Poland struggles with image problem
The good news is that Poland is spotlighted at the 52nd annual book fair in Frankfurt. More power to Culture Minister Kazimierz Michal Ujazdowski, who went there to do the honors saying the fair will help Polish literature find its place in the "blood system of German and European culture."
The bad news is that Westerners are stillmaligning Poland for what they think happened during World War II. And the reality is that for most, Poland has been under a rock during the past half century of communist occupation, when local historians were limited in what they could write. Emigre historians such as Piotr Wandycz are well known, but by other historians and emigres and not rank-and-file folks. And so, far too often, Poland is "interpreted" by outsiders in ways that not only malign the country but that are also historically incorrect.
The latest example is an exchange in the New York Review of Books on World War II literature, which includes a letter from a Don Sloan stating that "Hitler took no country by force" that, in effect, the leaders in the countries he occupied opened the door for him. And as proof he lumps Poland's interwar president and general, Jozef Pilsudski, with World War II figures whose very names now signify collaboration: Quisling and Laval.
Among those writing protest letters in mid-October was Leszek W. Gluchowski of Hamilton, Ontario, who said: "Equating Pilsudski with Quisling and Laval ... makes the stomach curdle." He noted that Pilsudski had died in 1935, well before the Nazi march on Poland, and that although Pilsudski "was no democrat" and had many flaws, he remains "one of Poland's greatest leaders."
He said that if Sloan meant to insinuate that Pilsudski's military successor was one of those who "handed over their seats of power as the German armies marched in," he's dead wrong.
Gluchowski recommends reading Wandycz or Antony Polonsky on the interwar political and foreign policy scene in Poland, as well as Norman Davies' recent bestseller, "Europe: A History," in which Davies describes the nearly impossible task Poles faced in trying to hold off not just the Nazis but also the Soviets who were invading on the Eastern border. Gluchowski said Poland's wartime actions "continue to stimulate debate and need to be reconsidered." But it is not disputed, he said, that after the Germans and Soviets routed the Polish army, the Polish state ceased to exist.
He quoted a study called "The Politics of Retribution in Europe," edited by Istvan Deak, Jan T. Gross and Tony Judt, as saying that "collaboration (with the Germans) was of no help to only two ethnic groups, the Poles and the Jews." And this collaboration occurred only in the German general government around Warsaw and Krakow and then only at the lowest levels. "Overall," according to the study, "the Germans treated the Poles as despised slaves."
One ray of hope for the better understanding of Poland abroad is the newly created endowed chair on Polish studies at the University of Virginia. Better still, the competition for the academic job was won by a Warsaw historian and former head of the Institute of Political Studies, Wojciech Roszkowski, who beat out the best and the brightest of the emigre Polish historians for the job.
Movers and shakers:
Ian Hume is in the final stages of readying a real estate web site. Hume, who had headed the World Bank here in the early 1990s and later returned to work on various business ventures by mid-decade, will be going head-to-head with Janet Choynowski's Immobel.com. The difference, he said, is that "She's doing it without realtors I'll be doing it with them." And the launch date? Stay tuned.
Choynowski, meanwhile, is already broadening the scope of her real estate site. Early this month, she e-mailed the international specialists within the U.S. National Association of Realtors, offering to post properties on her site in nine languages. She said U.S. government research shows that nearly $1 billion worth of real estate was sold to foreigners last year, but that U.S. realtors haven't had an easy method of courting potential buyers. Now, she said, they will: "And I think they'll take to it like flies on salmon."
Warsaw University's Canadian Studies chair and literature professor Nancy Burke will trek off to St. Petersburg soon where a book of her poetry is being published in Russian.
Flower power: Kudos to park planners who have laid down splendid beds of chrysanthemums as the fall "crop" in mini-park beds all across Warsaw. And to the Nowy Swiat association, which has gotten better each year in making that shopping and eating strip bloom with hanging baskets of flowers just like in London's high-traffic streets.
Burnt Sienna seems to be the "in" color for the latest kawiarnias and small cafes cropping up across Warsaw. That's four generations down the line from the 1990s when grim was in: Lights were dim and street-side windows obscured, perhaps to keep the anonymity of the clientele. The next stage saw open windows and bright lights. Then came various styles of decor, with the emphasis still on light as in the attractive Sandwiz chain of salad shops that first appeared on ulica Nowy Swiat.
Now, one of the latest burnt-sienna kawiarnias is the just-opened TriBeCa coffee shop across from the Arka shopping mall. Its sienna color reverberates across the street and has been bringing in customers by the dozens, although some have been dismayed to find that the start-up offering was only iced coffee, with a "nie ma" for the array of specialty coffees and sandwiches displayed on the wall.
