I was born in the 1980s, the decade of the fall of communism, but also the decade of martial law, of many strikes and of the long walk to freedom that I don’t remember and which I studied at school and home. What I do, however, remember perfectly is Poland in the very early 1990s, a country that had been suffocating for years in the cage of a moribund communist regime, a country that was ready to welcome the outside world with open arms, but which had little to offer. I remember Polish people being unduly shy, Poland looking like a concrete-grey desert with everything temporary (soviet-style bazaars instead of shopping malls, buildings constructed in a few days from corrugated metal) and I remember the generalized post-revolution mess! Uncles who had used to lecture on quantum physics in university starting to sell butter or socks to earn their first real money, political and financial affairs being discussed every day, disorientation because of all the public services working on a totally new basis, the mafia becoming a factor in everyday life... madness, chaos! Even if there was a lot of energy and hope, nobody was satisfied with how the system worked back in 1990.
After forty-four years of communism, where it was propaganda’s exclusive prerogative to create a Polish (that is, a communist) mythology, suddenly the occupying power was gone and the country had to start once again from the very beginning. It became up to every single family to create their own sense of national pride. And that was not easy, believe me. Poland was in a miserable condition, so tales about its glorious past and bright future sounded as likely to me as One Thousand and One Nights.
Fortunately, kids do tend to believe what they are told, so I believed in many things my parents and grandparents told me about my country. As a result of their optimism and affection for our country, they created their own little propaganda, and having been an overly curious child, I entered early adulthood with very specific ideas about Polish history, the importance of Poland, the virtues of every Polish citizen, and so forth. Allow me to break those down for you.
1. Poland’s martyrdom will save all oppressed nations
This is the foundation of it all, and it certainly spreads beyond my own family circle. The myth of Polish suffering dates back at least to the 17th century, to the times of the rapid shrinking of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in contrast to our neighbours rapidly growing in power and methodically cutting off slices of Poland, so that it disappeared completely in 1795 and was nonexistent as an independent state until 1918. Indeed, from late 17th century till the times when I was born, the history of Poland was a truly dreadful thing. Three partitions, mass exiles of the intelligentsia, numerous unsuccessful uprisings, occupiers’ attempts to erase Polish culture and language, then the devastation of World War II which resulted in Poland being left on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain despite its military contribution to the Western powers’ victory... These caused the death, torture and betrayal of millions.
Thus, there isn’t much to deconstruct when discussing the myth of Poland’s suffering. This suffering is real, and it is our history. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that we take this suffering very far. For example, have a look at this little rhyme that children were mandatorily taught in the kindergarten I attended, and are taught to this day as far as I know:
Who are you? Little Pole
What’s your emblem? Eagle White
Where do you live? Amongst my kind
In which country? The Polish land
What’s this land? It’s my homeland
How was it won? By blood and scar
Do you love it? With my heart and soul.
What do you trust in? Poland – my home.
What are you? Her grateful child.
What do you owe her? My whole life.
Once again, this is a rhyme for children aged 5 or 6, and by that age they are already being taught that Polish freedom was won by ‘blood and scar’ and that they owe their lives to their homeland if she so requests. I remember this line with ‘blood and scar’ constantly reoccurring throughout my childhood, and I used to prepare myself mentally for a heroic death in an epic battle for my homeland. A horrifying vision for somebody raised in a country with a calmer history.
Moreover, the mythology of suffering appears in several of the finest pieces of Polish literature, for example, most obviously in Adam Mickiewicz’s richly symbolic drama Forefather’s Eve / Dziady. It is a book about the Polish fight for freedom in the 1830s (especially the November Uprising) and about Poles who were exiled en masse to Siberia by the Tsarist Russian powers. In the part of the drama known as A Vision of Priest Piotr, its protagonist claims in one of his monologues that Poland is ‘the Christ of Europe’, by which he means that Poland’s suffering is meant to redeem every other nations’ faults, and will result in the liberation of all persecuted nations. This conviction is one of the foundations of the messianic doctrine – the idea that long-suffering Poland will one day return in ultimate glory (like Jesus resurrected from death), not only to its due position as an Eastern European superpower but to rescue all nations in need.
For those who need further convincing that Poland has a messianic complex, let us quote Mickiewicz verbatim:
And Poland said, ‘Whosoever will come to me shall be free and equal for I am FREEDOM.’ But the Kings, when they heard it, were frightened in their hearts, and they crucified the Polish nation and laid it in its grave, crying out "We have slain and buried Freedom." But they cried out foolishly ...
For the Polish Nation did not die. Its body lieth in the grave; but its spirit has descended into the abyss, that is, into the private lives of people who suffer slavery in their own country ... For on the Third Day, the Soul shall return to the Body; and the Nation shall arise and free all the peoples of Europe from Slavery.
The Polish messianic doctrine was always a theory from outer space for me. Even though it was discussed a lot in high school Polish literature lessons, I could never go down the path of its creators’ thinking. Its defenders claim that it made entire generations passively accept their hardship in the hope that by suffering themselves they would somehow earn a better future for their descendants. Quite delusional, isn’t it?