Polish Culture at the Millennium

Extract

After the millennial celebrations of the founding of the Polish state and the conversion of Poland to Christianity, the Poles may look back with some pride and with some horror. In modern times they have been perhaps the least favoured of European nations, with a recent past consisting of dismemberment, unsuccessful rebellion, two great wars, and the suffering of the worst imaginable crimes; under the Nazis there were about twelve extermination camps in Poland, of which Auschwitz was only the most well-known. This was followed by the poverty and oppression of the post-war and Stalinist period. Being poised between east and west has not been in Poland’s favour, however interesting the phenomenon; only in the last seven years has it turned strangely to their advantage. October 1956 was the great moment in the history of modem Poland; they look back on it now as ‘The Polish October’ and ‘The October Springtime’. The bitter but concealed intrigues in the back-streets of Warsaw, by which Wladyslav Gomulka came to power and bloodlessly achieved a change of régime that deserved the name of revolution, demonstrated the political genius, and reversed the destiny of Poland. So did the glowering crowds, assembled in imitation of the earlier Poznan rioters and with no clear idea of what action they were going to take; when, rather to everyone’s surprise, they accepted Gomulka’s assurances quietly. They stood in the background as a lever for Gomulka against the Russians, but without committing any indiscretion which might have incited Russian reaction. (The Polish adage has it that in 1956 the Poles behaved like Hungarians, the Hungarians like Poles, and the Czechs like pigs).