Ignoring the past
Anyone visiting Warsaw last week would have immediately noticed that the Poles were on holiday officially. The city emptied as most Varsovians took advantage of the fact that two national holidays the first and third of May came in midweek to provide an opportunity for what was effectively a 10-day break until May 6. As they sped away, it was left to the politicians to commemorate what are two radically different traditions in Polish history.
No prizes for guessing the tradition of May 1. While many Central European countries have removed old Labor Day from their official national holiday calendar, Poland still celebrates what during the post-war period was the national holiday Poles loved to hate. Under communism, factories and offices were closed as ordinary Polish citizens were dragooned into official marches past sundry Communist Party officials to hear newspeak-laden speeches about the achievements of socialism. During the 1980s, at the fag-end of communist rule, the May 1 national holiday also inevitably meant a national game of cat-and-mouse between the communist authorities and the Solidarity underground opposition, which used the opportunity to organize mass demonstrations against the communist regime.
After 1990, there was debate about whether or not to abolish the holiday, but the strength of the myth that communism was overthrown by the Polish working class made it difficult and embarrassing to abolish what at least officially was the celebration of the proletariat. So the holiday drifted on, without being taken too seriously by anyone. By the mid-1990s, however, the new post-communist party, emboldened by increasing electoral success, felt confident enough to attach itself to the celebrations publicly again. There was a nuance however: While President Aleksander Kwasniewski remained clearly embarrassed by the need to pay homage to such a retro event preferring to organize sanitized beer-and-barbecue events at the presidential palace, new Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) leader Leszek Miller had no such qualms in embracing the traditions of the Polish Left. Nowadays, however, the May 1 holiday has also attracted the attention of assorted radical and countercultural groups that make even dyed-in-the-wool socialists cringe. Few true communist believers would have felt too comfortable in the company of the assorted "right-on" chanting feminists that marched the Warsaw streets last week.
The Polish Right studiously avoided the holiday, apart from those on its more radical anticommunist wing who managed to organize counterprotests to the left-wing marches. Instead, they focused their attention on the more sedate and measured celebrations of the 1791 Constitution on May 3. Few recall that in fact it was Poland that was the first country in Europe to enact a truly liberal democratic constitution in that year, second in the world only to the United States. Unfortunately for the Poles, their country survived for only another few years after that before being finally partitioned between Austria, Russia and Prussia. During that time of statelessness, which lasted until 1918, Poles were forbidden to celebrate the anniversary publicly, and during the communist period the May 3 holiday was also taboo.
But during the 1970s and 1980s, again the anticommunist passions of the Poles were sufficient to prevent the anniversary from being forgotten. The third of May, 1982, was the first time after the banning of Solidarity, and after the introduction of martial law in 1981, that the Solidarity underground felt confident enough to organize a public demonstration in Warsaw, in the Old Town, which was packed with tens of thousands of Varsovians chanting their opposition to communism.
After the restoration of democracy in Poland in 1989, May 3 became an important public holiday. But one of the paradoxes of modern Poland is that ordinary Poles usually patriotic to the core feel little sentiment to what is a hugely important date in the history of their country. Unlike the French with Bastille Day, or Americans with July 4, Poles treat their national day as little more than an excuse to have a trip into the country. Perhaps they sense that under the surface, much of current Poland fails to live up to the deep patriotic symbolism of the date. Whatever the reason, politically it is very much a holiday of the Polish Right. While left-wing politicians, especially ex-communists, feel embarrassed at the fact that in a previous life they spent much energy trying to suppress memory of the date, right-wing politicians delight in the opportunity it offers to bang the patriotic drum. And who can blame them? After years of communist indoctrination, it does little more than rebalance in the popular consciousness the reality of Polish history different from that taught for many years in Polish schools.
As with many superficially non-political issues in Poland, even national holidays seem to be divided on party political lines. Yet most ordinary Poles seem to treat these holidays much as they do the antics of their politicians who seek to politicize by ignoring them and taking a day off instead, grateful that for even a short period of time they can enjoy their country as nature intended, free from the bickering forces of left and right.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl (mailto:director@cec.com.pl)
