Create your own State ! The Short Story of a Tiny Empire — 1945–2014. Bohdan and Michał Slezkin
Welcome to the Fatherland, Alvarez!
This will bring your memory back
You gonna nail it up shortly‌
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This morning, the body of Florence Valeria Tarr was found. Krista Kent from the criminal bureau is on the scene. She’ll let you in.
Here, is the address.
Take some snaps, look around. Tomorrow I want a heart throb expose of our export prose star.
By tomorrow?
but…
Florence Valeria Tarr’s friends don’t go to bed at dusk. At least half o’them are sitting in the “Mundo”, toasting to her eternal life.
Norma, get to work! You are the sole tradesman reading her elongated artsy musings. It’s your fifteen minutes. It’s unlikely that a writer would go off, while writing her new novel.
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How did she die?
In a sudden thud. I’ll add some friend’s accounts.
I’m looking for Krista Kent
Follow me !
You can take a look around, no problem. If you’re curious. Our boys have already secured everything, but please wear these. Mark sent me.
You have an hour at your disposal.
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I’ve found something, Major!
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I’ll deal with it in a moment.
The manuscript for ‘ A MAN IN BLACK ’ is the property of my production company. Here! It’s in the contract!
This contract was signed a year ago with Ms. Tarr’s You have no right to this manuscript!
half a agent! keep
If that’s for me, you can take it away.
Right away even!
The fingerprints were taken by my men a long time ago. It‘s going to be a cinematic masterpiece!
‘ A MAN IN BLACK ’ is a completely different matter!
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Oh, just like ‘THE INVASION OF THE STRIPPERS’? Everyone knows that you shoot erotic trash!
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In a jiy, you will hear the vocal-instrumental ensemble OCARINA led by the indefatigable Doctor Mephisto Alina!
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An existentialist painter, and Florence’s close friend.
Rachel Pilko at 9 o’clock..
This stud at 11 o’clock is Horn von Sadowsky’s himself, her last lover…
And who’s the woman in black? It’s the model Joanna Grant. There was a rumour she had a crush on Tarr. Before or after Sadowsky?
Next to her, Jola Russel, the translator Tarr’s novels. …lately though, he’s been taking a break from Tarr’s whims in the arms of Andy Blackstone and Eva Adamowitsch.
Mingle with the women.
I’ll take von Sadowsky on !
This is awful! I saw her at the ambassador’s party yesterday.
Somebody stabbed her with a paper knife!
I have the manuscript for you. But the money first!
You scum!
Sure it was a crazy. Nothing has been nicked from her house.
Big Joe will lend me nickels. He’s bound to turn up soon.
Hands off! Florence wised up to you stealing her money and scheming on how to off her…
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We’d set up a meeting. I was about to become her PA!
Perfect! But today it is twice as much as yesterday!
Shut up! One more word…
The word is MONEY! Ha ha ha !!!
Little Calvados for me!
I’ve got to have the total cash today! This will not let go! Done ! Midnight, at Farida’s wardrobe!
Pedro doubled his price! Phew !
Can I help you, Miss…? Norma. My name is Norma.
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Would you make me a drink?
Whisky is all I have‌
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Yes, please. I need to make a call, it’s urgent! May I come in ?
I’ve heard you are a film producer…
And you?
Everything is ready!
Remember! It was a car accident!
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Me?
I am…
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Good sentimental work, Norstad!
Connect me with Ms. Kent, please.
I was sobbing while reading of this writer’s exemplary life.
Was a manuscript for ‘ THE MAN IN BLACK ’ found near Shyman’s body?
No.
What about money?
And you’re not surprised? It was an accident, honey! He was a booze sponge. He marched straight into a rushing car!
Some spare change. What’s up? Got anything new?
Do the cops even have the faintest clue who might have dipped the paper knife into her heart?
OK !
I wish to see Florence Valeria Tarr’s autopsy report.
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All in good time, Norstad! If I hear something, I’ll let you know beforehand, OK?
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My brother will be here any time now. He mustn’t learn anything !
Nice to see you again.
How much am I supposed to look after your brother?
A good deal ! Remember he doesn’t know a lot about you. But he must know at least something, for sure!
First… He knows that you’re a model, and he doesn’t know you’re an intelligence rat.
The codename for our mission is ALVAREZ. We have to be extremely cautious! It all has to look like an absolute coincidence! Our goal is to capture Alvarez, his termination and to replace him with our agent who will be no different from him. Outside of Odrobinia, the operation will be coordinated by Baron Alexander von Broemsen from the military intelligence department.
Alvarez is a particularily dangerous superagent of Niam Niam. Working on his case took us a lot of time. We have our man who is identical to him. We have to work on his “legend” a little bit and use this opportunity by all means !
Remember, a couple of people know of your excesses… We will set a course after meeting von Sadowsky…
We’ll see what he says… Is something bothering you?
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Shhh !
We’ve got to finish!
Can you see her ?
This journalist has been following me all day…
Not bad… I’m working on it, trust me…
You have to employ all your contacts to get me out of this. You owe me a favour…
It’s gone too far…
I can’t even look at whisky…
First, this crazy Tarr…
Soon, one of us will get in touch with you.
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Then, Shyman…
And now this…
Come on, have a drink ! Get it off your chest !
Hello !
This knife was used by Emily Brontë herself — cutting the pages of her novels. I was waiting for you…
This girl would have been too poor for such a fancy object methinks
It’s so different from our good old Florence Tarr. This madwoman loved knifes! Take this — an exact replica of a knife owned by a bishop of sorts who began each day by opening letters…
You can come !
Nice one, isn’t it? To bid farewell — let me sweeten it — look here…
You killed her !
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You will die for a good cause!
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It is the work of this psychopathic madman from Niam Niam.
Where is he now?
Our secret service is working on his case.
First, he killed Tarr, then Shyman, poor Norstad yesterday, while today he tried to kill unfortunate von Sadowsky. Luckily, he only has a tiny paper-knife scratch on his arm…
This nut came to Odrobinia a couple of weeks ago; wandering around Tarr’s house for the whole week. Of course, no one paid any attention to him back then. He had memorized all her novels…
Niam Niam demands this guy be extradited.
I hope our people have a word with him first…
Nasty type !
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I kept telling Norma not to get into it. But she fancied Tarr. I couldn’t comprehend the success of her novels…
I have to put this on the front page !
Two years ago, Florence Valeria Tarr was stabbed by a madman who used a paper-knife in her own house, while she was working on a novel entitled ‘ THE MAN IN BLACK ’. It is THE manuscript that the madman tried to steal. Due to the dire mental incapability of the Niam Niamese , the authorities of our country decided to…
The Niam Niam citizen that had come to Odrobinia for a holiday kept close watch over a writer’s house for a whole week, never leaving his temporary location…
…extradite him after two more murders he had been associated with, killing a famous film producer and a young rising star of Odrobinian journalism.
And now, I wanted to invite the viewers for a conversation with the news special edition star, Mr. Horn von Sadowsky…
…who personally contributed to the detainment of the deranged madman, known as Alvarez…
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NOTES 1
(page 1) Niam Niam, meaning the Empire of Niam Niam led since 1945 by Jerzy “Kwiryn” Siewierski was a decolonized country that slowly passed into the Republican system and was declared a social democratic ideal. The political system changed several times from 1945 to 1975. 3
(page 2) The Magazine “Miscellanea” that was published in Odrobinia was one of several press titles that came out since the very beginning of the Game of States (e.g. “Żołnierz” (Soldier), “Guardian”, “Daily Telegraph” in Odrobinia, “Kultura” in Niam Niam, or “Nasz Znak” (Our Sign) published in Tadeusz Strumff ’s Polish Republic). The majority of participants used relatively simple techniques of collage using cutouts from real 4 Polish and Soviet magazines (since the 1970s, the press began to appear more frequently in the form of extracts). “Rozmaitości” was also the name of a permanent section in the “Przekrój” weekly in the post-war years, which might explain the title of the Odrobinian magazine. 6
(page 2) Odrobinia, meaning the United Kingdom of Britania and Lucretia, appears in the diplomatic notes as the United Empire of Odrobinia, led (most probably) since 1945 by Bohdan Slezkin. Nominally, it used to be a parliamentary monarchy, however in practice it was ruled in an authoritarian manner.
(page 4) This was a staff version of German typewriter on which Jerzy “Kwiryn” Siewierski wrote more than twenty books and the majority of Niam Niam’s diplomatic notes.
(page 5) Leszek Szymański as a character typical for his “pheasant style” of clothing was the frequent object of Bohdan Slezkin’s caricatures, dating back to the times of Batory lyceum. It was a source of Slezkin’s personal satisfaction. Through Odrobinian citizen’s double personalities (appropriately valued by being included in “elite”, among “citizens” or in the rich criminal “underworld”), he was incorporating in more meaningful layers into the game. Leszek Szymański, currently resides in Australia (he left Poland for India in 1958 and finally got to Australia after many interim places) is known in the realm of the Game as Leslie Shyman — perhaps to make his last name easier to pronounce, but also due to some contrariness of those who came up with this nickname.
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(page 4) In Bohdan Slezkin’s material legacy, a set of business cards was preserved for his colleague Leszek Karlikowski. These were not “official” cards since Slezkin kept the whole initiative secret and kept putting the cards on Karlikowski’s door. The titles and professions that Slezkin made up for his colleague were purely fantastic and fantastically funny, based on his erudition and vast knowledge of, often forgotten, curiosities of the interwar period.
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(page 7) The “Underworld” served in Odrobinia as a buffer and an additional zone which has been described by Michał Slezkin as the “country’s internal landscape”. Many times, the underworld played an important role in the internal intrigues and provocations on the international level. 9
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(page 8) Most often, Bohdan Slezkin presented himself as a high level official or secret advisor of Odrobinian’s top tier (he presents himself at least several times, in various ages and roles.
(page 7) OCARINA — was vocal and instrumental ensemble [with characters ascribed to real persons]: Olaf-Misiulek (trombone), Carmino-Marczewski (guitar), Andre-Cypryk (maracas), Rita-Elżunia (castanets), Ingo-Spermon (ocarina), Nico-Rotmistrz (banjo), Alphonso-Fonsio Buzzy (compére and illusions), Dr. Mephisto Alina (trumpet).
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(page 15) See notes 2 and 9. (page 20) See note 9.
Immediately after the Second World War had ended, during the systematic Sovietisation of Poland, a group of teenage boys, pupils of the renowned Batory gymnasium in Warsaw, began their political intrigue on a surprisingly ambitious scale. Please imagine this: in a small communal flat, during a friendly get together, an official diplomatic visit of the highest level is taking place. First, a small airplane lands, then officials greet the incoming guests with all honours and pageantry; journalists whirl around the airfield, recording the minutiae of a state-level event.
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Game of States
Krzysztof Gutfrański
This was the beginning of one of the “rituals” of the Game of States, conceived of and started by Bohdan Slezkin. The Game was itself based on the creation of fictitious state entities and the “playing out”, of both the official and unofficial, relations between them. Slezkin (in his later years, working as a graphic artist, miniature painter, and as an expert in old colours and weapons), created the parliamentary monarchy of the Odrobinia (The Tiny Empire), while his colleagues ruled over other states: Jerzy Siewierski (who in his later years became the author of bestselling crime novels and a researcher of freemasonry) had the social democratic Empire of Niam Niam; Leszek Szymański (who in his later years became the co-editor of “Współczesność” [Contemporary times] magazine, a disciple of the guru Swami Śivananda, he was also a protestant missionary among Papuans, and a detective involved with the trial of the Charles Manson group). He had the communist dictatorship of Zjednoczone Materiali styczne Republiki Socjalistyczne (ZMRS) [United Materialist Socialist Republics], while Tadeusz Strumff (who in his later years, worked as a journalist, also authored essays about travelling to China, as well as the official slogan “Polak Potrafi” [Poles can] founded a Polish Republic that referred to the pre-war Sanacja government.
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These boys’ games perpetrated by Bohdan Slezkin and a couple of his friends turned out to be something decidedly bigger than just a seasonal attraction. From small wars, inspired by adventures in the ruins of a destroyed Warsaw, the Game evolved into the role of a formally elaborate intellectual retreat that has continued, with varied personnel, until the beginning of the 1980s (at times, very nearly being suspected of utilizing the game for the purposes of spying on behalf of foreign and hostile forces). Around 1971/1972, Bohdan Slezkin and Jerzy Siewierski returned to the Game of States for the last time, in order to incorporate their sons — Michał Slezkin and Wojciech Siewierski — into it. The Game thus gained an intergenerational dimension to it. The sons were animated in the Game by their fathers, playing out complex history in real time. Apart from foreign affairs, state-level visitations, exchanges of diplomatic notes and memos, complicated military manoeuvres and campaigns, less diplomatic methods were tried out. Particular events were provoked by means of ideological and political subversion, psychological warfare and then the tried and tested methods of social engineering. Blackmail, disinformation, abductions, fake accidents and such were the order of the day in the Game of States. Whole spy rings and informant networks were being used by leaders, along with the criminal underworld and media manipulation, to enlarge their territories and master their subjects’ minds by means of ideology. A repository of archive documentation, a universal parody of the world of official politics, can serve as proof of these dark activities. Above all, “Game of States” consists of re-enactors and participants of rituals and behind-the-curtain intrigue makers. These hand-painted paper miniatures, which were produced later on using elements of collage, and were imbued with specific identities that in numerous cases referred to flesh-and-blood people, overwhelm with their attention to detail and richness of meaning, while serving as a panorama of the popular visual culture of the PRL [Peoples’ Republic of Poland] era.
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After his father’s death in the early 1990s, Michał Slezkin remained as the main depository of the State. Beginning in 2008, he decided to give the game a new shape and twist, expanding the archive by way of some new self-designed and self-produced elements. Employing the universal potential of gaming rituals, such as official visits, military conflicts, or subversive acts, Slezkin is involved in a game of both archive and simultaneous dialogue with his own deceased father, adding some personal commentary and voices of the experts who were invited and subsequently became fascinated by the creative and historical aspects of the Game. The contextual re-staging of the archive is a point of entry for an exhibition organized in Zielona Góra. The central position is occupied by a table which is a free variant of the cabinets used throughout the 19th century for tactical war simulations (Kriegsspiel). In place of a vast battlefield, the surface of the table is ordered by a re-scaled blueprint of a communal flat along with embedded “action fields” on which Slezkin plays out an updated version of the Game of States. A panoramic image of the principal rituals of the original game is effortlessly connected to the compositional game of motifs, materials connected with respective “action fields”, modernized figures and a stage set, as well as to contributions of the invited guests, such as Zosia Dzierżawska, Monika Powalisz, Szymon Rogiński and Paweł Althamer. The detective-like manner of perceiving the Game, as Slezkin proposes it, leads the spectator through different domains and levels, combining the Game’s universal message — which could perfectly illustrate the nature of political games and proxy war mystifications that we are witnessing in Ukraine and Syria — with an utmost personal, autobiographic expression that transports the memory of his father and his invention into another, not fully recognized, dimension.
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When I was very small, a certain lady said to me: ‘Mickey, eat up that carrot. It is quite healthy and very tasty, too. Your Daddy must like carrots a lot!’ ‘My Dad sits in an armchair and likes nothing,’ I replied.
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To Combat Boredom and For Fun Michał Slezkin
Indeed, my father spent a substantial amount of time sitting in his armchair, in the so-called living room of our 37-square meter flat at Tamka 22 Street. He was sitting there, continuously fussing about food and the political system. As regards his culinary preferences, he was admittedly very tiring, but undemanding at the same time. There wasn’t a lot of food that he enjoyed, but many that he truly detested. His personal blacklist included fish, vegetables, fat meat, poultry, but also alcohol. In reality, he would prefer not to eat at all, but if he was forced to, he wanted extremely modest servings. He was able to live mostly on dried whole-meal bread with white cheese, beans and potato pancakes with salty cream. He also enjoyed coffee, cigarettes and strong tea in large quantities. Concerning the political system and his attitude to it, this topic has been extensively discussed in my conversation with Krzysztof Gutfrański. Besides that, dad was a very cheerful individual and, sitting there in the aforementioned armchair, he carried on incessant discussions with his many friends that
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visited him daily, drinking tea. The atmosphere and company were so engaging that, first as a kid, then as a teenager, I was eagerly sitting in on and listening to those, only rarely serious, chats on everything and nothing in particular. Apart from this casual manner of spending time, father drew and painted. He had an excellent hand for it, with very sensible lines, and his command of the drawing-pen and ink were exquisite. He was also quite a good graphic artist and illustrator. In later years, he earned his living painting miniatures. Mostly, he was painted various military formations, with cavalry being something of his specialty. He did this with the utmost precision and historical detail, while calling himself simply a ‘visual craftsman’. He was rather reserved and not entirely exuberant, not at all prone to openly display his emotions. He never treated the Game of States that he created as some sort of a special act or artistic manifesto. If one were to ask him what the Game entailed for him, he might have responded in the contrary that he did it to combat boredom and for fun. He treated the Game as both personal entertainment and a form of intellectual gymnastics, besides its being a nice way of spending time with his friends and his own son. The History of the State consists of several parts and, from its very beginning, its dynamics were marked by a particular game with leisure time, seemingly lacking in the productivism-focused Peoples’ Republic of Poland (PRL). Along with a group of his friends, Bohdan Aleksander Slezkin started, in the second half of the 1940s,a game of imaginary state-like entities. The Game survived, with some interruptions and lacunae, until the late 1970s, and even into the 1980s. The history of this game, along with the entangled destinies of its participants, serves as an entry point in an attempt to show the nature of my peculiar relationship with my father. This project pays honour to his creative energies, but at the same time it is my own statement, using the archive of the Game — the elements of which I co-created in the 1970s.
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The whole story can be divided into four important stages, or phases. In the first period (we may call it “the founding period”) of 1946–1947, this game of fictitious political bodies resulted from a meeting between several teenagers and it marked the beginning of what later would evolve into a highly complex social relationship. In the beginning of 1950, my father had to suspend his participation in the Game for a certain period of time. He was arrested by the Security Office (UB), a Stalin-era secret police, and spent more than four years in various prisons. The fates of the remaining participants in the game were different: some of them left the country, while some simply grew up and quickly matured. Throughout the 1960s, despite the fact that some important participants quit, the game continued with varied levels of intensity. My knowledge of that period is rather vague and rudimentary. The third phase began in the 1970s when those left on the battlefield — Bohdan Slezkin and Jurek Siewierski — activated it in an entirely new manner, getting their sons, Wojtek Siewierski and myself, involved in it. They simply deposited the legacy of earlier periods with us, but they continued to participate in the Game themselves as its animators. At last, the fourth and current period that contains the project that I decided to simply call “The State”, the stage in which the game of nonexistent countries has become a very special game of archives and simultaneously, a time machine for travelling back and forth. This process of re-discovery is the most important to me at the moment, the discovery of how this incredible story inspires new people — independent creators that were invited to the project and authors of critical essays. It’s also about perceiving it as an unending source of research and/or curatorial material, which has been proven by the likes of Krzysztof Gutfrański who initialized an archive of the work back in 2008, and Wojtek Kozłowski who invited us to show The State in Zielona Góra. “The State” is a work of memory, my personal journey back which enables me to become aware of the particularities of my
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relations with my late father Bohdan Slezkin. In a certain way, this project resembles a kind of a diary written in reverse in which for the first time in my life, and in a conscious way, I travel back to the time before I was born, and to myself when I was 12-to-17 year old, while subjecting this journey to a continuous creative reworking.
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The Little Wars Michał Slezkin in conversation with Krzysztof Gutfrański (2012–2014)
We already know that your father Bohdan Slezkin started to play the Game in 1945. What do you remember from the stories you’ve heard about its beginnings? How did he come up with the whole idea?
The beginning of ‘The Game of States’ reaches way back; to the times when my father was about 14 years old. Basically, he was playing around then with his then-neighbour friend Jacek Gałęzowski who was three years younger than himself. Everything was rather simplistic at that stage, battles were enacted using spent shells, ammunition tips and shards they had found in the ruins, while the first tanks were made from archaic, Ebonite wall plug elements that resembled spiders. As time passed, they managed to gather some toy soldiers made of lead. There were also, as Jacek recalls, at first hand-scribbled diplomatic notes that were stuck in the crevice of the door between their rooms, in the communal flat that where they both lived. Thus, that was the true beginning of ‘The Game of States’. Later on, when he was in
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middle school my father made friends with some new schoolmates that liked to play toy soldiers, and they played war games enthusiastically, as most boys their age did. But they were truly inventive kids, really creative and intelligent, so they rapidly developed that primal archaic model into a refined sort of game, which was later to evolve into a genuinely complex and multidimensional emulation of history. I put a special emphasis on word play, despite the fact that throughout the remembrances and documents, there are traces of rules that prove it had also been a form of a rule-based game. However, according to my father’s assessment, as well as my own, it was above all a form of collective social play. It all started around 1945. These new schoolmates of my father’s that I mentioned earlier were the late Jerzy Kwiryn Siewierski, who later became a writer of crime fiction, Leszek Szymański a.k.a. Fonsio, a multifaceted figure and creator of the first freedom-oriented newspaper called “Współczesność” (Contemporary Times) who has been living in Australia and the USA, and Tadeusz Strumff, who in his later life, became a journalist for “Trybuna Ludu” and the author of many stories based on his journalism, who coined a then-popular official catchphrase “Polak potrafi” (Poles can). From its very beginning, ‘The Game of State’ had to have a lot of humour and everyone had fun, in spite of the post-war desolation. What were the characteristics of the respective countries?
They had various social models governing them, and it was a sort of reflection of the political systems that had just gone bankrupt, or conversely were just beginning to blossom. My father started a country which nominally was a parliamentary monarchy. Legislative power belonged to a parliament consisting of two chambers: a senate with a chamber of peers and a diet with a deputy chamber. Nominally, the state was governed by a cabinet with a prime minister, which was appointed personally by a king — Karol XII Odrobiniusz. In practice however, Odrobinia (The Tiny Empire) was governed in
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an authoritarian manner. Everything was practically governed by an army, especially its top tier of generals. It was a state called the United Kingdom of Britain and Lucretia, but in all diplomatic notes it figures as an Empire of Odrobinia. So, we have this pompous formula which is imperial in its nature, and a proper name Odrobinia that refers to something truly miniature and tender, a sort of micro-level state. Great Britain in the period directly preceding the fall of an empire, was an inspiration for the political and social model of Odrobinia. Additionally, some degree of fascination with other cultures was discernible here, like with the Anglo-Saxon, German and Dutch cultures and political traditions. This is why, if I were to define the language that had been used in Odrobinia, I’d suggest it might have been Afrikaans. The world of Odrobinia also reflects a multitude of books commonly read throughout the early-to-later period of childhood, obviously Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” comes to mind here. By contrast, Jurek Kwiryn Siewierski brought the Empire of Niam Niam to life.1 That state seemed to directly declare social-democrat ideals. Simultaneously, it has extreme left slogans on its banners, sometimes even revolutionary ones. And if you read the diplomatic notes, where the leaders’ biographies are described, with their quotes and stories of working-class struggle by the leading politicians and eminent heroes of Niam Niam, it is tempting today to find analogies with Fidel Castro’s and Che Guevara’s Cuba, although nobody had heard of them at that time, as the Cuban Revolution was to start in 10 years. But with all that radical leftist ideology, Niam Niam was paradoxically an empire. A very peculiar and amusing hybrid. Leszek “Fonsio” Szymański on the other hand created the communist country of United Materialist Socialist Republics (Podłóżskie — UnderBed) abbreviated as ZMRS. It was a malignant dictatorship that was ruled over by red commissars, the state for which the proletarian dictatorship in its Bolshevik model served as an inspiration and 1
The name Niam Niam refers to the Azande tribe of Central Africa. It was frequently used by foreigners to refer to the Azande in the 18th and early 19th century, and it probably originates from the Dinka people, and means great eaters in their language (as well as being an onomatopoeia), it supposedly refers to cannibalistic propensities.
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a point of reference. To this very day Leszek, obviously in an act of utter consistence, states that among all the states that participated in the Game, that was the only state of true progress. Today, knowledge on the nature of ZMRS/UMSR can be drawn directly from Fonsio himself — it has to be repeated that he’s pretty obstinate and consistent in his line of propaganda — or else through the lens of other countries like Odrobinia and Niam Niam, it is to be discovered in the preserved press publications and various assorted documents. Tadeusz Strumff ’s state was called the Republic of Poland. His participation in the game and his knowledge of it is — as you well know — a kind of discovery that has been made when we started to work together on this project. Perhaps there were more countries from that archaic period that we know nothing about now. It turned out that many figures survived until our times, as well as a substantial number of documents with dates given in a precise way, including terms of appointed session meetings and the principles for determining battle outcomes. These are the only fixed rules in the history of the entire Game that I’m aware of. By courtesy of Tadeusz Strumff, all the preserved artefacts were incorporated into the archive of the State. It is also necessary to include Jaculinum, with its famous province of Balkonia, the state devised by Jacek Gałęzowski, my father’s younger neighbour, that I mentioned while attempting to establish the genesis of the Game of all these fictitious countries. Jacek Gałęzowski told me he was active in the very first phase only and that he played it solely with my father. His knowledge of the later histories of the Game, and his memory concerning its details, is — as he remarked himself — incomplete, but that archaic phase led to the creation of a prototype that was later picked up on by other players. What was the life of the citizens of the State like? How did a specific episode of the Game proceed?
Sincerely speaking, the life of the Odrobinia citizens did not exist in the form of a separate thread of the Game. Individual destinies were
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never led as wholly separate histories, while the figures were in a certain sense decorative. But the fact that the majority of them had their own properties, first names, surnames, professions, could have been setting some imaginary mechanisms, serving as inspiration to build more layers, dimensions and interpretations, which served the Game itself. Thus, citizens of Odrobinia and certain enigmatic diplomatic notes formed the inspiration for a comic story, which also serves as an authorial commentary, by Monika Powalisz and Zosia Dzierşawska and is featured in this publication. Back to the game; we met rather often, and most of the time was devoted to the preparations between respective visits. We planned various movements, and then made specific decisions, while trying to estimate their possible consequences. We edited diplomatic notes, wrote various press statements commenting upon recent events, and so on. Obviously, we were creating new figures all the time. Each meeting, each form of contact, each diplomatic visitation was preliminarily designed down to the smallest details. Everything had been prepared during our councils which were focused on Odrobinia’s internal situation and affairs, ultimately transforming into a diplomatic note that contained a specific idea, and was sent to Siewierskis [an original participant of the first phase of the Game Jerzy Siewierski and his adolescent son Wojtek]. At the closing of every session, we agreed that we wanted to create some sort of a relevant political act, thus making it a follow-up to earlier developments. We counted on specific political results and we had a lot of fun with it. Both ourselves, as well as Siewierskis, lived on a rather modest budget, and that was a time when a home telephone was a rare luxury and of course, we didn’t have one. So, all the notes were sent by regular mail. Then, we agreed upon a schedule of the given visitation, including all its aspects that were created jointly, things like topics of conversations: for example, that we want good-neighbourly relations, but we intend to take control over a certain location or a specific area. These areas included an Empire of Bapelmandep and the Republic of Anglandia
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that were run by Wojtek Siewierski’s friends. Wojtek was two years younger than myself, so his friends were younger as well. The holders of these countries were inspired by Wojtek, he was their only contact and they didn’t participate in our meetings, so it is possible to say that those were Niam Niam satellite countries and they didn’t have a full voice, so to speak. They often learnt about negotiations and initiatives concerning their territories from Wojtek, after we had come to our agreements and were done. They were able to play the prescribed role of the victim and write despairing diplomatic notes, usually handwritten. In principle, they served as a sort of decoration, or extras, in our imperial power games. What was the space that you used for your games? Do you still remember these locations and Warsaw from that period?
In January 1970, I came back to Poland from Canada after more than half a year of being there with my mom. I’ve preserved two memories connected with that comeback, although I was only 10 years old at that time. One of them regards a stopover in Prague. My first contact with the reality of the Soviet bloc after living in the colorful West. What made huge impression on me was the view from the airplane window right after we landed, when the plane was still taxiing in; an emptiness and overall greyness, even a certain gloominess with sand sacks, barbed wire near the terminal buildings, and military transporters on the airfield itself. This meeting with a totalitarian reality, or that particular image to be more precise, survived in my mind and was perhaps reintroduced during the first settings of the Game. Another image is closely related to Warsaw, right after we left the airport buildings. It was also a sense of a dominate greyness and roughness, but what was especially striking to me, were the proportions and sizes of the automobiles. To this day, I remember that cars driving to a taxi stop at the airport seemed totally bizarre to me, not long and very tall. Those cars were called Warszawa, produced at the tail end of
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communist secretary Gomułka’s rule.2 Living in Canada, I was accustomed to different proportions, long and sleek American cruisers like the Mercury, Buick and Cadillac. The Warszawa was a copy of these brands, but from earlier decades, the 40s and early 50s, as if they were take out from the past. I don’t remember too much from the following two years and I must admit I still wonder why. This is why I eagerly observe my little son Alik with extreme curiosity — he just turned 9 (in 2012 — ed.). However, I seem to remember the atmosphere and some general excitement, and later, the moment of depression back home when the famous worker revolt in the Baltic region happened. I also recall when communist party secretary Gierek came to power, along with his “Will you help us?” question that was aired on TV.3 The beginning of the “small stabilization” period, as it’s referred to, marks the starting point of ‘The Game of States’ to me. It was all about Coca Cola, Russian colour TV sets, Fiat 125p car, Domy Centrum department stores, Barbara Hoff clothes, and it was slightly like in the “Czterdziestolatek” TV series.4 I can fully and precisely recall that state of reality. As for the space where we played, we were meeting in our flats that formed territories of our respective countries back then. We lived in the Powiśle district in Tamka Street and it was already a second territorial generation of Odrobinia. The first took place in the communal flat inhabited by many families at Rozbrat Street, where my father lived with his mother just after the war ended, the place he spent his late childhood and young adolescence in. A sketch of that flat, or in fact a projection of it, is the first preserved map of Odrobinia and it served
2
Władysław Gomułka (1905–1982) was a Polish communist leader. He was the de facto leader, in Poland from 1945 to 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970.
3
Edward Gierek (1913–2001) was a Polish communist politician, who replaced Gomułka as the 1st Secretary of the then ruling Polish United Workers’ Party. His populist attitude had to help communists and lead ultimately to easing the tense situation in the country. Gierek promised economic reform and instituted a program to modernize industry and increase the availability of consumer goods, doing so mostly through foreign loans. He became famous after his political rally slogan “Will you help us?” to which participant-citizens responded positively.
4
“Czterdziestolatek” (The Forty-year-old) was a TV comedy series broadcasted between 1974 and 1977. Created by Jerzy Gruza and Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, the series followed the fate of a Warsaw family and was iconic in its depiction of the “small stabilization” period of Gomułka’s rule.
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as simultaneous inspiration for me in the planning of the exhibition, as well as in the creation of a few new works for the project. When one traces geographic land names of the provinces and cities that are known from the history of the Game, such as Alicja, Kalimea, Kaflinia [Tileland], Wanna [bathtub], Biurko [desk], Divano [carpet land], Balkonia [balcony land] and Jaculinum, you can almost see the spaces physically and grasp the accompanying sense of humour.
When were you initiated into the Game?
In the beginning of the 70s, my father and Jurek Siewierski came to an agreement that Wojtek and myself were old enough to be invited into the realm of the Game. To be frank, that decision was a kind of trick, as both our fathers had convenient excuses for carrying on with playing the Game themselves. Despite a nominal handing over of the Game to us, they still took an active part in it and they were pulling all the important strings, in fact. In this sense, the whole Game of fictitious countries, as well as “The State” project is naturally and truly inter-generational. They were simply continuing to create the Game…
Precisely. I guess they treated it as a sort of internal immigration which allowed them to prolong their youth and vent over the sad reality of the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL). Another aspect which is strictly personal from my point of view that leads to ‘The Game of States’ as a project is not fully internalized, or conscious, the process of an instinctive and creative relationship with one’s own children. All in all, the game went into full gear from then on. Odrobinia and Niam Niam entered a sort of new era. The diplomatic contacts between domains were brought back from the brink of nonexistence. It was also a process of reconciliation with the mutually difficult histories of both countries, a domestication of past demons, new alliances, as well as declarations of a peaceful coexistence. More figures were being produced. I created them with my father or even individually. The situation was similar in Siewierskis’ case. Would it be entirely out of place to ask about your father, Bohdan Slezkin’s origins?
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My father came from a landowners’ family. He was born in 1932 and he spent the first seven years of his life on the family estate Karasin in the then-Polish Eastern Lands.5 He was the descendant of a family with a long history of representatives from many national groups: Russian, Germans, Poles and even Romanians. My grandfather Michał Mikołaj Aleksiejewicz was a Pole by choice. As the son of a Russian general of the First World War era and a Livonian German of Russian Orthodox religious creed, he considered himself a Pole. On father’s family estate, Polish was used by everyone and children were brought up as Poles. Thus, my grandfather Michał was born into a landowning milieu. Many wolf and wood grouse hunts took place in Karasin as they were popular pastime among pre-war elites. Famous personalities from the political and military circles of the 2nd Republic were frequent guests there.6 Often these were my grandfather’s friends from his time with Piłsudski’s Legionary7 that began during the Polish-Bolshevik war [1920].8 During battles around Kostiuchnówka, Piłsudski’s staff was stationed in Karasin, while the Marshal himself was convalescing at the estate. My father, as was customary in the period in question, had two godfathers, both famous politicians connected with the Sanacja faction. One was lieutenant-colonel Bogusław Miedziński,9 later 5
“Eastern Borderlands” (Kresy Wschodnie) is a former territory in the eastern provinces of Poland. These territories today lie in western Ukraine, western Belarus, and eastern Lithuania.
6
The Second Republic of Poland, The Second Commonwealth of Poland or “interwar Poland” refers to the country of Poland between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939).
7
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (1867–1935) was a Polish statesman; Chief of State (1918–22), “First M arshal of Poland” (from 1920), and de facto leader (1926–35) of the Second Republic of Poland, and Minister of Military Affairs. From mid-World War I he had a major influence in Poland’s politics, and was an important figure on the European political scene. He was the person most responsible for the creation of the Second Republic of Poland in 1918, 123 years after it had been taken over by Russia, Austria and Prussia.
Polish Legions (Legiony Polskie) was the name of the Polish armed forces created in August 1914 in Galicia as independent formation of the Austro-Hungarian Army. [Galicia is a historical and geographic region that currently straddles the border between Poland and Ukraine].
8
The Polish–Soviet War (February 1919–March 1921) was an armed conflict that pitted Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People’s Republic over the control of an area equivalent to today’s Ukraine and parts of modern-day Belarus.
9
Boguslaw Miedziński (1891–1972) — Polish Army lieutenant colonel of the infantry, military intelligence soldier, politician, and journalist, Member of Parliament I, II, III and IV, a minister in the government of Józef Piłsudski and Kazimierz Bartel, Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Senator fifth term and Speaker of the Senate of the Second Polish Republic, freemason. 45
to be intensely hated by the post-war “peoples’ authority” i.e. the communist government, and Janusz Jędrzejewicz who later became a prime minister of the 2nd Republic.10 Grandfather Michał as a Russian renegade, class enemy and an officer of the reserve was arrested by the NKVD [the Stalinist secret police] after the Soviets, due to their agreement with Nazi Germany [the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact], invaded Polish territory after September 17th, 1939. He was transported to the Starobielsk camp along with other interned Polish officers and he shared the fate of the majority of them. It seems obvious that father was brought up according to a set of values that were typical for that social layer, and that particular environment. In a certain way, your father, Bohdan, re-lived the world that he was brutally deprived of…
In a certain way. It is also necessary to pay attention to one other important trope that could explain the special role the army played in the reality of the Empire of Odrobinia. Army service was the natural career move for males from the social milieu my father was brought up in. As far as I know, in Tsarist times all males from my family served in the military, with their active service always terminating at the rank of Lieutenant-General of cavalry or horse artillery. All of them were initially incorporated into the Corps des Pages in Sankt Petersburg, the prestigious military academy that existed until 1917. It was a cadet school that educated prospective officers for the purposes of the Imperial Guard. My grand-grand-grandfather Michaił Lwowicz, grand-grandfather Aleksiej Michaiłowicz and grandfather Michał Mikołaj Aleksiejewicz were also educated in that institution. To be frank, I have no idea what my grandfather’s final rank was, but it is known that he served
10
Janusz Jędrzejewicz (1885–1951) was a Polish politician and educator, a leader of the Sanacja political group, and Prime Minister of Poland from 1933 to 1934.
Sanacja faction (Sanation) was a Polish political movement that came to power after Józef Piłsudski’s May 1926 Coup d’État. Sanation took its name from his watchword—the moral “sanation” (healing) of the Polish body politic. 46
in General Denikin’s White pro-Tsarist corps, that formed a part of a larger anti-Bolshevik coalition. After 1918, when the Karasin estate was incorporated into the general territory of the 2nd Polish Republic, boys from my family, precisely — my father’s two older brothers Aleksander and Michał — were sent as 14-year olds to the cadet corps in England. Due to his younger age and the turn of historical events, my father did not take that route. However, he was brought up according to the values of patriotism, and also in the spirit of the scout movement. And, of course — what seems to be obvious in the context of the family-historical background that I described, respect or even adoration for the military, was an important factor at work. To sum things up, due to family traditions and the educational atmosphere of my father’s home, Odrobinia was formed as a highly “traditional” model of state. It is also necessary to briefly mention the German origins of parts of my family, which is connected to my father’s grandmother, Konstancja Helena Slezkin born von Broemsen. The family of the von Broemsen barons figures in a Swedish Gotha Almanac. They were called Balt Germans, partially Prussians, who attached their familial destiny to service for the Russian Empire. Baron Aleksander von Broemsen was grandmother Konstancja’s father — he was appointed as a military commissioner for the city of Łódź in 1863, in the very last phase of the January Uprising,11 and his activity is described in many written sources and web pages devoted to the history of the city of Łódź. As far as I know, close connections with that branch of the family (they were already living in Germany at that point), were continued until the outbreak of the Second World War. There can be no doubt that my father felt admiration for the culture and tradition of the German nation, above all for the German army, its fighting spirit and organization. That explicit affection resulted in the suggestions of Odrobinia being a kind of fascist country, as repeated by its enemies. Obviously, my father did not deny that, he just laughed 11
The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, parts of Ukraine, and western Russia) against the Russian Empire. It began on 22 January 1863 and lasted until the last insurgents were captured in 1865. 47
at that idea. Everything was filtered through a sense of humour — boyish at first, fully grown man’s in the later period, who really was a sincere humanist. It is simply incredible how the game dimension coexisted with, and intersected reality and various historical threads from the past…
I remember from the period of our playing together that father had a substantial weak spot for perhaps the most solitary and farcical of “the absolute rulers” of our times, The Emperor Haile Selassie. This interest could have been influenced by Ryszard Kapuściński’s book that describes the grotesque alienation of the last emperor of Ethiopia. This reminds me that there is one additional dimension of the figures which remains only partially examined. Many of the figures that were created by my father were inspired by real life characters. These were acquaintances, sometimes friends, or just people who passed through his life or came into his view and were distinct enough to inspire him into making up new characters for the Game. Father had great fun when he was showing me a recently produced figure — let’s say an attorney with some underworld connections, a pale guy with sketchy look — while stating amusedly that his close colleague Mirek Malcharek served as the inspiration for that particular type. While the main mobster, mafia boss registered in the State evidence as an entrepreneur in the construction industry, was called (no more, no less than) Leslie Shyman, who was inspired by one of the original participants in the Game, Fonsio Szymański, the way father remembered him. The State consists of its citizens, press, diplomacy and war, everything on paper. What are the material remnants of the State?
Of course, playing had its material side as expressed in the diplomatic notes, sometimes typewritten, handwritten at other times, by its armament, meaning all kinds of tanks, airplanes and ships, armies consisting of miniature soldiers manufactured by Airfix at that time, but above all by the paper figures which formed the society of the Odrobinian Empire.
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We made quite a lot of them in the 70s, but many of the earlier figures have survived to this day. Each of the players created figures, according to his own artistic abilities and skills, that would fit into the general social profile and respective country model. As far as I can remember, Niam Niam’s inhabitants were mostly activists and politicians. On the other hand, in Odrobinia — military figures seemed to dominate, including the elite of the generals who controlled the whole country, various clerks, diplomats wearing frock-coats and formal trousers with accompanying ladies in elegant attire. A kind of salon, in a word. There was also a clergy with the whole church hierarchy. Also, many secret service types and lots of undercover agents, recognizable by their dark suits, hats and dust-coats. The underworld was heavily represented as well: mafia bosses and their lawyers, various mob soldiers from their surroundings, “triggers” as they were known. Shady but suggestive types. There were many women connected with these circles too, C-grade movie actresses, strippers, porn stars and gangsters’ girlfriends. But there were also women of science, journalists, artists, writers, architects, doctors, feminists, also female spies working for the intelligence service. Summing things up, female representation in that largely patriarchal society was quite substantial. All the characters shown are quite vivid, as if playing a role in a movie. These were not nameless cutouts. Figures have their own individual properties, both on the level of their appearance and personality. Many figures have numbers ascribed to them. Based on the handwritten booklet “Name list of figures” that my father created, it is possible to establish the name and profession of each of those characters. But it would be an overstatement to claim that each of them has its own fully developed and individual history. Sometimes it was made up on the fly, according to momentary needs, when it was necessary for the Game to proceed in a certain direction. It is possible to say that the figures play the role of a decoration, a kind of stage setting.
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It is absolutely crucial to understand that my father was a graphic artist and a brilliant illustrator. That is why the figures he made are pieces of art in themselves. Bohdan Slezkin was inclined to paint microscopic buttons on the military uniform for many hours, using a magnifying glass. He was extremely well-read, and a great connoisseur of literature. Huge numbers of books were all over the house, while father continued to purchase new ones. He was a living inventory of knowledge on all kinds of topics, including history and military affairs, a real expert on flags and arms. Watching historical movies with my dad was a true nightmare. Figures are painted on both sides with an utmost precision and care for detail. The way they are drawn and painted leads one to think of comic books. Being only ca. 5 centimeters high, they are also quite interesting from a painting perspective, both in their original dimensions and in great enlargement. As time passed, we were also experimenting with new techniques — we made figures using cutout photographic elements and modified painting methods etc. Their clothing also draws one’s attention …
Definitely. The context of fashion forms another interesting layer of the project. Clothes and hairstyles reflect trends and aesthetics existing throughout all the decades the Game was played. Each figure possesses its own specific “dress code” that suggests who the character is, and what his or her occupation is. On the basis of the clothing, its style and the way it is worn by a character, it is possible to abstract some general notions of the occupations and positions in the social hierarchy of the Empire of Odrobinia. Figures that were inspired by stage stars from the 70s, some of them as obsolete and obscure as Edward Hulewicz and Krzysztof Cwynar could serve as examples here. There are iconic characters that were directly transplanted from literature and famous movies of the era. In the Empire of Odrobinia, there was also a place for citizens representing various sexual orientations. They can be found throughout the whole strata of the Odrobinian society.
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Tell us something more about the general atmosphere of your meetings. For example, it is known that the citizens had active cultural lives, many newspapers and magazines were published. What else happened during your meetings?
During our meetings, or inter-state relation practices, “rituals”, as I term them today, were most important. An official Inter-State Visit of the highest level was the primary ritual. They took place at least twice or three times a month with each session lasting for several hours, from about noon to 6–7 p.m. During those visits, guests were bringing their airplane in a bag, along with a government delegation, as well as some pre-established (regarding the level of quantity and overall character) military representation. Sometimes, it was a large number of military and war equipment. For example, Wojtek and Jurek [Siewierski] came over to our place they took out a large MIG airplane model out of the bag and “landed” it on our Divano air base — on the rug in the living room of our 37-square meter flat. Following that, they positioned their delegation and we positioned ours. It was followed by the delegation descending down the trap. They were coming down on special cardboard stairs under which our official government representation was already positioned, greeting the guests, while the members of the society stood nearby, cheering loudly. The next phase was communal singing of the national anthem, or alternatively played back from the record player in the form of a famous musical piece that has been adopted as an anthem. Then there was an official welcome, where delegations gave diplomatic speeches, using specific language as it has been used by the classics of the genre. Meanwhile, a military parade was waiting in the background, ready for a power show, or the flexing of national muscles, as we used to call it. From there, the figures were moved to the table where the groups were positioned facing each other, we sat behind them and conducted conversations on their behalf, retaining whole protocol, diplomatic language, titles, etc. The documents were laid out in that stage, usually agreed-upon earlier and prepared for their mutual ratification and
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signing. There were also some additional talks, with their conclusions and content being edited on the fly and typewritten as the points that were established during negotiations. After visitation and diplomatic ritual, a war ritual usually took place. We organized joint manoeuvres using our own army and the figures which our guests had brought along. There were various simulations of imaginary battles and tactical movements in various Odrobinian provinces with their names related to the areas of the flat they were located in. During our times, true games with real military and hostile activity between our countries were already a part of history, while joint manoeuvres were just a substitute of previous genuine war conflicts and acts of aggression. On the next agreed-upon date, we were visiting Niam Niam in Siewierskis’ flat in the Jelonki district and both rituals were repeated. Everything was accompanied by amusing bits of conversation, commentary, and the exchange of humorous remarks. Everything happened in a quite joyful and light-hearted atmosphere. How was the press created?
The press you mentioned was limited to making up and creating possible headlines when I played the Game. It did not exist as such. We produced mostly an overview of different titles and newspaper headlines which in a feverish, sometimes even hysterical manner, commented upon the hottest current events. Earlier in the “founding” period our fathers created newspapers that were inside note books which served as press. It featured original title cutouts from various newspapers, and encompassed various topics, from politics to sports and culture. There were handwritten texts, both with loyalist undertones, and venomous analyses and pieces of reporting from countries that were antagonistic. Principally, criticism revolved around ZMRS. You could also find incredible collage works that used images from the “real” press. In the first period, the Game most probably had an audience observing it, without directly participating. There was a whole network of friends that supplied players with specially produced pieces of armament, various weapons etc. I can recall that Andrzej
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Ociepko made tanks out of matchboxes for them, while someone else was making airplanes, but when I played the Game with my father and both Siewierskis, there was no audience. We can say that the physical meetings were, for us, a chance for an intellectual feast. Did any representatives of the underworld also participate in the celebrations?
Oh no, absolutely not. The underworld was a bit of the country’s internal social landscape, created especially for the Game by my father and myself. The very act of inventing and creating these types was great fun. They served to add some color to the society of the Empire of Odrobinia. However, it happened that figures representing the underworld were employed as intermediaries for various provocations of a largely political character. For example, once we set up a manifestation of communist storm troopers from Anglandia just in order to generate certain political facts. Storm troopers were to appear as Anglandia citizens. But we didn’t know what Anglandia citizens looked like in reality — because, they were the creation of another impermanent player, and all of our contacts were possible through Niam Niam solely — so I devised their external appearance and sketched them. Thus, the manifestation was inspired by ourselves in the first place, and then dispersed. In our official statements, Anglandia storm troopers were blamed not only for attempts at creating internal havoc, but also of contacts with the criminal underworld. Of course, everything was done in order to be able to take a strong and consistent position against a miserable and decidedly innocent Anglandia. That situation can be traced back to the official diplomatic notes to Anglandian government, where we informed them with an appropriate dose of false concern that, despite numerous warnings, the situation had become so unbearable and impossible to tolerate that from such-and-such time our countries were at war. And, obviously enough, Anglandia is to be blamed. They were sending desperate notes through Niam Niam
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which served as a mediating force between ourselves and the powerless Anglandia. They wished to soothe the anger of mighty Odrobinia. It makes sense to add that the whole provocation was performed in cooperation with the neutral and deeply concerned Empire of Niam Niam. That’s what it looked like. Apart from those Anglanders that I falsified, I am still in possession of the whole line-up of the Niam Niam embassy from the 1970s. One Niam Niam citizen from the 50s lives in Odrobinia as well, he got his Odrobinian citizenship in one instant, but that’s an entirely different story… Collaboration with your own father must have been difficult, even if seemingly you ruled over Odrobinia…
I don’t recall any frictions or conflicts while we were creating the situations. And, of course, no rivalry over who ruled Odrobinia and whose word was the final one. We have come to a very important point here — it was only, and all the time about playing the game. Father kept stimulating my imagination. He tweaked me in our common act of devising and plotting political intrigues, and I was all in for it. Everything we did, we did together. What’s more, he was doing things in a way that it seemed to me that I was behind all these decisions and movements, but he was obviously the spiritus movens here. Nevertheless, I fell for that illusion and it was very pleasant to do so. At the same time, I still felt this tongue-in-cheek lack of seriousness and humour, the “hey it’s just a fun game, let’s have some good time together. Taking the reality and yourself with a grain of salt was something which he tried to pass onto me to a certain degree, and I hope that way of looking at the world has shaped me and, in some barely conscious manner, influenced my later choices. Among other things, it also concerns my father perceiving himself as a creative person and an artist. As I already mentioned, father was a brilliant illustrator and his sketches were superb as well. The problem of egocentrism, ambition
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and determination in showing one’s work was a particular thread which repeatedly reappeared in our conversations. Especially in the later period, when I started to build my own artistic awareness and wasn’t always able to retain that ironic distance. He did not treat ‘The Game of States’ as an artistic act or as a form of a personal manifesto. He treated that activity as a creative form of entertainment and a sort of intellectual gymnastics. And, what’s even more important, a pleasant way to spend time with friends and with his own son. This is why it is interesting to look at the sheer quality of the artifacts that were manufactured on the occasion, just like that. Casually. Nevertheless, a lot of honest work went into the whole process. The conceptual level of playing the Game and the level of the visual component of the figures, as well as the literary level of the notes and assorted documentation, I’d call remarkably refined. Playing with conventions, the linguistic pastiche of the world of diplomacy, the brilliant rendering of political cynicism, that was highlighted in a very inventive and often funny way — all of that was very creative. My father and his friend Jurek Siewierski, apart from the fact that they worked professionally in creative professions — one was an illustrator, the other a writer — catalyzed their intellectual energies and creative potential in the world of the Game. The first phase of the Game was interrupted in the 1950s when your father Bohdan was arrested by the communist secret service [UB — State Security]. Do you remember the background of that situation?
I have a certain document here, and will read you an excerpt of it: ‘The Imperialistic enemies of Peoples’ Poland continue to find their support base in our country. They dislike politics which aim at socialism and an alliance with the global working class. They cannot be reconciled with the fact that the peoples’ authority deprived them of substantial income drawn from the oppression of the masses working in their factories, country estates and other means that they not long ago still had in their possession. This is why, at each step they
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take, and using every method they have at their disposal, they defame the accomplishments of the working class, its constructive effort, and influence our youth with their outward hostility. That was the atmosphere in which the accused lived, that is the atmosphere they got saturated with.” That was more or less, the accusatory background that flows through the documents I have at my disposal. Bohdan Aleksander Slezkin and his friends organized clandestinely a subversive group with the purpose of harming the new socialist country. They were distributing illegal leaflets defaming the achievements of the working class, calling for cultivating resentment and patriotism and values hailing back to the times that have been justly and mercilessly swept away with the broom of communism. They were collecting and keeping illegal firearms in their possession, and attempted to derail the so-called “blue” train from Moscow to Berlin with a Soviet military contingent which was almost a suicide in itself. He spent more than four years in extreme conditions in various “political” prisons. Do you remember any tales about the 1960s period of the Game? Did the State exist in the temporal slot between your father Bohdan getting released from prison, and the moment where you and Wojtek became initiated into it?
Nothing specific. Well, father was telling me about reconciliation with Niam Niam, there were also documents from the early 60s proving that the new chapter in interstate relations had been announced, but I don’t remember the specifics of the game in that period. Can you recall the moment when the Game was over, the time you said goodbye to ‘The Game of States? What is the most important thing about the State for you today?
In 1977, I left Warsaw for the Visual Arts High School in Nałęczów. At first, I was coming back home for the weekends rather often, but then the visits were becoming increasingly less frequent. I was sucked in by the Nałęczów atmosphere, new friends, girlfriends, that sort of stuff. Also, I began to draw and paint in earnest, learn new techniques
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and my own possibilities. Like most kids, I’d lived with my parents up until that time, and suddenly I felt a taste of freedom, what it’s like to be far from parental care. So, in a natural way, we stopped playing ‘The Game of States’. So, there was no formal goodbye. Exactly as there was no spectacular act of presenting the Game to us, there was no spectacular finale to it. Unnoticeably, we stopped playing it, overwhelmed with our new affairs; the very nature of what is known as growing up. But…
After many years, it turned out that ‘The Game of States’ was highly formative experience. Perhaps not fully internalized at that time, but strong enough to survive inside me, and to come back as an autobiographic project that was unplanned and rather unexpected, to be frank. It is an intense and a quite new encounter with my father. It turned out that the Empire of Odrobinia survived, but today it is a country where the normal perception of time simply doesn’t hold. Although rooted in the genesis of a game and a social play, a country with a particular political system, structures, citizens, and history, at present exists and functions in a parallel reality, in all dimensions that imagination can provide. As such, Odrobinia is a certain idea that still has the potential for growth, as long as present and future generations of depositaries of the Game and its history will be willing to go on playing it.
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Create your OWN State !
The Short Story of a Tiny Empire — 1945–2014. Bohdan and Michał Slezkin This publication is an accompaniment to the exhibition ‘The State’ produced by The City Gallery BWA Zielona Góra, 14.11.–7.12.2014
Exhibition Michał Slezkin — The State [Państwo] Guests: Paweł Althamer (The Visit — ritual/installation created in collaboration with Michał Slezkin, 2013, courtesy of Neugerriemschneider Gallery, Berlin) Szymon Rogiński, photos from the series: Life in the Tiny Empire (The War Games and Window Shopping…), 2013 Director of The City Gallery BWA Zielona Góra: Wojciech Kozłowski Curator: Krzysztof Gutfrański Coordination: Karolina Spiak Installation and technical realization: Marcin Kubiak
Publication Edited by Krzysztof Gutfrański Designed and produced by Błażej Pindor Photography by Szymon Rogiński Translated by Jacek Staniszewski Proofreading: Judson Hamilton Printed and bound by Drukarnia Argraf, Warszawa ISBN 978-83-61440-56-7 (EN) © 2014 BWA Zielona Góra
The City Gallery BWA Zielona Góra Al. Niepodległości 19 65-048 Zielona Góra tel. 683253726 www.bwazg.pl BWA Gallery is a city-funded institution.
photographs Szymon Rogiński, from the series: Life in the Tiny Empire, 2013 p. 61 pp. 70–71 pp. 78–79 p. 80
Supportive Lawyer The War Games Window Shopping Faster, Pussycat!
Michał Slezkin, Installations from the series The State [Państwo], various sizes and media, photographed by Szymon Rogiński, 2014 pp. 62–63 pp. 64–65 pp. 66–67 pp. 68–69 pp. 72–73 pp. 74–75 pp. 76–77
The Murder of Crime Writer, Florence Tarr The Visit The Rainbow Return to the Homeland of the Lost Tourist The Ambush Tilelandian Refugees Batchcity Negotiations
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Spis rzeczy
Zosia Dzierżawska, Monika Powalisz The Alvarez Case Krzysztof Gutfrański Game of States
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Michał Slezkin To Combat Boredom and For Fun 30 Michał Slezkin in conversation with Krzysztof Gutfrański The Little Wars
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Szymon Rogiński Photographs
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