On the second day of Easter I heard sad news about the abrupt death of Marian MiszaIski, my friend, who died on Easter Sunday at the age of 78 from a heart attack. In 1970, I met Mariana at the writer Study, where we started postgraduate studies, and moved to a student home on Jelonki. We immediately fell in love, and so began our friendship, which survived until his death. It just so happens that we were broadcasting on the same wavelength, and it most likely brought us closer together.
After his studies, Marian returned to his family's Łódź, where he began working in the “Worker's Voice”, while I was already in Warsaw working in the Green Flag paper issued by the Chief Committee of the ZSL. It so happens that my predecessor, Emil Morgieewicz, went to prison as convicted in the process of "Mouch" – and that the paper needed a lawyer who would lead the department of communication with readers, providing legal advice to them, my law studies were useful.
Even though we lived in 2 different cities, we kept in touch, which became intense especially in the second half of the 1970s, erstwhile I joined the democratic opposition at the time in the Human Rights and Citizens' Defence Movement, and in this capacity, along with another friend of mine from Lublin studies, we published an underground paper for the agrarian population entitled "The Host". Marian at that time became active with the Confederation of Independent Poland – and so we reached the “Carnaval of Solidarity” in 1980. In the martial law, Marian was interned immediately and went to prison in Sieradz, while I was arrested only in May 1982 and went to a camp for internees in Białołęka, where I met Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who I am friends with so far.
When we were freed from these “retreat centers”, we again established communication, this time very close, which resulted in the launch in 1983 of an underground „Kurs” publications. Marian was primarily active in editing and searching for authors, and I – publishing not only the monthly magazine “Kurs”, but besides books, which from 1983 to 1989 we published over 20 – including ambitious literary positions, specified as Józef Mackiewicz’s fresh “Do not request to talk out.” The main intent of our task was to familiarize the Polish reader with the western flow of economical freedom, so that people active in the underground know in what direction to form systemic changes – if there is specified a chance. To this end, in addition to the aforementioned monthly magazine, which we managed to issue 40 numbers – each in the volume of more than 60 pages of the "bit" typescript, was very successful with the popular positions of French author Guy Sorman: "The Conservative Revolution in America", "The Liberal Solution", or "The Real Thinkers of Our Time", as well as the book Milton and the Friedman Rose, which we gave the Polish title "Free Choice". It is worth noting that the “Kurs” was a self-financing enterprise, which provided us with additional satisfaction that even under specified unfavourable circumstances we are following the principles proclaimed – due to the fact that we were both expelled from our work with the alleged “wild ticket”.
When in the second half of the 1980s, as part of the preparations for the celebrated 'system transformation' of the government a bit softened, we were going to France for vines and, by the way, we had various contacts with people working on emigration. Cooperation in the 1980s brought us even closer together, and there was something that could be compared to the “brotherhood of arms” – although we did not carry out any armed activity. Marian's had quite a few accomplishments. As a French translator, he made the works of John Raspail available to the Polish reader, including the “Camp of the Saints”, which – although written in 1972 – proved prophetic only after 60 years. As an author, he made himself known through his books “Chams and Jews” or “Jewish political lobby in Poland”, “The Hidden War – Quiet Capitulation”, or yet – The latest conspiracy past of Poland” – concerning politics and past – but besides beletristy (“The artist’s own collection”). 2 years ago Anita, Marian's wife, who he loved very much, died very much. In fact, not so much "survived" as he experienced it all the time, and erstwhile I met him on various occasions I felt like he had lost his desire to live. The last time I talked to him at the Book Fair in Łódź, he told me about his cardiological problems, so I urged him to take care of the treatment – but although he listened to me, I did not feel that he was taking my advice to heart. And here comes large Sunday, erstwhile the heart stopped.
In the news of Marian's death, I remembered his poem, most likely inactive written in the early 1970s, to which I would like to end this memory:
So that the earth may expand
They're not going to hurt in the conscience of a black man.
He comes under the throat, the heart of shame burns.
So that the earth may expand
A Cool Shadow for Human Life
Filled with nothingness after the end of life
Cool sheets after hard love
With blonde days, brunettes of the night...
So that the earth may expand
Not the grave in which the sparks are poor
The extinguished bird falls – only a mark in the sky...
So that the earth may expand
Bleaching in fertile soil
From which stem strong in blue beats
Blue's in for the grey beards of the clouds.
Stanisław Michalkiewicz
(Source; Michalkiewicz.pl – reprint with approval of the Author)
