Around the World in 32 Countries: Polish Literature for Beginners

1989: Poland forms its Third Republic and ends its decades 'behind the Iron Curtain'

Capital City: Warsaw

Surface area: 312,696 km2 (larger than Italy, smaller than Norway)

Currency: Polish złoty

Driving side: right

Historical figures:

Casimir III, who ascended the throne in his early twenties and was king from 1333 to 1370, is apparently Polish history's answer to French history's Henry IV. He weakened the predominant power of the aristocracy in the nation's law, creating a balance with the bourgeoisie, and "was known for siding with the weak when the law did not protect them from nobles and clergymen." Besides he encouraged Jewish people to settle in Poland, and forbade Christians to kidnap Jewish children for religious conversion. When the Black Death broke out in 1347, the King closed the borders and Poland was mostly safe. Also, for example, he established the University of Kraków. His rule ended when he died during a hunting excursion.

Sources:

Poland [Wikipedia]

Casimir III the Great [Wikipedia]

List of countries and dependencies by area [Wikipedia] 

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For Polish literature, I will content myself, I think, with not reading a whole book; instead I will mention a few works.

THE EARLY PARTS of Ève Curie's biography of her mother, Madame Curie, give (I think) a fine snapshot of Poland in the late 1800s.

The daughter writes of the familiar places where Marie Curie grew up, not just in Warsaw where Marie's family lived but also in the countryside where she might go for holidays as a child. Here she quotes one of Marie Curie's letters:

We go out in a band to walk in the woods, we roll hoops, we play battledore and shuttlecock (at which I am very bad!), cross-tag, the game of Goose, and many equally childish things. There have been so many wild strawberries here the once could buy a really sufficient amount for a few groszy [...] Every Sunday the horses are harnessed for a trip in to Mass [...]

Ève Curie describes public, educational and vocational life beneath Russian domination (every Russian whom she names is apparently a villain), the Polish hierarchy that divided the aristocracy and a professor's family. Also, it is clear how few resources there were for women who wanted to study there — which made emigration to France attractive.

"Specjalny obszar ochrony siedlisk Dolina Środkowego Świdra." c. 2015
by M. Nowaczyk?
via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-3.0-PL Licence)

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER's The Magician of Lublin has wonderful passages on Polish scenery, animals and trees and snow; the food; and Jewish faith. He wrote after the Holocaust and in his books rebuilt a lost world; it is estimated that some 3 million Polish Jews died under Nazi rule. I did not finish the book. (After Singer began writing about the third extramarital affair of the main character, and it really began to be questionable if the mistresses were free agents or if they were being manipulated by the main character or by their circumstances, I decided that enough was enough.) The delineations between the religious and ethnic communities — e.g. the difficulty of intermarriage — were also kind of depressing; but I imagine that it was the same in most or all countries. But aside from that, from a literary perspective and for its social insights, it was exactly the book I want.

Überall war Gottes Hand sichtbar. Jede Obstblüte, jeder Kieselstein, jedes Sandkörnchen verkündete Sein Dasein. Die taunassen Blätter der Apfelbäume funkelten im Morgenlicht wie kleine Kerzen. Jaschas Haus lag am Stadtrand, sodass er auf die großen Weizenfelder hinausblicken konnte.

(Roughly translated: God's hand was visible everywhere. Every fruit tree blossom, every gravel stone, every grain of sand announced His presence. The dew-dampened leaves of the apple trees glittered in the morning light like little candles. Yasha's house lay at the edge of the city, so that he could look out onto the great wheat fields. German translation from the English/Yiddish by Susanna Rademacher, Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2017.)

"Henryk Sienkiewicz i jego wizje" (1905)
by Czesław Tański (1862–1942)
via Wikimedia Commons

MANY YEARS ago, I read Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis, written in an earlier generation of Polish writers and representing Poland's Catholic side. Taking place in ancient Rome, it is (as far as I remember) a saccharine but readable story of young Christians making their way against their decadent Roman overlords; St. Paul appears in vignettes. Looking at it again now, every feminist fibre of me is horrified by the beginning of the book. But if one decides to ignore the objectification of women (also of Black women who appear incidentally as the scene is set), it seems entertaining.

The best of all times for visiting is after noon, but not earlier than when the sun sinks towards the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and begins to throw oblique shadows on the Forum. It is usually still very warm in the autumn, and people are fond of sleeping after eating. At this time it is pleasant to listen to the murmuring of the fountain in the great hall, and when one has taken the thousand obligatory steps, to muse in the purplish light sifted through the purple of the half-drawn awning.

(Quoted from Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Translation by S.A. Binon and S. Malevsky, Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1897. p. 15. via Hathi Trust)

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Artur Rubinstein's My Young Years: It's well over 15 years that I read it. In my recollection the famous 20th-century pianist mixes extraordinary talent — of which he is extremely aware — with likewise extraordinary cattiness, also with despair and gloom. Whether it offers insight into Polish history and society I don't recollect, but doubt.

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A colleague recommended (but with a warning) Jerzy Kosiński's The Painted Bird, which is apparently a dark book about a childhood during the Holocaust. I kind of doubt I will read it because it sounds too grisly. He also recommended Joseph Conrad 'if Conrad counts' — I decided that his books do have more of a British perspective — and Stanislav Lem's science fiction classic Solaris.

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RYSZARD Kapuściński's speeches, The Other, are in the family bookshelf. It is no longer entirely up-to-date, I'd say. The translator — his speeches were held in Polish — uses the phrase 'Third World.' Also, I'd argue we rarely still need to read European anthropologists to learn about the world — we have books, videos, and social media written by people who live elsewhere. It's still fascinating to think of what Kapuściński saw during his journalistic career. While his focus is beyond the borders, he also illustrates, perhaps, the change in Poland's 20th century fortunes. First he was a representative of an Eastern Communist state as a foreign correspondent; but his speeches have allusions to Christian belief and the theology of Pope John Paul II now. His literary, anthropological, religious, etc. references are often Polish, despite his international career; perhaps this is also because the audiences for these specific speeches were Polish. But aside from that, rather than Russian, he cites British influences.

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LASTLY, as an outsider's look at Polish history for those who love early 19th-century English kitsch, I'd recommend Jane Porter's Thaddeus of Warsaw. In a more contemporary vein, a book subscription service I use has books by Olga Tokarczuk; so I've started reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead.

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Madame Curie, by Ève Curie [Goodreads]

The Magician of Lublin (novel), by Isaac Bashevis Singer [Wikipedia]

Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz [Goodreads]

Quo Vadis (film) dubbed into Russian [YouTube]

My Young Years, by Artur Rubinstein [Goodreads]

Jerzy Kosiński [Wikipedia]

The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosiński [Wikipedia]

Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad [Wikipedia]

Ryszard Kapuściński [Goodreads]

The Other, by Ryszard Kapuściński [Goodreads]

Thaddeus of Warsaw, by Jane Porter (Later 1831? edition) [Hathi Trust]

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk [Goodreads]

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Lady with an Ermine (ca. 1483-1490)
by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Although an Italian painting, it was brought to Poland in 1798 by Prince Adam George Czartoryski.
It now belongs to the Polish government. (Source: Lady with an Ermine, Wikipedia)
via Wikimedia Commons