13.06.24. Transformationfrom a perspectivetime
A fewer days ago, on 4 June, thirty-five years passed since our partially free elections to the Sejm and completely free to the Senate. First specified after planet War II. Organized according to the principles established by representatives of the Polish People's Republic, the democratic opposition and the Catholic Church at the circular Table. It is widely known that Solidarity won in these elections everything that was to be won. This meant – as Joanna Szczepkowska, celebrated since then, recorded in a tv program: "Please, on June 4, 1989, communism ended in Poland". As a result, we live present in a planet after the transformation, which succeeded, although its pace and results were hard to foretell at the time.
Today, in short, we belong to the European Union and we are just after the elections of Members of the European Parliament. The fresh generations are fortunately no longer having to ask, "What is the line behind?" The divisions between East and West as well as internal, with us and elsewhere pulsate with all their power, and political games are utilized in a way that is devastating, for example, migrants, human misery and human death. In fact, it would be good to remember, from time to time, even if only the title cited respective times in these Records Books A short communicative about how we screwed up everything. Tom Phillips (for Maria Gębickka-Frąc, Albatros, Warsaw 2019). It would besides be good to return to the questions about how we had a fundamental change in our strategy in peace.
At the end of May, 2 books were published in reporters' shots addressing this issue, namely: (1) Michał Przeperski Wild East. Transformation in Polish 1986-1993 (WL, Kraków 2024; premiere 22 May) and (2) Marcin Napiórkowski, Katarzyna Szyningery and Mirosław Wlekłego 1989. affirmative Myth (Znak, Kraków 2024; premiere May 29).
A musical entitled 1989, i.e. about the rap past of events that led to the June 4 elections, everyone had a chance to hear and even watch. If not in the theater, it's on May 27th. In mine Records it was besides mentioned a year and a half ago (see text Positive myths in the mirrors of past of 10.12.2022). The net is besides full of recordings of various passages of this musical and performance reviews. Singles with individual songs from the show are scheduled to be released regularly soon, and a evidence with the recording of the full was announced in autumn.
The book, on the another hand, presents a description of the historical events that led to the circular Table. In this, based on talks conducted by the authors of the musical with the originals of its characters. In the text announcing the performance Napiórkowski erstwhile mentioned that as part of these preparations, “a fewer twelve hours of discussion” were recorded. We people in: ‘Wszystkie Tygodnik 2022, No 49, pp. 62-66). Of course, they spoke to Lech Wałęsa, Władysław Frasyniuk, Bogdan Borusewicz, Danuta Wałęsa or Anna Pienkowska's boy and others. besides with representatives of the organization party at the time (in footnotes references to interviews conducted are noted). But time is moving out. In any cases this was the last chance to talk to erstwhile opponents and discover a version of past events from their perspective. Others had to be referred to the materials left by the already deceased participants in the “Carnaval of Solidarity” and to various work on this subject. They've already been formed all over the sea. Fascinating in this context, for example, are stories Karol Modzelewski (see besides We're gonna hit the past ground. Confessions of a Beaten Rider, Sparks, Warsaw 2013) or essay Martin the King (see alsoWe were stupid., Red and Black, Warsaw 2015).
In the book Napiórkowski, Singiera and Wlekła we will besides find comments on how these visions discovered during the talks were processed for the usage of the performance and what fresh themes they introduced to the planned spectacle. For example, they have developed the problem of women's participation in the story.
This book, according to the title, is aimed at discovering the essence and sense of a affirmative myth, so all that – despite various positions, beliefs, injuries, violent disputes, quarrels and common accusations – yet led to any agreement of 3 generations of Polish oppositionists – so those for whom the twenty-pair-year-old Frassiniuks, thirty-pair-year-old Wałęsów and forty-pair-year-old Kuronis – and party-government parties were representative. It besides shows situations where the various mythical stories collide and how different meanings of their supporters relate to the communicative in which they work. The external context is obvious. In turn, what the opponents and their families experienced during the struggles described, someway involuntaryly and independently of their efforts to keep appropriate proportions, brings to head the celebrated motto: “People to People” ... Questions and Declaration Introduction In any case, the book reads:
Because what was that, what just happened? How is it that, contrary to the calculations of the wise men on both sides of the Atlantic, the change initiated by Solidarity has proved effective and lasting? How did the revolution make a movement built out of contradictions, internally divided, based on an improvised structure, a movement whose face was this erratic electrician?
This is what this communicative will be about (p. 18)
The intention of creating a book about the affirmative story of our past is explained in the following way:
New times request a fresh story. And it's not about moving distant from the facts. On the contrary. all year, fresh papers come to light. There are fresh conversations with witnesses of past who in retrospect view past events differently. But the facts are not all. Just as crucial is sense. Asking fresh questions about what we can actually learn from history.
What memory of Solidarity do we request present in the face of inequality problems? What cognition of negotiations at the circular Table could aid us to reduce the political polarization between society? What mass lessons from 4 decades ago can he give us about fighting for women's rights or helping refugees? (It is no coincidence that researchers who survey bottom-up forms of aid to refugees from Ukraine frequently perceive in them the reincarnation of solidarity ethos!).
From what has happened in the last decade of the Polish People's Republic, we could draw crucial conclusions today. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
We slept through that lesson. We have lost somewhere a true, fascinating communicative about Solidarity with a strong diversity, divided but believing in dialogue, sometimes confused, but persistently seeking its own way. We replaced her with a naive story of perfect Solidarity, which at 1 point individual stole from us. alternatively of different-colored heroes of blood and bone, we get black and white films built to counter the wonderful unity and worst betrayal.
In the process of canonizing or demonizing Solidarity, we pulled out her fangs. We stripped her of the interior cracks that were actually about her strength. Therefore, present we request a fresh affirmative Solidarity story that will enable us to meet the challenges of the future (p. 13).
It might be worth adding that Marcin Napiórkowski, author of the thought of creating a musical about Polish past like the American 1 Hamilton, works by Lina-Manuel Miranda, who tells about 1 of the founding fathers of the United States, is simply a semiotic of culture and besides wrote a book entitled Modern Mythology (PWN, Warsaw 2018). The “human” language explains in it to those who, on the basis of conventional school education, are accustomed to combining the concept of story exclusively with stories of Greek gods and heroes, that myths are not only that, due to the fact that we actually produce them indefinitely and must be treated as signs of searching and giving meaning to the planet around us. In the book about the “positive myth” of our history, its authors, citing the experiences of direct participants of past events, thus the Polish transformation shows in terms of semiotics of culture.
Another position Michał Przeperski in the book mentioned above Wild East. Transformation in Polish 1986-1993. The author, born in 1986 a historian, is simply a completely different generation from the creators of the transformational phrase, though, for example, descriptions of "railway life", of which the text sung by Krystyna Prońko was written by Ernest Bryll, is not missing in the book Przeperski. However, these are not autopsy descriptions. We will find a chapter there, which already, through the title, announces, for example, controversy over the designation of Marcin King: (No) We were stupid (pp. 126-137).
Przeperski works at the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Museum of Polish History. He specializes in the past of east Europe of the 20th century. Poland before the transformation defines how the title of his book suggests as “Wild East” (see also, for example, p. 67). consecutive to the election on 4 June, the cover game with the election poster, in which Gary Cooper was shown as the sheriff who urged the vote in 1989 (see page 377). This game seems significant, and in the book about our chaotic East we will besides read something about myths and their collisions, although not necessarily from the point of view of the semiotics of culture. Sperski writes:
Multifaceted transformation was to be partially slow and mild, and partially fast and merciless. In many respects, what she carried has proved to be highly different from what has been considered a norm. During respective months Poland experienced incredible acceleration. [...] So the communicative of gigantic success? It's 1 of the possible stories. According to the opposing narrative, systemic transformation is simply a communicative of the demolition of the state, which may not have flowed with milk and honey, but was unchangeable and calculated, and its inhabitants lacked nothing [here a footnote to the position of Rafał Wosia – kr].
In this book, narration is not a central issue. The most crucial is the effort to catch key transformation experiences, which became part of Poland and Poles in 1986-1993. I want to show these experiences very closely, in all complexity. I believe that in establishing the relation between these experiences and modern disputes about transformation, there is simply a key to a better knowing of what happened then. This is an effort to draw social past – different ways utilizing different sources. [...]
There is no 1 “right” view of transformation. The second was a besides complex process, being a "type of crucible of bottom-up and at the same time organization change". It is besides impossible to realize the “new” modern Poland without what happened in the late 1980s and 1990s in “old” Poland. Experience gained by Poles in the socialist strategy is crucial for knowing their functioning in the capitalist system.
The past cannot be crossed off with a thick line. Like it or not, we are all from transformation (pp. 12-15).
Here we add that in October 2023 the publication of the Literary Publishing House, so, as with Przeperski's work, the book was published. Andrzej Brzeziecki Concrete mind. past of hard-headed companions with PZPR. There are even joint meetings of the authors of these works, during which 1 can hear that reasoning about transformation was actually tantamount to striving for a leap from 1 utopia – the communist one, to the another – the 1 with the magical attitude of the Western life...
In the cover sheet of the book on "Beton Minds", we will read:
Murderers, tough orthodoxes. That's what the dark core of PZPR was called. They were referred to as "betons," and they were referred to as Gomulka as a liberal and a capitalist servant. They were anti-Semites, hated the intelligent and expressed ostentatious hostility towards the elite. They launched the anti-Jewish run in March 1968 and have always advocated force solutions, skillfully manipulating social sentiments.
How come they never managed to take full power between 1944 and 1989? Why was Moscow simply utilizing them, yet not betting on them?
The tombs of the “beton” did not vanish into thin air, nor did the longing for the power of a strong hand disappear.
And although the PPR has long been gone, the mechanisms of power and politics are eternal.
Andrzej Brzeziecki is simply a 1978-born historian, writer and journalist. In his book, we read in another place of the quoted note:
reads this continuous race for power between: "liberals", specified as Gomulka or Gierek, and "dogmatics". He leads us through the behind-the-clock past of Poland, involving intrigue of the conflict of organization factions. With a journalistic spark depicts the entourage of various types of people from concrete: headed with the fearsome Mieczysław Moczar, with the mistaken knights of communism, cynical players and ruthless organization players.
What can I say at the end? Well, all mentioned present Records The books are read smoothly, although collectively, despite the successes and appreciation for the "positive myth" as people we do not look extraordinary in them. However, who would like to find and nevertheless find any tools to interpret the surrounding reality, reading it will not fail...
If this were about past education, it would most likely be good if the people liable for creating uniform school programs with “only right” explanation of historical events remembered the question which in Mikhail Bulhakov's fresh Master and Margaret According to Woland, Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” And it wouldn't hurt if they thought about the conviction in the fresh sometimes. Elizabeth Finch British Nobel Prize winner Julian Barnes: "Historyians can besides be large beletrists". After all, this is the apparent synonym of “the wicked swindlers.” It suggests that the discrimination of facts and explanation should be constantly kept in mind. And that is the basic task for a good school due to learning history...
