What is Poland like?

In connection with the publication of the anthology “The Image of Poland on the Pages of Culture” , compiled by Grazyna Pomian, on December 18, 1999, a conference was held at the premises of the Polish Institute in Paris, organized by the institute and the Paris scientific center of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The first part of the conference was devoted to a discussion on the topic “The intelligentsia in the face of the past and the future.” The discussion was moderated by Krzysztof Pomian. The second part, entitled "Poles and others", was chaired by prof. Daniel Beauvois.

Krzysztof Pomian : What I am going to talk about concerns primarily humanities intellectuals. The question is whether the Polish intelligentsia today is ready to solve the problems facing it. My answer: no, I’m not ready, and I’ll try to argue this very briefly.

In my opinion, she is not ready, in particular due to the fact that the Polish humanitarian intelligentsia is, first of all, a deeply literary intelligentsia, and to be a real intellectual in Poland means to be a writer. I distinguish between writers and writers. Once upon a time I was looking through a very useful catalog of Polish magazines published by the Foundation. Stefan Batory (participating in our today's event), and it seemed to me that only literary magazines are published in Poland - with the only exception of the Gdansk Przegland Politychny , which deviates from this canon. There may be more such publications, but not many.

The similar nature of the professional training and profile of the Polish intellectual in the humanities as a whole leads to the fact that his standards are closely connected with the past, and his ideal is the estate (even if he himself was not born in the estate, but in a completely different place). He still gives the impression of a man who has not come to terms with the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after 1920, not to mention the borders after 1945. He lives in a ghostly world, where Poland retains the scale of approximately its first partition, and its main tone is nostalgia. Nostalgia for the good old days, which can mean a variety of periods. This is a completely legendary past, when the Polish peasant and the Polish nobleman lived in an atmosphere of a common great miracle, and an equally legendary, mythologized time of a real or illusory martyrology of solidarity with a small and capital letter.

If you look at Polish book production from the outside, you get the feeling that the center of gravity has decisively shifted from sociology, philosophy and history precisely to... - I wouldn’t like to say “literature”, I would say “literariness” to avoid the word "literary" Secular thought, at least in any way worthy of being called such, has disappeared, and what is happening to Polish Catholic thought today causes justified concern, in some ways it does not concern me, but in others, on the contrary. Not concerning, because I am not a Catholic, but concerning insofar as the state of Catholic thought reflects the state of national culture. What we are participating in today - and this is not my opinion, but the opinion of people observing the process from the inside - is by no means the rise of Catholic thought. There is a lot of talk about spirit and a lot of moralizing, but, it seems to me, very little reflection on the tasks of civilization, while the main task facing Poland is to reach the level of Western Europe and the countries of the European Union, which we are about to join.

What I have to read does not convince me that this task, which is truly one of the main tasks of the Polish political elite, namely preparing Poland for accession to the European Union, has truly become the task of the Polish intelligentsia.

And finally, the last thing. In general, the Polish intelligentsia today performs apologetic functions. First of all, she is not self-critical - but one cannot expect this from her. She speaks touchingly about her past, touchingly talks about her own heroism (each time one can add: real or illusory), admires her own spiritual beauty. The only thing it does not do is that critical function, which, if we talk from this perspective about the lessons of Culture , was precisely the main testament of Culture . I would say that in a certain sense, today's Polish intelligentsia, to put it in one phrase, is an exact anti-portrait, an antitype of the ideal model of the intellectual that the pages of Culture showed us.

Alexander Smolyar : The past ten years have been a great triumph for the Polish intelligentsia. I know this thesis may seem contradictory, but remember 1989. Who came to power then? Who formed the first government? Who organized the parliamentary Civil Faction? Who created from scratch the most powerful Polish newspaper, influencing the formation of worldviews and indirectly influencing politics no less than any other political party? Tadeusz Mazowiecki , Bronislaw Geremek , Jacek Kuroń , Leszek Balcerowicz , Adam Michnik , Jan Olszewski, Wiesław Chrzanowski, ministers such as Krzysztof Kozłowski or Henryk Samsonowicz, figures such as Andrzej Wajda or Jerzy Kłoczowski are just a few, although far from the first representatives of a whole spectrum of intellectual biographies, views and positions that radically influenced the image of the first decade of freedom. Could anyone, observing the complex, often tragic fate of the intelligentsia over the previous fifty years, taking part in numerous post-war discussions about the death of this formation, expect that it would play such an unprecedented role?

A successful revival of the public role of the intelligentsia occurred in the 70s. The emergence of the democratic opposition meant the final severing of the umbilical cord connecting the most dynamic, socially important circles of the intelligentsia with the “people's power.” Too much has already been written on the topic of this gap to return to it in my short speech devoted to another problem, other times. The emergence of a democratic opposition meant that the intelligentsia was once again taking on its role as the leader and standard of society. Social activities, even the names themselves (such as “Flying University”) were associated with the experience of the partitions of Poland. The unambiguous language of truth and ethics clearly defined the attitude of these circles towards the authorities “at someone else’s bayonets.”

It is difficult for the intelligentsia to come to terms with democratic politics based on the fact that no one - not a single force, not a single formation, not a single party - fully represents the interests of society, because public aspirations and labors are reflected in the entire complex democratic process. The difficult assimilation of this principle was expressed in the desire of the intelligentsia to create apolitical formations designed to become spokesmen for the interests of the entire society. In Poland there was a strong temptation to strengthen the structures of citizens' committees and prevent the formation of political parties. In the Czech Republic there was a desire to preserve the "Civil Forum". However, Vaclav Havel to this day has not changed his ambivalent attitude towards political parties and very often criticizes them. To a greater or lesser extent, similar trends were observed in other countries in the region. Of course, there were rational arguments against the premature split of the democratic camp that grew out of the resistance movement against communism. One can argue with the best of intentions that maintaining unity during a period of difficult transformations would make it possible to carry out the necessary economic, social and political reforms faster and more successfully, and to block the return of former communist parties to power for a longer period. However, without a doubt, the hostility to the introduction of political pluralism into the institutional framework was also a consequence of the rejection of the democratic principle of the incompleteness of knowledge and “truth” that is given to each political formation; a consequence of the belief that intellectual parties by their nature occupy, from the point of view of epistemology and ethics, a privileged place that justifies their leading role.

Despite the enormous success of reforms since 1989, Polish intellectuals today often look at the past decade with bitterness. The reasons should be sought in the triple marginalization of which the intelligentsia became a victim. Firstly, its status decreased: in the hierarchy of social recognition, respect, and authority, the intelligentsia began to be ahead of other groups. This decline was facilitated by competition from other elites of society, the flight of many active individuals into business and politics, and the departure of capable young people just starting their careers, who today are striving to realize their dreams outside of traditional intellectual pursuits. Secondly, the financial situation of the intellectual has deteriorated. This does not always mean a decrease in individual income. For some groups of intellectuals, earning opportunities have increased many times due to the spread of private schools and the expansion of public universities, the growing needs of institutions and the private sector for various examinations and consultations. But not everyone does. Moreover, one had to and still has to earn money, paying for it with intellectual growth, the quality of the work performed, and health. In a word, the growth of the material well-being of individual intellectuals is achieved through the social role of the Polish intelligentsia as a group as a whole. Thirdly, the public importance of the intelligentsia has decreased. Its presence in public life is little felt in its traditional analytical, critical, myth-making function, the function of a public space where collective projects, norms, and ideas about a better Poland are developed. Intellectual parties whose biographies were associated with anti-totalitarian resistance are weakening. A new political class emerged, consisting of thousands of ambitious, often random people who, after 1989, rushed to the square for a career, in search of a “great treasure,” the meaning of life or service to society. The shock caused by the fact that homo novus ousted the intelligentsia, which had done so much during the struggle of the democratic opposition, aroused tears in the East and West over the “revolution that devours its own children.” They were accompanied by apocalyptic forecasts of nationalism, fundamentalism, and right-wing Jacobinism threatening post-Soviet Europe. However, it was not the revolution, but the new democracy that led to the washing out of the intelligentsia from politics, to the elimination from public life of many major figures of the past who were unable or unwilling to find their place in the new conditions of freedom and competition. The intelligentsia often lost in politics due to the fact that with its traditions, hierarchy of values, specific type of culture, it turned out to be better prepared to resist dictatorship, to proclaim absolute truths, to declare: “Non possumus” - rather than to choose the lesser evil, ethically dubious alliances, limited, illusory successes.

Czeslaw Miłosz : Today, the Polish intelligentsia will have to appreciate the past primarily in its literary form. What, for example, was the essence of Polish studies throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries? If we take Professor Ignacy Chrzanowski and his textbooks as an example, then Polish literature served patriotism. Perhaps this is not quite the same as serving nationalism, but it is close to it. Serving messianism, of course. In any case, I turn to my Lithuanian, Vilna experience - I had such teachers, small noblewomen from the provinces, who specialized in Polish literature, that is, they taught Mickiewicz, Slovak, and Polish patriotism. This is a huge question: how to perceive all this heritage so that it does not lead exclusively to the ideological education of old-type patriotism? This is so against the grain of the 21st century! After all, we will not say that Croatian, Bosnian or Serbian patriotism is our ideal of the future. Therefore, some new assessment, a new approach to this literature is needed. Nota bene , a very interesting phenomenon, which, from my point of view, also relates to the history of modern intelligentsia - university Polish studies, 90% female. We can say that just as the above-mentioned teachers were heralds of patriotism in the 19th century, today a certain colossal feminization of the culture of the Polish intelligentsia is taking place. Because the role of school polonistics is undoubtedly enormous, I was convinced of this the hard way. True, I struggled with it, for which I received bad marks with the postscript “telegraph style”.

Since the theme of our round table is “The intelligentsia in the face of the past and the future,” I draw your attention to this problem of the intelligentsia’s struggle with the past. The perception of some writers today plays a huge, key role. I don’t know how much the children who are taken to watch “Pan Tadeusz” will perceive much. Or, for example, the perception of writers such as Gombrowicz . It is very interesting what they see in Gombrowicz: do they see only irony, do they consider him a merry fellow who showed his tongue to all patriotic values, or does the reader penetrate deeper?

I touch on these issues only lightly. Lately I've been editing a new edition of my book about Stanislaw Brzozowski . Today it is extremely important to comprehend Brzozowski’s entire philosophy.

I would like to add one more thing to what has been said. The word “intelligentsia” itself appeared in the middle of the 19th century in Germany, Poland and Russia. And now I ask: what happened in Russia as a result of the revolution? How different is the situation of the Polish intelligentsia today from the situation of the Russian intelligentsia, if it survived there at all? Despite the fact that a lot of people receive education in Russia, the tasks that the Russian intelligentsia set for themselves in the 19th century were completely forgotten. Perhaps what happened in Poland in the 70-80s is a repetition of the role of the intelligentsia in the 19th century. Today, if we wanted to turn, for example, to the Russian intelligentsia, there are few people we can have a conversation with, since this intelligentsia, one might say, has been swallowed up by state institutionalism. I leave this question unanswered.

Bogdan Osadchuk : When the “internal empire”, the former pre-war USSR, expanded after the Second World War at the expense of the “external empire”, satellite countries, the system of international relations changed. New rules of the game have emerged, and the former indifference and dissociation from the East have been replaced by transforming elements of cooperation and competition.

Ukraine benefited from this only partially - in terms of realizing its aspirations for the territorial unification of its ethnic lands and obtaining pseudo-sovereign status in the form of membership in the UN. But spiritual differences - a consequence of different destinies in the interwar period - remained in the form of two distinct types of mentality and hidden or obvious attitudes. Due to the changes in international relations and the growing competition between the emerging Euro-Atlantic coalition and the Stalinist-Soviet formation, the intelligentsia became both an instrument and a participant in the game, especially since the undeclared but flared up Cold War, which for the first time in history did not recognize borders and censorship prohibitions due to the development of communication technology.

For Ukraine, Poland played an extremely important role in this area. It was and remains a school of intellectual resistance, freedom of thought, and ideological pluralism. It is no coincidence that young and older Ukrainians during the Solidarity period began to spontaneously learn Polish. However, thanks to this spirit of freedom, Ukrainians began to forget the previous negative stereotypes of the “Polye” and the “White Pole”.

Prof. Marian Harasymiuk: What does the intelligentsia in Poland have to do today? She faces enormous challenges. As a result of various kinds of political and economic whirlpools, we have witnessed a terrible disorientation of society regarding the hierarchy of values ​​in public life. And here I see a huge field of activity for the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia must show society what is valuable today and in which direction we should move. This leading role, from my point of view, should be taken on by universities as centers for the formation of culture, as a place of work for a significant part of the intelligentsia. I think that in the coming years we can expect the emergence of such trends - a shift in the centers of cultural formation to universities, since over the last decade universities still managed to maintain some authority, while almost all other authorities were destroyed, and yet today we we need them so much. Universities are apolitical; in recent years they have experienced a very clear evolution towards apoliticality - and in this one can see a certain legitimization of them. They exist outside of power, which, be it left or right, is assessed very differently, but, as a rule, negatively. Society needs something positive: it cannot function on the basis of negation alone. I think that universities should, are ready and can perform just such a function of the formation of culture, the development of certain areas of thought and certain areas of activity for the whole society.

Prof. The leader of Pukhal: I would like to say how I understand the term "intelligentsia." Because we are talking all the time about the humanitarian intelligentsia, that is, writers, artists, composers. It seems to me that this is a deep misunderstanding. I am a physicist myself, I work among physicists, biologists, mathematicians. And these are absolutely creative people! The fact that writers or artists do not understand mathematics does not mean that mathematicians do not play an unusually important role in the life of our people. Perhaps it is good that in the future the word "intelligentsia" will disappear, but while it exists, I would like to pay attention to the fact that people like Groshkovsky or other major physicists and mathematicians also play an extremely important role in Polish intellectual life.

Andrzej Nakov: I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Polish culture, which survived this system and the invasion of communist ideology, survived thanks to emigration, thanks to Parisian culture , which Russia was deprived of. Several generations were destroyed in Russia. Russian emigration in the West, when after the First World War it became such, was already in a state of conflict with the new Russian generation, which is the subject of my research, by the generation of the so -called intellectual, art, musical avant -garde. When this generation of the 10s came up with its theme, it already opposed the previous one. And this previous generation emigrated. Thus, the culture, which was supposed to develop further, was attacked by two enemies. I always told my Western friends that the communist system would fall in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary at the moment when the Soviet Army would leave these countries.

It seems to me that the problem of generations and continuity is extremely important. I would like to emphasize that Polish culture, culture of the 20th century, and Russian culture, which, I hope, will not die, hedgehogs owe a lot of hedgehogs . Why? Because his idea of ​​European culture was discovered in relation to Russia, he was not nationalistically configured, he had no phobia in relation to Slavic or Russian culture. This is, in fact, the only position that is acceptable today for peace and Europe.

Algis Kaleda: I want to recall and emphasize the huge role of culture and its circle. I would define her role, her mission as a preventive. The whole culture policy developed for at least twenty years. I quote the words of the hedgehog of the gedorian said in 1975: "The most important task is to me to normalize not only the Polish-Russian and Polish-Ukrainian relations, but also the relationships of these peoples among themselves ... Normalization of relations between these peoples." This is a look from Paris, from the meson lampit. This influence of culture , ideas of its circle, we really are very largely observed among the intellectual elite of Lithuania. Leopold Unger recalled a meeting with Landsbergis. Landsbergis read a culture for many years, and these ideas were very close to him. You can add many names of Lithuanian thinkers, politicians, figures, who in those ancient times gained access to culture in different ways - for example, through Lithuanian emigration. The circles of Lithuanian and Polish emigration in the United States are very close and closely cooperate. The Lithuanian group "Light of understanding", as it seems to me, is a phenomenon similar to Parisian culture . The ideas of international solidarity, international politics pursued by culture , form the current national situation in Lithuania and change the entire system of views and way of thinking. There was a transition from the antagonistic perception of "your or foe" to the perception of "your or two." This is no longer a "alien", but "another." Another person who is valuable as such precisely because he is different.

The same applies to culture. Culture, especially the culture of the vault - I mean Gdansk, Wroclaw, Vilnius, and Lviv, and many cities of France or Germany - is of the nature of the PalimpSesta, this is the imposition of different layers. And only barbarians or people of non -intellogenes do not understand this and seek to destroy this natural historical system.

New Poland, #10 (13), 2000