Polish History Part III: What does it all mean?

Polish history can and does fill volumes in libraries, and yet so much of it is not really taught in high schools or colleges around the United States. This is a shame, because Poland, like any nation, only makes sense in the context of its history. I have sensed the importance of history around here, from plaques on walls that honor either heroes of the past or those who were murdered by the Nazis or Soviets, to what is discussed on TV or in newspapers. There are several magazines dedicated to just history, and they are about as common and widespread as The National Geographic: Historia can be found on the same shelves as People in the mall, for instance. But what, exactly, is that importance? I'd like to consider the importance of history on the past, the present, and the future.

History can have an impact on the past, as the past is written in the present. A major question facing the Polish government and educational establishment is how to teach history. If you were to teach it as "totally awesome 1350-1795, totally sucked 1795-1919, was OK 1919-1939, major bummer 1939-1989, 1989-present?", that wouldn't be very nuanced or probably particularly accurate. Also difficult is that there is a strong generational divide. People my age are too young to remember Communism. Those my parent's age remember it vividly. And those my grandparent's age remember Nazis goosestepping past their house. And you thought it was bad enough when your grandfather talked about the Depression!

There's also the question about what to do with those who were influential members of the Communist government, or those who collaborated with those awfully persuasive secret police. Do you pass something like the 14th Amendment, which in its less-read articles disenfranchises a bunch of ex-rebels? Do you prosecute Jaruzelski and people like him? Is that just "victor's justice?" As far as I can tell, there is no one answer. There are and have been ex-communists in the Polish government, and it doesn't seem like a big deal. However, whenever it comes out that somebody collaborated, that does tend to be a big deal. This problem will end up solving itself in 30 years when everybody dies or retires, but for now it is a going concern.

In the present, I've noticed that Poles are possessive of their history. Literally. Don't ask me to bring you antiques, because it is illegal to remove any item created before 1945 from this country. I might be able to manage a distributor cap from a Wartburg or Trabant, but that's probably the best I can do. This is probably attributable to the fact that Poland was not a country for over a century, and many items of cultural significance were either taken or lost as a result of the numerous wars that have criss-crossed the landscape. Most famous of these artifacts were the Grunwald Swords, the formal invitation to battle sent by the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order to the Polish king before the battle of Grunwald in 1410. The swords became a symbol of Poland-Lithuania (and of beating up the Germans), but were lost in 1853 and their fate is unknown. In general, the powers that partitioned Poland tended to try to eliminate Polish identity as thoroughly as possible, and that included Polish history. In more recent times, while the communists did not attempt to destroy Polish history, there was a definite party line and slant to the way that history was taught. I have a book of Polish history written in English in 1977, which says that, in essence, absolutely nothing good happened while the bourgeois pig-dogs ran Poland between 1919 and 1939. I also understand that under the Communists, there were certain topics that were not politically-correct to discuss, such as the Home Army during World War II. Now that Poles are free to talk about their history, and free to debate it, it seems like they can do little else. It would be as if there had been a long moratorium in the U.S. about discussing the Civil War that just got lifted.

Another example of historical possessiveness is the idea of a national literature. Ask an American who the national bard is, and you'll get all kinds of answers from Twain to Steinbeck to Faulkner to Frost. Here, there is a somewhat smaller number of figures: Mickiewicz has statues of himself everywhere you go, and there are the four Nobel laureates in literature that Poland has produced, who are definitive literary figures. Everybody who is educated over here, it seems, has read Pan Tadeusz or some Sienkiewicz, whereas in the States I don't know if everybody has read, say, Huckleberry Finn. I am also struck by the fact that what is considered literature, as far as I can tell, extends to fairy tales as well.

I am a big believer in the study of national themes. Whenever you look at history, certain things keep coming up again and again in different guises. In the States, the debates about state vs. federal power, exactly how much liberty the government should permit people (and whether that amount should be different for different groups of people), and the desire to blaze new frontiers define us as a country. The Russians have been all about acquiring warm-water ports. The British have long wondered what their proper role is in the world. In the case of Poland, the biggest national theme is not having a nation, and of struggling to keep Polish identity alive. And that theme just went out the window. 

Poland is now in an intense period of transition, because in a way it has seen the much-ballyhooed "end of history" that resulted from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Poland today is an independent republic with free elections, and its governmental system was robust enough to survive the death of the Polish president and a whole bunch of other important officials in the Smolensk plane crash two years ago. While there are still economic and political spats with Russia, and EU policy arguments with Germany, Poland is not really under any serious threat of military invasion and is not under foreign occupation. Heck, in the States we seem more worried about national security and terrorism than they do around here, though I did see airport police armed with submachine guns in Warsaw. Meanwhile, the economy is growing, and the zloty is a stable-enough currency despite some inflation.

Not only does the State have to redefine itself, so do a lot of non-governmental organizations, the most important of which is probably the Catholic Church. The Church has long been a counterweight to the State, and as I noted previously, it was so heavy a counterweight that the Communists were not able to destroy it. Now that politicians are actively trying to be on the good side of the Church, the relations between the Catholic Church and the State look to get very complicated very soon.

This combination of circumstances has never happened in Polish history before. As Poland gropes its way forward, it can't really look to its past. So what, exactly, can Poles look to? This is perhaps the greatest irony of all, that the greatest legacy of Polish history is to make the future so uncertain.