On April 18, we celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Polish Crown. How important is the memory of the Polish monarchy for the identity of the modern Polish Nation?
Prof. Wojciech Polak: Monarchy is primarily a symbol of sovereignty today, a symbol of great, powerful, proud Poland. The coronation of Bolesław Chrobry in 1025 had a number of dimensions. He was keen to be a crowned ruler, because kingdoms were the first league of European countries, with the greatest authority. On the other hand, a crowned ruler was a ruler who received God’s sanction for his power through the Church, the Pope, the bishops. He had a special task to perform, consisting not only of defending his subjects from the external enemy, bandits, robbers, of whom there was no shortage at that time, that is, not only the task of establishing order, but also the task of defending the faith. There was therefore a certain religious sanction and a certain religious task that was entrusted to such a ruler.
These were also practical dimensions – the kingdom should not be divided, but should remain whole. We remember that Chrobry had to fight the tendency to divide the state into districts at the beginning of his reign. He wanted to avoid this. He had three sons. Through his coronation, he wanted to prevent the Piast legacy from being torn apart between them. Bolesław ordered Mieszko, the designated successor, later Mieszko II, to be crowned as soon as possible after his funeral, and this is what actually happened.
Let us note that after the death of Chrobry, there was a crisis in the Piast state, later – after the coronation of Mieszko II – there was a problem with these coronations. Bolesław the Brave was still crowned, then we have a huge gap and only from 1295, starting with Przemysł II, every ruler of Poland was crowned king. However, from the coronation of Bolesław Chrobry, no one denied that Poland was a kingdom.
During the crisis of the Piast state, when Mieszko II’s wife, also a queen, Rycheza left for Germany, the chroniclers call her the Polish queen and no one denies her this title. In other words, what Chrobry did marked the path of Polish statehood. The message was: Poland is a powerful, great state, a sovereign kingdom and will remain so for centuries.
Today, we should look at this coronation through the prism of the power and sovereignty of our country. We should also remember one feature of Bolesław Chrobry, which is also related to this coronation, namely his pride. He was a proud ruler, a ruler who did not want to pay a feudal tribute from Bohemia, which he had occupied. This led to war, and he lost Bohemia at that time, but he knew that such precedents were not set, that if he paid a feudal tribute from Bohemia to the German king Henry II, he could soon demand a tribute from Poland, and he would not pay such a tribute. He will not be a vassal – he is a proud, independent, sovereign ruler, and we should draw these resources of pride from the stories of Bolesław Chrobry. Today, our neighbors are lurking for our independence – the Germans are very keen to turn us into an almost colonial country. They have various plans – worse, implemented through the European Union – and we must respond to these plans with pride, with a sense of self-worth and with a sense that Poland is a sovereign country, that EU law is not at all superior to our national law, but is exactly the opposite. The most important law for Poles is the one they themselves have passed, so today we must be such proud children of Bolesław Chrobry.
This pride of Bolesław Chrobry was also noted in a sense by German chroniclers, who greatly regretted that Bolesław Chrobry had somehow snatched this crown for himself and made Poland a kingdom. They did not like it very much. Also this metaphysical dimension of this gesture of Bolesław Chrobry. And it seems that this has stuck with the Germans to this day, because I increasingly hear various negative assessments of Bolesław Chrobry, reducing him to the position of a cutpurse, or, excuse me, some drunkard, while in reality he was a very modern ruler for the European conditions of that time.
Yes. He was a very modern ruler. That he was proud was his right, because Poland was such a large, powerful state – it was the most powerful power in Europe. The German Reich, perhaps larger in area, perhaps with greater resources, was broken up into small duchies, margraves, counties, and these princes, margraves and counts jumped at each other’s eyes, murdered each other and demolished each other’s castles to the ground. They simply behaved like savages. This Reich was not powerful at all because of this – it was conflicted and weak, and Poland was a uniform country, ruled by a good, wise, modern ruler. When you observe events, you can come to the conclusion that this ruler was culturally much higher than, for example, the German Emperor, especially Henry II.
It is worth expanding on this topic, because Henry II and his circle liked to imply that Germans were culturally superior to Slavs, to Poles, while some of Henry II’s behavior was downright barbaric. In 1002, when Bolesław Chrobry went to him in Merseburg to talk about the affiliation of Lusatia, Meissen, and Milsk, he was received by the emperor, discussed with the emperor and reached an agreement, after which, after leaving the imperial residence, he was attacked and an attempt of assault was made on his life. If not his friend Henry of Schweinfurt, a German magnate, with whom Chrobry probably befriended in childhood, when he was a hostage at the imperial court (at that time Bolesław also learned German and formed friendships with some young German magnates), he would not have had much chance of rescue. The assassination was undoubtedly carried out on the orders of Henry II.
In relation to Bolesław Chrobry, I can cite completely opposite examples. In 1015, in the land of Dziadoszanie, in Silesia, there was a great battle, where the Poles defeated German troops personally commanded by Henry II, then emperor, and 200 German knights fell on the battlefield, including Gero, the margrave of the Eastern March. For the Germans, it was a huge defeat. The devastated emperor sends the bishop of Meissen, Giles, to go to the battlefield and bury the dead. Indeed, this bishop goes, stands over the fallen, prays, wonders what to do. The Poles see him, approach him, show him respect, reverence – after all, they had to do all this on the orders of Chrobry – and then they themselves carry the bodies of the defeated German knights, dig graves, help the bishop, take part in the funeral rites, in order to bury the human remains in a Christian way. Meanwhile, the remains of Margrave Gero (and another fallen knight) are loaded onto a cart by Idzi to be taken to the emperor in Germany. Wasn’t this the behavior of a knight? Wasn’t this behavior of Chrobry the behavior of a true Christian knight? The answer is obvious.
It must be emphasized that Chrobry was a true, magnificent, noble knight and he had this pride, this sense of dignity, the feeling that he was the ruler of a powerful kingdom even before his coronation. He considered himself a king. We have a whole series of coins that he minted, on which the inscription is not “Bolezlaus Dux”, but “Bolezlaus Rex” – “Bolesław the King”. He was aware that calling his country a duchy was some kind of misunderstanding, that he was someone much more important than a prince, and only a certain coincidence meant that he could not reach for the crown.
Moreover, let us emphasize one thing. In 1025, when Bolesław Chrobry was crowned, according to the customs of the time, he should have had the consent of the emperor and the pope. The new emperor, Konrad, who had been reigning for a short time, of course did not give him such consent, he was negatively disposed towards him. Moreover, Chrobry probably did not ask him for this consent. The pope, dependent on the emperor, also, I believe, did not give him any consent. It is necessary to emphasize one thing – and I write this very clearly in my book “The First Kingdom” – Chrobry crowned himself without asking anyone for consent, neither the emperor nor the pope. He simply ordered the Archbishop of Gniezno, Hipolit, to be crowned and that was it. He was aware that no one would dictate anything to him in this matter, that he was equal to other most important European rulers. Of course, he showed the emperor respect, honorary precedence, but apart from that he did not show him any other considerations.
With the baptism of Mieszko I and the coronation of Bolesław Chrobry, Poland entered the geopolitics of the world at that time as a single entity. It began to have significance, which was lamented by German chroniclers, among others. It was clear to the Piast rulers that only a Catholic Poland could be strong. It seems that contemporary ruling circles are making efforts to make us forget about it. This is evidenced, among other things, by the lack of appropriate celebrations of the 1000th anniversary of Bolesław Chrobry’s coronation. How significant was our Catholic faith in history? Can we say that thanks to it we survived as a nation?
Of course. The beginnings of Polish statehood were being created even before the Baptism of Poland, but it was Baptism that included our country in the circle of this European Christianitas, in the circle of civilized states, maintaining relations with each other, cooperating, sometimes also fighting, but it included us in the rhythm of this European life and it turned out that in these European struggles, which Mieszko had already undertaken, for the unification of lands inhabited by Western Slavs, we achieved very great successes, because Bolesław Chrobry, when he took power in 992, within the borders of the state were Western Pomerania and Lesser Poland – recently – and Silesia – also recently, but this Poland was already a large, powerful state.
Therefore, the inclusion of Poland in the circle of Christian states had different meanings. The importance of strictly political? Yes. Of course. Also. But here we must remember about this metaphysical meaning, about the fact that Poles have obtained the way to salvation. The faith of Christ also has such qualities that it facilitates development. Christianity and science are connected by such a personal union. We pray to God, we praise Him, we observe the principle of Christian morality, but at the same time we examine this world with curiosity, because God said: make the earth a subject. In order to make this land subject, we must learn the laws of physics, chemistry, mathematics and other sciences. This guaranteed development. Why did Europe, a small outpost of Eurasia, which is not even an independent continent in a geographical sense, become a place that civilizationally radiated to the whole globe, this European civilization embraced entire continents, one can say that the whole world? Because Christianity recommended working on getting to know the world, the human mind, and promoted philosophical considerations. It is not enough to know the world, the environment of man. You still need to know why it is done. We still need some self-reflection. Christianity provided all this, unlike other religions, for example, the Hindu religion that plunged these huge regions of India, these millions of inhabitants in some kind of marasmus, in the belief that time flows not linearly, but turns in circles. These notions also today hinder progress in those regions of Asia.
Christianity was a developmental religion, enabling the development of civilization. We, Poles, have always understood that here on Earth, from the Lord God one should expect a blessing, so there is nothing to count on miracles – these happen rarely and exceptionally – that God rather responds to human entrepreneurship, diligence, effort. When he sees the effort of man, he can bless him and this blessing must always be waited for, it must be deserved and we, Poles, were aware of it. On the one hand, therefore, really piety, prayer, building churches, monasteries, the development of Christian culture. On the other hand, the Polish nobility showed the prowess of – country had to defend – we understood that we are in such a geographical position that at the same time we defend the whole of Europe against the invasion of pagans. We did it at Legnica, where Henry the Pious died, but then when the Turkish invasion began to threaten Europe, we defended ourselves and Europe together with other countries, whether under Varna or under Mohacus. After the elimination of Hungary, we became the only country that was the bulwark of Christianity.
Poland was the bulwark of Christianity and Europeans were well aware of it. In 1621, when the troops of Sultan Osman II stood over the Dniester, near Chocim, Poles – also had to give it to – with large Cossack backup, they defended themselves and Europe against the Turkish invasion. That was appreciated. Everyone in Europe knew that Poland had saved Europe from the Turks. There was a lot of gratitude. In practice, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz commanded, but the theoretical commander was the prince Wladyslaw Waza, who lay sick in the camp in Chocim, but formally he was in charge. Then, when this young prince set out on a journey through Europe, he was greeted everywhere as a hero, the rulers handed him scepters and handed over command of their armies, the pope saw him as the leader of the Antiturian League. There was great enthusiasm. All of Europe appreciated the role of Poland.
It was different after the battle of Vienna, where we also saved Europe in Vienna in 1683, but the then emperor did not show us great gratitude, rather disregard.
And we were paid by partitions…
And we were paid with partitions in which Austria was very active. That is the truth. We must remember that this slow crumbling of the idea of antemurale christianitatis was associated with a departure from the medieval ideas of Christian universalism, which did not change the fact that Poland actually defended Latin civilization for centuries. For example, look at the period of World War II: Poles are fighting on the one hand against German Nazism, on the other hand – with Soviet, Russian communism. On the one hand, they fought for the freedom of their country, on the other hand, they fought against those barbaric totalitarianisms that undercut the roots of Latin civilization. Poles, resisting communism during the PRL, even in the time of Solidarity, also fought for Latin civilization. In fact, in some sense, this struggle continues even to this day, the fight against these idiots of Brussels, against this Green Deal or other ideologies that actually violate the substance of this Latin civilization, that is, actually, still this fight in the sense of antemurale christianitas, in which we are alone. It is as the Cracow archbishop Marek Jedraszewski emphasized that in fact Poland is not so much a bulwark of Christianity as an island besieged on all sides by some liberal-left currents. It is difficult to be in such a position and to fight these ideologies, but people of good will should be aware that these are the requirements of the moment and we must meet them.
It can be said that this Baptism of Poland, directing our country to the tracks of Christianity, also posed some historical challenges that we were implementing. Of course, in addition to praying, developing Christian culture and the Christian face of our country, defending Christianity and freedom and our own and the whole of Europe, we also worked for our own good and development. Researchers emphasize that the average Polish nobleman, as it was necessary, grabbed a saber and went to fight, but also had his own farm, cultivated land, traded grain – worked. And this ethos of work was among the nobility, contrary to appearances, because sometimes it is denied, it was developed. Melchior Wankowicz has always stressed that the basis for the financial well-being of many Polish noble and magnate families was this purse, this ability to save money acquired after all in a fair way, through land cultivation, cattle breeding or other, usually some agricultural, activities.
So a certain entrepreneurship, a certain ability to take care of oneself and the family also existed, and was also associated with these Christian roots, with these tasks of making a land subject to oneself, working for the common good. The sense of the common good made it easier to act. Let us look at the very definition of our country. We say: republic, Rzeczpospolita. The Rzeczpospolita translates as a republic. Of course, a political scientist would say that a republic differs from a monarchy in that there is no king, but these are some apparent arguments. In the old Poland, in XVI or XVII century there was a king, he had quite a lot of powers, but the country was also called a republic or Rzeczpospolita. Why? Because Rzeczpospolita in the old Polish sense, but also today it is not so much a political construct there. The Rzeczpospolita is a community. The best word to give the word „Rzeczpospolita” to is „community”. This is our community, and if so, we are responsible for it. And even if there is a king who has special tasks from God, a crown, a sakra, a number of powers, very serious anyway, it does not mean that we have nothing to say.
It was a mixed monarchy, in which there is a king-monarch of the Divine conferral, but also the inhabitants, who also have something to say, even during state reunions, sejmiks, sejms – it was at the base of the Rzeczpospolita. This design appeared very early and was followed to the end. That it succumbed to various bad tendencies through the appearance of this misunderstood principle of unanimity in the Sejms, etc.? Consent, but it was a construction, which we were generally envied in the XVI century, that in our country everything is so harmoniously done that the monarch has his competences, but they are limited by the will of their subjects.
In Poland, unlike Moscow, from later Russia, the ruler was also subordinated to state law, and in principle to two factors: law and custom. In 1608, Polish deputies conducted negotiations with Moscow and these Muscovites quite verbally attacked our deputies. At some point they asked the question: „How is it possible that Zygmunt III Vasa allowed Jerzy Mniszech to marry his daughter, Maryna Mniszchówna, to Dmitri Samozwaniec? After all, this Dimitri is a mean scammer”. Apart from the aspect of whether this Dmitri was a fraud or not, the same attitude towards the Polish deputies shocked. They answered the Muscovites like this: „Listen, in Poland every nobleman gives his daughter for whom he wants and nothing to the king to this”. For Muskali it was a shock: „How is it nothing to this?”. They did not understand that in Poland there are certain areas of life in which the king does not interfere, because he cannot – neither law nor custom allows him to do so. And it was incomprehensible to those Muscovites.
Other example. If the highest-ranking Moscow knick, the dignitary in Moscow, wrote a letter to the tsar, then if his name was Peter, he signed Peteruszka, and if his name was Ivan, then he signed Vaniuszko, which literally means „Peter” or „Johnny”. So the tsar addressed his room-service, to his servants, who – let’s assume – took his chamber pots out of the room. So these supreme dignitaries signed themselves as if they were slaves, servants of the tsar. In Poland, however, every senator signed proudly, for example: Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, Hetman the Great Lithuanian. In Moscow, this would be unthinkable.
This principle of dignity, pride passed from the ruler to the citizens – we are proud Poles and we have the right to our personal dignity. Of course, initially this mainly concerned the nobility – it numbered 10-12 percent of the population in the 16th and 17th centuries – but over time, both the townspeople and, in the 19th century, the peasants became full-fledged Poles. Let us note that the nationalization in the 19th and even in the 20th century of these broad peasant masses took place in such a way that, in fact, all Poles became nobility. This form of courtesy “lord” in old Poland was only available to the nobility. Suddenly, everyone became a lord: this Maciek who plows the land, and this Józek who is a blacksmith, and this Jankiel who ran an inn and was a Jew – everyone has the right to the term “lord”, because there was a certain expansion of this definition of a Pole, the acquisition of national consciousness, and with it the ennoblement of the entire nation.
While we are on the subject of pride, let’s return to this metaphysical thread for a moment. Objectively speaking, we can say that in a sense Poland is still a monarchy, because the Lviv Vows of John Casimir are still in force and Mary is our Queen, and that is truly a great reason to be proud.
Yes. And that we always appealed to the Mother of God in tragic, difficult, complicated situations. We can say that she never let us down. Poles had a special cult of Mary, also in her images from Częstochowa and Ostra Brama and many others, we should also mention the apparitions in Gietrzwałd and a number of others… All this allowed us to survive in difficult moments and we felt that we were under God’s care and under the special care of the Mother of God. All this is true.
I always emphasize one thing, in the 20th century two events took place that, humanly speaking, had no right to happen. The first was the rebirth of Poland in 1918 – after all, Poland was torn between three superpowers at that time: Austria, Germany, Russia. Who in 1914 could have guessed that after four years all three superpowers would fall and the Poles would take matters into their own hands and carve out an independent, sovereign Polish state from the territory that belonged to these three superpowers? Simply unthinkable. After all, it was a miracle. It was a clear intervention of God.
The second such moment – 1989. I remember that in 1987 there were talks about how long this communism would last – they said that it would last for another 50-100 years. We had little faith, but I remember those talks. And suddenly a few years pass, at least theoretically there is no more communism as such in Central Europe. There is no Soviet Union. Poland becomes independent, sovereign. There was great enthusiasm, great joy, however it happened, whether someone likes this round table or not, but nevertheless it happened. I shared that enthusiasm. Now it is more difficult for us, when we see how slowly we are losing it, how slowly it is being torn away from us, taken away and, worst of all, with the consent of a huge part of Polish society. It is hard to understand, hard to understand and hard to come to terms with it.
There was one more intervention, already obvious, by Our Lady, namely the Miracle on the Vistula, but I wanted to ask about something else. Don’t you have the impression that someone is trying to rewrite history for Poles? The German historical narrative is aggressively intruding into Polish history and, interestingly, this is happening basically without much opposition from circles that should be guarding historical truth, guarding facts, guarding a well-understood historical policy of the Polish state.
Yes. This is a phenomenon that has been going on for years. The Germans have placed great emphasis on historical policy, and in their version it is a policy of denial, whitewashing, shifting all the blame for the terrible things they did in the years 1933-1945, during the Hitler period, onto someone else. They began to implement this policy in the 1950s, right after the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, when the term “Nazis” began to be used on a large scale. At first they did not deny that the Nazis were Germans, then they began to suggest that these Nazis could have been representatives of other nations. They used here the complete ignorance of the knowledge of history among European nations, because it is truly terrible, even in the United States. When you conduct a survey at the Sorbonne “Who were the Nazis?”, 70% of students write that they were Poles. In Canada – supposedly 50% of students give this answer. And that is exactly what the Germans wanted.
The Germans also used other methods, for example, they spread the myth of the chivalrous Wehrmacht, claiming that when it comes to the Germans, only the Gestapo and SS officers, maybe some police units, committed crimes, but the Wehrmacht fought like knights and they were great knights. All of Europe bought this narrative, and even the United States. Meanwhile, today we know that the Wehrmacht committed many more war crimes, if only because of its numbers, than the SS. This is what people are brainwashed with, this nonsense is instilled in them. By the way, they tried to suggest terrible lies, that Poles allegedly participated in the murder of Jews, or handed Jews over to the Germans, or were completely uninterested in their fate.
Of course, as always and everywhere, there were sometimes some criminal activities that should be condemned, but the number of Poles who saved Jews was large and is certainly not fully estimated, because those were not the times when if a Pole saved a Jew, he bragged about it. Sometimes he died, because in Poland whole families were murdered for helping Jews, so the dark number is necessarily huge. Let us emphasize once again – due to the huge sanctions that existed, no one bragged about it – often all these things were done in the most secret way possible.
My aunt Janina Lisowska, my mother’s sister, living in the Brasław region, helped a Jewish woman who had escaped from the Vilnius ghetto, who had probably walked 150-200 km through the forests. My aunt found her in her barn. She helped her, then took her to a partisan unit – because my aunt was a sworn soldier of the Home Army – where this Jewish woman probably became a medic. My aunt talked about it, even wrote about it, but did she know the name of this Jewish woman? She didn’t and wasn’t even interested, because why would she? It could only bring harm. Did she know her later fate? She didn’t, because how could she know what happened to this girl. Did she survive and live in Poland? Or did she die during some combat action? Did she survive and leave for Israel or the USA, for example? She didn’t know, she didn’t know anything. I suspect that we have thousands of such cases, maybe even tens of thousands, so we, Poles, must intensify our own historical policy so that, on the one hand, this policy must be focused on our society, which should learn the truth, including about the latest events, and on the other hand, this policy must have a defensive aspect, in order to effectively defend ourselves against the nonsense spread by Germany, especially since the Germans often use sophisticated methods.
Let’s look at the series “Our Mothers, Our Fathers” – there German soldiers quietly fraternize with Jews during World War II. There are such scenes. Poles, on the other hand, are shown as disgusting anti-Semites. Among others, AK (Home Army) soldiers are anti-Semites in this film – it is impossible to imagine a bigger lie, a bigger manipulation, but the series has good action, is well-shot and bought in countries all over the world. Unfortunately, we Poles, if we want to conduct an effective historical policy, then we must also start shooting series and popular good feature films for big money – efficiently shot, interesting, so that they have an effective impact in this sphere of pop culture. And these series should show historical truth.
This is only the beginning of this falsification, in fact, because in the project of changes to the treaties, which are being forced in violation of EU law, there is a creation of a new European man. It should be assumed that this will happen, among other things, by creating a new history of European states. We already have Polish-German history textbooks.
Polish-German, which unfortunately, when you read into it, you see many things from the Polish point of view treated very superficially. And what is superficial is often untrue, too generalized.
European projects of creating a new man assume the use of certain left-liberal ideologies, the emphasis on left-liberal views in European culture, and the expulsion of Christianity, Christian norms, Christian principles. All this is heading in the wrong direction, because in the reversal of Christian norms there is also abortion, euthanasia, and all the worst things that can be imagined.
We, Poles, should start to mature enough to say that we don’t really need the European Union for anything. Some arguments (true ones!) are very practical. They can affect society. For example, the argument that the EU’s economic aid is becoming increasingly illusory. Some conditions that if we are to get money for weapons, we must buy them only from the Germans, and the Germans are not able to produce enough of these weapons to arm us quickly. The Americans – quite the opposite. From the point of view of economy and national security, this Union is no longer profitable for us. If this Union also imposes various absurd standards on us, various requirements that attack our identity, both religious and national, then it is even more harmful. If our Polish identity crumbles, the Germans will very quickly take care of Polish society. For them, such a neocolonial status in the field of economy and at the same time influence on the minds of the young generation and basically the plan to regain the western and northern lands, and maybe even expanded to include further provinces is already being implemented – all this can take place under the slogan of a united Europe. But it will be a united Europe, which will only nominally have the capital in Brussels. In reality, this capital will be in Berlin.
Indeed, the modern European Union has basically nothing in common with the European Community founded by Robert Schuman. Besides, Robert Schuman is said to be the unwitting heir to the values of the First Polish Republic. Would you agree with this thesis, Professor?
Yes, because it was a Republic of nations that were equal nations, or at least in the sense that no one imposed culture on other nations. If, for example, the nobility in Belarus and Lithuania or Ukraine became Polonized, they did so voluntarily. No one forced Polish schools there, no one forced the learning of the Polish language. The fact is that entire noble families remained bilingual for a long time.
No one imposed the Latin rite – there, in the East, entire families remained Greek Catholic or Orthodox. In Poland, in the Crown itself, many Germans, Jews, and representatives of other nationalities lived. In Royal Prussia, where the majority were Poles, but where the cities were often quite Germanized, German was the official language in the General Assembly of Royal Prussia, which emphasized the autonomy of this little country.
We must therefore remember that the First Polish Republic was such a federation of different territories, often with different legal status, with different customs, and tolerance of all for all was common. Tolerance and cooperation, common interests were of course also there, so this comparison with what Schuman thought about is most justified.
What is the importance of historical studies in creating national identity?
Basic. You can’t be a patriot, you can’t love your homeland without knowing its history. History is of course complex, it doesn’t always contain good things. Not everything was good in our history – there are darker pages, we can’t forget about them, we can’t falsify them. On the other hand, history serves the development of patriotism, serves the development of our national pride, our identity. Young people should know history, they should be fascinated by it and refer to it. This history should be something as necessary as oxygen for breathing. Every Polish patriot who wants to consider these communal aspects of today’s Republic, the common interests that Poles have, a certain common attitude that they should maintain towards the claims of our neighbors or some foreign factors – should know history. A sense of community should also result from knowledge of history.
We have wonderful pages of our history, we were able to unite, we were able to fight for the good of Poland, we were able to work for it. We have a wonderful culture, wonderful writers, poets who also shaped our Polish identity. All of this needs to be cultivated, preserved and an attitude of fascination, an attitude of acceptance of all this needs to be developed among young people.
What is currently being done in schools is a tragedy, it is the withdrawal of “Pan Tadeusz” – neither in primary nor in secondary school does one have to read the whole of “Pan Tadeusz”, only six books are enough, that is the requirement. Throwing out these very basic, fundamental readings from primary and secondary schools, all these are actions that can lead to the youth becoming indifferent to this historical aspect of Polishness, to the fact that Polishness is something beautiful, fascinating, interesting.
What can be done about it? Wait for the reversal of bad political tendencies and work to reverse them, so that all this can be quickly restored, repaired, mended. However, we must be ready for repression, harassment, mockery. This is the price Poles have paid for patriotism and decency for centuries. Will we achieve anything? I don’t know. But we must try.
Interview by Anna Wiejak
Prof. Wojciech Polak is a historian, lecturer at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Chairman of the Board of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Interview was published in April issue of Schuman Optics Magazine