THE CENTRE – REACTIVATION?
1.
The trends of Poland’s cultural development have been largely determined, since the middle of the last century, by a conflict between centralism and regionalism.
When the centre of Polish People’s Republic (PRL) was conquered by a monopolitic idea, the regions became its representatives and, in most cases, submissive leaders of the idea. Through a vast, hierarchically regulated network of its agencies, censorship and armies of provincial vassals ranging from the lowest in rank, the centre was or, during more difficult times, tried to be in control over the people, but also over artistic circles, literature and art, particularly over promoting them – starting at primary school, village library and local paper level. No Road-Side Dog of Czesław Miłosz dared to sneak through the close guard of the idea. The culture was submitted to unconditional, welcome participation in spreading of the only right idea and cultivation of the only right education.
Obviously, here and there “sweaty mice” sneaked through the guards. They turned a deaf ear to the sounds of giant speakers in which, during the years of October thaw, Ludwig Flaszen verbalised his ambivalent situation of a dissident from the Eastern regime. Moreover, one region or another stuck their neck out of the central diktat zone. As a result of a coincidence of many different administrative and personnel factors, and maybe even thanks to history’s whims, Wrocław of the time was considered to be of lesser threat for the centre. When the dangerous theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, as anything avant-garde and incomprehensible was, was removed from Kraków and later on from Opole, it found its place in Wrocław. The Wrocław premieres of the unhumble directors, including Jarocki, Grzegorzewski, Skuszanka, Braun and many others, attracted viewers from all over the country. Tadeusz Różewicz moved to Wrocław from then very red Silesia. The most famous and independent theatres from the USA and Western Europe performed during the Festivals of Open Theatre which were organised by “Kalambur” Theatre. This aroused loud protests from the socialist block allies, especially DDR. “Odra” magazine published works of unwanted and blacklisted authors. Thanks to the publication of Discussions with a Hangman by Kazimierz Moczarski and To Outwit God by Hanna Krall, among others, it managed to come out of Lower Silesia to which they wanted to confine it. “Do not be so all-Poland” – the Comrade Secretary shook a threatening finger at the editors.
Wrocław was one of the few exceptions to the cultural dullness of the time. It became a myth of the humiliated of the era of the only right idea ruling. It was one of the unrewarding regions that were ignored by the national investment and economic plans, maybe because the centre decided not to invest any money in the uncertain formerly German territory. Even nowadays one can drive a good motorway from Wrocław to the capital city of Poland only through Katowice or Poznań. It takes two or three hours by train to get to Warszawa from Gdańsk or Kraków. It takes five to eight hours to get there from Wrocław.
2.
The relation between centralism and regionalism changed after 1989. Resulting from the political watershed, the Polish intellectual and cultural revolution started in the regions and radiated slowly towards the centre. It started in mobilised, not only politically, Gdańsk and moved to other distant towns. Taken aback by the rapid development in public awakening, the centre was subjected to a dramatic process of disintegration and destruction. Overnight, the propaganda mouthpiece fell silent and others were in the spotlight. Some of weekly and biweekly cultural magazines managed from Warszawa, some of which had a long tradition in Polish People’s Republic, were closed down, most of them forever. We can only regret that, as some of them had a high standard and did not give in to the orders from the centre. The cultural misery nowadays is due to the fact that there is no quality literary or cultural weekly or biweekly. “Tygodnik Powszechny”, still keeping the high standard, has a large-scale profile and definite programme. We do not have our “Frankfurter Allgemaine Zaitung” with a literary supplement, “Die Zeit”, “Die Welt” etc, equivalents of French “Le Nouvel Observateur”, “Magazine Litteraire”, “Le Point” and similar western titles that would not stupefy Polish lazy minds and litter the collective imagination with commercial gibberish. Once quality periodicals, as “Wprost” from Poznań, turned into scandalous tabloids devoting only the last few pages to cultural issues. They were not even the equal of the real Springer tabloid, “Fakt”. Regrettably, quality phenomena and masterpieces of the past were also buried in the ruins of the centre, although accompanied by public protests. They were associated, together with the whole communism legacy, with “the black hole” of Polish People’s Republic. ( I will come back to this later.)
It was mostly local circles with remarkable, though hidden so far possibilities, that having been awaken from the stupor of the era of Polish People’s Republic brought about the significant intellectual and cultural reform changing the collective consciousness. Their mobility was inspired by local monthly and quarterly magazines attracting many local writers, publicists, artists, journalists and fans. The magazines, of which some were new, some were leaving underground, played an important role. One of the most mobile literary circles that played a significant role in the country led to creation of “FA-art” and “Opcje” magazines in Silesia, a region that had not been very often present in Poland’s cultural life (not taking into consideration its pro-state facade). Certainly, University of Silesia played an important part. The magazines and elites gathering around them were acting as a catalyst for cultural change locally. Apart from their primary publishing activity, they also put pressure on dissidents in local governments to promote culture and changed hierarchy of artistic values and literary ranking in the country. It was “Kresy” in Lublin, “Nowy Nurt”, “Arkusz” and “Czas Kultury” in Poznań, “Kwartalnik Artystyczny” in Bydgoszcz, “Fraza” and “Okolica Poetów” in Rzeszów, “Krasnogruda” and „Kartki” in Białystok, „Borussia” and „Portret” in Olsztyn, „Tytuł” in Gdańsk, „Topos” in Sopot, „Pogranicza” in Szczecin and the oldest “Odra” with supplements for young authors in Wrocław. Later they were joined by many others including “Tygiel Kultury” from Łódź, gaining more and more respect “Studium” from Kraków, but also “Dekada Literacka” that had been publishing for some time and the youngest “Ha!art”. Many of these magazines still exist, although on and off and against a limited stream of funding. Now, when books become a market product and their success depends on marketing and media reviews chartered by publishers, it is mainly the local magazines – exchanging experience and trying to maintain an independent hierarchy of aesthetic criteria – that maintain the standard of culture debate and promote young artists. Unfortunately, only some local governments appreciate their role nowadays (for example Gdańsk, Sopot, Bydgoszcz or Toruń – where Book Festivals lost their splendour and greatness).
During the exceptionally rich and fruitful “springtime of regions”, much of the important and creative things in literature happened in towns away from the centre. Many new writers or those who earlier took a refuge in “evasive” literature, became active at the beginning of the last decade: Stefan Chwin, Paweł Huelle and Aleksander Jurewicz in Gdańsk, Andrzej Stasiuk in Beskid Mountains, Olga Tokarczuk and Karol Maliszewski near Kłodzk, Mariusz Grzebalski and Dariusz Sośnicki in Poznań, Krzysztof Myszkowski in Bydgoszcz, Kazimierz Brakoniecki and Włodzimierz Kowalewski in Olsztyn, Felik Netz and a group of young critics in Katowice, Artur Liskowacki and Inga Iwasiów in Szczecin, Tomek Tryzna in Świdnica and many others.
3.
Every good era in history has its end.
The centre strikes back.
It is in possession of virtual weapon of electronic era, weapon of mass destruction of consciousness, armies of contracted workers of collective imagination occupying strategic posts in particular institutions and mass media.
Instead of supporting aforementioned “Nowy Nurt” from Poznań that could play an important role in the literary life in Poland, after 1995 the new centre put in a lot of money in “Wiadomości Kulturalne” – a reactivated spectre of periodical press misery from the era of Polish People’s Republic and solidarity of Polish Writers’ Association. Over several years the magazine naturally disappeared from the market. The idea of creating anew any subsidized apolitical weekly magazine, otherwise necessary, gained new opponents. Nowadays in many regions, it is the press monopoly, in its worst, nouveau riche style, that starts gaining the upper hand. Two or three local papers that used to compete with one another, now bought out mostly by German publishers (for instance in Gdańsk, Katowice or Wrocław), are merged into one title mainly to fight for local audience with the central Springer’s “Fakt”. As a way of winning over the reader whose level slowly tries to equal the media aspirations, culture column disappears and “elite” texts are removed (this includes professional theatre reviews or reviews of books by local writers, any articles on cultural subjects, not to mention literature). Anything longer than one column is thrown away. What counts is what sells, what guarantees large audience and readership. And what guarantees sale, what requires light pulp thinking is intended for maximum intellectual passivity and minimal aesthetic sensitivity of the audience. A paradoxical situation arises: editors wishing to reach the largest readership (or TV audience) lower as much as possible the intellectual and aesthetic sensitivity standards, which in turn increases the number of lazy consumers with lower demands and needs.
Book producers, of whom few aspire to the title of a publisher that obliges them ethically and knowledge-wisely, through their being in the centre, more and more influence the likes and sensitivity standards of the readers. The reviewers of the skimpy culture columns appearing in the high-circulation papers (or often clearly co-edited by publishers of supplements like “Book Magazine” or “About Books”) work in favour of the producers. Very often they were earlier contracted by them as “house reviewers”. Well, someone signing a contract with a principal is not going to criticise his work in widely read reviews.
When I had mentioned before the eagerness to bury the quality aspects of the culture of the Polish People’s Republic era in the ruins of the centre, I meant as well “culture memory” discontinuity dramatically making itself felt. After all, Polish literature owes its place in the world of literary glory to the aforementioned “black hole” (although certainly not to its propaganda facade). And not to our own bestsellers proclaimed every year in “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita”, about which no one in Poland remembers two years later, not to mention abroad – where, when translated (very often thanks to our own, Polish funds,) they enter international competition. As in sports news about our rare success abroad, we read that Marta Domachowska again (!) got to the second round of the grand slam (and nowhere further), we learn from the high-circulation dailies that Dorota Masłowska’s book (with its merits, though, but this is not the point here) was published in French now… To sweeten our dubious and more and more local achievements in sports, we have been shown umpteen times on Polish TV the goal scored by our team in 1974 at Wembley Stadium (without ten goals scored against us within the last three years by the English team); but the press and television have no interest in the fact that Lem during that time was published in millions of copies not only in French or that works of, say, Tadeusz Różewicz came out, since 1974, in over forty countries and during the last three years more than ten of his titles were published abroad. Well, one cannot take a photo of Różewicz looking out from under his fringe, he is not expecting a baby like Masłowska, and unlike her he has a dubious past of a citizen of Polish People’s Republic.
Till recently channel 2 of Polish TV, now considered to be on a “culture mission” only by its management, during the prime time showed two people, a nice and famous actress and a ”Wprost” editor, who were recommending to the viewers what they should be buying in bookshops. A year ago both TV channels were engaged in promoting a book “Nic” (“Nothing”) whose title reflected its contents. Now, they are not engaged in anything as channel 1 got rid of its “mission” burden moving anything not suitable for the editors to a newly created specialist “Kultura” channel (Culture channel) that is reluctantly watched, also because of technical problems, by only a fraction of the public.
In the past it was political networks that recommended to the public what they should read and watch, now it is mass media. It is not a political bureau of Comrade Secretary but publishers, press editors, middle ranking officials and mediators – mainly money lovers, who work out the catalogues of what is recommended. The administrative reform of the country almost led many thriving regional centres important for the whole country, to cultural destruction. Some festivals, literary conventions, springtime and autumn of poetry festivals, etc in Wrocław, Poznań, Kłodzko, Łomża, Lublin, Gliwice, Szczecin etc that used to enliven the public cultural routine – disappeared. 10 years ago in Lower Silesia itself, in Wałbrzych, Jelenia Góra, Świdnica and Kłodzko, the tradition of literature days was cultivated, literature clubs were in operation, literature papers and publishing series were coming out. Today, as the song goes “cicho-sza” (it’s quiet-hush) . Mickiewicz, Miłosz or Śliwka (one the poets from Lower Silesia) are not very present. The Book Institute in Kraków, using state money, organizes another days of love poetry, and shortly after – days of detective novels. There is a reason for this, as we learn: a great Polish Agatha Christie was born and is looking for dead bodies in Breslau. I wonder when they are going to translate him into French.
The regions are dying.
Multi-screen cinemas, aqua parks, monuments of modern media culture are being built. Bookshops with less colourful shop windows are being moved from downtowns, and libraries are being forgotten. Some of them remind more of archives.
It is through the centre once again that we can get to the regions. The Book Institute was moved form Warszawa to Kraków where state money for books being at authority’s disposal is spend according to their own likes. This move did not change anything. Only new people appeared. The local authorities in Poznań turned a blind eye to the fact that local magazines were closed down. They are going to close down as well Literary Club in “Zamek” which is really useful and organizes, thanks to help from local authorities, successful all-Poland poetry festivals and trains new authors. After 1990 and the disappearance of “Nowy Nurt” and “Arkusz”, the most eventful literary life in this city, apart from the festivals, came to a phase when it resembles a disgusting pond covered with weed. Important in Legnica, Port Literacki (Literary Port) was moved to Wrocław where they now publish mainly books by writers from the centre (sometimes exclusive two volume editions of their collected poems) who could get them published by any major publishing house in the country. In this way, unaware, they divest young authors from Lower Silesia of state grants. Port Literacki, renamed Biuro Literackie (Literary Bureau,) receives annually over one hundred thousand zlotys from the city of Wrocław, whereas SPP Library only several thousands to publish two or three books (in 2004 out of dozens of proposed for publishing scripts, only one was published). Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie (Lower Silesia Publishing House) now matters only in the annals of the last 15 years. The local authorities, however, do not stint hundreds of thousands zlotys on the actions of the director of the Actor’s Song Festival, who encouraged by author’s fees took to writing texts, show and play scripts etc. He also funded the Song Theatre using an enormous, as for local authorities, grant.
The regions – that were for some time the bastions of revived Polish culture - are dying. They concentrate more and more on the competition between Disneylands and Sopot Song Festivals. The routes to state money lead through the centre. What counts is what guarantees audience and readership, what councillors would see in the morning papers or what they would listen to in the afternoon Teleekspress news. What local industry or banking tycoons would support. And only few are concerned that it is, for example, a famous actress or a health food journalist from a weekly who decides about this.
Mieczysław Orski
Translated by Kinga Witowska
The article comes from the quarterly Kwartalnik Artystyczny issue no. 1 (49) 2006