My first Facebook entry after receiving the book was:
"Today at the Museum of independency I received a copy of this book from the author (with a dedication). \A brief reading suggests that it is simply a very crucial book, showing the activities of a social organization which in the period after October brought together prominent people with different views, erstwhile arks, soldiers of the 1st Army of the Polish Academy of Sciences, historians (many later from the period of survey at the University of Warsaw), journalists, actors, art makers. In the list of invited to the 1st gathering of the TPW I found Gen. Zygmunt Berling, but besides respective arks, Antoni Słonimski, as well as “weavers”. This was possible thanks to the circumstantial atmosphere of “Polish Gomulkowska”, so presently ridiculed and so underestimated”.
After reading the book, I confirm this first opinion. Against the background of a full array of books devoted to the time of the Polish People's Republic, this 1 stands out as a complete “apolitics”, which is its large asset. For it is now fashionable to compose about PRL “martyrologically” or through the glasses of opposition and “Solidarity”. erstwhile in a conversation with Prof. Marian M. Drozdowski, which note bene is 1 of the protagonists of this book – we agreed that in specified a imagination of past there is no nation. His work, effort and destiny of average people die in the darkness of oblivion. Present historians reject the thought that they could compose that something good could have been done between 1945 and 1989. This book shows that 1 can compose differently, simply present facts honestly, without unnecessary dictism or searching for holes throughout.
“ In 1963, the Society of Friends of Warsaw was established, and 1 of the branches of the association became the Society of Friends of Old Warsaw. The founders of the Society of Friends of Warsaw included the same people who, before the war, operated in the associations of friends of the districts of Warsaw. The causative force of the Warsaw Friends Society was a group of people concentrated in the unofficial Warsaw Friends Club who wanted to make an organization where they could implement civic projects concerning Warsaw. It was first of all Prof. Jerzy Loth, patron Bronisław Wróblewski and editor Dobrosław Kobielski. It was known that a individual with a large authority should be invited to cooperate. And so, as shortly as the intention of forming the Society arose, people were invited to influence the public and the authorities of the time. These included persons known for their conspiracy activities during the German occupation, participants of the Warsaw Uprising, as well as leaders of crucial varsavianist institutions. There were besides people commonly known as actors, editors or writers. It was first of all Prof. Stanisław Lorentz, longtime manager of the National Museum in Warsaw, advocate of the reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, with whom a number of the most crucial historians worked and counted, among others: Prof. Janusz Durko, Prof. Aleksander Gieysztor, Prof. Stanisław Herbst, Prof. Tadeusz Łepkowski or Prof. Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki".
These outstanding scientists mentioned at the end are the brains of the full enterprise. It's a kind of staff centered around Prof. Stanisław Lorentz (1889-1991). And these are top names. I was fortunate to meet any of them as a student of past at the University of Warsaw, I remember Professor Alexander Geysztor and not mentioned here, but present frequently on the pages of the book Prof. Andrzej Zahorski, in love with the past of Warsaw, in the Kościuszko and Napoleonic era, a large erudite and lecturer. But the most crucial character from the very beginning was Prof. Stanisław Lorentz. A figure worthy of the highest respect, a man who was a kind of bridge between pre-war and post-war Poland, due to the fact that he had no uncertainty that regardless of the political assessments and expectations of the political camp, with which he was undoubtedly connected (he was a close associate of Stefan Starzyński), the highest value is the culture and continuity of the state. There was something from the symbol that Lorentz was manager of the National Museum from 1935 to 1982, and thus besides in the Stalinist era. And although the author does not focus on the political aspects of her functioning in Poland after 1945 – it is easy to conclude that Lorentz was a pragmatist. The Society of Friends of Warsaw was his work, but people of all political shades and various résumés were invited to work in it. And it was a period conducive to specified initiatives, respective years after the October Breakdown, which opened a completely fresh period in the past of the Polish People's Republic. It is not actual at present popular thesis that already in 1957 there was a "retreat" since October. That is not true, most of the achievements of this breakthrough were already permanent, especially in the field of culture.
The author believes that the main goal of Stanisław Lorentz initiating the TPW was to rebuild the Royal Castle in Warsaw. He waited rather shortly for this, as it was in the early 1970s. Edward Gierek He agreed to this request. It was Lorentz's large success. Of course, he realized that both he and the TPW had to convince the organization authorities to make certain demands, hence a very skillful tactic, besides consisting in gaining allies in the power camp. It may surprise any present that on the calendar of the most crucial anniversary celebrated by the TPW it was January 17, or Warsaw Liberation Day. present it is written in quotes, but at the time this anniversary was given large importance. This can be seen from the book's annexes, the thesis of Stanisław Lorentz's speech on January 15, 1979, on the 34th anniversary of the liberation of the city. The main points in this talk are: “January 34 years ago. Warsaw is under the rubble, the dead, almost non-existent, the demolition of war reaches 84%. 17 January 1945 – Warsaw liberated, free! They return to the ruins of Warsaw, return to the ruins of life. There are years of heroic reconstruction, time called by poet Władysław Broniewski – “the period of ruin of the torn brick”. The emphasis placed by Lorentz on the resurrection from the ruins and the return to life of the City of the Unknown was the correct thesis, present not taken at all. The anniversary itself is now an embarrassing event.
It is worth reaching for the book Beata Michalec, as it contains a vast amount of factographic material and a rich (although of course incomplete) calendar of TPW activity. As the author herself writes, her monograph does not exhaust the subject, but everything before her and another researchers. For example, I dream of a monograph of the highly well-deserved weekly “Stolica” (ed. nacz. Leszek Wysznacki), a circumstantial phenomenon of that time.
Jan Engelgard
Photo: The inaugural gathering of the Citizen Committee for the Reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. Palace Ballroom On the Island in the Royal Bathrooms, January 26, 1971. Speaking by Józef Kępa, prof. Stanisław Lorentz sits first
Beata Michalec, “The Society of Friends of Warsaw in 1963-1991”, edited by Tadeusz Skopek, Museum of independency in Warsaw, Warsaw 2024, p. 591.
Think Poland, No. 23-24 (2-9.06.2024)
