PIOTR BIŁOS
University professor, modern and contemporary Polish literature, head of the Polish language section, Inalco, Paris.
Publisher’s note:
As soon as I saw this text, I knew that it was fundamental for advancing both the science of International Relations and our understanding of Poland’s place in Europe. It changed my way of conceiving International Relations.
We learn that geopolitics is like a tapestry woven by history, over the “long time”, on the loom of culture. Culture, the result of the longest and most intimate human work, has more importance in the links that unite or oppose nations than money and politics. Here, we are exploring what Fernand Braudel called the third current of history (beyond political events and social changes), the longest, the slowest, the deepest and the most determining for human actions.
What makes this presentation so brilliant, and perhaps even what makes it possible, is the author’s perfect knowledge of two European cultures that have grown so far apart in recent times that they have difficulty understanding each other: Polish culture and French culture. No one is in a better position than him to see the dramatic power of this cultural distance, which leads two great European nations, strongly linked by history and separated by barely 800 km, to ignore each other almost entirely on the political and cultural levels. The case study is impressive.
The cultural aspect of European construction has been neglected, which is a serious source of the dysfunctions of the European Union, if not the main one. It is by bridging these cultural gaps and by becoming aware of the incredible cultural diversity of the countries of Europe – which has still not been done – rather than by trying to erase it, that we will build the Europe of tomorrow. The people who will accept to take up this challenge will be more and more numerous, and that is how we will be able to move forward.
Daniel Foubert, Geoeconomist
Introduction
To be part of Europe is to take part in a civilisation project, not just to deal with geopolitical issues. Geopolitical issues are only one of the dimensions of this project, and if they are properly secured, properly managed, they free up space for what some philosophers call the “world of life” [1], and oppose to systems that, as consolidated sets of norms, exert a deterministic influence on collective and individual life. The worlds of life and culture come into close contact with each other, constituting elements and at the same time connected orders. Culture is a sphere in which men fulfill themselves through the process of joining the work of maintaining and further building a community (called socialization), acquiring knowledge and skills that give them the opportunity to prove themselves in a more specialized field (called education and acquiring appropriate qualifications) and developing their own, original and often, critical towards certain current patterns, attitudes (called subjectivization) [2]. This last scope of activity shows that the individual is not an ordinary product determined by the prevailing order – as endowed with reason and free will; he can rebel in order to invent alternative patterns of life.
Central and Eastern Europe in the civilizational project of Europe
When we think about the impact of Poland on Central and Eastern Europe, but also about its participation in the civilizational project of Europe, we should bear in mind the whole range of possibilities arising both within the system (of which geopolitics is a part) and the world of life just mentioned. Geopolitics weighs on us, because for centuries it appeared as an unfriendly sphere, while the imperial aggression of modern Russia is once again awakening old – not so old – demons.
France, meanwhile, is an old country in which, over centuries of continuous development, a specific and recognizable order has been created, which is expressed, among other things, in the way bookshops operate there in conjunction with educational institutions.
France and its society can be described as largely routinized, because their functioning is ensured by old, well-proven mechanisms. One of them is the canon of scientific and fiction readings and publications addressed to the next generations of elites who are educated in a consolidated system of elite schools. As France is an entity having a significant impact on European affairs, it is worth considering how this canon of reading covers Polish issues.
My story is a story of many prejudices, resentments or various doubts
Before I explain these aspects, I would like to ask a general question – what does the attitude of others towards us depend on? How is their knowledge about us shaped? We, who stand in front of these others, must also take into account how the formation of relations within the country affects the possibilities of Polish culture outside the borders of the community and beyond the territory from which it grows.
The question “How do they see us?” should be related to the question “What materials do we provide them with, what excitement do we provide so that they can look at us differently?”.
Are we active in this area?
What could they rely on if, say, they wanted to smooth down or straighten out the mistakes of their previous approach? What access do they have to sources? Which texts are available in translation and which are not? Did they go into circulation, into the right circulation? Of course, all these possibilities and parameters also depend on our partners and to some extent are the result of their own activity or initiative.
This does not change the fact that in Poland we should consider creating a specific office, which would be responsible for detailed monitoring of the presence of Polish culture in contemporary distribution channels of cultural goods. An office that would review data and prepare documents that would make it possible to immediately answer the question whether classical works belonging to the canon are available in translation in a given area – from which publishers (that is, from those who provide “visibility”) and whether they are reprinted.
The availability of Polish culture and language outside Poland
The question of the presence, accessibility and status of Polish works must be distinguished from the question of the language itself. Even if these are spheres in relation to each other, they are separate. That is the basic question, and I do not know whether it has been approached in the right way so far. What is the status of the Polish language abroad? I should clarify – the question about the status of the Polish language abroad is a question about what could be done so that this status would not be – as it has been so far – only the result of the spontaneous course of history, so that – from the other side – it has any influence on the formation of this status.
The so-called glottodidactics in Poland is developing and doing well. There is an institution supervising the sending of Polish language teachers abroad called NAWA; undoubtedly, this is a necessary institution and let us give it credit, but I mean something else.
I would like to ask a question about the potential impact of culture on politics and geopolitics, that is, about the untapped potential inherent in this area. And at the same time to address the issue of mutual perception of various entities, both at the level of relations between individuals, as well as in the national-state or geopolitical dimensions. If I juxtapose these two areas, the lives of individuals and geopolitics, it is because I am convinced that despite the difference in scale, there are connections and analogies between them, and that what takes place in the arena of geopolitics has its roots in the basic determinants of certain behaviors that we deal with at the level of individuals.
A fatalistic set of determinisms?
Geopolitics seems to be a distant sphere, governed by its own laws, a sphere that in a way crushes individuals and is detached from the pragmatics of everyday life. Well, I would like to risk a thesis that it is possible to contribute to changes also in such areas as relations between states and geopolitics, by undertaking a policy of small steps, implemented at the level of individuals involved in the processes shaping the sphere of culture. I would even risk a thesis that abandoning the sphere of geopolitics to the sole mechanics of the cold game of interests always threatens to cause the outbreak of conflicts and the collapse of the entire structure in the long term.
We consider relations between states and geopolitics somewhat fatalistically, as an inevitable product of certain determinisms, which are expressed in a mechanical and ruthless systemism detached from the free will of man, and thus the negation of this space that philosophers call the “world of life” and in which people interact with each other in a gesture of sharing and co-creating meanings. In the light of such a statement and referring to the sphere of culture, it is worth considering to what extent relations between states and geopolitics can be drawn to the side not only of international law, but also of jointly shaped culture, in the spirit of solidarity and the creation of community spaces regulated by culture. What is at stake is to subject the unleashed elements of mutual indifference and resentment, which sooner or later find an outlet in war, to democratic control, that is, to make them a sphere in which decisions are increasingly the result of a collective effort by citizens themselves to model reality by enforcing processes that give democratic character to political life – it is about obtaining information, debating values and forming different opinions about them. In a word, what is at stake here is the democratisation of relations between states, so that these relations increasingly depend on democratic processes based on the principle of negotiation excluding as few individuals as possible and including as many individuals as possible.
I was pushed to such reflections, which in my case result from the analysis of the Polish case referred especially to what has been happening in France for many decades, by an event that took place under the auspices of Hera, the goddess responsible – as we know – for home affairs… Well, while vacuuming a fairly large room in a house in the country, I encountered spiders in large numbers, both on the floor and on the beams supporting the ceilings – hitherto I had protected spiders for the sake of a story I heard as a child. About the spider that allowed the fleeing Jesus to effectively take refuge behind a cobweb in the hollow of a large tree. However, someone sensitized me to the fact that spiders like to climb inside the couch, lay eggs there, which destroys fibers and materials. I don’t know if that’s true, but in this case, also given their number, I decided that I would have to pull these spiders with a vacuum cleaner, and then I thought to myself that this is sometimes the case in international relations and in relations between cultures – there are situations when someone becomes a spider for someone, and that someone can be us. Because someone from the outside, breaking all democratic rules, will perceive us in such an alienating and negative way – and if he thinks that we are harming him, he may give in to the reflex to pull us in with his mental vacuum cleaner and thus throw us out of his living and imaginary space. Push us into oblivion. Oh, it’s not good to become someone’s spider in that sense… Perhaps it is worth trying to prevent this and take appropriate steps in advance…
Culture and geopolitics – David’s fight against Goliath?
In the second half of the twentieth century, the priority of Polish thought, as well as the political activity of that part of society that rejected foreign domination, was first to regain sovereignty and independence, and then to achieve security and prosperity, improve the state’s infrastructure and modernize by joining Western structures, first NATO, and then the EU.
As a result of geopolitical conditions in past centuries, the main task of Poles was to try to exist, not to say: survive – this task was the possibility of further existence, because during the past centuries (the caesura can be erected somewhere in the mid-seventeenth century, at the time of the Cossack uprisings, and later the so-called “Swedish Deluge”) the Polish political and cultural community was threatened with extinction – indeed – non-existence, elimination of existing nations and cultures outside the brackets, absorption by powerful imperial organisms.
In this sense, Polish culture has become a culture of resistance, insurrection, a state of emergency, a besieged fortress, a conspiracy. However, when its national-state existence was restored, which does not mean, however, that it was definitively consolidated, the question arises as to what to do next and whether Polish culture will prove capable not only of ensuring its survival or its very existence, but whether it will be able to exist, by which I mean existence not only for its own use, for itself, for its own community and its own society, but also – here is the change – existence for other subjects, existence in creative and life-giving confrontation with these other subjects. Anyway, let’s say at once, the division into one’s own society and external environment is something relative, because the attitude to what is located outside, the attitude to otherness, is also something that deeply determines our own being and influences its form and substance.
This question raises another, namely about the real role of culture, referred to as soft power. Well, it may turn out that its impact on broader political, economic or even geopolitical processes now – that is, before the democratic changes I mentioned – is in fact much deeper than we usually think, although it is difficult to measure. Therefore, shouldn’t the sphere of culture be considered, if not as a potential hard power, then as something like a superpower? Both at the level of internal relations (through education) and at the level of relations with the world. Especially – I will add here – that we refer to a country like Poland, which through successive wars and occupations was successively weakened in economic and geopolitical terms, which means that its current rank in these areas is often assessed – which is difficult to deny – as being below our expectations and capabilities.
Confrontation of views strengthens cultural identity
France, on the other hand, is now such a special place, where perhaps with the greatest intensity one can see how different, let’s call them, systemic, mental and epistemological barriers and obstacles effectively block the possible peregrination of Polish culture to the West and the confrontation of this culture with Westerners. I wish to place this lack of confrontation at the heart of my speech insofar as it weakens what we call cultural identity. The premise on which I base this observation is simple – confrontation, real exchange of views reinforce, while their absence also weakens, what we treat as our own. The lack of confrontation is even a threat to the vitality and further development of native culture.
In the light of the remarks that have just been made, it is worth asking another question, namely whether cultural hostility or ignorance, which are the cradles of contempt and rejection, do not lead to attitudes that will inevitably have repercussions on the spheres of human activity defined as “hard”, and therefore on economic, diplomatic, interstate or geopolitical relations. In the end, the phenomenon of such reluctance strikes so-called “ordinary” citizens. At this point, it is worth recalling the phenomenon of mothers who in France were ashamed and are ashamed to still speak Polish to their children – not only on the street, but also at home.
I am thinking of the whole area of culture, although above all I would like to emphasize the role of language and art, which grows out of it and which gives it a special dimension, that is, literature, not primarily the contemporary one (although I do not exclude it), but the one that is covered by the patina of time and which is characterized by a kind of classicism. I understand classicism not as an expression of classicism, but as the status of those works that have stood the test of time and gained the name of cultural monuments. The word “monument”, however, as associated with something motionless, static and solidified, should be treated conventionally and with distance. These are works to which the collective consciousness has given a special status of objects worth remembering, which means that they are constantly put into circulation anew, so that they experience a kind of bath of youth, an injection of pulsating blood, and which cause the reader to open up historical and existential-cultural depth. It is about such works, the knowledge of which allows us to feel existence as something fascinating.
Is it possible to create nodes of understanding (a broader concept than memory nodes) that will be able to weaken and even overcome barriers standing in the way of mutual knowledge and sharing views on issues that we consider to be the most important for us? What does it depend on? Certainly not only on our partners, who – it is true – may not be able or do not want to understand us (for various reasons – because they are comfortable with it, because they do not see interest in it), but also on ourselves. This is perhaps even the case to a predominantly extent, because it is from us that impulses should flow to convince these partners somehow, to try to create a field of common good together… (to free each other from reasoning solely in terms of spheres of influence).
What unites us, what divides us
Politics, geopolitics, economy, organization of the state, international order, functioning of the EU, ideological divisions in Poland – these are a set of factors that may disturb and hinder the confrontation of Polish culture with its counterparts in the West, and it should be stated that this phenomenon unfortunately occurs, so to speak, systemically, due to a certain deficit caused by the history so far.
Culture is not a collection of objects, but a continuous process created by people. It can be said that it is inscribed in the dimension of eternity, although at the same time it takes place at every moment, at a given moment in history, and therefore it should also be considered in the perspective of temporality. In this sense, it has a double face. Culture is created by human actions taking an articulated, verbalized form, but not only – we talk about culture when we are dealing with a certain system of signs arising – always before our eyes – never fully fixed or unfulfilled. Therefore, the cultural system of signs is not petrified, because how it is understood, what it serves, depends on human – and perhaps divine, I do not want to exclude such a possibility – intentionality. Culture is born of man’s efforts to give meaning to his “sojourn on earth” (“pobyt na ziemi”), from which, if he is a believer, he can expect a ” passage towards paradise ” (rajski przebyt). In these medieval phrases, regardless of their religious dimension, I am interested in the play of prefixes – this outbidding, as it were, “stay” with “passage towards”. Culture is “the meaning-creating process that directs the existence of people and societies.”
Of course, although it cannot be separated from the processes that give it shape and meaning, culture also takes on stable forms, tends to fix itself in certain solid constructs. “People get used to certain customs or cultural traditions and don’t want to get rid of them.” [3] We are dealing with the phenomenon of “permanence of customs and traditions”, and they allow us to share meanings, which makes communication possible [4].
It is on this aspect that I would like to focus – on the aspect of communication, because it is this in the perspective of relations between Polish and Central and Eastern Europe with the so-called West that has been a challenge for a long time, and in the face of certain threats and adverse phenomena, it has not yet been adequately addressed. We have been dealing with such a situation for a long time, because it has been going on for at least several centuries, although – of course – as we will see in a moment, the impotence I am talking about here causes spectacular symptoms in current times, today.
Collective experience
Although I try not to underestimate the illusions associated with the concept of individualism, I attach great importance to the fate of the individual, which means that even in relation to collective experiences I strive – as far as I can – to imagine how processes taking place on a collective scale break through the lens of the feelings of individuals, thus taking the form of experience – for example, the experience of Renaissance humanism, the Industrial Revolution, the Holocaust or the gradual disintegration of communism in Europe around 1989.
It is not only about how collective events affect the personal lives of individuals, but how individuals feel them. This is an issue that touches the very essence of culture. Culture, in fact, is born on the border between inner and worldly, objective, experience. It is a sphere that permeates the consciousness of individuals, but towards which the consciousness of the individual is also directed, through which culture seeks to model. Culture is born of the desire to mediate between the two orders.
Therefore, when I consider general issues, I try not to forget about the individual and to bear in mind that they affect him. This rule acts as a warning, it allows us to realize that if we have not taken care of something, if harmful processes take place, it will inevitably affect this individual person. When we discuss general issues, we should always keep it in mind.
On the other hand, the study of man’s cultural activity is to investigate how, by striving for self-knowledge or knowledge of the world, that is, for socialization and finding oneself in various interpersonal orders (on various levels of economic, political, artistic, literary culture, etc.), man affirms the individuality of his own experience.
The fact that culture is part of the collective dimension is beyond question – without this dimension – it seems – nothing could be said about culture at all. Following the definition of the Belgian sociologist Rudi Laermans, it can be said that culture is a “socially shared resource or repertoire of signs” [5], which means that it is realized at the moment when it is read within a certain community, when a specific interpretative community receives it. The collective dimension also includes the production of cultural goods and practices, since the creator, using a system of signs, directs his work outwards, towards a community of interpretation. Culture takes place within the framework of sacred customs, but it also takes the form of works of art, which in the Western world we owe to the activity of individuals. It can develop as long as it is stimulated by the expression of free acts of individuals, independent individuals, despite the fact that the creative act refers to the world postulated as common, and tries to show this world in a new light, which has been sanctioned by the practice of the so-called artistic avant-garde based on anti-patterns, thanks to which, next to this form of the world that we know well, the possibility of another world or another world is born.
Since, therefore, cultural activity concerns collective aspects as much as it concerns the individual freedom of those who are its depositaries and creators, the question arises – does culture have room for manoeuvre in the face of phenomena which, as I mentioned, take the form of a soulless profit and loss statement, and a game of interests based on a specifically understood realism or even geopolitical cynicism, which is why they are contrary to the principle of democratic negotiations and free elections.
We are entering a sphere in which the culture subjected to this game of interests loses its autonomy. Geopolitics thus has a negative impact on cultural issues, distorting them and effectively preventing culture from fulfilling its goals. What is more, a culture distorted and so modeled by geopolitics will seek to sustain the negative phenomena that have influenced it and are responsible for the fact that certain phenomena coming from other countries, reduced to spaces treated with contempt or reluctance, are not allowed to enter a distribution or circulation that would allow them to become an object of communication across divisions. It happens, therefore, that a certain understanding of interstate interests underlying negative emotions or emotions resulting from indifference and insensitivity entails negative representations, stereotypes that disturb the circulation of cultural products and put a barrier to deeper possibilities of its development and expansion.
Therefore, when we consider issues related to culture, it is impossible not to look in the direction of geopolitics and interstate and intra-state politics, macroeconomics, interstate and international relations, because these are factors that affect the functioning of both culture and the shaping of the fate of individual people, and their role is ambivalent – they enable as much as they block life-giving relations in the field of interpersonal contacts, as well as cultural relations.
EU enlargement. From prejudice to accusations
Let us return to the place of France in relations between Poland, Polish culture and the world – the world of the West above all.
As we all know, in 2004 Poland joined the European Union under a process then called the ‘enlargement’ of the EU.
Did this process mean that, after a long separation, a feeling was born that the sisters and brothers had happily returned home, and that now, amid mutual embraces, everyone would be throwing themselves into each other’s embraces?
The term “enlargement” is not neutral and differs, for example, from the optics of other terms such as “unification” or “reunification”.
How did this expansion take place, that is, in what spirit and public mood? Using the partly figurative language of apologia, it can be summarised as follows. The hard-right nucleus, the more developed nucleus, behaves generously, makes a beautiful gesture, a gesture of generosity and tolerance, opening its doors to poor relatives in the name of a beautiful European idea. In fact, it is aware that these poor relatives are not at the same level of development, that they are inferior, and yet it welcomes them and graciously gives them hospitality, because this is the historical moment, this is the verdict of history and it must be accepted. We may not be happy about it, but somehow we will survive it.
There is no feeling at all that some historical harm is being righted, that in fact these others should have been members on the same rights long ago, because – but when was it? – they fought alongside us, nay, they even fought for us, they fought when we did not want to fight too much. I am thinking of the Battle of France in 1940 or the landing in Normandy and the notorious Battle of Falaise. This comradeship of arms is much older and reaches deep into the nineteenth century due to the Napoleonic wars…
The passage of time has done its job and there is a phenomenon of enormous force of habit here, we (we the French, Westerners) have become accustomed to living separately, to treating them as being on the other side, on the other side, on the worse side, as evidenced for decades by emigrants coming from there, about whom it was known that they fled from there. Moreover, on the right side, we have become accustomed to the fact that they – in the geopolitical and political sense – are beings subordinated to stronger players, that their state has a façade character, because it is the result of the actions of a certain empire (the USSR built around Russia), which for all these years, decades, and maybe even centuries was the right center of power. The problem is that it is this empire that we take seriously and respect, both then and now, when it strives to be reborn as a fallen empire. It is true that it was perceived as fundamentally alien and even hostile, but it turns out that it is not so hostile, nay, that in some areas it can act as an ally – because the shadow of another foreign empire (the United States) is also placed on us (the French), and we do not fully accept the power of this other empire, we feel that it takes away our primacy, that it pushes us into some undefined background.
The Fracture of the Western World
I will refer here to the excellent anthology created under the aegis of the Lublin magazine “Akcent” devoted to intercultural relations within the borderland phenomenon and in relation to Poland, and since the perspective also included emigration and reflection on globalization, the reader received a study referring to many cultural zones, both those traditionally associated with Poland (Jewish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, German, Tatar, Armenian, etc.), as well as potentially from all over the world. It is entitled On the Border of Nations and Cultures. Polska – Europa – Ameryka (wyd. Czytelnik and the Eastern Cultural Foundation “Akcent”). For the purpose of this essay, I would like to draw your attention to the essay of a Lublin scholar, Tadeusz Szkolut, who analyzed Norman Davies’ book on Europe – I will refer to this essay several times, this time the quotation will serve as a reminder of the otherwise well-known attitude of France towards the USA:
“Davies appreciates that the concept of liberal democracy together with the idea of human rights as individuals are the fruits of nineteenth-century modernity, but doubts whether liberal Europe would have defeated totalitarian Europe without the considerable help of the United States in the Second World War, which, let us add, some Europeans, especially the French, would gladly forget today.” [6]
This rupture within the Western world means that since this second empire, the one that oppresses emigrants fleeing from its oppression, political refugees and like a roller ride over the right of the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to a sovereign national existence, since this second empire is a competition for the one we ourselves do not fully accept, we are inclined to treat it with a certain amount of understanding.
Thus, we treat this hostile empire with the respect due to players who are our equals, and even to those players who prove useful, but with the consequence that we take that respect equally away from those who appear to us as its pawns. This is despite the fact that we otherwise sympathize with the people who suffer under the thumb of this empire, which means that even when there is an outbreak of social revolt in the zone controlled by it, we show considerable generosity and mobilize to help these people (in the times of “Solidarity”). However, help is directed only to the people, and it is the people who we have in mind, not their country, which, in a way, does not exist, because it is a puppet in the hands of the empire; It is also not about their culture, because it cannot develop – as we think – normally. We think the best scenario for these people is to simply join us so that they become like us, so that they merge with us. In the meantime, we have forgotten that for centuries they had their own culture, which was a variation of the common European one. That these centuries, which are the arena for the creation of memorable works, cultural monuments, could connect and bring us closer today, but also tomorrow. Maybe somewhere here and there, there are some memories that there were indeed such achievements, but they are very pale, with the passage of time getting paler and more and more isolated and anecdotal.
In a text published in 2014, Jan Kieniewicz wrote: “The border between the worlds was closed. The Berlin Wall was a response to the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, the border of the free world has become more and more characterized by civilizational exclusion of those who, regardless of aspirations or imaginations, remained outside.” [7]
One day, the empire (the USSR) collapses, which results in the long-awaited – as it seemed – freedom.
How do we receive these events? First of all, with some disbelief, because the empire seemed to us almost eternal, or at least long-lasting. Quite quickly the question arises – what next?
At this point, it becomes necessary to recall the violent outbreak of certain negative moods that arose against Poland and Poles at that time, and were diligently fueled (controlled) by the local media. These are phenomena that are still smoldering and far from being completely extinguished.
Suddenly, the Polish plumber became frightening (it was quite a grim – it must be admitted – play, because it openly attacked ordinary people, specific, private people), and Poland was accused of using social dumping.
Subsequently, the campaign of distancing and resentment entered its second phase. More and more loudly in public debates began to invoke the argument, unilaterally profiling it, that Poles are the main beneficiaries of EU subsidies, which they cannot appreciate, because they buy American military equipment. Noteworthy is the phenomenon of contradictory and double interpretation – it is about the phenomenon of foreign investments (feted in Poland), and there called relocations, i.e. understood as the outflow of production capacity from the domestic territory, from the domestic market towards some unspecified, suspicious foreign country.
Finally, the old atavisms and prejudices resurfaced when the accusation of nationalism appeared and soon took on a ritual character. Here is Davies again in Szkołuta’s essay :
“Rich Europeans, often with disdain or reluctance, think of those peripheral countries where people speak little-known (not to say “barbaric”) dialects and are strongly attached to their national traditions, by ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ Western intellectuals considered anachronistic.” [8] Indeed, these are very old habits, reaching much deeper than communism in Central and Eastern Europe, although it should not be ruled out that communism, as it introduced a gap in normal, fluid relations indirectly contributed to the cursor’s unstoppable slide towards prejudice.
Central Europe reduced to the camp of the Counter-Reformation
In 2019, a collective book was published under the aegis of the Le Grand Continent think tank run by people close to President Macron. It dealt with the geopolitics of Europe and was the result of conferences of eminent experts and intellectuals that were broadcast in many European cities. It consists of speeches by such personalities of the world of science as Patrick Boucheron, Antonio Negri, Thomas Piketty, Myriam Revault d’Allonnes and Elisabeth Roudinesco. At this point, I would like to quote from a text presented by a now highly influential French historian, author of A World History of France, an overview of the history of this country and territory from the point of view of the evolution of the world. In fact, his opinion on Central Europe is very characteristic in this passage. Here it is: “Jean-Claude Milner reminds us that Europe, consisting of 27 countries today, was created by the integration of Central Europe, which is the Europe of the Counter-Reformation. This must be understood. We need to stop moaning that it doesn’t fulfill its task of imitating us. This Europe lacks nothing. It doesn’t lie, it doesn’t want us. It was once the heart of Mitteleuropa, the heart of a cosmopolitan and pluralistic power that had disintegrated. Today it is a powerful model, powerfully authoritarian, powerfully xenophobic, powerfully identitarian. It’s so sad that you want to cry, sure, I agree, but it’s just the way it is.” [9]
Does this passage require comment? It can be seen that the region of Central Europe – called in German “Mitteleuropa” – was reduced to the camp of the Counter-Reformation, which would justify its xenophobic-authoritarian character today (sic!). Discouraging, isn’t it…
In a similar vein were these words by Marc Porée, author of the introduction to the newly reissued collected works of Joseph Conrad in the French series La Pléiade, an extremely prestigious series printed on biblical paper, which has the ambition to collect works belonging to the canon of national and world literature (and in which not a single author writing in Polish has so far appeared) :
“Conrad participates in the debate on the legitimacy of Romanticism, he engages in a discussion with the revolutionary tendencies of his father and the poets of his country, Mickiewicz and Słowacki, towards whom he has very ambivalent feelings. He sees their restless idealism as ineffective and dangerous, perpetuating the infantile disease that is nationalism.” [10]
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. And since this time it concerns the canon of Polish culture, which the author probably, not to say certainly, knows only second-hand (otherwise he would not have issued such a judgment…), one can say that this is an extremely dangerous phenomenon. It is about ritual accusations of nationalism of the nations of this part of Europe (with Poland in one of the main roles) by intellectuals and media from Western Europe. Even if this objection resonates with certain real phenomena, it demands a critical analysis. First of all, it should be noted that – indeed – such an accusation, for example in France, resembles a conditioned reflex and occurs regularly in situations when this part of Europe is invoked. Secondly, it is necessary to consider to what extent this accusation is an expression of xenophobia, which seems to be the dominant element in the cultural attitude that Western Europe has towards its Central and Eastern part.
If we wanted to summarize this attitude in a way that captures the essence of things without resorting to nuances, it can be done with this formulation – they (those other Europeans [11]) may have a culture, but they certainly do not belong to the circle of our civilization, this close circle. However, a question arises – to what extent do we contribute to the consolidation of such a state of affairs, either through our passivity, or through the way we shape the political debate in Poland, through the way we view Polish affairs ourselves?
Culture, ladies and gentlemen!
I think Poland is not visible as long as you look at it only from an internal perspective. Sometimes it is better seen thanks to remoteness.
In Poland, there are forces trying to persuade citizens that if only they allow them to rule, they will automatically return Poland to the “mainstream of European politics”, so that in this capacity, as a member of this trend, it will be able to effectively influence both its fate and the fate of the entire continent. Well, since the project of building a united Europe was born in the 2nd half of the 20th century, Poland has never belonged to the group of its main promoters. And its status, ever since it was finally liberated from the yoke of the Soviets, has always been the same – that is, that of a barely tolerated state, which at best is treated as a field for the expansion of one’s own interests, which, by the way, seemed to fully satisfy the Poles, for in this way they were able to enjoy the fact that they were able to attract foreign investors armed with the necessary know-how.
Unfortunately, there are still factors that interfere with the harmonious integration of Poland and its culture into the structures of a free Europe that is a global actor. The habitat of these factors is today, as yesterday, geopolitics. Should we therefore conclude that this is the balance of power in the world and in Europe, that nothing can be done and that the wind of geopolitics always blow in the eyes of poor actors, such as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe ? How beautiful life would be if it were not for this geopolitics… Let us say from the outset that individual existence and cultural activity do not hang in a vacuum and cannot be completely cut off from the influence of areas that escape the sphere of democratic negotiation and the search for the common good. Besides, culture itself, through imaginations, stereotypes, affects the consolidation of certain ideas despite their destructive effects. Certainly, passivity is not advisable – that’s why it is worth lowering the level of emotionality to better recognize mechanisms, diagnose distortions, pathologies – and then try to find appropriate remedies, try to overcome obstacles.
I return to the issue of articulation between the sphere of geopolitics and the sphere of culture and individual human activity. Is it really the case that geopolitics takes place in areas where there are frozen divisions, which are only supra-individual and systemic (i.e. detached from the “world of life” and its fluctuations), which means that as individuals we have no influence on them and we can only treat them as a kind of fate, and the only perturbative factor is the war between larger individuals? In principle, however, do not the phenomena in question have their roots in anthropological tendencies that characterize the human species as such and each individual man, each man as an individual?
These trends are:
– the fight for power, for domination over others;
– the race for money and material goods;
– finally, modernization aspirations, which in essence are the Promethean drive of humanity to improve the conditions of life on Earth.
All these things are important – they have their value and meaning. Certainly, many of us have such aspirations, which means that in our lives we do not always agree to be fully subordinated to the centers of power (political, religious, cultural) and other people (we want to govern ourselves and even be able to enforce things from others), have money and not be deprived of it and follow trends that give us a sense of it, that we participate in mental, technological and stylish transformations of the world.
But how does the sphere of culture relate to these issues? Isn’t it the parent category? On a practical level, it should be recognized that culture is precisely a set of rules and norms through which man tries to control the complicated architecture of human behavior and reflexes just indicated, and in the basic plan it is associated with the question of what is the most important in life.
The power of culture
It seems that none of the tendencies just mentioned can be elevated to the superior level. That they are all destined – together and separately – to be influenced and constantly processed within the framework of a common project that is culture. Culture points to that sphere of human activity in which man strives, among other things, to put in order those tendencies and impulses which are born in him and which cannot be eradicated, but must be domesticated and nurtured.
It happens that these definitions of culture and civilization that we adopt place these concepts in the area of specialized skills. For example, the concept of “culture” is often identified with man’s ability to improve himself, and when we mean “being civilized,” we are referring to those who have been able to pass to a level of existence and human ability that is considered higher, proper to circles that consider themselves to be the most advanced. In this sense, cultural endeavors lead to a culmination that amounts to joining the circle of a higher civilization.
However, culture (and not civilization) can be given a superior value, that is, it can be seen as both a process and a result of the process of ordering the sphere of human behavior and aspirations, using – to use Rudi Laermans’ formula again – “a socially shared resource or a repertoire of signs”.
If any of the anthropological tendencies mentioned above were to be given the role of the overriding factor regulating human relations, the results would be disastrous.
Let’s start with the factor on which we are inclined to pin many hopes – namely, modernization. What would happen if it were the most important, which some of us might be willing to agree to? Is modernization a fundamentally positive process, and therefore one that, if we brought it to completion, would solve all human ills, which would mean that it would be best to deprive it of borders and brakes? In other words, would a world subjected to complete, complete modernization be a paradise on earth?
Replacing people with robots would undoubtedly be proof that modernization has taken place, and one of the more spectacular kind. But would it fulfill our dreams of paradise on earth? For the rest, as Pascal Gielen and Thijs Lijster write, “wealth accumulation and economic growth beyond a certain level begin to contribute to lowering this indicator. As the saying goes, happiness cannot be bought.” [13] Culture, on the other hand, is associated with the moment when we discover that what is most important in life results from the fact that our life is finished, that sooner or later it ends in death. It is the awareness of our own mortality that appears as the most powerful regulator of our behavior, their Sevr pattern.
The Binarian Trap
Poland itself is determined not only by internal aspects, but by how it influences Europe and the world, and how its image is shaped, the ideas about it, which place Poland and Poles are assigned in the hierarchy of civilizations.
How a given culture influences its environment is a factor that is an integral part of its identity, its essence and the way in which its internal affairs are shaped, because the type of relationship between the subject itself and the subjects with whom he co-creates reality or creates to some extent a common – but always nevertheless common – reality, the type of this relationship influences who you are yourself and who you and the given societies become.
Therefore, Polish issues are not decided only by Polish-Polish relations between Poles, but also by the nature of relations between Poles and the environment external to Poland.
Of course, since Poland is primarily a part of Europe, Poland and Poles are primarily determined by relations with this area. Of course, the concept of Europe is not unambiguous and it can, and certainly should be understood in many ways, but this does not change the fact that it is the area and the very concept of Europe that has the privileged status of the main regulator in shaping Polish affairs.
Individuality
Individuality, specificity, is undoubtedly a great opportunity. But it is also a formidable challenge that, when left unaddressed, takes revenge and turns into ballast and obstacle.
Meanwhile, Polish distinctiveness in the European order is struggling with a periphery syndrome. Western Europe, and certainly such an old power as France, considers the situation of Poland and Poles themselves in terms of “being between”, and even more so “on the edge”, i.e. “in the East”, “on the periphery” or “frontiers”. Poland is still seen as a subordinate area. On this ground, there is a risk of being an isolated, lonely and incomprehensible culture for those who set the tone. Regaining independence for oneself does not mean that a given entity has become sovereign in the eyes of others. As much as internal problems and problems, this phenomenon should determine and prioritize our actions, determine the type of tasks that we should urgently face.
In the light of such observations and the resulting hierarchy of priorities, how to assess the way Poles understand themselves?
Many would like to lock us in the grip of a false alternative, I think. These are voices that warn: either Poles will become European by denationalizing the community within which they have been moving so far, or they will die. It seems that this approach to the problem determines the typically peripheral status in which the proclaimers of these slogans sink. On the other side of the barricade, things look more complicated – there are at least two options. We can see there both those who are trying to affirm Polish separateness within the European community, as well as those who, sulking at Europe and railing against its ideological and moral changes in recent decades, are inclined to defend the model of closing in on themselves and proclaiming some manic superiority of the native community over the rest of the world.
Trapped in binarism
The fundamental fallacy of attitudes at opposite ends of the alternative that we’ve just outlined is that their adherents think of themselves primarily in relation to themselves, thus forgetting that “my image and my autonomy depend on how I define myself in relation to the culture shared with others.” The rule I have just recalled assumes the fulfilment of two postulates in parallel – defining oneself and confronting the culture that we share with others within the framework of the world considered to be common.
Pivotal is the moment when we take up the challenge of confronting others, also with their reluctance, passivity, apathy towards us. There is no doubt that such a confrontation changes our way of thinking about ourselves.
Meanwhile, we tend to present the contemporary debate about Poland as a struggle of “two camps”, which we consider as binarism. In my opinion, this is a mistake, because the choice oscillates not between two fundamental, but at least three options.
Thus, we observe a tendency to reduce the triangle just outlined to the fight of two opposing camps. Instead of a triad, a picture of polarization is created, and this as a global phenomenon, apart from its internal effects, contributes to maintaining many existing blockages preventing the development of what I’ve called the “peregrination” of Polish culture in Europe and in the world.
On the one hand, we have the proverb that “harmony builds and disagreement destroys”, but on the other hand, it is impossible to turn a blind eye to the life-giving aspects of disputes, dissensions or crisis, insofar as these phenomena are an expression of the fact that life goes on properly, because there is a clash of different reasons within the framework of building a common world. Anne-Cécile Robert, one of the harshest critics of the EU’s neoliberal course, editor of the left-wing „Le Monde diplomatique” and professor at the Institute for European Studies at Université Paris 8, refers to the authority of Jean Jaures, who – as she reminds – claimed that “the truth lies in the contradiction” and that “those who affirm the thesis, without opposing it with the opposite thesis, are mistaken, falling victim to a narrow, illusory logic.”[15] And she adds that “the refusal of dissents (being the opposite of consensus) about the content with which society equips the idea of civilization always becomes totalitarian.”[16] Indeed, it is worth asking ourselves to what extent the concept of ideological polarization, which is currently so popular in Poland, contains totalitarian features – it seems to exclude a simple dispute, as on both sides there are tendencies to completely deprive the other of the right to have certain reasons, which creates a climate of mutual ostracism and ideological purges, and even – in the long run – a real civil war.
1) As the self-appointed progressive camp tries to convince us, is criticising the EU for its functioning tantamount to being anti-European? What does it mean that, in certain circles brandishing the axe of ‘populism’, any critical voice on the EU qualifies as an essentially xenophobic and nationalist attitude?
2) But equally justified are the objections caused by the attitude of their opponents from the opposite pole of this ideological struggle. Is it really possible to completely exclude the risk that the defence of familiarity, of one’s own identity, may lead us towards self-absorption, towards rejecting dialogue with the world and towards a kind of obsession with ownership and purity? Besides, the term “dialogue with the world” seems vague and quite conventional – let’s put it bluntly – our human condition is largely based on confronting things that we do not yet know and that escape our control. Of course, a certain degree of control and a sense of familiarity seems necessary to maintain life, but it will not be unreasonable to ask whether such a state is not rather an exception to the rule both on the plane of existence and on the plane of earthly (which means not only interpersonal) relations, because these constantly go beyond our previous knowledge, beyond the customs and practices we have mastered? Wanting to stop this movement to explore the mysteries of existence in the name of certain of our fantasies about the community with which we identify raised to the level of dogmas may turn out to be a harmful step, not to say deadly…
Instead of blindly deifying those zones that we consider to be more developed or more modern, which results in postponing familiarity, and even attempts to dismantle it, but also instead of persistent closing in on ourselves – it would be better to adopt various strategies of confronting our familiarity, by no means rejected or postponed, with external environments, thanks to which a double postulate could be fulfilled – opening up to otherness and at the same time defending familiarity, what is native, not only defense, but also treating it as an indispensable foundation.
When we discover that our familiarity for people from the outside is a certain otherness, we begin to perceive it differently – yes – we gain a certain distance to it, but at the same time, if we can see the potential contained in it, extract its strengths from it, we can try to make it a kind of bargaining chip in relations with the world. What is one’s own is perceived as a potential value also for others, familiarity also becomes a link with the world, which makes it valuable also for us. In this sense, a fuller modernization will take place when Poles will be able to dialogue with the world without complexes, that is, when they will find ways and methods that will give the opportunity not only to shape their own community, but also to take responsibility for Europe and the world, and this is a perspective that requires cultural activity.
By learning ways to convince others, we change our attitude towards what we consider our own
We are beginning to want Poland – also seen in terms of culture – to become a magnet attracting others, strangers with the power of its own light and charm. It can be said that in the situation of supporting the Ukrainian society in its existential hardships and war struggles with the barbaric enemy, this process has already begun.
Meanwhile, we can see how within societies such as the Polish one (i.e. those that are gradually liberating themselves from the period of long dependence) elites are being created, whose title to this name is that they have assimilated – as they claim – these better models, which they are now trying to introduce for the use of the local society from which they originate. A strange syndrome is created – elites antagonistically oriented to their own society, as they themselves – supposedly – emancipated themselves from its vices.
In this context, let us refer again to which addresses the issue of cultural cross-border relations anthology of “Akcent”, which addresses the issue of cross-border cultural relations, and its essay on Norman Davies’ Europe, in which we read: “Unfortunately, it must be admitted,” notes Davies, “that many Eastern Europeans, and especially the intelligentsia, have adopted Western prejudices. Among Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and Romanians, it has long been fashionable to look for models in Paris, London, Berlin or New York, while the eastern neighbors are despised or ignored. ‘Western’ is again automatically equated with ‘best’ here.” [17]
Elites of this kind take into account Europe only insofar as it can be helpful to them in the work of regaining power in Poland, they do not confront what they have gained from Poland, what they represent as Poles themselves, with the common opinions of other Europeans about Poland and its place in the common world. Their attitude to Europe is instrumental, Europe is a handy – in their opinion – tool for pursuing their own interests in the national field, and the field of expansion of these interests is not Europe, but Poland.
A fake alternative
The alternative between familiarity and international patterns is a false choice – both aspects should be considered in their mutual entanglement, and if internationalization were to take place on the basis of a simple exchange, at the expense of a simple denial of familiarity, it would rightly evoke associations with crude social engineering and alienation.
Those who use the slogan of progress and modernization as a whip against Polishness – and this is only seemingly a paradox – also close themselves in (reduced to the shadow of themselves) Polishness. Let’s try to reconstruct their reasoning – the more developed world looks better than us, it means that it is worse in our country, while due to their attachment to what is Poland, fellow citizens prevent them from making a leap towards this better world. This socio-cultural resistance encountered by modernizers becomes their obsession, as well as a kind of alibi not to explore what in the native tradition is a lost, familiar strength. In the end, it turns out that they urgently need Polishness in its caricatured, phantasmatic figure in order to be able to fight it, and to exalt themselves – at its expense. That’s how they lock themselves in it. This approach is a series of missed opportunities. A dismissive attitude towards what is native has a double effect. It leads to the fact that the postulated modernization slogans are treated as a whip on one’s own society, instead of trying to democratically convince the society to its reasons. The lack of moderation, a certain balance, acceptance for any counter-authorities in the modernization process causes that the creative exchange between what is familiar, native, own, and what is outside, has the potential for development, burns on the pans or takes a sinister course.
Since I publish my text in Poland and I wrote it from the Polish perspective, it may not be useless to remind you that such arguments are not only applicable in Poland – in fact, they constitute a kind of leitmotif in the criticism of the evolution of the EU, which is currently being delivered in the intellectual circles of Western elites about… left-wing attitude. In this respect, it is worth referring to a book published in 2013, i.e. in the era before the outbreak of ideological tensions that we are currently witnessing – it is a collection of texts collected on behalf of “Le Monde diplomatique” and originally published in the pages of this magazine. Its authors are mostly scientists, specialists in the field of politics, economics and broadly understood social sciences. The title of the anthology „The End of Europe as We Know” It is very significant and is a preview of a content that may come as a big surprise to an unprepared recipient, because the predicted end equals the liquidation of humanistic and social Europe, to which these left-wing analysts declare their attachment, and blame for such an evolution… the European Union, because of its evolution over the last decades.
Here are their main motives for accusation against this organization and its – indeed – transformations:
(a) “EU social policy has become a means of destroying the institutions of the welfare state and public services and threatens the very idea of society,” [18] writes Belgian political scientist Corinne Gobin, after stating that “over the past thirty years, these collective “inventions” [these are “counter-powers” which give “public authority the autonomy to act in the public order”] have been neutralised or dismantled one by one by public imperatives, originating from new, supranational, i.e. “supra-democratic” places of power, of which the European Union is one of the most active centres” [19].
(b) Bernard Cassen, however, quoting the words of June 2006 by Jean Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup from 2005 to 2013, “Europe is not failing at the level of those in power, but at the level of society”, refers at the same time to the assessment of the Robert Schuman Foundation’s scientific director and professor, Thierry Chopin, who stated that “belief in acting for the benefit of society is not synonymous with involving it in the decision-making process”, to add for themselves: ‘It is as if citizens can only watch an armoured train carrying the European elite without being able to participate in a journey they do not want to take’ [20].
c) Cassen then very harshly criticises both the European Court of Justice’s conduct and the decisions it takes (for favouring social dumping): “According to Vauchez [a researcher at the CNRS, the French Academy of Sciences], a legal theory of integration is developing, which builds from Community law and court the backbone of European politics itself” [21] and, moreover, complains, that “the Commission, the Court, the European Central Bank” “are already beyond the reach of direct or indirect intervention by citizens” and “have not the slightest desire to share power” [22].
d) Finally, this gives him grounds to present a grim prophecy (it is impossible not to notice that its content corresponds to what is currently happening at the level of Polish relations with the EU): “Since Europe lacks a common public space, […] Political conflicts can turn into confrontations between states. Is it conceivable that, with the crumbs of sovereignty they have left, the countries ruled by the left and their citizens would agree to accept a spanking from the right-wing executive branch of the Union? Or vice versa?” [23], and his final conclusion really makes us think: “What is accepted in the national public space is not translatable to the supranational level, at least never has been so far” [24].
e) In a sense, the already mentioned Corinne Gobin sums up all the threads about the current state of the EU with this statement: “Economic and Monetary Union, announced in the Single European Act (1986) and sanctified by the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), has created a political and economic system that contributes to the delegitimization of all the achievements in the sphere of social law and social democracy achieved within the framework of the “nation states” of Western Europe.” [25]
f) The passage that was written here, long before this accusation was used against the rulers in Poland, and referred to a completely different phenomenon and territory, sounds quite prophetic and interesting: “The fight against European directives is not only the resistance of the people, whose foundations lie with the French Revolution, but also the opposition of traditional hunting to the Europe of officials.” Michi [Julian, an employee of the National, that is, French, Institute for Agricultural Research] does not judge hunters as “bloodthirsty villagers”. He believes that “anti-European protests and the rejection of the European construction by society must be considered in the context of social conditions and the policies that create them. Furthermore, one can regret that this approach is too often labelled populism.’ [26]
The exaggerated cult of modernization, of violent modernization, without regard for the consequences, is fueled by the first two anthropological tendencies that I have indicated, and therefore the drive for power and money. Those who practice this cult seem to base their strategy on a simple empirical assessment – from the point of view of political weight and access to material goods, contemporary Poland is lower than Germany or France. This would indicate that its development was weaker, delayed. However, if we base our assessment on cultural criteria, we will soon come to the conclusion that these indicators are relative, because culture is about harmonious ordering of all aspects of life and about the process of giving meaning, the main driver of which is the awareness of one’s own mortality. Secondly, the development of Poland was as dependent on the global economic situation (wars, communism, etc.) as on internal and national factors (the latter have rather been in retreat over the last centuries), and if mistakes have been made in the past, assuming that they were only mistakes and that all possessions are worth nothing, indicates abuse. On the basis of such observations, quite the opposite conclusions could be drawn – if the situation in the country and the state at this stage seems unsatisfactory to us, then all the more we should protect what has been created and preserved despite the lack of favorable system conditions.
The debate: “either Poland or Europe” is false
Blackmailing Polish with Europe is dramatic. Those who practice this blackmail do not have in mind the overall or cultural development, they want to gain power and stay with it. And Europe, which they proclaim to be the champions of, they reduce to a tool to come to power in their own backyard and at its expense.
The strategy of self-defense, saving dignity, familiarity can be and certainly is clumsy. But while some make mistakes, use clumsy tactics, others turn a blind eye to the destructive effects of their strategy serving primarily to secure their class-ideological interests.
However, it is bad when, in reaction to blind modernizers and violent defenders of Europe, defenders of familiarity proliferate, for whom the main slogan becomes the supremacy of everything that is familiar, and since the world considered to be more developed, civilized, they treat as something that is outside, beyond the borders of the native community, they have a hostile attitude towards it.
I would like to remind you that I do not consider this polarization, this promoted binarism as a category that would precisely reflect the essence of the distribution of ideological forces in Poland, because I pointed to the existence between the extreme poles of the community of those who are trying to affirm Polish separateness within the European community.
Despite the fact that they adopt the opposite strategy from the one currently represented by instrumental Europeists – and therefore all those who use Europe as a tool to blackmail Poland – fanatical or radical defenders of familiarity also do not do our community, society and Polish culture a service. It can be said that they inadvertently supply ammunition to all those who in Western Europe have a hostile or skeptical attitude towards Polish, which gives rise to the suspicion that the element they represent is being fueled by its main enemy in the East, or at least it plays into the hands of this enemy.
Representatives of this attitude of radicalized defence of familiarity, bristling before the outside world, over which they have no advantage, contribute to the fact that the appearance of accuracy gives the main accusation ritually appearing against the Polish community in the West, it is the accusation of nationalism – which has already been mentioned – treated as a symptom of childhood disease, as a kind of infantilism in international relations.
Meanwhile, it should be in the vital interest of the Poles – and the enforcement of this interest should be expected from the elites – to explain to both the elites and Western societies that within the Polish community, i.e. the one whose national existence was threatened, something completely different from primitive nationalism was the struggle for survival, for the right to maintain autonomy (agency). Western countries and cultures often do not know or have forgotten what such a struggle consists of.
I will not elaborate on these threads any longer. I just want to say that allowing such an alternative, for the perpetuation of this kind of clinch, gives rise to a very definite risk, namely that the societies under its rule themselves contribute to maintaining their state of inferiority, because it is a situation that allows stronger players to take advantage of this division and play warring factions against each other. Binarism, polarization become particularly dangerous when they do not provide sufficient space for the emergence of more flexible strategies, i.e. those that are based on complementary principles of cultivating property, accepting invigorating currents from outside and confronting one’s own visions with those of others, and only a combination of such multi-vector tendencies makes possible expansion outside and self-realization within both one’s own community, as well as the world.
What is blackmailing Polish in the name of an instrumental concept of Europe? I have already written about it, but what does Polishness become in itself, that is, without confronting what surrounds it? Doesn’t such a tendency lead per se de to its degradation, subordination, and even a kind of folklorization? These are rhetorical questions.
Confrontation, or how to get out of the deadlock and the peregrination of Polish culture
A different path becomes possible, then, when we reject the absolutization of familiarity, but also its condemnation in the name of the phantasm of some higher Europeanness, Westernness.
When we think about Poland, it is always worth bearing in mind its original place in the world, because the very concept of Polishness presupposes its connection with the world, such was Polishness at its dawn and throughout its development. These problems with the approach to Polishness, which we are currently dealing with, are the aftermath of the phenomenon of loss of sovereignty, which exposed the Polish community to the loss of national existence by taking away the right to develop it freely, to the destruction of its human, material and intangible resources. These are otherwise well-known phenomena, about which thousands of books and even more testimonies have been written. But when we recall them, it is worth remembering that this type of experience was not part of this happier part of Europe in this respect, which means that Polish phenomena are always worth considering in terms of what they have to say not only to us, but also to others, which changes our own attitude towards them – I am talking here about the double confrontation of Polish specificity with the broad background of Europe, but also about the confrontation of common opinions in Europe with the Polish experience, because as part of the common European history, it can certainly also prove valuable for others. These are remarks and recommendations resulting from the spirit of comparatism, of which my text is both an apologia and an expression – the effort to find analogies or frames of reference serves as an incentive to see ourselves better on the one hand, and on the other, to make contact, to grow a probe and to impregnate others with ourselves, with interest in us, which triggers creative dynamics. Looking at Poland from the outside, from the perspective of Europe and the world, does not mean diminishing it – on the contrary – it is an operation contributing to the extraction of those elements from Poland that can affect the global order – it is an encouragement to convince both ourselves and others that what is ours can effectively fit into general tendencies.
It seems that the road to such a cultural order is still long, both due to internal Polish and external, European factors. In addition to the openly xenophobic and negative attitude towards Polish affairs, one can also see the lack of any position, especially when we are dealing with a systemic lack of knowledge, i.e. ignorance resulting from insufficient or zero access to sources – this happens in a situation of eliminating Polish elements from general knowledge. Therefore, our field of activity should not rely only on actions arising in response to treatment considered unfair – we should urgently build an information network that in neutral situations, and therefore also outside the areas in which the blade of accusations openly makes itself felt, will complement European knowledge with Polish components and aspects.
The shortcomings in this area are enormous.
The weakness of the previous approaches is that they refer to Poland as an independent object (the only difference is that some assess familiarity negatively, others positively), it can be said that these are narratives that are created for internal use in order to gain the government of souls over Poles, which exposes them to this polarized internal reception, which is not accompanied by the invigorating breath of confrontation with recipients and external partners. Poles often prefer confrontation with each other to creative confrontation with the world, Europe and their close surroundings.
Is the potential that Poland can bring to popular opinions and views on the formation and development of Europe properly appreciated?
If this were the case, our individuality would not appear as a sign of weakness or peripherality, but as an added value to the common history of Europe. As something that can become a determinant of undoubted strength and which should be treated as an asset, a magnet that attracts attention, arouses respect and encourages action.
Someone will say – I do not care about the opinion of these people. Let them think what they want. Of course, we do not have to agree on everything or strive at all costs to be understood (better), but the accumulation of misunderstandings with a certain level of systemic ignorance causes resentment that is the basis on which it will be easier to make a decision… the imposition of financial sanctions under the common system of management.
The ignorance and reluctance of our partners is also a factor that makes it easier for them to refrain from undermining the supremacy of the former hegemon that was Russia. We know these mechanisms from the circumstances of the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The same happens when international trade indicators do not translate into the quality of bilateral relations.
What is worse is that if a Frenchman wanted to get acquainted with a classic Polish novel about Warsaw, written in Polish, we would not be able to point him to anything in the French translation, because neither „The Doll” by Bolesław Prus, nor „The Evil” by Leopold Tyrmand, nor „Pre-spring” by Stefan Żeromski (Przedwiośnie) are available in editions that are widely distributed [27].
And in FNAC, i.e. a large bookstore network, a shelf with a few Polish items appears under the name “Russia and Eastern countries” (for some time there has been progress in some libraries, because national compartments have been created, although still under the same name, – Romanian, Hungarian, Polish).
It is known that in the perspective of relations with Russia, Poland has long been treated as a nuisance. The warnings of Poles in this matter were not listened to, putting them down to prejudices.
The fact that in their geopolitical visions Western partners are not inclined to treat Poland as a subject is shown by the exchange between the anti-immigrant candidate for the office of the French President, Éric Zemmour, and the then Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune. “In the centuries-old dispute against Poland and Russia, in which, moreover, all faults are not Russia’s share, France should play the role of mediator,” Zemmour argued, “Yes, but not without Germany’s consent,” [28] the secretary of state told him.
Was it to be the beginning of another partition of Poland?
This case shows that Polish elites in Europe are still not treated as sovereign hosts who are allowed to co-decide on politics in Europe. Nicole Gnesotto, deputy director of the Delors Institute, in a 2021 interview when asked if there would be a Polexit, replied: “No, and it’s a great pity.” [29]
In the programme ’28 minutes’, a daily evening (geo)political mass with the participation of experts, journalists, intellectuals and creators on the (French-German) channel ARTE, a Portuguese journalist [30] recently hurled harsh rebukes while mocking the Three Seas Initiative, claiming that it is a project that could “sink” the EU and that – horror of horrors – “crosses Europe, separating it from the Russian Federation”. That this project is a “revival of the idea of Mitteleuropa”, which “was born in the cabinets of the American Obama administration”. No one in the studio reacted to correct, even minimally, these statements. Of course, everyone has the right to speak critically, but in this case it is about something more than criticism, and an additional flavor of the whole matter is added by the fact that – as the journalist proudly reports – such an opinion appears regularly in the media, which – as she claims – “must contain a grain of truth”. [31]
Distinct stories in one Europe
Finally, let us pay attention to the phenomenon of other memories resulting from separate stories. What is needed is the effort to explain why we differ on certain issues, even though we belong to the same European community.
In the intellectual circles and societies of the West, the memory of the struggles fought and still fought between labor and capital, whose stake was the acquisition of social protections and privileges, which were then enshrined in labor law, is still very much alive. In Poland, as we know, in this section of socio-political reality, the memory of the struggle against the Soviets and the power of local communists is alive. It was as a result of it that the post-communist situation emerged in the new, now free Poland, and this is certainly not a one-to-one equivalent of the situation of Western European countries today, even those that only in the years 1970-80 freed themselves from the yoke of dictatorships.
Currently, while in Poland there are attempts to persuade us that the socio-ideological situation is doomed to binarism, in Western Europe in intellectual circles opposition to neoliberalism is becoming more and more prominent, which is reflected in the sharp criticism of the EU. The EU is accused of fostering neoliberal licentiousness – and this criticism does not come from “right-wing” circles, although at the same time there are various conservative, up to far-right, variants of criticism of the functioning of the EU. Nevertheless, neoliberalism coupled with globalization raises concerns in circles critical of the growing predominance of the market and its rights (which is manifested in phenomena such as hypercompetition and the takeover of sectors traditionally controlled by the state, such as education, social welfare, health care, public transport, energy management) over the sphere of the state, traditionally cast as a guarantor of social protection and the common good.
What are the recommendations for Poland and for us as citizens, actors in cultural life who take part in exchanges between states, including at the private level?
The first thing I would point out is reminding about the existence in the second half of the twentieth century, next to the People’s Republic of Poland, of a “different” Poland, in order to counter the concept of “other Europe” referred to Central and Eastern Europe. A lot can change in the perception of us realizing that apart from Poland enslaved by communism, there was actually another, second Poland, on the “better” side of the Iron Curtain – it was created by emigrants scattered all over the world, having their centers, but above all being able to boast of spectacular achievements and successes. It is true, it was a conflicted environment – but this aspect goes to the background, when we pay attention to the enormity of what has been done, which makes it possible to appreciate this activity on a European scale – it was proof that apart from the Polish People’s Republic there was a “different” Poland, continuing the traditions of the Second Polish Republic, not only free from communism, but also contributing to building a free Europe, Western Europe. Such optics allow us to relativize the view that Poland entered this ‘proper’ Europe only after 1989.
Another important aspect is the multifaceted tradition of fighting for freedom, which shows Poland an alternative path to modernity, which cannot but turn out to be fascinating for Westerners. You have to be able to tell it.
An extremely important topic, which cannot be explored in its entirety now, is the question of wise promotion of cultural achievements, especially literary and scientific ones. In the 30s of the twentieth century, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński drew attention to the fact that against the background of noticeable drought in the area of works for theater written by women, Gabriela Zapolska’s oeuvre is a sensation on a global scale. In 2021, feminist French magazines make the same diagnosis, but they do not know Gabriela Zapolska, because „The Morality of Mrs. Dulska” has never been published in France, and the only French edition of the existing French translation dates back to 2011 and was created in Poland on behalf of the University of Warsaw. It is a play that has never been presented in France, although its critique of the bourgeoisie makes it generally understandable in the West – while what gives it a current and universal overtone is its depiction of the theatricality of life and the opposition to it on the part of those who flee from life. In another plan, if Mickiewicz’s Ballads and Romances became better present in the consciousness of Westerners, it would facilitate the recognition of connections between Belarus and Poland, and Lake Świteź would gain the status of a symbol there.
And finally, a few words about the Polish language. It is not enough to send teachers abroad, we have to come up with a creative, “cool” campaign to promote the language itself (using spots, billboards, etc.) to finally refute the myth of a language that cannot be pronounced. Maybe the era of French journalists ritually preceding every mention of Poles with the statement that they must apologize in advance for the defective pronunciation will come to an end (which, however, in the age of the Internet, especially, is an ambiguous, not to say two-faced, false excuse)?
Conclusion
The founding mistake was the premise that in order for a successful integration of Poland with the rest of Europe to take place, it would be enough to transfer knowledge and skills only in one direction – from Western Europe to Poland, which meant that insufficient care was taken to meet the challenge of re-clarifying and making the area of Central and Eastern Europe available to our partners from Western Europe.
Polish affairs in Europe cannot be understood at this stage, because Poland does not know or respect each other properly. It is reduced to the status of a former satellite of the USSR, a “pays de l’Est”. There is a deliberate coincidence between the geopolitical category and the strictly geographical category. The apparent adequacy of the latter legitimizes survival in the minds of the former. “Pays de l’Est” means a non-autonomous, a subordinate state. If there is to be a transfer, it should go both ways, it is about creating a common good, a common space – this creation must be based on mutual respect and familiarity.
A certain contradiction taking place here: criticism of neoliberalism – identified by some with feudalism – leads to a criticism of the evolution that the EU has experienced, and in the edition of the left-wing intelligentsia it is a crushing criticism. It is worth reminding those who blackmail Poland with the European Union and try to subsume any criticism of it under the accusation of nationalism and anti-Europeanism. It is also worth fighting all the symptoms of closing in on oneself in the name of narrowly understood cultural familiarity.
Finally, it is also worth thinking about Poland, and perhaps even above all in terms of how original it is a contribution to the development of Europe, especially from the perspective of its struggle to regain sovereignty, bringing an alternative to the dominant narrative about the history of Europe in the era of modernity.
The article was published in Arcana Bimonthly No. 169-170 (January-April) 2023.
Piotr Biłos
The author is a University Professor, he teaches modern and contemporary Polish literature and is responsible for Polish studies at the Inalco, Paris. He spent his childhood between Algeria, Morocco and Poland. He lives in Paris, Kraków and Warsaw. He is the author of Exil et modernité, vers une littérature à l’échelle du monde (Classiques Garnier, 2012), Jeux du “je”, construction et déconstruction du récit romanesque chez Wiesław Myśliwski (Classiques Garnier, 2016) and Powieściowe Światy Wiesława Myśliwskiego (Krakow, Znak, 2017). He also published in French a comprehensive history of Poland entitled La Pologne, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Le prix de la République (Spotkania Publishing, 2018).
His essays are available at: https://wszystkoconajwazniejsze.pl/autorzy/prof-piotr-bilos/
See bio: https://uwb.edu.pl/nowosci/aktualnosci/prof-piotr-bilos-z-mistrzowska-prelekcja-na-uwb/0d969a06
Inalco’s website: http://www.inalco.fr/enseignant-chercheur/piotr-bilos-pierre
1 It originated in the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, and was later taken up by Husserl, to be regularly subjected to further reinterpretations from then on.
2 I am using here classic concepts from sociology, especially the sociology of culture. Among the many texts on these issues, my attention has recently been drawn to the publication The End of Culture, the End of Europe, edited by Pascal Gielen, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Warsaw 2016.
3Ibid., s. 23.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., s. 22.
6Na pograniczu narodów i kultur. Polska – Europa – Ameryka, wstęp i suplement: B. Wróblewski, wybór i opracowanie: B. Wróblewski, Ł. Janicki, wyd. Czytelnik i Wschodnia Fundacja Kultury „Akcent”, Warszawa-Lublin 2020, s. 423.
7Cywilizacja europejska – różnorodność i podziały, t. 3, red. Maciej Koźmiński, Universitas, Kraków 2014, s. 85.
8Ibid., s. 423.
9 Patrick Boucheron et al., Une certaine idée de l’Europe, Flammarion, Paryż 2019, s. 35.
10Au cœur des ténèbres et autres écrits, La Pléiade, Gallimard, Paryż 2017, s. XVII.
11 I refer here to the term “une autre Europe,” which is used systemically to define and separate Central and Eastern Europe.
12 Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Jerzy Giedroyc, Correspondence [in:] Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Dzieła zebrane, tom 12, vol. 1, 1944–1966, Kraków 2019.
13Koniec kultury…, p. 52.
14Ibid., s. 55.
15Koniec Europy, jaką znamy, red. Przemysław Wielgosz, Książka i Prasa, Warszawa 2013, s. 45-46.
16 Ibid.
17Na pograniczu narodów…, p. 424.
18Koniec Europy…, p. 42.
19Ibid., p. 36.
20 Ibid., p. 55-56.
21Ibid., p. 58.
22Ibid., p. 62.
23Ibid., p. 63.
24Ibid.
25Ibid.
26 Ibid., p. 61.
27 Lalka (The Doll) was published in the 1960s, but under the auspices of UNESCO, and this is an edition that never made it to the “normal” – today the book is unavailable outside of specialized libraries. The Evil was also published in the same era, but in a truncated version, without any publicity, and testimonies of its reception are minimal. Przedwiośnie, on the other hand, was published in 2010 by Polka, a separate private person, which, in order to publish Żeromski’s works, established her own publishing house.
28 See: https://twitter.com/KenigsbArthur/status/1358007765126373378.
29 See: https://le1hebdo.fr/journal/avis-de-tempte-sur-l-europe/370/article/la-pologne-ne-partira-pas-et-c-est-dommage-4945.html.
30 Anna Navarro Pedro, Correspondant in Paris for „Visão”.
31 Available online (minutes – 18:32-20:19): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7z_cD6xZM&t=1085s.