CZECH ISSUES, POLISH REVIEWER
I’m one of those Poles who know and esteem names like Hašek, Hrabal, Kundera, Forman or not mentioned by Michał Słomka in the editorial to the last issue of “Czas Kultury” (“Time of Culture”) – Škvorecký. I belong to a numerous circle of people who have a liking for Czechs and their culture, Czech cuisine, Czech sense of humor or beauty of Czech women. And for us, who love Czech with, most often, disappointed love, consecutive literary magazines still prepare new Czech issues – last year they were made for example by “Studium” and “Ha!art”, in 2007 “Opcje” (1/2007 – main topic apart from Czech Republic was Christianity), “Literatura na Świecie” (3-4/2007, perfect and still available in bookshops, whole devoted to Josef Škvorecky) and “Czas Kultury” decided to familiarize us with culture of our neighbor from south. I would like to write few words about the last one.
I know among of hundreds of admirers of Knoflikáři (The Button-Pushers) or Samotáři (Loners) only few will read the last issue of “Czas Kultury” – it doesn’t influence the fact that there will be a lot of potential purchasers of issues devoted to Czech culture. In an interview (Praga, Berlin, Londyn... / Prague, Berlin, London…) with Marek Wasilewski, Jiří Ptáček said in relation to the interest of Poles in the Czech art: “I’m not fully sure whether Czech curators of gallery institutions are ready to present Polish culture and to show it in Czech. I don’t want to be skeptical but Czechs aren’t interested in it. You’ll see what results will give »Czas Kultury« and an issue about Czech Republic”. Most probably Ptáček doesn’t know that there are a lot of Czech issues in our country – unfortunately, I have no information about unprecedented, enormous popularity of those issues. We love Czechs indeed, we all laugh at Czech comedies and we love soldier Szwejk, yet Poles don’t set off in crowds to EMPIKs in order to buy all (after all microscopic!) circulation of literary magazines.
It’s comforting that issues about Czech culture are being published any way; however, there are no signals which would prove that our culture is present in Prague. Michał Słomka confirms that representatives of Czech culture are present in Polish mass culture: “Anyway, in Czechoslovakia and later in Czech none of Polish writers hasn’t been so popular. Nowadays from all our neighbors it was Czech which are most often on our cinema’s posters and bookshelves in bookstores. In recommendations and reviews we can read ‘good because Czech’. It should be mentioned that this presence isn’t reciprocated”. In other part of the issue, in short conversations of Michał Słomka with representatives of Czech culture, Míra Waněki (a musician, a composer, an author of texts, a member of the legendary group F.P.B.) remarked: “I always come to Poland with a great pleasure. Although, Czechs aren’t interested in Poles, the same is with Slovaks, Hungarians and so on. Whereas Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians are interested in Czechs (…). It’s a disgrace, I don’t know what is the cause of it”.
Czech’s issue of “Czas Kultury” consists of texts by co-leader editor – Michał Słomka, who had written mentioned editorial, what’s more he interviewed Mariusz Szczygieł, representatives of Czech culture and Jiří Ptáčk, Lenka Vítova. I should also mention his sketch Czeska rzeczywistość w czeskim komiksie (Czech’s reality in Czech’s comic books, an introduction to a CD containing alternative music which was attached to “Czas Kultury” (Alternatywy Czas / A time of alternative), a short text containing curiosities (titled Lentilki – in which Słomka explains why we say “Czech movie”1and also discloses that the ‘most popular Czech’ plebiscite had won Jára Cimrman who is… a fictional character (!) created by Jiří Šebánek and Zdeněk Svěrák, it had been possible to vote only on authentic people) and translations from Czech, which were also affected by Słomka. So it’s possible, in a little malicious way, to write on the cover: “Czech issue of Michał Słomka”, but not malice is important here – let’s look at attractions prepared for readers.
In Czeski azyl (Czech’s asylum) Mariusz Szczygieł informs engrossingly how he became „another ambassador of Czech culture without a diplomatic post”, he also writes about Czech atheism, an attitude to history and politics, about Czech’s philosophy of life and, of course, about his book Gottland. Szczygieł also mentions the problem of “not reciprocated love” about which I wrote about earlier: “But when you look at results this is the country from where artists are more popular than the Polish, the country from which film makers have more Oscars than the Polish, the country which maintained its language, maintained its culture […]. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice such interest in Polish culture as I sow in Poland in Czech culture. It was a bit different in 70’s when Poland was their famous ‘window on the world’. But today we don’t know young people who would be fascinated in us. I’m interested in whether could we impress Czechs with something? I think that no”. About with what young Poles (not only) can impress young Czechs (not only) writes Lenka Vítova (Czeska literatura to nie czeski film, czyli wszyscy o niej wiedzą wszystko… prawie wszystko! / The Czech literature isn’t a Czech movie, that is everybody knows everything about it… almost everything!) or Klára Vomáčková (Sztuka społeczna kontra socrealizm / The social art contra socialist realism) – authors try to present as big as possible amount of names, institutions and significant issues, those texts aren’t very absorbing and after reading it we won’t fall in love with presented phenomenon. I would criticize also the text by Słomka, which was mentioned earlier, which was about comic books and presented a Czech alternative, from that text we would firstly know how much are tickets for a concert, from where young musicians get the money and whether their work interfere with or help in playing.
More interesting is an interview with Lenka Vítova about the Czech cuisine (Kultura stołu: o słynnych hospodach, o czeskiej kulturze piwnej, knedlikach, dziwnym napoju będącym fermentującym sokiem z winogron, egzotycznej kofoli czy rozebranych od pasa w górę kelnerkach roznoszących w knajpie piwo / A table culture: about famous taverns, Czech’s beer culture, knedliks, a strange drink which is a fermenting grape juice, exotic kofolas or half-naked waitress bringing beer in pubs) and sketchs Hej, Slovaci, jo, jo Cesi (the author is Soňa Šebová, writes about Czech-Slovakian relations) and Czescy Romowie a odrodzenie narodowe (Romany from Czech and a national revival) by Hana Synkova. Those texts aren’t about just the literature or culture – they are written from anthropological and sociological perspective. Considering the presentation of Czech culture a lot of joy can give 23 pages of a comic book and the mentioned CD with a Czech alternative music. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the presented in the issue Czech prose: short, 3 or 4 pages fragments cut out from Jan Balabán’s or Lenka Reinerova’s great oeuvre, which are just boring, not much original, without panache. Taking under consideration whole (not big) set of prosaic the only good one is Jiří Kratochwil and his Wydarzenie z pułapką (źle napisane opowiadanie) [An event with a trap (badly written short story)]. As a result the badly written short story turns out to be the best from the whole set in “Czas Kultury”. We can read in Vítova’s text that Kratochwil using fictional game constructs a text as an open system – what’s more he’s a great mediocre writer, he makes an author’s interference a dominate of his short stories and novels, he tries to find yet unknown possibilities of a formal construction of a genre, his texts are strongly intellectual, interlarded with autobiographical motives, streaked with grotesque. Author isn’t afraid of fantasy and “strange elements”. As for me this is the discovery of the issue.
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To sum up, I would like to write some words about the section of reviews and write-ups in which this time are been judged important titles, not to say – compulsory, for example Rewolucja u bram (Revolution at the Gates) by Žižek, Poza słowa (Among words) by Dąbrowski, a handbook by Burzyński and Markowski Teorie literatury XX wieku (Theories of Literature in the Twentieth Century) or Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli (A Treatise on Shelling Beans) by Wiesław Myśliwski. Firstly, I would like to give the end of review of Žižek by Waldemar Kuligowki under consideration of readers: “Without doubt Žižek drew attention to many permanent indications of inequality and instability of the world we live in. It’s liked, especially in Poland. Don’t draw any plan of different reality, don’t show alternative order. His revolution, designed with virtuosity, doesn’t have a big scope. As it was said once about post modernistic project that it’s the use of an enormous crane to move a cup of coffee now it’s possible to say in the same way about a historiosophic team Lenin-Žižek that’s a try of destruction of a system’s walls with magic spells. So not Włodzimierz Ilicz is needed here but rather horns of Jericho”.
Another review, which interested me, is merciless and in a way insolent criticism of Bernadetta Darska’s Ucieczki i powroty (Runaways and returns) by Elżbieta Winiecka. Firstly, Winiecka’s argumentation is rather doubtful and after reading that pasquil we can try to polemise with Wirtualnym sado-maso [A virtual sadomasochist] (an adequate title: a sadomasochistic text, virtual argumentation), especially noticeable a fragment of the first paragraph of this review: “It should be forestalled: I familiarized with an output of those authors only thanks to Bernadetta Darska”. Who are those authors? They are characters of Darska’s books, for example: Mariusz Sieniewicz, Joanna Wilengowska, Filip Onichimowski, Ewa Schilling and Włodzimierz Kowalewski. The most strange was information which I found an author’s note by Winiecka: so she is a lecturer in AMU Institute of Polish Philology and – attention, attention! – “she takes up the modern literature”. Great times have come! To became an academic worker and to take up the modern literature Institute of Polish Philology, and to review it it’s enough to… not read this literature! Thank God, I found the end of Winiecka’s text heartening: “It’s better to read prosaic from Olsztyn [than Darska’s book]”. Sure, it is! You gave me a sensational thought – when there will be a chance I’ll defend poets and writers about whom I’ve never heard about and whose books I never held in my had. I can only congratulate ingeniousness.
Grzegorz Wysocki
Translated by Agnieszka Żbikowska
Discussed journals: Czas Kultury