russia the victim

• it is a great opportunity to let the Russian people, whose democracy looks somewhat too closely to autocracy, know that their lives are endangered and only Putin can save them – after all there are millions of them and it’s easier to keep them quiet that way

• it’ll come off handy when Russia puts a new embargo on Polish products

• it’ll be a good point in Russia’s negotiations with the EU

• whatever Russia does now they’ll say that we started it

• there’s always a chance that someone will believe them

• there’s always a chance that someone will be scared by their threat

Does that mean that Russia is going to attack Poland? No. But when they do you bet that they’ll use the missiles as a pretext. However, the missiles will never be a true reason. As Poles say: every pretext is good.

Yet, as long as they make the rumour there’s nothing to worry about. Whenever Russia attacks it’s done quietly and without any prior announcement, just like the Cossack in the first joke.

Or so I thought before I looked through the iTV press release for their new mini series. It seems that one doesn’t have to be 13 years old to be a freshman and find themselves – no, not Lost in Warszawa - Lost in Austen!

The authors’ original idea about coming with an original idea by marrying original ideas of others (Austen’s DNA in conjugal bliss with Life on Mars) is already discussed by John Sutherland in the Guardian. I, however, would like to focus on their prime achievement: their ORIGINAL CHARACTER Amanda Price is a superior human being.

Jemima Rooper as Amanda Price

Don’t read further if you don’t want to have the Lost in Austen tv series spoilt for you. What follows is a list, the list, I should say, of characteristics that make Mary Sues all over the world blush in their inferiority.

You Know That You Created Mary Sue When…

• …Mr. Bennet likes your OC so much that he doesn’t miss his favourite daughter
• …Jane becomes your OC’s best friend
• …Lydia and Kitty think that your OC is a hoot
• …Mr. Bingley falls in love with your OC at first sight, and forgets about Jane altogether as he goes with your OC for a snog during the Meryton Assembly
• …the only characters that don’t like your OC are Mrs. Bennet and Caroline Bingley, plus some rejected lovers
• …Mr. Collins falls hard for your OC and proposes at once
• …Wickham can’t keep his hands away from your OC
• …Darcy softens to your OC as she sings Downtime a capella
• …the negative characters are truly evil to your OC
• …Lady Catherine thinks that your OC is great, even though she doesn’t approve of her nephew’s relationship with her
• …your OC uses all of the best Lizzy’s lines from the book, so that Darcy could get with her to the lake point below
• …Darcy jumps into his freezing lake (model Pemberley BBC ’95) in order to declare his undying love for your OC

I guess that some minor notions, like that your OC is both a romantic and spunky character, miserable and tragic too boot, and has to tell everyone around what to do, even though they don’t understand her and do mistreat her so much, goes without saying. Did I mention that everyone thinks her just like Lizzy and very beautiful?

Don’t worry that the sweet and irresistible Amanda is going to steal all of the novel’s characters. As a Mary Sue without fault, I’m sure she has all of the goodness and naivety in the world, and so all of the attentions are unwanted and unasked for. It is simply unavoidable that, since she is so wonderful and so ORIGINAL, everybody must fall for her. Once she has her way, she might even refuse the marriage proposal of the handsome and courteous Darcy, and graciously leave the leftovers of what was once the great dashing hero of British literature over to one Elizabeth Bennet. What a pity that not so dashing or great any longer, since one can’t seriously respect a man who fell for Mary Sue, can one?

Guess what the producers of Lost in Austen say about their Amanda?

Everybody is going to love her!!!

It’s the simplest, the most unassuming definition of Mary Sue I ever heard!

I am happy, truly happy for the authors’ self-confidence and contentment. There was no waste of their education. They earn their money the best way they can.

Polish people aren’t rude, they simply aren’t too polite.

Of course I agree that we might appear rude to foreigners, I can easily see that, but I think it’s also natural to assume that we have different standards of politeness. Naturally we’re talking here of the public sphere, and not private, but the clue is in our readiness for crossing the line between the two spheres.

I think that this all should be defined as “effort”. That is Poles are extra polite when they want to make an effort, and they’re cold when they don’t. This effort means an extra commitment in another person’s troubles and feelings. It’s sincere and real. It’s not a trifling thing, and it should be reciprocated. The need to reciprocate the effort is exactly the reason why we make it only for the individuals we know and care about, and why we don’t make it in any other case. By rule we’re not physically able to help everyone, so we have to limit the group of people to a reasonable number. In fact, I could say that Poles are not polite at all. The way they behave is an outside expression of the way they feel towards someone. Politeness to us might mean being one shade nicer than we really feel, but not more. Poles are not polite when they’re nice, they simply really like the person, and since they like them they are willing to commit.

In a very distant past, when they opened the western borders, I went to Paris with some friends. We were then poor like for the western standards. We could afford only some cheap rooms, metro and museum tickets, and some basic food. Otherwise we knew that we should be very careful not to spend too much. I went for something to a store, and on my way there I saw a boutique. I didn’t plan buying anything, but I was curious and wanted to see what they had there. I wasn’t there two minutes when this woman approached me, all in smiles, asking what I was looking for. I told her ‘I’m just looking’ – something that warns off a Polish clerk enough to send them to the opposite corner. She didn’t give up. She took the trousers I was looking at and told me to try them on. I dutifully did, all happy that they were too large and too long – something that in my opinion would make the woman give up. Well, no! When she saw me, she kneeled down and folded the trousers. That was too much for me. You may laugh, but I might starve rather than refuse a woman who kneels in front of me to sell me something. She was far too polite.

That taught me to avoid smiling clerks, to enter only large stores and never small boutiques, to leave as soon as a clerk begins a chat. Yet, once in Tunisia I did the same, well aware what I’m being drawn into. This kind man gave us a short tour around the town and took us to his fragrance store. We knew very well why he was polite, and we knew we’d have to buy something, yet, since we committed, we bought this absolutely useless stuff. Another time, in Vilnius, we were approached by an older man who told us some extra stories about the place - we took him for dinner. To Poles politeness obliges. It’s an effort that must be reciprocated.

I don’t want Polish clerks to be polite because that would leave me no room for refusal or freedom of choice. Till they behave like people at work I have a feeling that I don’t leave any mark on them. I can step in and out without risk, and go to another store without feeling that I betray them. But when they are polite, when they make an effort, I feel like their guest. I can’t refuse them.

So I think that when foreigners are looking at us they think that a smile doesn’t cost a thing, while we think it does cost a lot. The word namolny (importunate) may refer to a stranger who smiles too much.

It’s just as our language has a more narrow meaning of “friendship” than English. An English speaking person can say that they went to cinema with their friends. I wouldn’t say that in Polish unless they all were my friends. If I went to cinema with my friend and her boyfriend of many years I still wouldn’t make the generalization. He’s not my friend, even though I know him well and like him a lot. So I’d say I went with znajomi (acquaintances).

A friend is a person whom one can’t refuse unless for a very important reason, a close friend is one who knows our secrets, whom we trust as ourselves, who’s obliged to do everything in their power to help us, and vice versa. Our homes aren’t our castles where our close friends and friends are concerned. They have higher status than our further family (aunts, uncles, cousins etc.) A znajomy is someone I’m likely to help if it doesn’t cost me too much. A neighbour is someone I might help if it costs me little. A colleague is someone I hope won’t ask my help in anything too difficult (even if I’ve known them for years). A co-worker is someone I want to keep at bay and not cross the public/private line unless I truly like them (I hate when in some companies they demand that all of the co-workers address each other per ‘Ty’ – it’s much more difficult to refuse when you can’t keep someone at a distance). A clerk is someone I don’t want to feel obliged to at all. A stranger who is in one of the above relationships with someone we know receives a place depending on their and our own relationship with the linking person. Ask a Pole to help someone you know, and the first question you’ll receive will be how well you know the person. They’ll evaluate the needed effort and multiply it by the relationship factor. And the effort might really be of a considerable value. It might mean money, or a lot of our energy and private time that we’d like to have for ourselves otherwise, but we can’t refuse in many situations. It often happens that someone countersigns a bank loan for a total stranger, just because they’re a znajomy of one’s znajomy.

I think that we do smile, but a Polish smile is not just a gesture, it’s a form of commitment. By smiling we tell others that we like them and open ourselves to the possibility of being asked for help, and we’re not very good at refusing. The more a person has to offer the less likely they are to smile. The extreme example are the public institutions where the clerks just can’t smile if they want to do their job. Otherwise they’d be spending their working hours on taking care of people’s tax declarations. But go to them and say that you know someone they know, and they will smile and spend their time on filling the declarations for you. Yet, if you just go and smile they’ll think you want to coax them into extra work. Similarly, smile at a policeman and they’ll think you want to avoid paying a fee. But, when I once stopped my car to ask some policemen about directions, I did smile and they smiled back. It was nothing and they were glad to help. I was then accompanied by some Americans, and they were amazed that our policemen are so nice. Imagine that! Our smile doesn’t mean we’re polite, it means we like you, and if offered prematurely or in a wrong situation it seems artificial and false.

In the comments I saw some references to our much greater willingness to help each other during communism. (Note that Poles who read about our mistrust and rudeness automatically linked it to our willingness or unwillingness to make an effort.) Indeed, I remember many cases from those times when complete strangers received very crucial help. People knew that they wouldn’t manage otherwise, and it was a part of resistance, but it still was the case of knowing someone who knows someone else. Today they can go and buy anything they need. So we just placed colleagues, neighbours, and strangers one stage down on our relationships ladder. We don’t need to make that much effort anymore, but the clerks were smiling even less back then. They had too little to offer, and there were too many people who’d want it from them.

On the other hand I think that Poles don’t necessarily appreciate the western politeness (I say western because in general I didn’t notice a difference in countries like Lithuania, Czech, Slovakia, Bulgaria or Greece). The problem to us is that we can’t recognize when people are sincere and so willing to make an effort. They smile and they’re polite as if they liked us a lot, and it puts us out of balance, because we’re risking appearing importunate by assuming that they do like us as much as it seems. A Pole needs much more time to come to this point of a relationship where they would be ready to behave like that, and so we don’t know how to read the appearances. But then we fall into the trap and do too much, and the foreigners are shocked with all of the effort we’re going to, or feel that we trespass their private sphere. We simply can’t read the difference between politeness and sincerity of feelings. A Pole is likely to be happy to return home from their holidays abroad because they feel they don’t have to pretend anymore. Of course I’m not saying that other people are pretending, rather that we need to pretend to be so polite, because normally it means something else to us.

Steffen Möller, the first German of Rzeczpospolita, included this joke in his repertoire: whenever he tours Poland he prefers to say that he’s German rather than admit to living in Warsaw. “People, they hate you there!” He shrugs.

It would be funny if it weren’t so true. Inhabitants of Warsaw take the unrivalled, unchallenged, and unshaken first place on the Top Hate list of their countrymen.

Deep, dark communism, Mokotów district

I’m born in the local hospital on Madalińskiego street, where the nearby florist must have made their fortune on fathers like mine, who are too hangovered to make it on time. Either from the excitement of my visiting the world, or because Poland has just won one of the qualifying games for a FIFA World Cup. I strongly suspect the latter, but whatever the case, he never drinks.

Hospital, ul. Madalińskiego

I grow up in the friendly environment of the green Mokotów, surrounded by people who, like my grandparents, survived the war living in Sadyba and, after some strenuous years of inhabiting 10 square meters in six, received the dreamed of apartment near Łazienki park. M-3. M-3 means two rooms and a kitchen. There’s also a hallway and a bathroom, but no living room or anything like that. Two rooms is all the living space one can get. And since it’s Warsaw, the city that died in 1944 and has yet to fully resurrect, those two rooms were meant to be enough for six. My grandpa was courteous enough to die early, but my uncles and aunt all live here with their families for a time. That’s one way to create strong family links. Eventually they all move out, my own father included, and together with my grandma and mum we can lead our happy life, minimizing the usual disputes about who should occupy one of the two rooms exclusively to one a year.

I love Warsaw, I truly do. I don’t care that it’s ugly (I never notice that), chaotic (really?), or whatever. My love is genuine and unconditional. I have my favourite places, memories, and friends. Here is the yard where I first ride a bike, the first roof I investigate, and the lane where I kiss for the first time in my life. Everyone has some local sentiment, I’m no different.

I spend my yearly holidays at my uncle’s family, who moved to a small village in the East. But since they’re Warsaw émigrés, just as their closest neighbours are, I’m still unaware of the great difference that divides me from my countrymen.

Summer, Bieszczady mountains

I’m 15, just as those two friends with whom I go hiking. In the evening, we get our food ready when we’re approached by these nice guys asking if they can join. Sure. We make one common supper, talk about our planned routs, someone plays the guitar. The night blooms. Until someone asks the innocent question,

“Where are you from?”

“Warsaw.”

The uneasy silence is interrupted when someone repeats my city’s name, “Waaarsaaaaw?” Disbelief mixed with dread unmistaken in his voice.

We look at ourselves, genuinely confused, when we hear, “Stolyca,” with the drunkard’s L that would make a Pole pass for an Englishman.*

We briefly wonder whether we should take our toys and make a new fireplace, but finally it appears we’re more curious than discouraged. “Well, yes, Warsaw. Why?”

“You know, nobody likes people from Warsaw”

“No, we don’t.”

“No?,” he’s clearly disappointed. “Warszawiacy are extremely arrogant.”

“Have we behaved arrogantly towards you?”

He must have sensed the sincerity of our puzzlement, and so goes on, “Well, no, you’ve been very nice. Just in general.”

I truly believe that I am the general, so I ask about details. Shortly it appears that our new friends didn’t meet any people from Warsaw before. “Just everybody knows it.”

After our timid suggestion that perhaps they are mistaken as to the general picture they briefly hesitate, but soon their cause has new food. “Kraków really should be the capital of Poland.” (It used to be 400 years ago.)

“Are you from Kraków?”

“No, we’re from Tychy.” (Near Katowice, Upper Silesia) “But Kraków is the only proper capital.”

Not that I care where the capital is, but I am a die hard Pole after all, and I’m not going to surrender when my city is attacked.

“Why not Gniezno?” (a capital of Poland some 900 years ago)

“Why Gniezno?”

“It was first.”

After a longer discussion during which we discover that, indeed, we were taught history from the same books, and consider, but disregard, Biskupin (the eldest settlement in Poland) we’re back at the starting point.

“Kraków is so beautiful. Warsaw is ugly.”

De gustibus non disputandum, so we’re just exposed to some hours of peons on the beauty of Kraków until finally we can call it a night, without giving any hint of an offence taken.

Bieszczady mountains don’t seem to be big enough for us, and we meet daily, each time being treated to new, carefully thought out attacks, from ‘Kraków is falling apart while Warsaw builds the Metro’ (the one, unique, and precious line of metro I should add), via the accusatory ‘Your pubs have windows!’ (what a surprise!), to ‘Every Pole pays for Warsaw’ (actually no, it’s exactly the opposite, every warszawiak pays for the rest of the country).

Back in Warsaw I ask people at school whether it has ever happened to them, and receive a resounding positive. They advise me to tell that I’m from Mokotów rather than Warsaw the next time, but this I find absolutely idiotic. I’m not going to be ashamed of my place of living just because my fair countrymen need a common enemy or a common sense.

I keep travelling, and with time I get used to it, although the first conversation repeats itself regularly. In fact, no, I once meet a man from Kraków who prefers Zakopane. I’ll never forget him. It was the pleasantest half an hour spent in a train.

Ten years later, The International Fair, Poznań

I’m working in a publishing company, and my boss (originally from Jelenia Góra) and I set for lunch. She’s young, ambitious, and convinced that a lunch break isn’t for food but for making new businesses. At her urging, we join two clad in suits men at their table. She begins her promotional talk, and they seem sincerely confused. Clearly not the kind of people who could buy an ad. She senses that something is wrong and changes the subject to a more informal one. “Where are you from?” She asks, and after receiving an answer, adds,

“We are from Warsaw“.

It’s the very first time in my life when I feel truly ashamed for being from Warsaw. Or rather, I can honestly hear all of the conceit she puts in the one word. Being from Warsaw doesn’t ennoble for heaven’s sake! It’s just a place.

Later, I meet her friends, with whom I’m to work on some project, and during a long ride from Poznań to Warsaw I’m for the first time acquainted with the term Warszawka (little Warsaw). I might never get any idea what’s its definition, except that from the ride, and the huge traffic jam we’re stuck in, I’m left with an impression that it’s some kind of elite who spends their evenings in the “truly Warsaw style”, mixing with VIPs at all of the very important events.

It’s not the Warsaw I know. My friends return home from work and meet friends, go to a movie, or spend a quiet evening with their family. Things, I believe, ordinary people do. I find all of the posh events tedious. One has to dress up and smile all the time to people one doesn’t care one bit about, but who might provide a good business opportunity. Come on! Get a life!

Thankfully, I don’t work there much longer. In general, at school people from Warsaw were in the majority, and newcomers were integrating quickly. At work it’s different. I’m always one of the few. People come from all over Poland and try to make their new lives. It’s hard. They have no one to leave their kids with, no friends or family around, they have troubles with finding places, and they’re frustrated with the long working hours and then another one or two spent in the traffic (even though there’s the one line of Warsaw Metro that costs Kraków so much). But I must say, they’re normal. I hope to never again meet the representatives of Warszawka whatever their origins.

The Wooden Pier, Sopot

One day I go to Sopot (a meeting with clients). After the business is over we all go to one of the cosy Sopot pubs for some drinks. When a man from Gdynia asks me the never dying question, I’m surprised. He knows that we came from Warsaw to make the presentation.

“I know, but I’m asking where you’re really from.”

“From Warsaw.”

“And before?”

“I was born in Warsaw.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“And your parents?”

“Also from Warsaw.”

At my grandparents he agrees that I’m a real warszawianka and ogles me as if I ran away from the Jurassic Park. When the initial shock is over he tells me a story. It appears that he used to work in Warsaw for some time. His then boss told him that warszawiacy are a rare species, almost extinct by now, while all of the others are some przyjezdni (newcomers) only bragging about their Warsaw living place.

It takes me some time to digest the news, especially that my heritage isn’t any different than that of the majority of my friends, but frankly, I don’t know if everyone in my school was a warszawiak through their grandparents, and neither I care nor I think they would. On the other hand, I’ve met that one girl and her two friends, who indeed were mental, but on the whole, the new people living in Warsaw are as normal as any. No way they’d brag about something so silly, especially that they tend to be proud of their Kraków, Toruń, Wrocław or Gdańsk. Maybe only Jelenia Góra doesn’t have enough to offer, although I bet I might be proven wrong. There’s a good chance the people in Jelenia Góra breathed with relief when my ex boss moved to Warsaw.

One day I have this conversation with my friend from Toruń, who is totally fed up with the Warsaw hardness, and showers me with the usual list of complaints. I realize that Warsaw isn’t great, and especially to someone who left everything in order to come here and work, and has a daughter and no time for entertainments. But, on the other hand, would the people in Toruń or Kraków be happy if a couple of million people suddenly moved into their town? Warsaw used to be quite a cosy place. Twenty years ago I needed half an hour to get from Mokotów to Żoliborz by bus. Today it takes me one or two, even tough I have a car. New warszawiacy naturally affect the city in a way they don’t like, without even noticing that they are those who bring the changes. Yet, I don’t hear old warszawiacy complain that the new ones boost the prices of apartments, lower average wages, or take their jobs. On the whole, I think that warszawiacy are the most tolerant people in Poland. They are accustomed to changes, and they adjust to them quickly. Warsaw still is a small city by European standards, and no one will be surprised when it grows even more.

So well, to the proud inhabitants of the rest of Poland – please do realize that people can be from Warsaw as from any other place. To the new warszawiacy, do come and have as much fun as you can get, but please don’t elevate Warsaw to the rank of Louvre. And to the old warszawiacy – don’t you dare make me look like a freaking dinosaur!

Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter (1776-1850) is one of the earliest examples of the historical novel. It went through a dozen editions, and was such a favourite with these nice people of Pembroke, Kentucky that they named their town for one of the book’s characters. The brave Thaddeus is obviously named for the great Polish-American hero Tadeusz Kościuszko, who, I think, as an ethnic Belarusian, may be as good warszawiak as any.

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English isn’t my first language so if you spotted any mistakes and would like to tell me about them, I’ll be very glad to learn.

* Stolica means capital. The drunkard’s L is a way to learn to pronounce the English L that normally is spoken differently by Poles, but drunk people are said to have the perfect one. The exercise is to say “lalunia”.