My whole adult life I thought I had some problem with fairy tales. I do not like watching them, and when they are on "in the background" I fall asleep. Myths are a different matter. The Greek ones, on the one hand fantastical, on the other — still relevant today as illustrations of human behavior or phenomena, so timeless that it sometimes amazes me that I only notice it "after all these years," and once again I tell myself that things are always darkest under the lamp post. I also love Polish myths, or rather, their debunking. The latest myth involving me personally is the fact that being a man is my choice — one which, I should add, I can always change. That is valuable information, especially in the context of the earlier retirement age for women.
For years, psychology and medicine said the matter had not been sufficiently studied, that hormones were involved, that childhood and adolescent experiences played a role... and then whoosh — now it is my choice :-)
Unfortunately, several myths still current today are less funny. Take the European Union as a community of nations, for example. This mythical place of universal happiness, harmony, and mutual solidarity turned out to be a battlefield of national diplomacies fighting over slices of the European budget or attempting to introduce solutions beneficial only to a select few. Just look at the climate, energy, mobility, and fisheries packages. The Nord Stream affair is particularly symptomatic here. The response to the coronavirus — priceless, especially in the form of member states stealing each other's medical equipment.
The free market is another fairy tale, and faith in it has led to the concentration of capital in the hands of a tiny fraction of humanity.
In Poland, we are especially fond of our myths. King Sobieski supposedly took part in the defense of Jasna Gora, which, in light of the facts, was attacked so intensely that the number of casualties on both sides did not exceed 20. And the future king himself did take part in the siege — but on the Swedish side. We have grown fond of history a la Sienkiewicz. It reads nicely, you feel great about yourself, and the fact that it sometimes resembles believing in Luke Skywalker from Star Wars — well, that is another matter :-)
The myth of the Second Republic is another story that bothers me, starting from its very beginning — that is, the regaining of independence. We celebrate that anniversary on the day of the arrival of the father of the nation, Pilsudski — essentially walking into a ready-made situation, straight from a German prison to Warsaw, where, I will remind you, the Regency Council had been functioning for quite some time :-) Perhaps it is time to say it clearly: we regained independence primarily because the European powers had bled each other so dry during World War I that they needed, "for the time being," some kind of barrier between themselves — and that is how the states between the Black Sea and the Baltic came into being, Poland among them.
Then something happened that we really should be proud of, something bordering on the miraculous — yet no myth has grown up around it. In just two years, this country managed to build a million-strong army with all the economic infrastructure behind it, an army that stopped the Bolshevik juggernaut outside Warsaw and finished the job at the Niemen River. This was accomplished through the mind — or rather the brain — of General Rozwadowski, the Chief of the General Staff, with his cunning plan, the outstanding performance of Prime Minister Witos, who persuaded the Polish peasantry to take part for the first time in something that until then had been the affair of the nobility, and of course the heroism and effort of the rest of Polish society, including soldiers who marched hundreds if not thousands of kilometers in the course of maneuvers, only to then fight. We must not forget General Haller, commander of the northern front, who with the strength of a single army, the eyes of his air force, and the cunning of his intelligence service managed to deal with three Bolshevik armies advancing from the north. The glory of the success fell mainly upon Pilsudski, who took part in neither the direct planning nor the command of the battle. And the end of General Rozwadowski was very sad: after the May Coup, as an opponent of Pilsudski and commander of the legitimate government forces, he was arrested, his merits diminished, and after numerous protests he was released — only to die. Rumors say it was thanks to Pilsudski's associates. He was first buried in the Cemetery of the Eaglets in Lwow; today nobody knows where his remains lie, and his figure has been practically forgotten.
And so we touch upon the myth of the Second Republic — a myth that was sorely needed during the long night of communism, but today it is time for the truth about that period. After the May Coup, Poland was becoming, year by year, a fascist state in the Italian-Spanish mold — not to be confused with German Nazism, though the Bereza Kartuska detention camp brought us uncomfortably close. Our game with Hitler painted a picture of the Republic in European eyes as Germany's closest ally, not only diplomatically but also militarily — in the seizures of Czechoslovakia and Lithuania. Foreign Minister Beck lost this game in Czechoslovakia in 1938 when, as Hitler's confederate, he declined to seize Slovakia — thereby consenting to the dramatic strengthening of the Wehrmacht through the industrial capacity of the Czech Sudetenland and the encirclement of Poland from three sides. All for the tiny gain of Zaolzie near Cieszyn. After that, the game for Poland's future status as a power was decided. After that, only the choice of how to finish a lost game remained. The worst option was chosen, and then compounded by an unrealistic alliance with France and Great Britain, the September Campaign ending without a negotiated capitulation — meaning the civilian population was abandoned to the mercy of the occupier without any conditions whatsoever — leaving Volhynia to the savagery of the UPA, Operation Tempest, and the Warsaw Uprising. The situation in 1939 borders on dark comedy: officers sidelined after the May Coup, volunteering on their own initiative in early September 1939 to help, were sent home because those in command did not want to share the coming victory with anyone.
And so, most of those for whom Poland was a value in and of itself perished. What remained was a mass that the communists then molded for 45 years, out of which, after 1990, two PO-PiS tribes grew — running their petty deals at the cost of larger interests, be they German or, currently, American. And the mass, at best, works; the rest vegetate, letting themselves be stupefied by the rising national average wage, programs like 500 Plus, and omnipresent propaganda straight from TVP Info or TVN. Every now and then we also get wildcards like Kukiz or Holownia, to periodically let off steam from those who are dissatisfied. On top of that, the Church — a part of the national identity — which conceals its social teaching as effectively as it conceals its old ties to the communist secret police or its sex scandals. But it did take care to recover its assets, oh yes, and it shared them with the right people too.
A story: a 30-year-old young man, practically fresh out of university in England, has just bought a plot of land from the Church for a few hundred thousand zlotys. A plot worth tens of millions, because a Wroclaw bypass will be built on it. And nobody asks where he got the money for the purchase — never mind where he got the money for studies in England, since he was after all the son of a "tormented" poor opposition activist. Nobody asks why the Church sold the plot at below market price, or why to him. All told, after a story like that, it is hardly surprising that shortly afterward the young man became the chairman of a bank, and in the next step, Prime Minister. His first name is Mateusz.
And so myths intertwine with the stories that grow from them.
P.S. We still have the myth of Walesa, who at precisely the right minute jumps over a fence, walks several more kilometers on foot, and just when the delegation of striking workers approaches the shipyard management's door for the first time, He appears — a previously fired employee of the striking plant, greeted by the director as the most important person on the entire strike committee. After the talks — immediately hoisted onto the shoulders of two seemingly random gentlemen who, as it later turned out, were also secret police informants, as the people's tribune. Eh, do any more myths and the stories behind them come to your mind?
