[The Montana Professor 19.2, Spring 2009 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Henry Gonshak
English
MT Tech of UM
HGonshak@mtech.edu
For the school year of 2008-2009, I was awarded a Fulbright Lectureship to teach at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. Wroclaw is in western Poland near the border with Germany and the Czech Republic. Located in Lower Silesia, Wroclaw used to be a German town called Breslau, but after World War II the defeated German population was kicked out and the Poles moved in. I am housed at the English Studies Department of the university, teaching courses in Jewish-American Literature and the Holocaust in American Film in the fall and Literature of the American West in the spring. I'm accompanied by my wife, Nancy, and my fifteen-year-old daughter, Becky, whom we've enrolled at a British International School in town. During my stay, I agreed to write a blog for the Montana Tech website about my experiences. The following are revised selections from that blog.
Our transatlantic flight was uneventful. We landed first at some god-awful hour in Dublin, where we had a long lay-over. Eventually, we boarded a Czech airline for the four-hour flight to Prague, where we planned to stay a few days before taking a bus to our new home in Wroclaw. Prague is like a giant museum. Most of the buildings date back to the Middle Ages. Moreover, most of the historic buildings were left miraculously unharmed during World War II, even though Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans. There are many stunning cathedrals. It seems the aesthetic that guided the architecture of these churches was "the more, the better." In these churches, topped by towering Gothic arched ceilings, every inch is stuffed with paintings and statues and frescoes. None of these innumerable artifacts are included casually. On the contrary, everything refers to a specific story from the Bible, or a particular saint, or the founder of a certain religious order, or to some aspect of Catholic theology. Cumulatively, the effect is overwhelming, deliberately so; these churches are meant to awe you with the sheer might of the Catholic Church. It's in-your-face architecture.
For this entry, I want to continue discussing our four-day visit to Prague. Specifically, I want to talk about two exceptional museums that we toured: the Franz Kafka Museum, and the Museum of Communism, the latter the highpoint of my stay.
The Kafka Museum focuses, appropriately enough, on the writer's relationship with the city in which he lived all his life. Like his relationship to Judaism (indeed, like all Kafka's relationships, it seems), his attitude toward Prague was highly ambivalent. Indeed, the fact that Kafka is now a major attraction drawing tourists to the city is rather ironic, since, based on the museum's presentation, he doesn't seem to have liked Prague very much. No doubt, the city's endemic anti-Semitism was a principal explanation. For centuries, the Jews were forced to live in a cramped, squalid ghetto, today preserved as the Jewish Quarter. Christian attacks against Jews for a range of imagined, often ludicrously far-fetched offenses were commonplace. But Kafka (who, clearly, was a clinical neurotic) seems to have found the very look and feel of Prague oppressive. Although it's a gorgeous city, I can sort of understand how he felt. As I wrote in my last entry, the general aesthetic of Prague architecture is excess. For example, I have never seen a city filled with so many statues. They loom everywhere; e.g., they dot at regular intervals the famous Charles Bridge (named for a king of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). You don't have to be as paranoid as Kafka to feel you're being watched by these stone sentinels, like K in The Trial. According to the museum exhibit, as a child Kafka used to be traumatized just by walking to school every morning, even though he was accompanied by the family cook.
To the museum's credit, rather than merely compiling artifacts from Kafka's life, the whole design of the building and the exhibit attempts to recreate the twisted, haunted, claustrophobic quality of Kafka's mind. So, for much of the time you are in semi-darkness, and you're constantly walking up or down cramped staircases, or wending your way through narrow, low-ceilinged passages. Even leaving the exhibit is a challenge. You have to stand before an opaque screen, which then automatically parts, allowing you to slip into the foyer. My first impression was that there was no damned way out, that I was going to be trapped in the museum forever! There are also surreal movies screened, in which wide-eyed, desperate people rush down deserted urban streets, recreating the mood of much of Kafka's fiction. I especially liked the exhibit placed in the section devoted to Kafka's story, "In the Penal Colony." Here stands a model of the instrument of torture described in the story, made from metal and papier-maché, and including a blank-faced prisoner trapped in the machinery of the device.
Although entirely different from the Kafka Museum, the Museum of Communism was also extremely revealing about Prague, and indeed about the history of communism throughout the Soviet Bloc (including Poland). With delicious irony, the small but comprehensive museum is located just above a McDonald's! Its most shocking aspect, however, is that the museum makes no pretense of being historically objective. For example, when you enter the foyer, you see a poster advertising the museum displaying a cute Russian baby bear toting a submachine gun! Of course, this tone leaves the museum open to charges of bias. After my tour, I checked out the book for visitors' comments left at the exit, and found that a Dane had lamented the exhibit's subjectivity, while insisting that "communism had some good points." This may seem a valid complaint, but in this case it's not, because, rather than just being an emotion-laden tirade, the museum documents in chilling detail just how systematically evil (I use this loaded word deliberately) communism actually was. Perhaps the most awful aspect was (as Orwell depicted so well in 1984) that the system was designed to control not just the external but also the internal aspects of the individual, to infect your very soul. That is, the aim of communism was to create what its leaders called the "Socialist Man": concerned not about his personal well-being but about the good of the state. This goal was communicated through many sources, but most importantly through education, and one exhibit in the museum recreates a communist classroom, complete with textbooks whose brightly colored covers show beaming factory workers and farmers gazing together into the golden dawn of the socialist utopia.
Of course, the reality of communism differed slightly from the government's public relations image. In practice, as the museum documents, communism was a disaster. The market shelves were devoid of food and prices were exorbitant. People had to wait in huge lines to buy anything. It could take literally decades to get your own apartment. And rather than sharing the wealth equally, as communist ideology promised, in reality all the perks and expensive goods were handed over to the corrupt party elite. It's a fascinating question whether communism collapsed because it denied people personal freedoms, or because it deprived them of material goods. The case of China, where the communist government denies its citizens political liberties but offers them free market wealth, an arrangement that has turned the country into a major world power, might suggest that people care more about money than freedom. In any case, under Soviet-style communism, the ordinary citizen had neither.
What most haunted me about the Museum of Communism were the faces of the mostly young Czech demonstrators who took to the streets to protest the government, both during the Soviet invasion that crushed the "Prague Spring" in 1968, and during the "Velvet Revolution," that peaceful mass demonstration which brought down the communist government in only ten days in 1989. The faces of these principled, idealistic Czechs moved me to tears. Some died for their beliefs. For example, a twenty-one-year-old Czech student named Jan Palach, on January 19, 1969, immolated himself on the front steps of Prague's City Hall to protest the return of a hard-line communist government imposed by the Russians. Palach was to be only one of a group of young Czechs who all planned to set themselves on fire, but while he was dying an agonizing death he told his friends from his hospital bed not to kill themselves, but instead to fight for a free Czechoslovakia. On those city hall steps, there is a twisted metal cross imbedded in the concrete marking the spot where Palach immolated himself, but there is no text describing the event. Eyeing that obscure memorial, I wondered how Czechs today feel about their communist past, and how happy they are with the democratic system that's replaced it. (Not long after communism fell, the country, artificially held together by the power of totalitarianism, split into two nations: Slovakia and the Czech Republic.) One partial answer was supplied by our hotel desk clerk when we checked in. Noting that we were Americans when we handed over our credit card, which displayed a red, white, and blue top hat, she said in excellent English, "Americans are very patriotic, no?" When we agreed, she replied, "I think that the Czechs don't love their country in that way." I regret that I was too surprised by her remark to pursue the conversation. But I will have many opportunities in the coming months to discover how Poles feel about their communist past and democratic present—a subject I promise to return to in future entries.
Yesterday, my wife, daughter, and I went to the movies in Wroclaw. We saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall, an American film with Polish subtitles (quite funny, by the way). The film was shown in a multiplex housed in an enormous, ultra-modern mall not far from our apartment. Also playing were Hancock, The Dark Knight, and Kung Fu Panda (the last dubbed, since it's a kids' movie). Afterward, we ate ice cream in the mall's food court, which sports a Subway sandwich shop, a Burger King, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sitting there, you'd have no idea (except for the signs in Polish above the stores) that you weren't in Middle America.
Probably you see where I'm heading. Since the fall of communism in 1989, Poland has become permeated with what Poland's communist leaders decried as an arch-evil: American popular culture. Of course, in this respect Poland is no different from most of the rest of the world. Is the Americanization of Poland good or bad? That's a complex question, to which I have no definitive answer. The most extreme negative analysis I've come across is proclaimed in a book by two British left-wingers I wrote about a few years ago in this journal. The book is titled Why Do People Hate America? and the resounding answer the authors provide to their own question is Because they should! One of the most hated aspects of the U.S., according to the authors, is the way our country has spread its pop culture across the globe in a move the writers refer to as the "McDonaldization" of the planet. Not mincing words, the authors call this phenomenon "cultural terrorism," the destruction of native cultures (cuisine, film, fashion, etc.) by the American juggernaut. They see it as a form of imperialism, comparable to the imperialism imposed on the developing world by the European powers in an earlier era.
But that's a false analogy, I think. There's a big difference between something imposed by force, and something where the locals retain free will. Under colonial rule, the colonized had no choice but to put up with a foreign government, legal and educational systems, etc. But today if a Pole doesn't feel like eating a greasy Big Mac, he can always walk down the block and snarf down some pierogi (Polish dumplings, delicious). In other words, American pop culture has thrived in Poland not because imperialistic America has imposed it, but rather because the Poles like it. They have clearly expressed their favorable views with their wallets. If the Poles considered this Americanization an alien invader, they'd refuse to buy the products, and the scourge of the Golden Arches would disappear.
Of course, it's not quite that simple. Big business doesn't just respond to consumer needs; it also helps create those needs. Advertising makes a product desirable when, had that advertising not existed, the locals probably would have gotten along just fine. There is something sad about going to a Polish movie theater and seeing so few Polish films, just as, generally, there is something sad about seeing a culture so permeated with the trappings of a foreign land. I wonder if some Poles have developed an inferiority complex, seeing their society so dominated by an alien one.
On the other hand, you could argue that this globalization is bringing the world closer together. If everyone on earth is eating Quarter Pounders and watching The Dark Knight, is it possible we'll all get along better? I know that, as an American, I find Polish culture more accessible because it's so Americanized. I also relate better to my students because they're so familiar with American pop culture. I mention my students deliberately, because it is always the young, the next generation, who are most squarely on the side of Madonna videos and curly fries, which suggests that globalization will only increase in the future. Poland is full of bewildered old people, who look like relics of the communist era, and hip young people, who could be transported to LA or New York and not seem out of place. This reality implies, I think, that even if the anti-globalization forces are right, they are fighting a battle which is already lost.
Having now spent about a month in Europe, I am prepared to make a sweeping cultural generalization: Americans are fatter than Europeans. In Prague, I saw tourists from all over Europe, and in Wroclaw I've seen lots of Poles, naturally, and there's no doubt about it:they're a lot skinnier than we are. Granted, some of the older Poles tend to be a bit stocky, especially the women, but among the pre-elderly set you rarely see anyone who's overweight. That contrast is particularly noticeable among Polish children, almost all of whom are thin, whereas in America childhood obesity is a serious problem.
What explains the difference? Clearly, one non-explanation is diet. The traditional Polish diet is an incipient heart attack on a platter—fried, starchy, packed with cholesterol. The Poles seem engaged in a contest to see how many dishes can be prepared with a potato; it even appears in liquid form via the national drink—vodka. The Polish diet is also incredibly meat-centered; there must be a zillion types of sausage alone. There's even an appetizer, a kind of spread you smear on bread, which is made from lard spiced with bacon bits (lamentably tasty). Admittedly, as Poland in its post-communist incarnation has become more Westernized, the national diet has improved, with more fruits and vegetables added to the menu. (The Poles have always eaten vegetables, especially cabbage, but they've tended to be heavily pickled.) Still, it's remarkable that people who eat this way can remain so svelte.
A more persuasive explanation, which casts Polish trimness in a less positive light, is that Poles (and Europeans generally) smoke a lot more than Americans do. I swell with national pride when I see how well Americans have handled the issue of smoking, banning cigarettes in almost all public places, which has reduced the risk of second-hand smoke for non-smokers, and also induced a lot of smokers to quit (including my mother), since finding a place to smoke outside the home has become such a pain in the neck. In contrast, Europeans smoke profusely in public places, especially restaurants and bars. So, maybe there's at least one reason Americans are fatter than Europeans which shouldn't worry us unduly. We may all die from clogged arteries, but they're going to kick the bucket from lung cancer.
A more benign explanation, however, for Europeans' comparative thinness is that they walk a lot more than we do. If Americans had to pay the gas prices that Europeans do, which can run as high as $12 a gallon, there'd be a second revolution. The Poles' sensible response to these astronomical gas prices has been, especially in cities like Wroclaw, to either leave their cars at home or never purchase automobiles at all, and elected officials have made this choice manageable by erecting excellent systems of mass transportation. We haven't bought a car in Wroclaw, and so far that's been no problem, because trams and buses criss-cross the entire city, and there are stops for both just short walks from our apartment. And the entire continent of Europe is traversed by a superb railroad system that puts Amtrak to shame. Of course, the more you use public transport, the more you walk, and hence the skinnier you remain. It's a heretical thought in America, but maybe if gas prices continue to rise in the US, we'll get decent local and national mass transportation systems, which may help alleviate the national obesity problem.
This whole issue has a personal dimension for me, because, in the great American tradition, I've gotten a tad softer in the middle as I've sunk deeper into middle age. So, hopefully I can take off a few pounds in Poland by walking constantly, while still indulging occasionally in the national dish: fried pork chop and cabbage!
Well, I have now completed the Fulbright orientation. After one day in Warsaw, I spent the rest of the week at the University of Wroclaw (where, it so happens, I'll also be teaching), studying the Polish language in the morning, and attending lectures on various aspects of Polish history and culture in the afternoon. While the orientation had its dull or exhausting moments, all in all I have a deeper sense of the Polish tongue and Polish life than I did before.
Our daily morning lessons in speaking Polish were the most valuable aspects of the orientation. Our teacher, Brygida Gwiazda-Rzepeicka, a doctoral student who teaches classes in both Polish and English, was a pure delight—effusive, sweet-natured, supportive, as well as being a very talented and well-organized instructor. She made fun what in the hands of a less gifted teacher could have been an agonizing experience. I say that because the language is fiendishly difficult to learn. Just try pronouncing Brygida's last name and you'll get a hint of what I'm talking about. I was told that Harvard conducted a study which determined that Polish is the second hardest language in the world to learn after Mandarin (which, if the Chinese empire continues to expand, we may all be struggling over soon).
The afternoon lectures were far more hit or miss. Because of my own background as an American Jew and Holocaust educator and author, I was most interested in the topic of the vexing and explosive relationship between Poland and the Jews, which featured prominently in several different lectures. Not every lecturer presented this subject in the same light. For example, Professor Piotr Lewinski, in the course of a lecture which sought to debunk what Lewinski considered "myths" about Poland, tackled as one of those alleged myths the widely held perception that the Poles are anti-Semitic. To make his case, he pointed out that in 1264 the Polish prince Boleslaus the Pious issued a General Charter of Jewish Liberties in Poland, which specifically guaranteed that Polish Jews would be exempt from the kinds of persecution they then faced elsewhere in Europe. As a result of this charter, Jews flocked to Poland by the thousands, which is why, when the Nazis invaded in 1939, the country had the largest Jewish population on the continent. Attempting to rebut the common charge that during the Holocaust Poles often betrayed their Jewish neighbors (for personal gain or due to anti-Semitism), Lewinski noted that, unlike in other countries occupied by the Third Reich, in Poland any Poles who helped Jews were not only subject to death, but their entire families were executed as well. Yet, despite this edict, many Poles risked their lives to save Jews, with the result that Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum, cites more Poles as "Righteous Gentiles" than members of any other nationality.
All this is true up to a point. Still, the professor's arguments were not beyond challenge (though, because he left no time for discussion, none arose). One might have pointed out, for example, that the predominance of Polish "Righteous Gentiles" at Yad Vashem was probably less because the Poles were uniquely heroic in saving Jews than simply because, since Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe, there were more Jews around to be saved. Moreover, two other lectures presented a very different picture of Polish attitudes and actions toward the Jews. For instance, Professor Marcin Wodzinski, a professor in the university's Jewish Studies program, described the notorious Kielce pogrom of 1946. Here, several years after the Holocaust, Polish civilians in the city of Kielce killed forty-six Jews and wounded countless others in the course of a large-scale riot which arose after Poles baselessly accused the beleaguered Jewish community of kidnapping Christian children and ritually baking their blood in Passover matzos—a charge that echoed the so-called "blood libel" which had been leveled against Jews in Christian Europe for centuries. Moreover, in 1968 the communist government launched an alleged "anti-Zionist" campaign in Poland which basically forced the remaining Polish Jews to emigrate or face the consequences. These are all historical facts, not "myths".
That anti-Semitism remains a serious problem in Poland, despite the virtual absence of Jews, was suggested by another presentation offered by sociology professor Marcelina Zuber. She noted a recent poll which found that 12% of Poles would be bothered by having a Jewish colleague at work, 12% by having a Jew as a close neighbor, 19% by having a Jew as a boss, and 39% by having a Jew as a son- or daughter-in-law. According to the study, the only Polish minority with higher negatives in these areas were Muslims.
So, is Polish anti-Semitism myth or reality? The Poles suffered horribly under Hitler. As many Poles, three million, were killed as Jews. So, it's no wonder that the Poles resent it when outsiders (often Jewish) portray the Poles as victimizers, rather than victims, during the Holocaust. But it seems that the response of many Poles to these allegations has been to swing defensively to the other extreme by insisting that no Poles are or ever have been anti-Semites. The truth, as Professor Wodzinski said to me when we spoke privately after his lecture, is that Poles were both victims and persecutors during the Holocaust—a reality few Poles want to face. Indeed, the general picture of Polish/Jewish relations is similarly complex, multi-faceted. It seems that's something neither Poles nor Jews want to face.
To prepare for the two sections of Jewish-American literature I was scheduled to teach, I read through the anthology I'd picked, American Jewish Fiction: A Century of Stories, edited by Gerald Shapiro, which collects short stories by famous and lesser-known Jewish-American writers that span the entire 20th century. Once I finished reading that book, I turned to Philip Roth's masterful little novel, published in the 1970s, called The Ghost Writer, which I am teaching, along with Cynthia Ozick's equally brilliant The Shawl, to the Masters' level section of the course.
The anthology opens with stories that record the impoverished Jewish immigrants' struggles, at the dawn of the century, to "make it" in America while crammed primarily in the Jewish ghetto on the lower east side of Manhattan. Then it moves on to tales of the more prosperous experiences of the next generation, thriving in lucrative white collar professions and moving out to the suburbs, while also discovering the dark side of assimilation—a loss of those religious and cultural traditions which their ancestors brought with them from Europe. It's a very American story, while also being uniquely Jewish. And it's a story haunted by the Holocaust, which happened on another continent, but claimed the lives of many of the relatives of American Jews, and also brought Holocaust survivors with their shattered psyches and horrific stories to these shores after World War II.
After reading through the anthology, I wondered what my Polish students would make of it. Of course, Poland is precisely the country so many of the Jewish immigrants fled from to get to America (though during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the greatest flood of immigration occurred, including my paternal grandparents, eastern Poland was occupied by Tsarist Russia). It's safe to say that no Jewish immigrant who came to America from Poland before WW II ever regretted his or her decision, no matter how hard life was in the ghettos of New York. That certainly included my grandparents, who started out penniless on the Lower East Side and managed solely by dint of their own Herculean efforts to haul themselves into the middle-class. I wondered if my Polish students would be grieved by the fact that anti-Semitism forced so many Polish Jews to leave their homeland. Or fascinated by the transformation these same Jews underwent in a new land. Or resentful that these formerly Polish Jews regarded their previous country with such abhorrence, however understandable those feelings might be.
Now that I've been teaching for several weeks, I can offer some at least provisional answers to these questions. Without a doubt, my students are not anti-Semitic. If anything, they seem to have quite favorable attitudes toward Jews. Still, I doubt their philo-Semitism is representative of the Polish population as a whole. After all, the students belong to the least anti-Semitic segment of the populace—the young and the educated. Plus, it seems unlikely that any student harboring anti-Semitic feelings would take a Jewish-American literature course in the first place. Nonetheless, at times my students say things about Jews which, if not exactly anti-Semitic, strike me as a bit skewed, seeming to reflect attitudes I rarely find among American students. At the start of the semester, for example, I asked my students bluntly why there was so much centuries-old anti-Semitism in Europe. One repeated response was that European Jews were "clannish," keeping aloof from outsiders, which inspired resentment among the Gentiles. While it's true that the Yiddish communities of Eastern Europe in particular were extremely close-knit, this response overlooks the reality that this "clannishness" was a response to persecution, a huddling together for mutual support in the face of the Christian onslaught. Moreover, it took forever before a student finally suggested that Christian anti-Semitism might be related to the demonization of Jews as "Christ-killers"—clearly, a central explanation. (Admittedly, my American students are oblivious to this historical phenomenon as well.) Finally, I often hear my Polish students tell me how successful Jews are in business, which sounds like a compliment but still makes me uneasy, since such compliments can shade all too quickly into stereotyping Jews as "Shylocks," whose economic success is achieved by craftily hoodwinking the Gentiles. Basically, while my American students tend to see Jews as no different from any other Americans, to my Polish students Jews are usually "Other"—an admired Other, perhaps—but Other nonetheless.
Unfortunately, in my attempt to counter such attitudes and replace them with more positive images of Jews, my anthology is no help at all. Jewish-American writers are often criticized by other Jews for presenting allegedly unfavorable depictions of the Jewish-American community—even for being, when such criticism turns really nasty, "self-hating" Jews. And, indeed, the anthology is full of unsympathetically portrayed Jewish characters, some of whom even seemed reminiscent of anti-Semitic caricatures. This is true of stories by some of the most distinguished Jewish-American writers in the collection. In Saul Bellow's "A Silver Dish," for example, the narrator's Depression-era father is a gambler, a liar, and an absentee dad, who steals the dish in question from a philanthropic Chicago matron who has taken his son into her care. In Cynthia Ozick's "Envy, or Yiddish in American," the protagonist is a failed, talentless, egomaniacal Yiddish poet who is insanely jealous of the literary success of a character obviously based on Isaac Bashevis Singer. And in Philip Roth's "On the Air," the narrator is a fast-talking, unscrupulous talent agent who harasses Albert Einstein in an attempt to convince the great Jewish scientist to appear on a radio quiz show—a harebrained scheme the agent is certain will convince listeners that Jews are smarter than everyone else.
I confess that I'm not always sure how to handle discussions of these characters with my Polish students. After all, the last thing I want to do is perpetuate negative Jewish stereotypes to the Poles. But so far my students seem to be taking these unsympathetic Jewish characters in stride. They seem to recognize that, as with any group, there are crumby Jews just like there are good Jews. And they also seem to realize that unsavory Jews tend to make more interesting characters than would a pantheon of monotonously, one-dimensionally heroic Jews. Finally, my students appear to see that even the most negatively portrayed Jewish character usually has a sympathetic side, even if it's often buried. Still, I worry.
A couple of Saturdays ago, Nancy and I went to dinner at the home of a colleague from the university, Patricia. A bit worn out, Becky opted to stay home. Also attending were two other colleagues, Dominika and Justyana, and Justyana's daughter, Maricia.
Dominika picked us up in her typically compact European car and drove us to Patricia's apartment, located amidst a group of older, grey, imposing brick buildings in the heart of Wroclaw. Even on the drive over the conversation was interesting. Dominika mentioned that she'd taught a "Gender and Queer Studies" course at the university, which had inspired protests from a local neo-Nazi group. Although the protest was carefully controlled by the police, the chair of the English Studies department, worried that the course might incite violence, had refused to give Dominika a room in the building in which to hold class. I told her about the comparably incendiary experience I'd had the first time I tried to teach my "Gay Studies" course at Montana Tech, when a fundamentalist minister in Butte attempted to have the class cancelled on the grounds that I was preaching a "radical homosexual agenda" and trying to "turn" students gay. This led to discussion of the situation for gay people in Poland—no picnic, to put it mildly, given the dominance of the Catholic Church, although gays are starting to organize politically and come out of the closet.
A thin, attractive woman in her late thirties, Patricia cooked a lavish dinner, replete with a roast turkey and numerous vegetarian side dishes. She's in the process of having her apartment refurbished, working with a friend who's an interior designer. The result in Patricia's living room was unlike anything I've seen before, featuring hugely magnified photographs of dew-covered leaves and branches decorating the walls, producing a soothing aesthetic effect. Only eleven, Maricia is rather shy and her English isn't nearly as good as her mother's, and, perhaps for that reason, Justyana and her daughter left shortly after the dessert course. Before they left, we all talked at length about the situation of Polish academics. Much more stringent demands are placed upon a Wroclaw professor seeking promotion than at Montana Tech. To attain the equivalent of tenure, a professor must publish two books. Because Patricia, Dominika, and Justyana are all working in the field of American literature and writing in English, the opportunities for publishing their books in Poland are slim, and they must normally turn to American university presses. But because they don't have the same access to books and other research materials that academics usually have in America, they are at a disadvantage when competing for coveted publication slots. (They might also seem to be disadvantaged because they are writing in a second language, except that the English of all three women is absolutely flawless.) In short, "publish or perish" prevails in Polish universities with a vengeance. As for teaching, that apparently plays no role whatsoever in determining promotion.
After Justyana and Maricia left, the night was just beginning for the four of us who remained. Although we hadn't planned to stay so late, we ended up drinking white wine and talking till past midnight. (As our driver, though, Dominika didn't drink. Polish drunk-driving laws are much stricter than in America, and almost all Poles comply.) Our conversation was primarily about Poland, past and present. Patricia and Dominika talked at great length about their country, and, to the best of my recollection, had not one positive thing to say! However, their discussion didn't come off as mindless whining. Like many countries emerging from a repressive past, Poland has a lot of problems. During the Fulbright orientation, a Polish professor had estimated to our group that during the communist era roughly 60% of the Polish people had informed on their friends and neighbors to the secret police. Patricia and Dominika gave a fresh twist on that subject by complaining angrily that the last two Polish governments had formed commissions to investigate alleged collaborators with the communist regime, whose real aim, the women insisted, was to destroy their political opponents. They pointed out that under communism some collaboration with the government was virtually inevitable. For example, anyone wishing to obtain a visa in order to travel outside the country had to sign an official document proffered by the secret police. Since these documents still survive in government archives, any of these people can be brought up today on charges of collaboration. Often it was brave protestors against the regime who were dragged in by the secret police and forced to sign confessions, which has meant, ironically, that anti-communist dissidents are often the very people currently accused of collaboration! In contrast, those who worked for the secret police were granted sizeable pensions by the communist government, and now live in relative comfort and security.
Hearing these horror stories, I suggested that perhaps what's required in Poland is a generational shift, with young Poles born after the communist era, and hence untainted by its legacy, coming to power. But Patricia wasn't that optimistic. She accused younger Poles (the generation of our students) of lacking that historical sense which is needed in order to forge a brighter future. It was a reiteration of Santayana's famous remark that those who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it. Patricia even worried that many younger Poles were attracted to a government which could impose "order," which she felt had certain fascistic undertones.
Discussion of Poland led naturally to discussion of America and to comparisons between the two countries. We talked of a small but telling example of a sharp contrast between the nations. In America, when someone asks, "How are you?", the accepted etiquette is simply to reply, "Fine," especially if the asker is a relative stranger. In Poland, in contrast, when someone asks you this question, you are expected to give a detailed answer, including a long list of all your troubles. When Dominika traveled in America, she was constantly running into the problem of trying to answer honestly when asked how she was, which inevitably flustered her American interlocutors. The difference suggests a fundamental contrast in the temperament of the two nations. Americans are relentlessly optimistic, and while this has the advantage of leading to achievement, it has the disadvantage of causing repression and denial. In contrast, Poles are entirely unrepressed about all their woes, but this incurs a tendency to wallow in problems.
I suggested that Poles' gloomier outlook might be a product of the country's tragic past, so different from America, which (with the notable exception of the Civil War) has had a comparatively peaceful history. But Patricia took exception to my comment. Polish history was no more tragic than that of many other countries, she insisted; in fact, it was considerably less tragic than the histories of, say, many post-colonial nations, which have had to deal with malnutrition, poverty, AIDS, droughts, despotic regimes, rebellions, etc. On the contrary, Patricia accused Poland of having a martyr complex, constantly bemoaning its tragic past as an excuse for failing to address its current problems, which she linked to the overbearing influence of Catholicism on the nation. Poland, she claimed, sees itself as the Jesus among nations, an attitude she considered profoundly unhealthy.
We talked about many other things over the course of this long evening, but I hope I've given some sense of the intensity and liveliness and diversity of our discussion. While the subjects were often grim, rather than finding the experience depressing, I was exhilarated because the talk was so insightful and informative. All in all, I'd call it the best evening I've had so far in Poland. It exemplified the reason I'd wanted a Fulbright.
[The Montana Professor 19.2, Spring 2009 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]