Independence Day

"13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant."

-Woodrow Wilson, Fourteen Points speech to a joint session of the 65th United States Congress, 8 January 1918

A German, an Englishman and a Pole are tasked with writing an essay about elephants. The German writes an essay about the anatomy and behavior of an elephant. The Englishman writes about hunting them. The Pole writes an essay that begins "the elephant is a Polish question."

- Joke circulating around the time of the Treaty of Versailles, as related by Richard M. Watt in Bitter Glory: Poland and its Fate 1918-1939.

November 11th is celebrated as Veteran's Day in the U.S. and Armistice Day in Western Europe, days of remembrance, thoughts of the war dead, occasions to wear paper poppies on the lapel if you're a Brit and so forth. It's a semi-solemn holiday. Here in Poland it is festive, celebrated as National Independence Day. This was the day that Polish militias and paramilitaries began disarming German troops, Jósef Piłsudski took control of the country, and of course the guns on the Western Front fell silent, leading eventually to a newly established, but very old, nation.

Unfortunately, I didn't see much in the way of festivities, and in some cases this was simply the result of not looking around the corner of St. Mary's Church. There was some singing of patriotic songs in the Rynek that I missed, but I didn't hear any fireworks. So it was a little anti-climactic.

What I did see was interesting. I thought Americans were nuts about displaying the flag, particularly as on an ordinary day you don't really see many Polish flags out. I know that not everybody reading this blog is an American so let me explain: we routinely fly the flag at gas stations, car dealerships, KFCs, private houses, government buildings, schools, in the middle of traffic circles and so forth. That's generally not the case in Europe, and in Poland even government buildings don't always (or even typically) fly a flag: there's typically a Polish white eagle on the building and that's how you know it's official. However, on Independence Day the Poles make us look like a bunch of pikers. All the buses had flags on their front fender. The trams were flying twin flags above their route and destination bars. Every other house had a flag on it. About a quarter to a half of people, possibly more, were carrying little Polish flags. The Rynek had these vertical flags of both the country and the city (blue and white bicolor), the Ratusz had a large flag about 30 meters in length draped on it, and St. Mary's Church had crossed city and national flags, as well as a bouquet between them made of red and white roses. Every stall in the Sukiennice had crossed national and city flags. The streets between the Florian Gate and Wawel Castle also had signs and flags hung over them. I suspect that politicians were wearing red and white undershorts.

Also notable was that there were much larger crowds out and about than on a normal Sunday, with more shops open to serve them than usual. Mostly, they were just kind of walking around. One thing I love about this city is that that's what a lot of people do, and there are a lot of places to do it. Krakow is one of the best cities I know to just take a walk in.

I understand there were some political protests as well. In general, from what I'm given to understand generally Polish politicians don't go harassing babies, but rather spend their time at rallies whipping up the multitudes. Piotrek (one of my labmates) was saying that there were two protests, one in the Mały Rynek (around the corner from St. Mary's), and the other at Wawel. I know there were also demonstrations in Warsaw against Fascism and some that were in favor of radicalism of some kind or another. The State Department issued a "be somewhat afraid" posting about the latter series of protests, but I haven't heard that any of our people up there had to spend the night in the hospital or the hoosegow, so I take it all is well.