Polish plumber

Slavomir Mrozek died in France like Herzen. But he did not go to Nice at all in order to wake Poland, like Herzen - Russia. Poland was already awakened - both by himself, and such as him. Already said goodbye to socialism, conducted economic reforms, approached Europe so much that she became a member of the EU and NATO. From this Poland, Mrozhek left - for the second time, after emigration from socialist Poland and his return. Formally - because the climate of the azure bank suited him much more than Polish. In fact - because he was disappointed with the Poland that he woke up. This ironic, paradoxically thinking person was actually unusually idealistic and vulnerable. With the fact that Poland cannot correspond to a certain ideal that arose in his ideas during the years of communism, he could not reconcile until the last day.

Slavomir Mrozhek was by no means the only great Pole who did not accept modern Poland. Hedgehogs of the Gedroits, the famous editor of the Parisian "culture", which turned the Polish public and political consciousness, did not come to the country even after the collapse of communism. Gustav Herling-Grudzinsky, a soulful writer, author of one of the first works about the Gulag, even after returning to Poland suspected almost the entire domestic intelligentsia of sympathy for communism. Of course, both the Gedroits and Herling were primarily as excretions, and Moozhek was primarily mockery. This is surprising: how can a mockery be an idealist?

But the idealism of the great playwright was the idealism of the Polish intelligentsia, which, together with the workers and the Church, was the battle of the communist system and ultimately the victorious authoritarianism. The patriotism of the Polish intelligentsia can surprise many Russians - including those who attribute themselves to the leaders of public opinion - precisely because it is the patriotism of critical consciousness, which does not forgive slow development and moral shortcomings. This patriotism leads to derogatory criticism, to internal emigration and Nice - but it is he who makes the Polish intellectuals the rulers of the Duma, and Poland - a normal country.

Slavomir Mrozhek did not try to please his viewer and reader, he was always mercilessly frank, always with a youthful recklessness ridiculed the society that idolized him - and as a result he was a doctor, and not suffering from a singer over a cliff. In Russia, such a culture certainly turns out to be alien, at best - some Jewish, but that Jewish - even Zhvanetsky cannot afford such evil irony! He is forced to be kind, although good Odessa - at least in literature - does not happen by definition. The Russian viewer and reader considers the evil irony of offensive, the times of Saltykov-Shchedrin, who was not afraid to offend the reader, have long been replaced by the popular expectation of a satire, certainly criticizing power, but sparing society. Mrozhek, who perfectly understood that the matter was not in power, would not be in Russia to the court.