"Tygodnik Powszechny" No 39,
Krakow, 24 September 2000
"THE LAST CONVERSATION"
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski on Jerzy GiedroycWhen news of
Jerzy Giedroyc's passing reached me, I was in New York and engrossed by foreign policy issues given my responsibilities at the United Nations. Yet as recently as four months ago, on May 14th, we had met in Paris to discuss similar matters. On that occasion, as always, he was an animator, inspirer and critic formulating specific demands. I accepted this with deference, for even tough I saw some of his views as controversial, I greatly valued his judgments for their originality and independence, his thinking for its boldness, his incessant immersion in matters he considered of paramount importance. He contributed immensely in many areas; for example, people know little of his behind-the-scenes efforts at influencing Nobel juries - both in the case of
Milosz's Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980 and of Walesa's Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.
My personal relationship with Jerzy Giedroyc went back only 17 years; circumstances did not allow it previously. Yet before we met in person we established indirect contact. Like many, I have for years felt indebted, and will forever remain grateful to him for publishing the political essays of Juliusz Mieroszewski and the canon of Polish contemporary literature -
Gombrowicz,
Milosz,
Herling-Grudzinski. And I see his publication of over 130 "Historical Notebooks" as one of Giedroyc's greatest achievements, one about which enough cannot be said in terms of its significance to recent Polish political history. I wrote articles for the periodical several times in the 1980s at the behest of the Editor, as Giedroyc was called with admiration.
Jerzy Giedroyc irritated many, sometimes without knowing it, but he also motivated people to think. I could not reconcile myself to many of his views, to his stance toward the Catholic Church or toward Poland's political climate of the last decade, to his categorically negative political attitude toward the United States. Yet I will miss him immensely. It is hard to imagine how many Poles will continue their political and intellectual lives with Jerzy Giedroyc gone.
Recorded by TF
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski © by "Tygodnik Powszechny" | |
"Tygodnik Powszechny" printed this text in its 24 September2000 issue following the death of Jerzy Giedroyc. It appears onwww.culture.pl - courtesy of the editors and publishers of "TygodnikPowszechny" - in connection with "The Year of Jerzy Giedroyc," celebrated in2006.
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