Are We East or West? by Res Publica

Special English Edition

ISSN: 1230-2155. Free of charge. Supported by the International Visegrad Fund

Are we East or West?

A joint publication with: Host (CZ), Kritika & Kontext (SK), Magyar Lettre International (HU) and eurozine.com

Zajac: Culture since 1989 CzapliĹ&#x201E;ski: Germans in Polish literature Philosophy: Tischner Poetry: Europink On neighbours Baran and Csalog Abraham: Can the EU defend itself? Interview with Aleksander KwaĹ&#x203A;niewski

ts te n

Editorials

6 Does Central Europe still exist? Carl Henrik Fredriksson

6 Życie w czworokącie Magdalena M. Baran 7 ***, Marek Sečkař 8 ***, Éva Karádi 10 ***, Samuel Abráham

Are We East or West 12 Anti-communism in a post-communist country. How progressive tendencies become regressive Marek Sečkař 17 e whereabouts of the imprisoned Polish memory Wojciech Przybylski 21 e cartography of national rites Máté Zombory 34 Slovakia: Ready for the future? František Novosád

Aesthetics 40 In the windshield, in the rear-view mirror Peter Zajac 43 e chances of cultural renewal in Hungary András Bozóki 51 Deutschland: e image of Germans in Polish literature Przemysław Czapliński 63 Central Europe as a literary category Peter A. Bílek

Neighbours 68 You’re only laughing at yourselves! Polish stereotypes of the Visegrad brotherhood Magdalena M. Baran 75 What are the Czechs like? Zsolt Csalog

Books 80 What is the Hungarian? Csaba Dupcsik 82 e new orientalism? Mark Eber 84 Stories of a high shore Małgorzata Mostek 86 When there is no one to ask Katarzyna Kazimierowska 88 Milan Kundera as a writer Jan Němec 90 e borders of imagination Pavel Janoušek 93 Let politics name Paweł Marczewski

Europe – discussions 98 Can the EU defend itself – against itself? Samuel Abrahám 103 Discussion about the EU Eva Karádi, Marek Sečkař, Wojciech Przybylski

Politics 106 Visegrad Group yesterday and tomorrow – Interview with Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Artur Celiński 109 e meaning of Visegrad Group in Hungary – Interview with Peter Balazs, Eva Karádi 113 e dynamics of equilibrium – Interview with Iveta Radičova, Samuel Abráham 118 What did the Visegrád Group give the Czech Republic? Lubomír Kopeček

Philosophy 120 Conscience of time of changes Zbigniew Stawrowski 122 Toward ethical substance Józef Tischner

Poetry and Prose 126 Europink Parti Nagy Lajos 129 Screening Gábor Németh 137 A child of fire Jan Balaban

Notes about Partners 144 Eurozine 144 HOST Magazine 145 Kritika & Kontext 146 Magyar Lettre International 146 Res Publica Nowa 147 Villa Decius Association

150

Abstracts

e editorials

Does Central Europe still exist? CARL HENRIK FREDRIKSSON Editor-in-Chief Eurozine Does Central Europe still exist? Disregarding for a moment those characteristics usually put forward as the foundations of the contested concept of Central Europe – literary and cultural heritage, befriended mentalities and common historical experiences – and looking instead at the unsentimental realpolitik currently conducted by the countries in the region, there can be no doubt about the answer to this question: No, Central Europe is no more. On 1 March 2009, the Visegrad Four met to discuss possible common strategies to deal with the impact of the global economic crisis on Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and especially Hungary. Opening the meeting, the Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány presented a plan to save the countries’ economies and to avoid political tensions and the threat of mass-migration provoked by the crisis. “We can’t accept a new Iron Curtain”, said Gyurcsány. It didn’t take long before the other three in the quartet

Życie w Czworokącie MAGDALENA M. BARAN managing editor of the issue Res Publica Nowa Niedawno w Gazecie Wyborczej natknęłam się na dziennikarskie dywagacje z kim to też Polska powinna się trzymać w Unii, gdzie szukać strategicznych partnerów, 6

voiced loud protests against this attempt to amalgamate the V4 countries. Slovak prime minister Robert Fico explained that the tendency to treat the states in the East as a unity only arose when Austrian banks encountered problems in some eastern European countries and gave the impression that there was a good West and a bad East. He added that, “the problems of the Hungarians are a thousand times worse than those of Slovakia! And considering that we belong to the Eurozone, even the Czechs and the Poles have more severe problems than we have in Slovakia.” Later, Jacques Rupnik ironically called these undisguised misgivings about common identity and the refusal to take concerted action, “the grandest Central European declaration of solidarity since 1989”... �is type of narrow-minded realpolitik, driven by nationalist and populist agendas, makes transnational publishing endeavours such as this issue of Res Publica Nowa all the more important. In this context, the question whether Central Europe still exists or whether the Visegrad Group is a viable unity, becomes less consequential. Cross-border exchange of political, philosophical and aesthetic ideas is a way to forge new identities and put them to the test; a realm in which transnational values and principles – or transnational practices if you like – can be defined, shaped and reshaped. �is practice is its own question – and its own answer. It has room for commonalities as well as differences, for unity as well as diversity.

z kim zawierać sojusze. Autor gładko prześlizgnął się po, promowanej przez polski rząd, polityce Partnerstwa Wschodniego, rzucił okiem na Paryż, Londyn i Berlin, jednym tchem wymienił niedawno przyjęte do Wspólnoty Rumunię i Bułgarię, by w końcu zahaczyć piórem nawet o Bałkany. Poczułam niedosyt, czegoś mi zabrakło. Oto w katalogu potencjalnych partnerów pominięto kraje, które ze względów historycznych i kulturowych (nie wspominając już o najzwyklejszej lekcji geografii) są sobie bliskie, a które od ponad osiemnastu lat łączy zapominany często sojusz, zwany Grupą Wyszehradzką.

Owszem, coś tam każdy słyszał, coś się pamięta, ale… To chyba tyle. W naszych dyskusjach często sytuujemy się na linii Wschód-Zachód, stawiając pytania do którego z tych magicznych biegunów bliżej jest naszej części Europy, rzadko spoglądamy jednak na wzajemne relacje środkowoeuropejskie, na wpływy kultur, wspólne osiągnięcia, naszej polityki czy gospodarki. Wielokrotnie pozostajemy na poziomie spoglądania na siebie nawzajem przez pryzmat utartych stereotypów, uparcie pytając: skąd tak naprawdę jesteśmy, ze Wschodu czy z Zachodu? Czy rzeczywiście uparliśmy się lekceważyć Wyszehrad? Na ile to niechęć spowodowana dziedzictwem lat życia, w przeznaczonej nam wówczas „przyjaźni”, za Żelazną Kurtyną, na ile zwyczajna ignorancja? Mimo licznych programów wspierających ożywienie relacji wciąż wiemy tyle, co nic. Niewątpliwie stan ten zawdzięczamy również mediom, które wprawdzie chętnie opowiedzą nam o kolejnych lokalnych aferkach czy kryzysie w… Koziej Wólce, ale sprawy wyszehradzkie relacjonują mniej niż skąpo (o ile w ogóle). Ignorancja w tym względzie potrafi doprowadzić nawet do pomylenia Słowacji ze Słowenią. Mamy wprawdzie spotkania promujące folklor naszych narodów, w kulturze o krok dalej idziemy dzięki inicjatywom takim, jak choćby (odbywający się we

wszystkich krajach Czworokąta) Festiwal Filmu Wyszehradzkiego, coraz mocniejsze ożywienie daje się zaobserwować także w środowiskach akademickich. Wydarzenia te są jednak znane lokalnie, bardzie gruntując istniejące relacje, niż promując ich poszerzenie. Zbyt wiele pozostaje nadal w cieniu niewiedzy lub stereotypu CK Monarchii, której poddanymi byli nie tylko nasi południowi sąsiedzi, ale i część Polaków (w kronikach wielu małopolskich rodzin można odnaleźć liczne świadectwa mieszania się narodowości, kultur, a także niezwykłej mobilności naszych ziomków). Skąd zatem jesteśmy i dokąd tak naprawdę zmierzamy? Czy – jak w okresie podpisanie deklaracji wyszehradzkiej – w Europie jest nam ze sobą po drodze, czy też środkowoeuropejskie relacje stanowią jedynie niepotrzebny balast, na drodze do partykularnych celów politycznych danej społeczności? Gdzie stykają się nasze kultury, gdzie nasze polityki? O czym świadczą nasze narodowe narracje i co sobie nawzajem mogą opowiedzieć? Czy wzmacnianie znaczenia Wyszehradzkiego Czworokąta, w kwestiach innych niż szeroko rozumiana współpraca kulturalna, jest nam nieodzowne? Na te i inne pytania staramy się opowiedzieć w specjalnym numerze kwartalnika Res Publica Nowa, do którego współtworzenia zaprosiliśmy wiodące czasopisma intelektualne z Czech, Słowacji i Węgier.

***

V jednu chvíli sice uzavřely účelové spojenectví, ale jinak si všechny hrabou na vlastním písečku a žádné zvláštní ohledy ke svým souputníkům necítí. Pokud se po sobě navzájem ohlížejí, pak většinou ne proto, aby se navzájem inspirovaly; mnohem spíše u svých sousedů hledají potvrzení vlastní výjimečnosti. Někteří lidé snad toto potvrzení také nalézají, kdo má ale jen trochu pronikavý zrak, uvědomí si, že při pohledu k sousedům nenalezne většinou nic jiného než neradostný obraz sebe sama. Je tomu tak: pokud země Visegrádské skupiny něco sdílejí, pak hlavně stud ze sebe sama a touhu dostat se co nejdřív do “lepší” společnosti, třeba i po zádech svých sousedů.

MAREK SEČKAR Editor-in-Chief HOST Magazine Co mají společného země Visegrádské skupiny? Někdo by řekl, že především negativa. Společně a téměř ve shodnou dobu se sice vynořily z hlubin totality a společně se vydaly na klopotnou cestu ke standardní demokratické společnosti, nedá se ale říct, že by tvořily kdovíjak harmonickou rodinku.

respublica editorials

My nejsme jako oni, ujišťují čeští představitelé Brusel, když se v okolí stane něco nepěkného, s čím by i oni mohli být spojováni – to samozřejmě jen do chvíle, než se na jejich vlastním dvorečku provalí něco mnohem horšího. Vytáhnout z tohoto propletence zášti, nedůvěry, vzájemného pohrdání a egoismu i nějaké pozitivní hodnoty se může zdát jako nadlidský výkon. Přitom ale stačí tak málo: přestat se na Visegrádskou skupinu dívat jako na společenství zemí, které jsou někde, kde být nechtějí, a snaží se co nejrychleji dostat někam

jinam, a místo něj nabídnout koncepci zemí, kterým je jednou provždy souzeno obývat tento zvláštní, neklidný, neohraničený, ale současně i nesmírně inspirující prostor mezi Západem a Východem; navzájem spolu soupeřit, ale tím i navzájem sdílet svoji historii; vést vzájemné kulturní války, ale tím i vytvářet společné kulturní hodnoty. Jinými slovy, pojetí zemí definovaných tím, co byly a co být chtějí, nahradit pojetím zemí definovaných tím, co jsou. Nechť je toto číslo časopisu Res Publica Nowa jedním z kroků, jež bude třeba učinit na této cestě.

***

Zombory Máté, a fiatal a, az anBlokk című legfiatalabb magyar társadalomtudományi folyóirat főszerkesztője tanulmányában abba ad elemző betekintést, hogyan igyekeztek a magyar államfők 1989 óta ünnepi beszédeikben választ adni erre a kérdésre. Bozóki András, úgy is, mint pár évig gyakorló kulturális miniszter, arra keres választ, hogyan lehetne jó kultúrpolitikával a legtöbbet kihozni ebből a Kelet és Nyugat közötti sajátos elhelyezkedésünkből. Balázs Péter külügyminiszter aktuális viszonyulásunkat vázolja fel a keleti és nyugati szomszédokhoz, a visegrádi partnerekhez és az euro-atlanti szövetségesekhez. A könyvismertetések szerzői, Dupcsik Csaba és Éber Márk Áron olyan könyvekkel foglalkoznak, amelyek a magyar identitáskeresés kérdéseit járják körül újra az elmúlt években, illetve azt vizsgálják, hol is helyezkedünk el a Nyugat-Kelet lejtőn. Németh Gábor írása az egész térség számára megkerülhetetlen lusztráció problémáját világítja át az irodalom nagyon sokrétű, árnyalt és szubjektív eszközeivel. Parti Nagy Lajos Europink című verse sajátos költői látásmóddal és játékos nyelvi eszközökkel járja körül ezt a mi Európához tartozásunkat ebben a szép, új világban.

ÉVA KARÁDI Editor-in-Chief Magyar Lettre Internationale Kelet vagyunk vagy Nyugat? Ezt kérdezik ennek a visegrádi folyóiratok összefogásából létrejött különszámnak a szerkesztői. Már a többes szám is biztató, mert azt sugallja, hogy egy közös térség vagyunk, amelyről közösen állíthatunk valamit. Nyilván a térség minden egyes országa külön-külön is megpróbálhat szembenézni ezzel a kérdéssel, aminthogy meg is teszi a laphoz hozzáadott egyes kontribúciókkal. Valamikor, a 80-as években, a híres Közép-Európavitában, amelyben olyan kiváló írók és gondolkodók, mint Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera, Milan Šimečka és Konrád György kísérelték meg ennek a szovjet blokk öleléséből kibontakozni próbáló térségnek az újradefiniálását, egyértelmű lett volna a válasz: nem Kelet-Európa vagyunk és nem is Nyugat-Európa, hanem Közép-Európa. A 20 évvel ezelőtti fordulattal, amelynek eufóriáját minden történelmi előzményével és kölcsönös sztereotípiákkal terheltségével együtt idézzük fel Csalog Zsolt egyedülállóan empatikus és ironikus pillanatképével egy kocsmaasztal mellől, minden másképp lett. 8

respublica editorials

*** SAMUEL ABRAHÁM Editor-in-Chief Kritika & Kontext Jedno z dedičstiev komunistickej minulosti Vyšehradskej štvorky je fakt, ako málo o sebe vieme. Väčšina populácie má kusé znalosti z histórie ostatných národov, nanajvýš pozná niektoré kultúrne celebrity. Zistili sme to po roku 1989 a platí to dodnes. Počas komunistickej éry naše režimy netúžili po zmysluplnej spolupráci. Po roku 1989 sa naše krajiny netúžili navzájom spoznávať, ale radšej sa vrhli na dovtedy zakázané ovocie – západ. Čo teda po dvoch desaťročiach majú spoločné naše spoločnosti – dnes už demokratické, prosperujúce, bezpečné a členské krajiny EÚ? Čo určite zdieľame je silná dávka nacionalizmu, šovinizmu a korupcie. Naše spoločné dejiny sú príliš bolestivé a pochmúrne, aby sme z nich uplietli pozitívnu víziu pre budúcnosť. No a vzácne hodnoty, ktoré reprezentujú ľudia ako Havel, Michnik, Gőnz či Kusý sú síce

prítomné, no nie dominantné. A napriek tomu mnohí cítime potrebu viac sa spoznať a vzájomne spolupracovať. Naše kultúry sú príliš bohaté aby sme sa o ne nepodelili. Vieme však tiež, že sa nemôžeme spoliehať na politikov a nechať si nimi diktovať naše vzťahy. Ich hlavne motivujú osobné a politické záujmy. Vieme tiež, že úzka spolupráca v rámci V4 je odsúdená len na aktivitu relatívne malej skupiny ľudí. Existuje však spôsob, ako konať. Disidenti v Čechách pred rokom 1989 vytvorili koncept paralelného polis – spôsobu, ako občianska spoločnosť môže prežiť a fungovať napriek ohrozujúcemu komunistickému režimu. Ak sa dnes pozrieme na vývoj v našich spoločnostiach – nielen v rámci V4 ale aj na západ od nás – paralelný polis by mohol byť opäť prirodzený spôsob komunikácie medzi vzdelanými menšinami v rámci jednotlivých spoločností, ale aj navonok. Je možné, že to budeme potrebovať kvôli vlastnému kultúrnemu prežitiu. Naše myslenie, ideály, nádeje, spôsoby a vtipy sú podobné. Prečo ich nezdieľať napriek politike a politikom?

a are we east or west

Anti-communism

in a post-communist country. How progressive tendencies become regressive MAREK SEČKAŘ Repeatedly and without any clear result, a debate is carried out in the Czech Republic about whether we are still a post-communist country. Authors of different viewpoints who usually try to gather up arguments proving why we are not longer a post-communist country, often justify their opinion by the fact that nearly twenty years after the Velvet Revolution there are now just very few social problems we have to deal with which are directly connected with the communist period of our history. �is argument seems strong: the basic problems of Czech political and social life can be indeed considered a fruit of the last two decades rather than a result of the previous phase. From this point of view, we really are not a post-communist country. �is approach, however, can be misleading. After all, not many of the troubles we had to deal with in the last twenty years can be considered a direct result of the previous communist rule; rather than that, they were an accompanying effect of the political and economic transformation, and of the mistakes or cases of deliberate power abuse which took place in its course. It seems, consequently, that to label these phenomena with the epithet “post-communist” is somewhat imprecise. In any case, if we want to determine whether our society is or isn’t post-communist, we have to define post-communism in some way. It is possible to approach this task in this or that way, but soon we will find out that the only more or less coherent definition is the subjective one: a post-communist society is that which considers itself as such. If we take a cursory look at the topics of the current Czech political and social discourse, we find out 12

that communism is discussed very frequently and on very different levels – starting with insightful historical debates and ending with hysterical shrieks and insults. We have as many as two institutes studying the crimes of communism; we have the lustration laws and the scandals concerning the co-operation with the state security; we have the StB archives and also the heated debate about the manner and measure of making them public; we have trials against the culprits, but also decorations and words of appreciation for the victims. On TV, we have nostalgic programmes in which we are assured that it wasn’t really that bad, that it even had some charm of its own. And, last but not least, we have the satisfaction and pride of those who went through something very special, who know better and whose experience cannot easily be rivalled. �e only problem is that so far we haven’t been able to make good use of this experience and pass it on. And we have also one very peculiar phenomenon, occurring here, there and everywhere in many different forms. �is phenomenon is deliberately misused anti-communism. Don’t be mistaken: by considering anti-communism a negative phenomenon, I don’t have in mind reliable investigation of the past, attempts at finding a suitable answer to the question of why our society so easily succumbed to a dangerous ideology and why we accepted this ideology unreserwedly reserves; nor do I have in mind attempts at finding, identifying and – if possible – punishing the perpetrators of individual crimes as well as the originators of wider noxious contexts. It is not my intention either to nod in agreement to the current Czech president Václav Klaus, who some time ago criticized the “blind anti-communism” of Czech dissidents of

the 1970s and 1980s, saying that it was rather the “simple Czech man” with his outward approval, but inner Schweikesque resistance and factual parasitism, who was instrumental in deposing totalitarianism and establishing democracy. By anti-communism I mean certain tendencies noticeable among the Czech political representation and often taken over by the intellectual circles. Here, repeated and often unsubstantiated references to the communist past have become a fashion, a cheap, easily accessible and copiously used means of political struggle, an irrational argument, a cloak which takes the attention away from real problems and subsequently impedes and delays their solution. �is is the phenomenon we shall deal with in the subsequent text.

Revolutionaries in retirement In order to analyse this phenomenon in a more detailed way, we have to mention the specific position of the communist party in the Czech Republic. In most countries of the former Eastern Bloc, the respective communist parties were after the changes of 1989 forced to deal with the dilemma of their future existence. Should they learn their lesson from the past and try to rectify their negative image? Should they keep to Marxism-Leninism as the only valid ideology? Should they admit the crimes and mistakes committed on behalf of this ideology? Should they get rid of their unpopular leaders and offer the public new and more promising faces? Most parties really attempted some kind of transformation. �ey changed their names and henceforth strove to become regular political parties within the democratic system. Some were even successful and now can be considered normal parties of socialdemocratic orientation. Others, on the other hand, were not able to carry out a convincing transformation and in the course of several years disappeared from political life. Czech communists – possibly because of the lack of any reformist wing within the party – approached the problem in their own way: in order to save their image and future political existence, they did virtually nothing. �ey preserved

a name containing the word “communist”, they refused to renounce Marxism-Leninism as their ideology, they refused to renounce communist society as their political goal, and they refused to renounce class struggle as the means of its accomplishment. It is true that they removed some of their highest representatives, but they didn’t accompany this change with any inner reflection. �ey still consider the forty years of communist rule as a period which, beside a couple of “errors”, cannot be reproached for anything. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that by their passivity the Czech communists did the best thing to survive. Not only are they still operating as a fully functioning parliamentary party; beside that, they enjoy a stable support oscillating between twelve and fifteen percent, but sometimes reaching up to twenty percent of votes. �eoretically, according to their statutes and their electoral programme, the Czech communists are, just as their ancestors, a revolutionary party striving for radical social and economic changes, unrestricted seizure of power and instalment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the practice is different: in reality, the communist party offers no positive programme and in the political struggle it contents itself with putting occasional obstructions to the efforts of other parties (NATO membership, negotiations with the European Union, the problems concerning the American radar, etc.). In the areas which are not manifestly controversial from its point of view, the party even appears to be a rather reasonable political force with which it is possible to enter into constructive negotiations. One can hardly imagine that in this condition and with these people in charge, the party could become a vanguard of the proletarian revolution, seize power by force, hold it in the long term and undertake profound changes in the whole society. It is much likelier that it is more concerned with a stable existence within the present system, a reasonable share of power and a comfortable life for its representatives. How is it possible that a party showing such a wide gap between its declared goals and its actual policy can not only survive, but also keep a stable sup-

respublica are we east or west

port of the voters? After all, it has no noticeable public figures at its disposal, it is not able to contribute in a fundamental way to the debate about the painful problems of Czech society, even spends much less money on promotion than its political rivals – briefly, in many different respects is simply having a free ride. It is possible that the answer to this question must be sought not in the communist party itself, but in the postures adopted towards communists by the representatives of other parties and also by a substantial part of Czech society. �e communist party is officially ostracized. Most so-called democratic parties have in their regulations banned themselves from co-operating with the communists on the parliamentary level. Preventing the communists from seizing the power again is generally declared as one the main political goals, in fact one of the main conditions of any negotiations to which all the other points are subordinated. �e communists are not considered an adequate partner in debate, and they are repeatedly marked as one of the biggest menaces the Czech democracy is forced to face. Any possible change of this radical posture is conditioned by several requirements: the communist party must first distance itself from its past, undertake to respect the rules of the democratic political competition and excuse itself unambiguously for the crimes (not “errors”) it committed in the past. In other words, the Czech communists are required to do exactly what the communist parties in other countries did: to become someone else and with this new identity defend their existence in the political struggle. Logically, the communists don’t want to do anything of the kind, since they would become their own worst enemies. �e existing constellation provides them, at least for the time being, with a cosy existence without the necessity of inventing and carrying out any political programme. What’s more, they realize that the never-ending attacks from the outside provide their party with the necessary drive, the ethos they are not able to produce by natural creative work from the inside. For this reason, the Czech communist party is negativist in more than one sense. 14

�is ever-present ostracism gives the communists one more advantage. In the pervasive atmosphere of scepticism and disappointment with the political life, which Václav Havel once fittingly called “gloomy mood” and which has since probably become a chronic disease of the Czech society, the communist party is, thanks to its isolation, the only political force which is not compromised, which has no share in the omnipresent dirt. It is a party which, in spite of its strong electorate, has never in the last twenty years participated in real exertion of power; thus it is a party which has never had the opportunity to “betray” the voters, to breach the pre-election promises, and as such it remains in the eyes of some people a paragon of purity and uncorruptedness. Let’s add to this the fact that the communist ideology has always enjoyed relatively strong support in Czech society (as distinct from other countries, here it is by no means a Soviet import), and suddenly there is no more need to ask why the Czech communists can always rely on a decent number of faithful voters.

e Brno crisis �ese facts are obvious. Why, in this case, do the “democratic” political representatives adhere to their ruthless verbal attacks and theatrically declared anticommunist standpoints, if their main goal consists in, as they say, putting a definite end to the heritage of communism? Wouldn’t it be better to adopt a more conciliatory approach, to engage with the communists in a democratic discussion and let them defend their opinions? Wouldn’t it be even advantageous for these parties to leave the communists a place in the decision-making process and to dispel this way their aura of the only unstained ones? If we look at the situation more closely we see that with only minor exceptions the harsh anti-communist attacks of Czech politicians are rather verbal than material, they aim rather at symbols than at the core and as such they are themselves symbolic and, above all, totally toothless. Really toothless? �ey can only be called such as far as the very problem of communism in the Czech

society and, in general, of its dealing with the past is concerned. In reality, it can also be considered as a well meditated activity whose goal is to take the attention away from the real social problems or to gain some more points in the everyday political struggle. Sometimes, these efforts take really grotesque shapes. Let me mention an example which was discussed by the Czech newspapers for several months. At a stone’s throw from the place where I live, in the Brno district of Královo Pole, is a small hidden park and in it a modest memorial to the soldiers of the Red Army who died while liberating this part of the city in April 1945. For years after 1989, the locality was neglected and nobody seemed to mind that the monument was decorated by the symbol of the Red Army, i.e. the five-pointed star with hammer and sickle within. But not long ago, the district council realized that the forgotten place was a shame of the neighbourhood and decided to renovate the monument. �ey asked an opinion of the office for the preservation of historical monuments and were advised to restore the memorial as it was, i.e. including the Red Army symbols. �is is how the council decided to proceed and a private company was charge with the task. So far, so good. However, one of the councillors, a member of the very party which actually made the decision, didn’t agree with it and started to act on his own. Armed with a grinding machine, he set for the monument and ostentatiously removed the hated symbols from it; when the police arrived, he ostentatiously let himself being arrested and ostentatiously paid the imposed fine (a rather symbolical one in view of his real income). �e pragmatism of this conduct leapt to the eye. A generally unknown local politician carries out a seemingly heroic act, which nevertheless means no real risk to him, and merits at once such an interest of the media that he would never be able to gain after years of keen political work. It is surprising then what kind of reaction this deliberate act caused not only among politicians, but also in the intellectual circles. �e district council insisted on their previous decision and placed the hammer and sickle star back on the monument (now not cut

in stone, but a bronze one). But a group of people formed itself around the self-appointed anti-communist who were not willing to accept any such thing. �ey argued that the symbol of the Red Army was a simple star without the hammer and sickle (which is not true), said that in a country which had been devastated by the communists for forty years such symbols on monuments are inadmissible (as if there were not dozens of similar memorials throughout the country) and declared that it was as if a monument to German soldiers killed in the Second World War were equipped with a Swastika. Following the questions of some journalists the incident was condemned by the Russian embassy, whereupon certain voices started to compare the “Brno crisis” with the situation created in connection with the transport of a Soviet monument in Estonia’s Tallinn some time before. However, if this comparison shows something, it is mostly just the irrationality and impropriety of this anti-communist hysteria. First of all, as distinct from Estonia, in the Czech Republic there is no significant Russian minority. And second, while in Estonia we can really discuss whether the Soviet soldiers who pushed the Germans out of the country were liberators or invaders, in the Czech Republic it is evident that the Soviet soldiers who came in 1945 were undoubtedly liberators, at Czech society perceived them as such and welcomed them with due joy. But the dispute over the communist symbols on the Soviet monument was not going to end so easily. More people set for the memorial, among them even a few individuals whom I esteem highly, now armed not with grinders but with brushes and glue in order to seal the loathsome symbols up with the portraits of Milada Horáková, one of the first and most famous victims of the communist dictatorship. �e police – confused and hesitant – were again coming, arresting and imposing fines. All this was going on above the heads of dozens of killed soldiers whom nobody was paying attention to, soldiers who once came from afar in order to be killed while liberating a city completely unknown to them from the hands of the Nazis.

respublica are we east or west

If we take a look at today’s Czech political scene, we can easily identify the problems which weigh on it most heavily. Populist policies of the political leaders, their absolute inability to negotiate with each other and seek compromise, aggressiveness and zero political culture, unscrupulous corruption and alienation of the representation and the electorate; in a broader social context thaen ever strengthening manifestations of racism and extremism, against which neither the government nor the police are able to proceed and many other negative phenomena. �e list is far from closed, but one thing is clear: not one of the points on this list has anything to do with the Czech communist heritage. Nevertheless, the anticommunist postures of Czech representatives and intellectuals are based on the assumption that the communist heritage is the essential problem of today’s Czech society, thus only taking attention away from the real problems and impeding their solution. �e ammunition they use is mostly verbal and their theoretical target is the communist party; this, however, in its encasement and political isolation, remains immune to its effect, or even takes advantage of it. Still, it is beyond doubt that today’s communist party is not especially dangerous to Czech society;

on the contrary, we can say that its existence can be somewhat advantageous: it binds to itself the chronically disappointed and extremist-oriented part of the electorate, whom it makes subsequently ineffective by its total inability to act. With a certain exaggeration, we can say that purposeless, or on the contrary deliberately misused anti-communist postures can be considered one of the symptoms of a post-communist society which is not able to delimit its thorniest problems and instead of looking towards the present and the future remains bound to the past and its long since pointless questions. Still, we can hardly assume that this situation will be rectified when the time comes. After all, whoever wants to deal with his past must first move on. Marek Sečkař (1973) – Czech translator and journalist and an editor of the literary monthly Host.

e whereabouts

of the imprisoned Polish memory WOJCIECH PRZYBYLSKI If you pass by the Polish Embassy in Berlin you might notice that the front of the building is covered with a huge banner like the ones used for buildings under renovation. On a red background with a white horizontal stripe is a photo taken by a famous photographer, Erazm Ciołek, during the round table negotiations with the opposition, along with a surprising slogan, “it all started at the round table”. Apparently, the poster was meant to insinuate that the changes that eventually led to the reunification of Berlin started in Poland, thus stressing the importance of Poland for all of Europe. Berlin was chosen as the venue for this manifestation because the Berlin Wall dominated European symbolic imagery of the 1989 revolution in Polish opinion. Instead of stressing the inheritance of Solidarity and its protests, the creators of the banner decided to emphasize the importance of a compromise between the two parties. So it is quite doubtful that anyone in Europe would pay attention to this banner, let alone the slogan. After all, negotiations and compromises are something absolutely ordinary in contemporary Europe. While the Berlin heroes from twenty years earlier celebrated their glorious past, their Polish counterparts were calling for participation and debate among the young people. What was missing was the call for critical evaluation of those revolutionary events, including the round table negotiations and the heritage of peaceful changes. �e Polish memory of that change is still trapped in the framework of escaping from the East and leaving the eastern heritage behind for the sake of brighter western future, dominated by the Solidarity narrative. Actually there

isn’t any other narrative, since among the “born free” generation a discussion on the meaning of those days has not happened yet, resulting in almost complete social amnesia about those days among today’s students. Generations whose careers were forged in the fire of democratic uprising are slowly stepping aside. In just a decade the political arena will be filled with young new faces of the post-Solidarity generation. However, if understanding the relation between the present and the past is necessary to form the future, the forthcoming change among the elites causes anxiety. To improve this situation one needs more than just public celebrations. History must be taught backwards, starting from the newest events.

A LESSON OF AMNESIA Lech Wałęsa is unquestionably one of the culprits of the current situation. It was he who triggered the socalled “war on the higher levels“ (wojna na górze) and intentionally provoked a split within the victorious party. A never-ending lustration process, with Wałęsa himself being the latest victim, has further deepened the destructive controversy. Nevertheless, even these two factors could be considered incidental if not for the third player: history classes in high schools. History classes in Polish schools have always had a whiff of politics. Since people were unable to learn about politics within the official state structures during the Polish People’s Republic (PPR), they studied history on their own. �is pursuit of history reflected a dream for independence, and historical narrative was used to map a route toward the nation’s political renaissance. �e years of Soviet occupation were also times of official forced

respublica are we east or west

historical indoctrination. It was perfectly clear for the Soviet authorities that history exerted great symbolic force in creating political space, and they did not hesitate to exploit it. �e authorities never missed a chance to stress the allegedly everlasting conflicts with the Germans, the pre-Christian roots of Polish statehood, and all kinds of people’s resistance to the nobility and European monarchs. At the same time, Soviet-approved history magnified the common fate of Polish and Soviet armies during the Second World War, which eventually led to a rupture in historical continuity and established a new order. It was also these falsifications that Solidarity fought against. The righteous anger at these historical forgeries was one of the driving moral forces behind the changes. As Václav Havel wrote, “a person who has been seduced by the consumer value system, whose identity is dissolved in an amalgam of the accouterments of mass civilization, and who has no roots in the order of being, no sense of responsibility for anything higher than his own personal survival, is a demoralized person. The [post-totalitarian] system depends on this demoralization, deepens it, is in fact a projection of it into society. Living within the truth, as humanity’s revolt against an enforced position, is, on the contrary, an attempt to regain control over one’s own sense of responsibility.”1 1.

Václav Havel “�e Power of the Powerless” 1978

During the last twenty years, history schoolbooks and teaching methods have undergone significant changes. �ey stress the weight and position that Poland once held, positively describe the democratic mechanisms of the Polish nobility’s rule, and pay tribute to those who perished fighting against the “friendly” Red Army. But these amendments to history took so much time and space that events essential to understanding the present went unmentioned. High school students, overloaded with information, have only three years to discuss the heritage of the past and its consequences for the present. �e lessons on responsibility for the country’s present have been shelved, while the Polish public sphere is fully occupied with political disputes over power, ignoring the roles of PPR and Solidarity. Hannah Arendt once suggested establishing a unifying narrative between the past and the present as a remedy for a broken historical continuity. So why have we so carelessly broken with our most recent heritage when there is nothing else that has a bigger impact on our lives at present? It is worth mentioning that although a vast amount of material on the history of PPR and the round table was prepared by a number of newly established institutions, all of them sooner or later became the victims of the political struggle mentioned above. And what is more important, we have never really succeeded in establishing a common factual narrative to build an understanding of where we are now. �e reasons for this failure are to be found in high schools, where there is never a place for a meaningful discussion of our recent history.

CONNECTED BY A WALL Here is a quote from a press report about the banner on the Polish embassy: “Passers-by were often confused about the meaning of the banner. - Maybe it has something to do with the Warsaw Pact? - wondered 18-year-old Lara from North Rhine-Westphalia, Western Germany, in response to a question from a PAP correspondent.

Lara and her companions, all born in the already united Germany, admitted that they are not especially interested in what happened in 1989 in the former German Democratic Republic and other countries in central and eastern Europe. – We’re probably too young... – concluded Lara”2 �e continent was united by the fall of the Wall, which symbolized the Cold War in Europe. �e indifference of Polish and German 20-year-olds to the changes principally concerns the events in their own countries. Tearing down the Wall brought a new understanding of what Europe is and what it is not. �e change in perceptions of East and West allowed Poles to base their new identity on a different historical narrative. So the notion of Central Europe was brought back to fill in the gap between the East and the West. For Poland and other central European countries, this new situation meant “an asymmetry of perception” and “an asymmetry of interests”.3 Karl Schlögel came up with this definition to describe the fascination of people from the East for what they perceived as western culture. Nineteen eighty-nine was the year of escaping from the East to the West in every possible way. On the other hand, tearing down the Berlin Wall meant breaking with a past that the older generation would rather forget and that the younger generation would consequently not be able to learn about. Public surveys in Poland and Germany show that university and high school students know nothing about the period of democratic changes and the preceding decades. We run away towards the future and an imaginary West without defining our own identity. We often build our self-esteem on a heritage that does not belong to us – at the cost of our eastern neighbours, from whom we wish to differ so much. I once witnessed an interesting interaction between a Belarusian woman and a Polish Border Guard at the Belarusian-Polish border in Terespol. A woman

wishing to enter Poland did not have a Polish visa so the officer started to ask questions. “I’m on my way to Berlin, so I am only passing through Poland on my way to the West” the lady explained. �e proud guard responded, “But you are not just entering Poland, you are entering Europe!” What a perfect illustration of how Poland, lost in the meanders of history, loses the chance to play its archetypical role of Europe’s bridge! �e question of belonging to the East or West remains problematic for us. As a member of Nato and the European Union, we formally belong to the West. However, the West is not where our most recent cultural heritage comes from, and chances are it never will. On the other hand, Poland is not necessarily more strongly connected with the East because of its recent history. But if we let the memory of the last decades fade away along with our own identity, then we will need to give it up completely in favour or either West or East. �e asymmetry mentioned by Karl Schlögel also has its reflection in history and memory. As he rightly notes, the same dates meant different things for people on the eastern and western sides of the Wall. Especially radical were the differences that served as tools for Soviet propaganda. For example,

�e Interia.pl portal (http://fakty.interia.pl/raport/20-lat-okraglego-stolu/news/berlin-baner-z-okraglym-stolem-na-budynku-ambasady-rp,1254764)

“Orte und Schichten der Erinnerung” Karl Schloegel in Osteuropa 6/2008 (http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-12-19-schlogel-en.html)

respublica are we east or west

among many places where the Soviets murdered Polish officers was Katyń, a small place in western Russia. So Moscow built a memorial in a Belarusian village called Khatyń, where civilians were murdered by the Germans, thus spreading confusion and disorientation among the Allies. Another example of contemporary memory games is the announcements on the Russian TV channel “TV Rossija”. In a series of pseudo-historical programs about the Second World War, Poland is presented as an aggressor against the Soviet Union and one of the initiators of the war. And yet, the facts about the war are not as crucial for contemporary memory as the history of democratic changes, because they form the ground for the present. �e fall of the Berlin Wall and the lack of a memory of that period are much bigger problems in Poland than in Germany. �e two German states were nothing but parts of one temporarily broken unity. Poland does not have this comfort.

A NEW WAY OF REMEMBERING Berlin and the uniting motif of the destroyed Iron Curtain have a strong appeal to the collective imagination of Europeans. For the collective memory of the continent it is a more important symbol than the round table, a local Polish event. �e facts about the PPR and Solidarity, as well as of the round table, are missing in the public sphere and especially in schools. We let the generation that was the first to grow up without indoctrination escape from the necessity of maturity, which is so essential for combating the syndrome of living on the outskirts of Europe and restlessly chasing after the imaginary West. Yet it is not copycat fashion that decides whether we belong to Europe or not, but responsible understanding of one’s present as a reference to the past. �e crucial sense of our political community does not lurk in the facts and interpretations of the Second World War, but rather in the broken historical continuity validated by the round table negotiations. �at is why we should change our teaching methods in history classes. Teachers, earlier discouraged from teaching the PPR history, should be centrally 20

obliged to teach the history of the last 50 years backwards, that is, starting from 1989. Let’s start talking about this inverted history from the first year of high school. Let’s confront of the necessity of answering the questions posed by the generation that enters the public sphere as tabula rasa. We should not let students forget that every fact they scrutinize during their history classes has its influence on the present. �e role of history classes is to connect the past with the present and consequently to dissolve the dividing line between the East and the West. Trans. Magdalena Janik Wojciech Przybylski (1980) – Editor of Res Publica Nowa.

e cartography of national rites MÁTÉ ZOMBORY In the article that follows we are going to be concerned with what Morley (2001) has termed processes of reterritorialization, which make it possible for people to feel comfortable in an age of the disjunction of global flows of meaning (Appadurai 1996). A state that has committed itself to the project of an imagined community of nationhood (Anderson 1983) limits the free production of locality in representing the nation as a last refuge against phenomena that are presented as threats to it. Another way of putting that is that the state has an interest in declaring that a sense of national belonging is natural. Being at home in a national homeland is under “threat” from numerous factors, the most frequently cited of them being the consequences of global and media-driven communications, and of migration and mobility of labour. Here we shall be concerned with what is, perhaps, a seemingly less common destabilizing phenomenon: the realignment of the politicoeconomic world order. More particularly, about the reterritorializing reaction that it is being given by the nation-state; about ties to a place as a sense of making one feel at home (about the construction of a homeland); about the production of national belonging; and most specifically of all, about the ritual cartographic practices by which Hungary’s political élite have redrawn the ideological world map that came unstitched with the demise of the eastern European bloc. If one considers the Hungarian nation, then the seismic tremor that was set off by the collapse of the old bipolar world-order may not have ceased completely with the country’s accession to the EU, but it has abated. Hence, in what follows, I shall examine the “transitional” phase between 1989 and 2004 through the prism of an analysis of the commemorations of a state celebration.

National commemorations and the representation of space Edward Said (2000) called the combined collaboration of memory, invention and geography through which creative construction of the past and spatial representation have become tightly allied “the modern art of memory”. He emphasized that we should think of geography as a socially constructed and socially reproduced ideal, which in conjunction with memory as invention (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) is object and target of manipulation of power of the most varied kinds. Said’s concept of an imagined geography does not simply denote a representation of space but, simultaneously, a discursive production and maintenance of an identity, so that in this geographical space places like East and West possess properties, values and potential relationships that are defined, along with their inhabitants (Said 1978). �e existence of places is a result of social construction and reproduction, and the “places of memory” (lieux de mémoire) are no exception. Places are not natural but arbitrary phenomena. In the process of state commemoration, the arbitrary linkage of nation and territory is forgotten, whence the natural national homeland comes into being. It thereby becomes possible for the loss of a territory to be interpreted, and even to be experienced, as being a truncation or dismemberment of the national body. In the discursive production of the naturalness of belonging somewhere (to a place and a nation) the metaphoric dimensions of the term “natural” are decisively important: the landscape, soil, root and other botanical metaphors (Malkki 1992), kinship, blood (Verdery 1999) and not least, as will be seen, the taken-for-granted geographical arrangement of a nation-state. �e discursive procedure in question refers a sphere of social phenomena to some intact, Romantic realm of Nature.

respublica are we east or west

One of the most characteristic features of the ritual process is the way that it localizes the temporal duration and spatial extent, giving to them names, properties, values, significations and readability (Appadurai 1996). �e commemorations that take place in Hungary on 20 August are political rites which, by means of the performativity of the rhetoric of reenactment (Connerton 1989), carry out a rearrangement of the cultural universe(s) in the time frame that is being analysed. Below I shall show how, in the sphere of (national) remembrance, the nation is represented, and how space and nation are connected (naturalized) as a result of the discursive practices that are carried out. What I shall term “national cartography” is the series of performative acts that carry out or facilitate the national version of the above-mentioned spatial localization. On the occasion of state festive commemorations, a performative drawing of the space therefore produces a map that creates the properties of the constructed subject of the commemoration (that is to say, the nation); in short, it creates a national identity.

e return to Europe �e official rewriting of Hungary’s past started in a “power vacuum” that was produced – as Árpád Göncz (1922-), first president of the new Republic from 1990-2000, described it – with the “central and eastern European earthquake”. In its course, the new political élite inserted the national version of the past. In that discourse of the “national”1 (Niedermüller 2000) until the mid 1990s, official commemorations were characterized by a turning to a strongly mythologizing past, a detailed performing of the

“authentic” and “real” (i.e. national) past, a search for causes, and the establishment of diagnoses – all accompanied by a redrawing of the world map. �e intensity of this focus on the past diminished later on, but the structure of commemorations remained unaltered right up until Hungary’s accession to the EU. �is, in turn, poses a question of how the span of time is periodized. �e stretch from 1989 to 2004 might be termed a “long transitional period”; if so, account needs to be taken, especially after 1998, of the fact that references directed at the past increasingly took the form of allusions. What this meant is that speakers who reenacted the national narrative no longer felt it necessary to go into the details of national history, as they had done in the early 1990s; they did not demonstrate the narrative structure of the national version of the past, but rather relied on it. �e “short transitional period”, by contrast, would take as its boundary markers the withdrawal of the last Soviet occupying troops (19912) and the entry into Nato (1999). �e period that commenced with the 1989-90 regime change proved to be transitional in regard to the texts of the festive commemorations, and moreover in the sense that the nation achieved independence not as a result of its own efforts, but rather for reasons in which it had played no part. Right up until ratification of EU entry, the end of the transition period is always placed in the near future, and after 2004 the attainment of EU membership is regarded as unequivocally marking the end of an era. In his speeches in 1990, the first president of the Republic of Hungary dealt with the difficulties and challenges that the nation would inevitably have to confront. He urged reconciliation lest “the icy wind of the past were to freeze the tender bud

In all post-socialist societies this complex process, which involved multiple participants, went well beyond the manifestations of official political representatives on national celebrations, also taking in, among other things, the change of street names and official public holidays, the replacement of school textbooks, the fashion for academic research into communism and nationalism, a boom in personal recollections and memoirs, or – for that matter – reburials. Hungary’s 20 August celebrations nevertheless seem to offer excellent ground to scrutinize the role of the state in this process, given that it is a far from negligible actor in the production of national belonging.

In the same year the law “�e state holiday of the Republic of Hungary” was codified which decreed 15th March, 20 August and 23 October to be national holidays, with 20 August also a state holiday.

of our democracy just as it is unfolding”. Göncz also drew attention to later struggles that the Hungarian people would have to fight: “It will be necessary, even hereafter, for people to fight for their rank as free citizens, even within themselves: to vanquish in the very depths of their hearts the tyrannical little Stalin; that part of them which has its mouth open-wide in expectation of a roast pigeon from the helping state; the unscrupulous poacher filching from the public purse.” To put it another way, these two commemorative addresses were both concerned with the imminent future; they did not “see” the past, so they afford no scope for one to speak, as yet, about a rewriting of the past. For that reason, it will be the official speeches delivered in commemoration of 20 August by successive presidents and prime ministers of Hungary between 1991 and 2004 that are subjected to examination.

e dynamics of the map: from Europe to Europe All of the commemorations under study enacted the past according to the same narrative structure: there was a Golden Age, which functions as the object of the commemoration; it is followed by a decline, leading to the imperfect present; and there will be another Golden Age in the near future. �is temporal frame is almost meaningless without taking into account the spatiality of the commemorations, that is, where the nation is situated on the map during the course of time. Every one of the speakers described Hungary’s first king, (St.) Stephen I (c. 974-1038), as being a person who founded a “European state”; in the Golden Age that is hallmarked with his name, the nation “attached itself to Europe”, “joined up”, “integrated into Europe” or became “an organic part of Europe”. In all cases, the decline is a change in Hungary’s spatial situation, namely that the nation found itself outside Europe without moving away. �e Golden Age of the future is accordingly nothing else but the nation’s return to Europe, which thereby proffers the symbolic content of a Promised Land.

Just as becoming “European” is not simply a displacement, the idea of a return to Europe is not comprehensible in the absence of moral and anthropological connotations of spatiality. As far as the latter is concerned, the terms in which Göncz formulated it in 1992 were: “�e question of [Hungary’s] fate of one thousand years ago is still the same: is Hungary capable of joining Europe?” A question that may now be settled, since – as he put it in 1997 – “our homeland for a second time in history stands at the ideological gateway of Europe. �e first time, Géza, then ruler of Hungary, and his son Stephen led the country through the gate.” József Antall (1932-93), the new Republic’s first prime minister, closed his own address in 1993 in the following way: “Let our national memory retain all this, because only that way can we be European, but also citizens of the world in the good sense.” Gyula Horn (1932-), the prime minister from 1994-98, put forward in 1996 the future accession to the EU as a renewed prospect of the creation of Stephen’s “open country”, in which the various peoples coexist peacefully irrespective of borders. More particularly, “European integration, the European Union, offers in the first instance the chance for the creation of a uniform Europe that Christianity already attempted.” For that to happen, however, the nation itself would have to change: “We ourselves will have to become Europeans here, within the Carpathian Basin.” �e stronger version of the metaphorics of a return to Europe is when the Hungarian homeland finds a place within the heart of Europe. �at is case in the addresses by Viktor Orbán (1963–), prime minister from 1998-2002. His oration on 20 August 2000, given in Budapest’s Kossuth Square, in front of the Parliament building, stated: “With the composure that is given by a thousand years, we say that there must be a Hungarian dream anew. A rich and strong Hungary. A nation in the heart of Europe that free and proud persons who trust in themselves build for themselves in accordance with their own tastes.” In this case the decline means that Europe as an organic body is truncated, while returning to Europe is a kind of resurrection – only a reintegrated body can be fully “European”.

respublica are we east or west

With the assured approach of EU accession, the sense of the future that had been employed before now disappeared. �us, in 2002 Ferenc Mádl (1931-), second president of the Republic of Hungary, declared: “Since then [!], we have been at home in Europe. Saint Stephen created peace,” while the following year, in 2003, Péter Medgyessy (1942-), prime minister from 2002-04, noted: “Next year we shall greet Europe, and within it a Republic of Hungry that has finally returned home.” Whatever values the speakers attribute to the Golden Age of King Stephen, the narrative structure alluded to above means that the return to Europe in every case brings about a complete fulfilment of them. One concomitant is that Europe, in its representation as a Promised Land, becomes a moral yardstick of the nation’s judgment, a moral absolute, the defence or attainment of which entails human sacrifices. Accordingly, national cartography, unlike the scientific practice of modern cartography, displays a tendency to produce a dynamic and historical map, even though the homeland is given and remains unchanged. Of course, the moral category of Europeas-Promised Land is not peculiar to state commemorations; use of this category interwove even personal interactions.3

e localization of the nation on the map: between East and West �at map is constructed, first and foremost, as a (strategic) space which, as will be seen, plays a decisive part in the formation of the history that is being narrated; in other words, it has a role that is literally of vital importance. �is field of force is composed of opposed spatial directions (exclusively in the form of East and West), or other exponents that are per-

sonifications of these. At the same time, the map also portrays the peoples who inhabit the space. It represents solely ethnic groups, and in every instance their relations are raised as being problematic. In Antall’s speeches, the homeland of the Hungarians is a place to which the major powers always laid claim in the course of history, as he said in 1993: “We lie along major historical and strategic lines of force. �is country was never peripheral; it was never easy for us to pull through. It was not given to us to experience anything in one of Europe’s more windprotected places, because it was never sheltered from the wind! �is truly was the highway of peoples; every war passed through here, trampling on us time and time again”. In Göncz’s addresses, like Antall’s, a geopolitical narrative is identifiable in which events, the fate of the Hungarians one could say, is determined by the nation’s spatial location. In this interpretation, the actions of the Hungarians in shaping history are virtually irrelevant, since the great powers surrounding them always went over their heads in reaching decisions that affected them. It also turns out from Göncz’s speech in 1995 that “our area is a mosaic of majority nationalities and minority national fragments”. �e last is a motif that also recurs in Horn’s commemorations. As he said in 1996: �e populace here, in the Carpathian Basin, was not ethnically homogeneous. Already those who occupied the country [at the end of the ninth century] included a mix of Ugrians, Turks and Iasians. �ere also arrived Cumans and other ethnic groups that did not abandon their language and customs on settling down. [...] It is a fact that one out of four people in this homeland has relatives who live beyond the country’s borders. It is also a fact that its structure of balanced industry, factories, sites furnishing raw materials, and main thoroughfares broke down4 and

It is no different in the case of voices that are Eurosceptic or critical of the European project, the difference lying solely in the fact that this imperative carries a negative rather than a positive sign. In this case the designations “western” or “European” are to be condemned as denoting everything that is not Hungarian. Over its one and a half century-old history, the discourse on Europe has several times altered the meanings and values carried by the terms East and West (that is, Europe), from which it is likewise evident that the significations that are adopted can vary, depending on the actual context and the performative use.

Horn is referring here to the consequences of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.

frontiers have been far from following the distribution of ethnic groups. All this became a source of disputes and hostilities for decades. In regard to the location of the Hungarian homeland, Horn had the following to say: “�e Hungarian Conquest was an undertaking that was historically sound and in itself has proved successful. It was an undertaking that signified the adoption of norms that are indigenous to Europe; the adoption of Christianity in place of a pagan nomadic lifestyle, and linkage to the Roman Catholic Church rather than the adoption of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.” In this passage of the text, as in the previous ones, an East-West axis is operating in which the spatial directions may be substituted by other exponents of the map; moreover the two appear as mutually exclusive spatial directional alternatives between which a choice has to be made. �e main protagonist of Orbán’s speeches is a nation that lives “in the middle of Europe, in the Carpathian Basin”, and yet on the territory of several countries, as he put it in 1999: “�ere is no other nation in Europe, and perhaps the whole world, which has been dismembered into so many countries and nevertheless lives with one heart”. For its perpetuation, the fact that it had not become a dust-cloud “that a great nation of yore kicked up on the highway of history,” it could give thanks that, “with his clarity of vision” and “his iron will”, “Stephen founded a homeland, in a ring of foreign peoples, on the border of the Eastern and Western worlds” – as Orbán formulated it in 2000. �is transitional, in-between character of spatiality which provides the basis for the temporal transience subsequently stays unchanged, but this is only referred to in the form of allusions, as in the case, for example, of the following comment by Mádl in 2002: “We might mention the establishment of a Christian political system, the Holy Crown that was received from Pope Silvester II, which so bound us to the western half of Europe that it created community through the Christian faith and on its moral foundations”. �e East is not mentioned, and there is only a single sentence that refers to the dangers inherent in the situation of the Hungarian

homeland: “A good, favourable, political and world political situation is an important factor to increase our continuation and our chances of life, to success and to our advance”. Similarly, from the speech that Medgyessy made on 20 August of the same year, all that emerges is: “with a resolution commensurable with a new founding of the state [“Hungarians enter into internal alliance with Europe”], Hungarians, after long, long years, once again find themselves on the winning side.” It is left obscure as to what past the term “again” relates, whether there is/was a “losing side” and, indeed, whether those sides correspond to West and East. Europe, or the West used as a synonym, appears and acts on the map in the form of the Other, as a point of comparison for the Hungarian nation. A place designated by the concept of the East, however, also appears as a similar Other. As is seen in the previous examples, these spatial directions can be replaced by other actors, primarily by empires, great powers and the two Christian Churches. �e most important characteristic of the practices of national cartography is that the properties of people derive from the specific spatial location that they occupy, rather than from their deeds. �at in turn means that relations between the spatial forces that are vying with one another are turned into relations between nations or ethnic groups, that is to say, conflicts, or at least oppositions. �is has several significant consequences. �e first is that the Hungarian nation, which inhabits, as just indicated, an intermediate territory that belongs neither to East nor to West, likewise belongs nowhere. �at is true only of the representation of the present, of course; when the Hungarian nation, in the Golden Age, belonged to the West, it was “part of Europe”; when it was not part of Europe, it belonged to the East. �e second is that the dangers that weigh on this strategic territory – in other words, the fact that East and West wage a continual battle over it – are at one and the same time threats to the Hungarian nation. �ird, in order that Hungarians should remain alive, they must confront those perils that derive from the homeland’s spatial location. Since national cartogra-

respublica are we east or west

phy will only admit freedom of movement to other nations and peoples, staying in one place, and the confrontation with its attendant dangers that entails, is represented as a self-sacrificial gesture. �e fact that the nation’s place is localized between East and West explains why the Hungarians, despite their “return” to Europe, do not move. Other peoples are permitted to move because they are embodiments of either East or West, whereas the Hungarian nation, given that it belongs to no spatial force at all, stays in one place, and the possibility that it might move does not even arise. Fourth and finally, another consequence is that the events that are narrated and the deeds of the Hungarian nation are determined by a position on the map. As a consequence of this location, this “belonging nowhere”, the nation is obliged to choose between East and West, and that exhausts its opportunities for action. �us, it is a matter of a timeless geographical situation which always and under all circumstances determines the nation’s possible actions. �e key element in the portrayal of King Stephen I is the recognition that a choice has to be made between the two spatial forces in the interests of the Hungarian nation’s survival. In the commemorations, without exception, reference is made to the fact that Stephen (or perhaps his father, Géza, before him) “chose Europe/the West”; as a result of the temporal properties of those commemorative rituals, this choice in the interests of the Hungarian nation’s survival figures as a unique decision and, moreover, as a morally correct decision that is exemplary for generations to come even a thousand and more years later. Stephen’s example therefore must be followed in the present, so the nation has to choose the civilized, victorious, innocent and good West instead of the barbarian, vanquished, sinful and bad East. It can be seen, then, that the place in which the Hungarians live is determined by the localizing practices of national cartography as an absolute value: neither to the east nor to the west but at the collision point, perhaps at Europe’s geographical centre, outside Europe. �is place is a blank spot on the map. 28

Frontier changes on the map: being “stuck outside Europe” �e spatial position of the Hungarians’ homeland alters in the course of decline: the nation ends up “outside” Europe – without having moved location. As far as frontier changes are concerned, national cartography employs two procedures that strategically relate to each other. One may be called the “blow of fate”, the other “falling into sin”. A blow of fate happens because the “little Hungarian nation” is living in the grip of the great powers that appear in the shape of East and West, on a territory that both perceive as being of strategic importance. With respect to its role in the narrative, therefore, the blow of fate may be occupation or oppression by a foreign power (the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Turks, the Soviet Union), which entails that the Hungarians end up on the “bad” or “losing” side – outside Europe. �e consequences of a blow of fate, furthermore, are always formulated in some metaphor of national death: destruction, national decay. Whatever the case, the narrative concerns a turning point that is at the same time a retraction of frontiers on the map. A falling into sin, by contrast, formally ascribes an active role to the nation. More specifically, the nation has offended against the morality established in the Golden Age, which speakers variously refer to as St Stephen’s legacy (Antall, Mádl), undertaking (Horn), model, example, starting-point (Göncz), dream (Orbán, Mádl), even creation or work (Mádl). A renewed compliance with the values of Stephen’s era, the narrative structure of the commemorations goes, will lead eventually to “the earthly paradise of Europe”. �e scale of values of the Golden Age is always constructed within a framework of the imperfect present, and generally speaking it involves ideals of independence, correct foreign policy, liberty, unity and tolerance. Like a blow of fate, falling into sin is no less than the cause of decline, and it adopts significations that correspond to the Golden Age: it is always as a failure to observe its scale of values, or the lack of it, that is

woven into the narrative. Formally speaking, as an event it is always attached to the deeds of the main protagonist; after all, it is he who fails to comply with, or repudiates the inherited scale of values. �is localizing practice accomplishes the retraction of borders between peoples on the imaginary map; in the narrative it means an alteration of ethnic borders hence in discursive terms it confirms their existence. �e commemoration essentializes by establishing a qualitative identity between the “nation” of the Golden Age and that of the future. �e present is imperfect precisely because the Hungarian nation no longer is what it once was, or in other words “it is showing signs of decay”. �e source of sin is accordingly an expression of some kind of “bad (character)”, which is always some non-European attribute. To take one example: at first glance the topos of a partial nation may lack a sense of spatiality, yet an East-West opposition is thrown up as a problem even here. By virtue of their eastern origin, “easternness” has become a constituent element of the Hungarian temperament, so that the Europeanization (or “westernness”) of Hungarians entails, among other things, the stripping away of their belligerent, quarrelsome traits. �us, there are a number of occasions in the nation’s history when Hungarian “easternness” was responsible for the decline, the members of the nation turning against each other, “placing self-interest before the national interest”. In this way, it is “the East” or “easternness” that is responsible for committing the national sins. Falling into sin most often lies outside the sphere of human actions, however, with its causes to be sought in the homeland’s location. In this interpretation, the area where Hungarians live is a “highway of peoples,” “a mosaic of majority nationalities and minority national fragments,” one in which “frontiers have been far from following the distribution of ethnic groups,” and so on. �is attribution that ethnic multiplicity constitutes a source of danger is made possible by precisely the localizing practices that are under analysis. �e consequences of the national sins are crimes that have been committed during history: genocide (including internecine strife among the

Hungarians), relocation, ethnic war – all these representing national extinction. By cleverly correlating blow of fate and falling into sin, national cartography has been able to attain the end that crimes always remain without a perpetrator, and instead designating factors such as geopolitics, geography or the resultant “compelling circumstances” (Antall); “the dictates of the balance of the great powers,” “the Central European fate” (Göncz); “blind nationalism,” “a whim of history” (Horn); “the troublesome and arrogant twentieth century” (Orbán); “fate” (Medgyessy). In this way, falling into sin occurs like a blow of fate, without any participation of the Hungarians. It can readily be seen that on the imaginary map there is in fact only one frontier that moves, which is the one separating East and West. Since this frontier is embodied either in state formations or peoples, it does not move of its own accord: the conquests of empires and/or nations relocate it eastwards or westwards in accordance with the “winds of history”. As a result, national cartography alludes to geographical space as to a natural reality. �e unsignified “staying in one place” or a powerless homeland is constructed precisely in contradistinction to that relocating movement. A change of frontiers that always occurs “above the heads” of the Hungarians, and always in an eastward or westward direction, localizes the national home in an absolute sense, and this location shapes the fate of the nation. �e ethnic borders that operate on the map of national cartography do not vanish even in a Europeparadise that is projected into the future (the EastWest frontier also continues to exist but to the east of Hungary). �e homeland of the future was pictured in these terms in 2003, when the official motto of the European Union was quoted by Medgyessy: “Unity in diversity” (In varietate concordia). �e connection between people and territory is thus unchanged; in regard to the future, national cartography has merely given up on frontier changes (that is to say, blows of fate and fallings into sin); or in other words, it has found a solution for the “threat” of deterritorialization.

respublica are we east or west

e illusive security of the natural national home National cartography has therefore managed to displace the borders of the map by the discursive techniques of “the blow of fate” and “falling into sin”, or by strategically correlating them. In both (indeed all three) cases, the construction of a “home” is effected, and in such a manner that the geographical placements of territory and people are linked in a way that brooks no questioning. �is process of bonding the people – as Hungarians – to place puts the homeland beyond human actions into the realm of Nature; no one can do anything about the fact that this place holds such dangers for those who live on it. At the same time, it is not simply a matter of the countless sufferings that have been “collectively lived through” resulting in a community of fate; rather, the source of the sufferings itself stems from the location of the homeland. Symbolic dimensions of life and death therefore equally become accreted to the concept of the homeland. �us, as I have shown, in the commemorations of 20 August, events in the nation’s fate do not come about simply on a given territory, but due to that territory. In this way, the naturalness of geographical space is transformed into a taken-forgranted unity of territory and nation. What is at stake in an examination of commemorative space is a good deal more than just a demonstration of a change in spatial orientation. �e overwriting of the term “USSR” by “EU” is merely a superficial feature of the discursive movements. �is overwriting both enables and accomplishes the construction of a bonding to the homeland and thereby the permanence of national belonging. �e linkage of people to a place that, through the naturalness of its geographical position, has an absolute value entails that the coordinates of the homeland can be given – right down to degrees of latitude and longitude, if need be. In that way the spread of the group of people who populate the homeland acquires a spatial dimension; the nation assumes the form of a “body”, the materiality of which is determined by land and space. �e national home 32

becomes a palpable reality. �e representation of the materiality of the body of the nation sustains a rich metaphorical vocabulary through, inter alia, such utterances as the nation “gave its blood”, was “overrun” or “trampled on”. Also pertinent are various metaphors of truncation or mutilation, or “the nation’s accommodating capacity” (the biological connotations of which imply that the organism does not cast off a foreign body). Belonging to this body is also natural, and thus exclusive; in point of fact this construction allows only two relations, that of compatriot and that of foreigner. �e geographically materialized national home appears secure as it is unchanged: it is the same as it always was, whatever may have happened in the course of history. Likewise, changes affecting the homeland are all seen as threats from outside and not amenable to human intervention. �e practices of localization shape deterritorialization into dangers threatening the nation; seeing off these dangers, and preserving internal homogeneity, secure the nation’s survival. �e wide sphere in which such bodily metaphors are employed indicates that the practices of localization that have been identified are not operated exclusively on the occasion of national celebrations. �eir field of application is a good deal broader than that, and can include common, everyday interactions, various circumstances of institutionalized communication and even personal biographies. �ey may also be at work in school textbooks, on maps that are pinned up on the classroom wall, weather reports, media events, national parks, museums, memoirs, interviews and so on. In other words, it is a matter of such widely disseminated techniques that, always as a reaction to deterritorialization, may be picked up and used; in the process, depending on the context, the techniques themselves entail modifications. �e practices of reterritorialization of national commemorations that have been analysed here are distinguished, above all, by their ritualized nature, which in the present case can be taken to be the basis of their performative operation.

Anderson, Benedict (1983), Imagined Communities, London: Verso. Appadurai, Arjun (1996), Modernity at Large, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Connerton, Paul (1989), How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.) (1983), �e Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press. Malkki, Liisa (1992), “National geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of national identity among scholars and refugees”, Cultural Anthropology 7 (1): 24–44. Morley, David (2001), “Belongings: place, space and identity in a mediated world”, European Journal of Cultural Studies 4 (4): 425–448. Niedermüller Péter (2000), “A nacionalizmus kulturális logikája a posztszocializmusban” [�e cultural logic of nationalism in postsocialism], Századvég 16: 91–109. Said, Edward W. (1978), Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, New York: Pantheon. Said, Edward W. (2000), “Invention, memory, and place”, Critical Inquiry 26 (Winter): 175–192. Verdery, Katherine (1999), �e Political Life of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change, New York: Columbia University Press.

�is essay is a shortened and revised version of one already published in Hungarian, entitled “Nemzeti rítusok kartográfiája” [Cartography of national rites], Replika 56-57, December 2006, 61-81. (http://www.replika.hu/archivum/56/6). See also in French: Máté Zombory: “Le retour des hongrois à l’Europe. Appartenance nationale et représentation de l’espace mémoriel”, L’Europe et ses représentations du passé. Les tourments de la mémoire, eds. Marie-Claude Maurel and Françoise Mayer, Paris: L’Harmattan 2008, 147-166. Trans. Tim Wilkinson Máté Zombory (1975) sociologist, editor in chief of the journal anBlokk, published by young social scientists, his main research interests are (trans)national belongings, memory studies, symbolic geographies and self writing.

Slovakia: Ready for the future? FRANTIŠEK NOVOSÁD Slovak society is currently facing the same problem it has faced for a century and a half – that of not being at the same level of development as other western societies. Slovak development can best be understood as “modernization”: as the process of confronting the cultural, political, economic and technical innovations originating in western Europe; of taking over and adapting western European models to fit Slovak society; of catching up and drawing level with western European societies. �is is not to say that it has been a “passive modernization”. Slovak political elites have actively attempted to be the agents of modernization from the beginning: they have made choices and searched for ways to expedite the process. �e Slovak historical path therefore has its own logic, its own dynamic. However, Slovak society shows relatively low levels of civilizational and cultural auto-centredness. (None of European societies are auto-centred: Europeanness has always meant the ability to adopt things.) We often encounter depictions of relatively auto-centred and “specific” moments in the Slovak political and cultural life as the subject of “foreign manipulation”, the result of „instrumentalization” by wider European historical processes. �is relatively low level of auto-centredness has been caused not only by the low economic and demographic potential of Slovak society, but also by the fact that catching up has meant struggling to belong to the European family of nations, for “recognition” by the more powerful. Moreover, at the beginning, the „struggle for recognition” was reduced to the “struggle for attention” from the decision-making bodies of European politics. �e differences between individual groupings within the Slovak political elite have to a large degree been tied to different ideas about where ex34

actly the “centre of the world” is, and through which capital city the path to the “real present day” leads. �e argument about what Europe really is and how to get there has been around since the Enlightenment. It surfaced fully into reflexive consciousness in the last third of the nineteenth century. �ree choices were available for the Slovak politicians in the mid-nineteenth century: Budapest, Vienna and St Petersburg. At the end of the nineteenth century, Slovak political leaders set their sights on Prague. Nationalist rightwing groups were torn between Rome and Berlin. Communists elected Moscow. Even today, we are debating whether Brussels is more important than Washington and vice versa. One must not forget that when decisions were made, the choices of the Slovak political elites were limited by the geopolitical configuration beyond their control.

Old problem, new solutions What is the state of the Slovak society today? To what extent has it been able to cash in on opportunities offered by the historical process of the last decades? How did it deal with obstacles along the way? Discussions of the state of Slovak society have provided many answers to these questions. Two, however, are more prominent than others: one extremely optimistic and one extremely pessimistic. Let us first look at how an optimist views the state of Slovak society. He or she might reckon that Slovak society is not one from which decisive historical initiatives have originated; that it is a society that has reacted to opportunities rather than one that has actively set the direction for its own development. According to an optimist, Slovak society belongs to the more successful societies in Europe. A comparison with the status of Slovak society in every decade

since the beginning of the twentieth century suffices to prove this. At the turn of the twentieth century, Slovak society was really just an “imagined community”, an ethnic community without political institutions and no realistic hope of emerging as a distinct political power to challenge Magyar Hungary, the political unit that shaped the basic framework of Slovak society until 1918. However even at that time, Slovak society was not static, passive or indifferent. �ere have been communities of initiative at every historical turning point, which were able to exploit opportunities for development, often at the last possible moment. Despite all the obstacles, then, Slovak society has been able since the second half of the nineteenth century to catch onto decisive historical trends and – one way or another – to turn the opportunities offered by changes in historical configurations to its own benefit. �e potential of Slovak society demonstrated itself after 1918 when Slovakia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Slovak society quickly matured politically, differentiating, reacting to current trends, and going through ups and downs like all other societies in central Europe. �e era of repressive socialism had an equivalent impact on Slovakia as on other central European societies. Even if Slovakia became an industrial and urbanized society at this time, the forceful repression of civil society weakened political consciousness and depleted the awareness of opportunities for development. After the historical turning point in 1989, Slovak society found itself in an exceptionally favourable historical configuration. Slovakia became an independent state in 1993. �e reasons for the break up of Czechoslovakia are discussed to this day, and still polarize Slovak society, if only covertly. After achieving independence, development was more complicated than in neighbouring countries: the transformation of the political and economic systems, together with newly established statehood, led to swings that threatened Slovakia’s ability to keep up with the trends of European integration. After the parliamentary elections of 1998, the integration process sped up, enabling Slovakia to become

a member of Nato and the EU in 2004. In January 2009, it also joined the Eurozone. Slovakia has thus achieved more than any patriot could imagine prior to 1989. An optimist can also look into the future with hope. Nothing seems to indicate an upcoming historical rupture similar to those that in the twentieth century came every twenty years or so, accompanied by significant losses of social and cultural capital. Slovak society faces a unique opportunity for continuous development, in which it can show off its qualities. �e optimist believes that it will do so. Let us now turn to the pessimist. He or she will agree that Slovak society has indeed undergone a process of development since the beginning of the twentieth century that can be labelled as a success. But the pessimist will also point out that all the hidden weaknesses of Slovak society surface when it is confronted with the opportunity for continuous and cumulative development; that every success has its flipside and that development was not only a problem-solving mechanism, but also a creator and instigator of problems. Many of the solutions chosen by the Slovak political elites brought more problems than solutions. �is definitely applies to the decisions determining the direction of development after 1989 and 1993. Four political establishments took turns in this era. Under the direction of the first, in power from 1989 to 1992, “real socialism” was disassembled. �e second, in power from 1992 to 1998, banked on solving the statehood question and decided to dissolve Czechoslovakia. �e third was occupied with guiding Slovakia’s integration into the EU and Nato. �e fourth came to power in 2006 with the promise to consolidate society. No matter how different these four establishments have been in their moral or political qualities, their successes and failures have been subordinated to the same mechanism. Success has come from an ability to clearly identify what the public considered at the time to be key problem. Failure has been caused by the fact that the solutions offered were never accepted by a decisive majority of the public.

respublica are we east or west

�e first establishment lost its influence when the clash between the slogans of the “Velvet Revolution” and of the “real capitalism” became intolerable. �e establishment of the 1992-1998 period was the most controversial. It limited the transformation of the economic system merely to privatization. �e creation of the new state appeared as a pure façade behind which masked a rampant giveaway of state property to loyalists. �e establishment of 19982006 successfully accomplished the integration into the Nato and EU. However it compromised itself by “stealing” renegades from the opposition parties in order to form parliamentary majorities. �e controversial privatization of key industries, first and foremost the energy industry, did not make it any more popular. Time will tell how long the fourth establishment will remain in power. It got there in 2006 and it maintains unusually high levels of popular support. In any case, the global economic crisis has offered it a chance to explain away any of its failures.

A desensitized public �e relationship of Slovak society towards itself – its internal cultural, and social differentiation – is a key problem. �e concept of “caring for the whole” is notably weaker in Slovak society than in neighbouring societies: Czech, Hungarian or Polish. We have a much more lax relationship towards ourselves, we are more tolerant of our own shortcomings. A “critical mass” that would spontaneously follow innovations or create a collective will to increase the quality of the relationship with ourselves is not to be taken for granted in any sphere of social life. Warnings about social passivity and a weakened sense of responsibility aim not to be an expression of nationalistic masochism. �eir purpose is to draw attention to the real state of the Slovak society, whose integrity and ability to react adequately to today’s challenges was and still is weakened by unproductive political squabbles that have carried over to all spheres of life after 1989. All political parties opted for staging a “state of emergency” after 1989, a unique situation 36

where “everything was at stake”. �is resulted in political anaesthesia, a desensitization of the public and a lack of interest in the public domain. Slovak society faces a task of spiritual consolidation. It is a problem that is likely to be more important than the that of a functioning economic or political system.

Seeking the crystallization point We have to ask ourselves explicitly what the crystallization point of a spiritual consolidation could be. �e idea of a nation? Of Christianity? A new Enlightenment? Would this not mean a “return” to national values in such shape and form as were meaningful in the nineteenth century? �e power of Christianity to integrate is also doubtful. It is necessary, however, to ask how to establish or renew a relationship towards tradition. If we do not, our attempts will be counterproductive and we will damage more than we will fix. �e carrot and stick approach is not the solution in the sceptical society of our times. In the current situation, it is important to redefine the role of the state towards society. We need a clear knowledge of the potential of the state – of what the state can and cannot do in an era when the form of what is traditionally called “society” is shifting radically. Traditionally, society was seen as a whole, an “organic whole” to which individuals are bound first and foremost by a certain loyalty. �is sense of belonging served as the foundation for centripetal forces that were stronger than centrifugal forces. It was always possible to differentiate between the centre and periphery, to have an overview of the links between individual parts of the whole, to understand the mechanism of reproductive processes, to know where the seedbeds of innovation lay and how political and cultural hierarchies came about. Politics was about the interests of individual groups and about the growth of the whole, about building up cohesion and solidarity, about the responsibility of the elites towards “their” groups and towards the whole. �is was underpinned by the idea that “we”

are connected not only through pragmatic ties and mutual utility, but also by common values, a common past and a common future. �e nation was a “community of fate”. From sociology to economics, the social sciences were about discovering how this whole – this “society” – functions, how it is structured, how it develops, and in some cases, why it ceases to exist. Today this whole has become blurred. �e boundaries between societies are becoming porous; the idea of belonging to a nation is gradually losing its power. Today, when someone says “we”, we cannot tell what is meant exactly. In blurred societies, internal differentiation is growing. But consciousness of differentiation is transformed by the media, and the interests of individual groups are more difficult to identify. Society is changing into a complex of overlapping networks; the role of the centre is diminishing; the sense of belonging to “social groups”, “classes” or a “nation” is weakening, or rather fragmenting, and along with it the sense of belonging to a certain whole. Society, if we can speak of such a thing, is kept together more by political and institutional means than by spontaneously exhibited loyalties from within. None of these processes is fatal. It is possible to be dragged along by them and it is possible to resist. Every time we take a position on them, we do so on the basis of some ideology. Both responses can either restrict or allow new possibilities of development and at the same time put limitations upon governments and political parties.

Visions of the future Whether we realize it or not, a vision of the future is always present in our actions and influences our decisions, most of our actions achieve more or less clearly defined goals or avoid threats that we see coming. �erefore we always work with certain variations, scenarios of action, often only intuitively. �is “readiness” for future opportunities has a special place in politics. To a large extent, politics is work oriented towards the future; it is not only the art of the possible, but also the play of possibilities. Today Slovak society is once again confronted with the question of its own identity. It has to ask how centripetal and centrifugal forces operate within it, how the sense of belonging to supra-individual entities can be formed, and how opportunities for adapting to ongoing changes can be created. Nobody is providing answers to these questions in Slovakia today. �e political parties are buried in their petty wars, the academic sphere has withdrawn into its apolitical shell and the public is disgusted by the ruthlessness and shortsightedness of politicians. Perhaps it is a Slovak paradox: out of the conflict of negatives comes something positive in the end. František Novosád Philosopher and social thinker. Professor at Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts (BISLA). His major academic pursuits have been history of philosophy and has extensively written on Martin Heidegger and Max Weber. For many years he edited the Slovak philosophical monthly Filozofia.

a aesthetics

In the windshield, in the rear-view mirror 2

PETER ZAJAC If we lasted forever, Everything would be different. But since we are but temporary, Much remains the same. Bertolt Brecht

1 If someone told me in 1982 that in 2009 I would remember Bertolt Brecht’s late poem If We Lasted Forever from 1955, which we were translating at the time with the poet Ján Štrasser, and that I would feel as if I were in Alice’s Wonderland, I would not have believed them. �ere were no signs that the regime that was forever and never otherwise would crumble in seven years, like a cinematic special effect where, in an echo of the baroque thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return, a young man changes into an old man, then into a skeleton and finally pulverizes. Certainly nothing indicated that in another twenty years, in 2009, I would realize with the same intensity as Brecht in 1955 that the changes I had hoped for after 1989 turned out to be much smaller. My feeling is similar to his, though inverted – like a playing card turned upside down. Brecht’s feeling related to a communist regime, which was supposedly promising him heaven on earth; in my case it was the capitalist regime and its promise of freedom. �e feeling of insufficient change is similar and at the same time completely different. In Brecht’s case it was about the heaven on earth, in my case about freedom.

To express the level of change within the timeframe of one generation – which is twenty years – we see a landscape in the windshield ahead of us, the passing road in the rear-view mirror behind us, and the difference between the two in our minds. �e twentieth century was a modern landscape, forward looking and indifferent to what was left behind. It was a landscape of the avant-garde, in which only the new was important. It was a landscape of generations, manifestos and programmes, the land of the future utopia. In the end, utopia became a myth. Future merged with the past in an eclectic, postmodern way. �e new ceased to be interesting and was replaced by the other. �e old-new dichotomy was replaced by the old-young. Worshipping progress and the new was substituted by worshipping the young and upcoming. Otherwise, it has remained the same. In 1989, Central European cultures found themselves in this environment and attempted to replace their utopia of paradise with the myth of freedom. �at is the crux of the radical nature of changes in 1989.

3 We live with the notion that the difference between old and new is most visible when looking forward through the windshield. Yet perhaps – and it might seem like a paradox – a look in the rear-view mirror can offer a much clearer image of continuity or discontinuity between the past and the present. �e young generation today does not want to be new, but to be different; does not want to be grouped in generations, programmes and manifestos, but is consciously nurturing a melancholic solitude at the

margins. It is there that the past after and the past before is constructed as difference or as similarity.

4 Andrzej Stasiuk recently pointed out what is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the culture of the past twenty years – that we slid from one epoch into another as if through the back door, on the sly, without shame. �e spectacular nature of the changes in 1989 – the media-focused and programmed city squares, televised round tables, Velvet and later Rose and Orange Revolutions – suggest the image of a theatre stage, on which the sets and actors were switched and the repertoire replaced. But over time the old repertoire was brought back in an innovated show.

5 It appears that the cultural change was not so radical as it made out. After all, the same old people were entering the new epoch. With a newly painted coat of arms, but with old memory, habits, behaviour, cultural stereotypes. Often with personal baggage that did not allow for radical parting with the past, because that would also mean an inevitable and radical break with one’s own identity. �e result was a compromise between one’s own past and a present that was not one’s own; the more the latter became one’s own, the more it resembled one’s past. �e consequence was a victory of continuity over discontinuity between the two epochs.

6 �is paling image of a radical change appears most fascinating on television, this locus communis of every culture and era. Here, the new came to mean young and different. �e young moderators, weather women, actresses, celebrities. Other programmes – the voyeuristic show here was called �e Mojsejevs and something else elsewhere. �ose were the Nineties. �en came the return of the time-proven stars, Gott, Vondráčková, Zagorová. Popular variety shows, electric brass bands, entertainers with crude

humour. �e cabaret that led the wave on TV in the Nineties has vanished in the past few years. It has been replaced by the rudimentary humour of reliable narrators, hollering uncles and chaps accompanied by a ballet in the tradition of Ein Kessel Buntes. �e ultimate symbol of continuity with the past is the victory of the sitcom genre that failed in the Nineties but has triumphantly returned to the screens under the old title of “TV series”.

7 �e image in the rear-view mirror has started to change. �e twentieth-century history of visual arts and architecture, cinematography, literature and other arts has been written anew. �e path of historical opportunism has been chosen, best characterized by the metaphor of the soft embrace of sorela (socialist realism) and modernity in architecture. �is metaphor has an unmistakable foundation. Architecture before 1989 was to a large extent done by the same architects as after 1989, and was written about by the same historians and theoreticians before 1989 as after. �e fading monuments of architecture from the Seventies and Eighties – the Slovak Radio building, the Slovak Television building, the Slovak National Gallery – are the consequence of such historical compromise. It is an architecture of facades, of solitaires, of individual buildings stripped of their practical function. �e Slovak Radio building is an upside-down pyramid that can be displayed in architecture history books. But it is hard to work there. Its interior – like the Slovak Television – is a dilapidated labyrinth. It is an architecture taken out of context. �e New Bridge across Danube can be presented as an interesting technical experiment. But it leads into a sea of container bloc apartments on the right bank – projects that were created in the Seventies and Eighties in radical opposition to the results of an international exhibit about a new Bratislava bridge in the forests along the Danube. On the left bank, it sliced right through the heart of the historical centre, destroying the Jewish and German quarter, because at the time Slovakness was supposedly equated with proletarian internationalism.

respublica aesthetics

8 �e concept of continuity embodied in the soft embrace of sorela and modernity in Slovak architecture of the Seventies and Eighties flows into a continuity, where absence of respect towards architectural space before and after 1989 reaches an unprecedented scope in urban and rural architecture today.

9 In the history of Slovak literature after 1945, the method of creating continuity where apparent discontinuity exists can be labelled the bracket technique. Authors that did not get published prior to 1989, the literary critics and scientists who saw the ideology of socialist literature as some definite literary and historical directive (úbežník) as far removed from them as those that created it, found themselves bracketed with the official authors. Literary and historical description does not mean anything other than flattening of values and providing an alibi. �e fact that the historical directive of a socialist culture forms the backbone of many literary texts that to this day form the canon of the Slovak literature after 1945 is discretely passed over.

postmodern since. �e awkwardness follows from the fact that postmodernity – about which the young neoexpressionists had not the slightest clue – became part of the subtitle for a retrospective exhibition. �e concept of the exhibition underlined mainly the discontinuity of the Seventies and Eighties in relation to the continuity of the Eighties and the Nineties. �e young curator let the young Eighties generation simply slip from one epoch another, as if through a back door, on the sly, without shame. On the contrary, for those who kept an internal continuity during the Seventies and Eighties despite the regime, 1989 signified a clear continuity of work, but a clear discontinuity of opportunities to show their work publicly. �e concept of the exhibit vindicated the notion of twentieth-century Slovak cultural history as an unstoppable continuity, even where there were apparent breaks in the process.

12 A poet that surfaced sometime in the Eighties expressed it laconically in an anecdote: the pub we used to sit in was the Coach, dissidents would sit in the Submarine, and after midnight we’d all meet at the Franciscans.

�e film fresco �e Millennial Bee by Juraj Jakubisko has been chosen by the film historians as the Slovak movie of the century. �e movie is an unmistakable example of an alliance between a magical film imagination and an ideological notion of history that inevitably and unstoppably leads to some future paradise. �is can only be explained by a silent “historical compromise“ and by the victory of the construction of historical continuity.

It might appear paradoxical, but the rear-view mirror notion of twentieth-century Slovak culture as a story of continuity transmits onto the windshield of the present as a lack of difference, and in the end as a lack of dynamism in contemporary Slovak culture. And vice versa: the lack of dynamism in contemporary culture makes the rear-view of the past appear as a continuity, while in fact its best part is characterized by discontinuity.

11 �e Slovak National Gallery has recently hosted an exhibition entitled �e Eighties. �e curator chose to approach the subject from the perspective of the young and upcoming generation of the 1980s. Laco Terén, a protagonist of this generation, said with some hesitation that they were not postmodern at the time, but have probably become 42

Peter Zajac Literary scientist and politician. He is professor of Slovak and Czech Literature and Culture at Humboldt University in Berlin. After November 1989 he was cofounder of Public Against Violence (VPN) and during 1998-2001 he was an MP in the Slovak Parliament. He is currently the Chairman of non-parliamentary Civic Conservative Party (OKS).

e chances of cultural renewal in Hungary ANDRÁS BOZÓKI According to experts, Hungary – and especially its capital, Budapest – is well situated to define its cultural identity within Europe. Not only has a new generation of talented artists turned up on the scene, but a whole new set of cultural managers has also entered Hungarian cultural life, bringing with them a fresh attitude. �e cooperation of these two groups can potentially lead to the long hoped for cultural renewal. Success is not the result of a zero-sum game. Cultural players have been wasting their energy on competing for the grace and resources of the state; now the time has come for them to join forces. If key figures of new or renewed emblematic cultural institutes1 cooperate, they will reach the critical mass that might bring a quality change. What makes a country culturally attractive? According to Jan Kennis (a cultural attaché of the Netherlands to Hungary), there are three preconditions for renewal: 1) economic development; 2) the ability to receive and integrate foreign influences; and 3) the “artistic atmosphere” of the place.2 �e first is still missing in Hungary, for it is not a rich country and it cannot afford to pay competitive fees to big international names who could direct cultural institutes. Actually paying them the due amounts would trigger tensions in salary levels and upset the public. �is represents an obstacle to the very aim of providing a more active presence of for-

eign artists and cultural managers. Despite cultural pillarization in the Netherlands, it is an open country; a seafaring nation for centuries, everyday interaction with foreign cultures brought cultural benefits – not to mention economic benefits reaped from colonial policies. By the 1960s, everyone spoke English in the Netherlands; in Hungary a few decades shall pass before we can achieve that. Until the regime change of 1989, Hungary was an occupied and isolated country standing in the shadows. Its citizens did not travel, speak foreign languages or listen to western radio, and they saw people with different skin colour only in films. �e cultural revolution of 1968 was brought to a halt by the Iron Curtain. However the situation is not hopeless, since the third condition is given. �e “artistic atmosphere”of Budapest, along with other towns such as Pécs, Szeged, Eger and Sopron, is a gift that we must take advantage of more actively. Budapest has far more theatres than the average European capital, and its cultural life sparkles. If the first condition is missing but not the third, hope for a change lies in the second: the ability to receive and integrate foreign influences. �is is where a change in the attitude of cultural policy could contribute most. I would like to address this issue a bit more closely. �e regime change in 1989 created the opportunity for a fundamental change in Hungarian culture and cultural policy. Several new fora of public dis-

Such as KÉK, Sziget Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, WAMP, Ludwig Museum, A38 Music Ship, Impex Lumen, Millenáris �eatre, Műcsarnok (Arts Hall), Tűzraktér (Alternative Cultural Centre), VAM Design Center, Trafó (�eatre for Contemporary Dance), Merlin �eatre, Palace of Arts, MU �eatre, Gödör Club – just to list some of the trendiest cultural venues in Budapest.

Jan Kennis: “A Paprika-hadművelet” [�e Paprika Operation] Élet és Irodalom, 29 August 2008.

respublica aesthetics

course were born, new weeklies and periodicals able to herald the newly gained freedom of speech and press. At the beginning, however, change was detectable primarily in the re-evaluation of the withheld or falsified past, as was the case in the rehabilitation of the cultural policy of Kunó Klebelsberg, the conservative-nationalist culture minister of the 1920s. �e state played an exclusive role in financing culture, while the gaps were filled by the generous support of the Soros Foundation, which was active up to the mid-1990s. As a result – and also due to the outstanding role played by intellectuals in the regime change – the old cultural financing scheme was for a long time sustainable. �e new pluralist system enabled certain circles of the intellectuals to gain a leading policy-making role. �e media war over the control of public radio and television between 1991 and 1993 was a Kulturkampf between two opposing blocs of intellectuals who had entered politics.3 After the cultural homogenization of the dictatorship, the battle was now over establishing subcultural pillars. Back then, the institutionalization of this subcultural pluralism meant the guarantee of freedom. �is determined the first years of the struggle to define the culture, the public discourse, the symbols, and the policy of the new republic. �e first four years of the parliament was an era of symbolic politics, in which the old cultural pillars of “populists” and “urbanists” were represented by the defining parties of the time, the Hungarian Democratic Forum and the Alliance of Free Democrats. �e concept of a modern republic means that we recognize the minimum basis of understanding that can shape us into a single political community despite the differences between us. �is community is maintained by legal principles and the democratic principles of mutual restrictions for the sake of our common freedom. A few years after the regime change of 1989, it became important to rescue cultural financing from the labyrinth of party politics. 3.

�e most significant measure with which to reconstruct the old structure was the establishment of the National Cultural Fund (NKA) in 1993. �is allowed cultural products to be evaluated by independent professional juries, thus giving players in cultural life a share of state support based on their professional and artistic merits rather than their political nexus. After 1994, the liberal cultural administration inaugurated the Digital Literary Academy (DIA) and the Széchenyi scholarship, which meant gestures to certain groups within the intellectual elite. At the same time, 10 per cent of the NKA budget was turned into a vis major fund, which became the “minister’s budget”. When the media act entered into force, the rise of the commercial TV channels brought a singinficant cultural change to Hungary. �e sole rule of the state TV thus ended and the media war became redundant after viewers were able to “vote” with their remote controls. Another factor for change was the withdrawal, from 1997 onwards, of the Soros Foundation from Hungary, where it had been supporting the cultural and scientific scenes, some parts of which had changed (books, periodicals, cultural events, scientific scholarships, etc.), some of which had gradually terminated. No similar private sponsor has taken Soros’ place since. When Fidesz gained power in 1998, circumstances had already changed. �e conservative government, with the millennium approaching, increased the role of symbolic politics and attributed a unique, strategic importance to culture. �e former 10 per cent minister’s budget was raised to 50 per cent, in order to tighten links between the government and the groups of the cultural elite that supported them. �e NKA was merged with the cultural budget and operated as National Cultural Base Programme. Following the nineteenth century concept of culture, the Orbán administration regarded culture primarily from the aspect of national-historical identity, and supported mainly those institutes that enforced this

On the one hand, the rightwing conservative forces around the governing party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), and on the other the liberal-left forces around the opposition party, Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ).

respublica aesthetics

line. �at was the time when the National �eatre – conveying vague aesthetic values – was built, when the National Philharmonic Orchestra was given extra support, thus becoming a world-class orchestra, and when support for the State Opera was tripled. �e construction of Palace of Arts also began at this time. �e rightwing political parties had a straightforward idea of what culture is: primarily the carrier of the firm national identity that has been shaped by history. �ey knew exactly what aim national cultural institutes should serve: to strenghten a national unity based on traditional values and symbols. �e Orbán administration treated culture as a state matter rather than a social one, and placed it in at the centre of attention, stressing the thousand-year-old concept of the state, that of St Stephen. �e cultural policy of the MSZP-SZDSZ coalition in power between 2002-2006 was characterized by clashes between different configurations of Socialist and Liberal circles: 1) those representing the old Kádárian elite positions; 2) the technocrats favouring modernization and a break from the current situation; and 3) those emphasizing the renewal of liberalleft identity. �e “Kádárists” were unable to enter real debates, as they were occupied with maintaining their own positions in the institutions. Others saw culture from a defensive aspect, avoiding making any reference to it, and basically accepting the content of culture defined by the conservative side. For them, culture was subordinate to the needs of experts, pragmatics and modernization. �ey treated culture as a “burden”, a mental reserve standing in the way of the country’s development and competitiveness. �e third group urged for a renewal of the concept of culture and for becoming more active in the field of cultural democracy, in creating opportunities, in nurturing talents, and in cultural regional development. �ey argued that the Left could not be intellectually empty and should not go without an identity. �e cultural policy of the Medgyessy administration (2002-2004) primarily represented the interests of circles still stuck to the nexus that had developed during the Kádár era. However, under the aegis of renewal, the first Gyurcsány administration 46

(2004-2006) opened the doors to new cultural groups and genres. More money was given to the curatoria of NKA and the minister’s budget decreased from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. A 2005 law restored to the NKA its name and autonomy and restricted the rules of incompatibility. Between 2006 and 2009, the socialist cultural policy returned to a more traditional understanding of culture and favoured different segments within high culture. �e last ten years has seen fundamental changes in reproducing culture, the access to cultural goods, and in general the attitude to culture. �e impact of the traditional, textual and narrative genres dropped significantly, and certain viusal and musical genres gained higher value. An Internet generation appeared whose members were raised in a free country, and who thus had only slight knowledge about the years of dictatorship. Our children read less than us: the developed world has switched to the Internet, online networks and mobile phones. We no longer send our letters in envelopes. Since 2004, Hungary has been an EU member state. Some of the old problems are still with us, while new challenges have arisen. We may close our eyes, but that will not chase away the fundamental cultural change that is taking place in Hungary in the form of the digital revolution. �e country is in the global race; the new technologies, visual arts and cultural forms are here. �e significance of audio-visual culture – mainly film and pop music – has increased. Technological development enables more and more of us to have a say in public matters (e-democracy, blog culture) and to become creators ourselves (computer music). Multidisciplinary festivals are on the rise, and the formerly rigid boundaries between elite and public culture are disappearing. What’s more, differentiation itself is becoming problematic: any combinaton of genres is conceivable in today’s experimental mix and remix culture. Now, punk operas, rap poetry, ray painting and symphonic video clips are real options. �e opportunities of gateways and links between genres are unprecedented. It is no exaggeration to say that as a result of the inspirations deriving from the global mixture, all new music will slowly become

“world music”. �e Creative Commons agreement has appeared, which delegates interpretating and defining copyright to the authors themselves. Without overestimating the role of technology, I believe that the cultural policy-makers had to – and today still have to – face this fact. �ere was a need for a new cultural policy to contrast to the compensatory culture of Kunó Klebelsberg, which after the shock of Trianon was built upon the cultural superiority of “Mutilated Hungary”. It was also necessary to provide a contrast to the communist policy of “Forbid, Abide, Support”, which after 1956, under György Aczél, was based on the pacification of rebellion and support for and buying of artists. Today, none of the twentieth century models can be followed – and not only because these were products of anti-democratic regimes. �e culture of the free republic cannot be built upon privileges gained and maintained without achievement and the narrow concept of culture itself. In 2005, Hungary supported the UNESCO resolution on protecting cultural diversity, which partly opposed the purely free market-based concept of culture. �e document declares that national cultures must be protected, since while culture is a product, it is a special one. a Hungarian, an Italian, or a Czech film, or piece of writing is valuable in itself; small, isolated languages must also be protected. �e state thus has a role in cultural financing, and this role must be maintained. For the same reason, in 2006 the Hungarian cultural administration initiated and convinced their European partners of the new concept of European cultural heritage, which emphasizes intellectual heritage besides built heritage. If we think that culture is a plural concept because it is diverse, colourful and built of various elements, than the same is of national culture. �e latter is also made up of identities and subcultures, is in constant interaction with its environment, and so is changing. Certainly, there exists traditional preferences, but it is not the task of politicians’ to set up a rank of values. Rather, it is the task of professionals, audiences and society, who do not create “eternal” rankings, but rather rethink values in a continuous debate.

State cultural policy must “clear the way” for those to speak who so far have had no chance to do so, and to provide conditions for cultural diversity. Forty years ago, jazz was said not to be part of culture and undeserving of support. Later it was accepted. And there is Tengertánc, the programme supporting living folk culture, or PANKKK, supporting rural music clubs and upcoming talent. �e introduction of these programmes triggered heated debates, yet they have proven to be successful, as they were born from the initiatives of and in cooperation with artists. �e Alfa and Közkincs (Public Treasure) programmes for regional cultural development can be supported from EU sources as well. When the Sziget Festival receives 60 000 visitors daily and has become one of the biggest events in Europe, no one can say that it is not part of Hungarian culture. Now it is even part of the image of Hungary. �ere has been a significant change in Hungarian public radio: the Petőfi channel, formerly listened to by only a few, has become a hub of quality pop music. PANKKK was the first to express the necessity that Hungarian musicians should have more time on public radio, and a paradoxical situation developed as the new management of Hungarian Radio, not fully intentionally, began to implement this policy. �at is a sign of our common awareness that we need a broader, more flexible and more open concept of culture. We should not leave unnoticed changes in the culture of our everyday life, and the social-intellectual phenomena that turn up outside the circle of regularly supported traditional cultural institutes. Public culture is also part of culture besides “court culture”. Next to the aristocracy of culture, the republic of culture has also come to life. Representing the republic of culture cannot mean maintaining the cultural institutes in an unchanged form forever. But what viewpoints should be taken into consideration when eveluating these institutes? One of the politically hottest questions is that of fair procedures. �e world of cultural lobbies is more fluid than the world of science: scientists have got used to entering the international competition if they want support, and to the fact that with

foreign publications they will gain professional prestige. Applications must be submitted, budgets must be calculated in advance, and later – or during the process in many cases – recipients of funding must account for their spending. However, in the cultural scene we often bump into an often invisible, closed nexus, whose one-dimensional operation has been publicly criticized by the State Audit Office on several occasions. Appointments for certain periods are often on paper only, but might be valid forever. �is is not the rule of law, but the political culture of direct control. In a democracy it is natural that a cultural position is filled for a certain period. Looking at the world of Hungarian cultural institutes, it would seem that the regime change never took place. �e success of the European Cultural Capital programme shows that culture now has a higher value in Europe – as has cultural diplomacy. �ere are no serious political conflicts between the countries of Europe, and the role of traditional diplomacy has been shrinking as a result. Now the question is who or what can a country come up with. With Botticelli, Bergman, Bartók, Mozart, Almodóvar, with painters, film directors and perfomers – its art, its culture. It is important to have a Korean, an American or an Indian investor in Hungary, since they create thousands of jobs, and thus have an economic and social role. But they will not add a thing to our image and our cultural presence abroad. It takes a lot of effort for a city or a country to represent itself. �e question whether there is a development concept, and how the creative industries are included in that, is crucial. Let us not forget that culture can make a profit, too, and can function to revitalize the economy via the creative industries, music, films, and marketing. Having realized that cultural diversity is a fundamental value in Europe, the European Commission declared 2008 the year of intercultural dialogue. It is not sufficient – and anyway impossible – to maintain an isolated society that lives in multicultural “ghettos”. �ose who communicate with each other will try to understand each other better, too. In the same way that the French and the Germans have published coursebooks on World War II together, there could

be similar joint programmes between Romania and Hungary, or Serbia and Hungary. �e National Cultural Fund should operate a college of intercultural cooperation. If we opt for an open world and culture, then the borders must stay open, too; people and thoughts must be able to walk to and fro. We must not fence in the national tradition, national or ethnic culture, or even subculture. For many, favouring the national culture against the harmful effects of globalization is a form of “national self-defence”, as if culture were a military concept. Our culture is strong only when it has the capacity for dialogue. Any real, provocative and attractive culture will step over boundaries. It is not by accident that the European Commission has established a cultural prize with the name “Border Breakers Award”. It is a fact that Hungarian cultural diplomacy and the society of artists have become much more open in the past few years, and Hungary’s geocultural position is now more balanced. We have the chance to enjoy the spaces of our regained cultural independence and to get rid of the extremes that used to bind our intellect during almost throughout the whole of the twentieth century: both that fake “cultural superiority” and the sense of inferiority that triggers frustrations. What do we need for success? First, we have to keep revitalizing our mood for work and creation. Secondly, we have to keep fresh our views, fair procedures, the policy of creating opportunities, and the necessity of having alternatives. We must support common creation, free acess to different fields, the entrepreneurial attitude, and value mediation. �e age of one-dimensional, one-channel, “great national representation” is over. Long-term results can be expected only from cultural actions that are based on common creation, partnership, and co-operative projects. �e success of cultural seasons cannot be measured by the quantity of the artists, the productions, and the press releases, but by the number, durability and intensity of partnerships and joint projects between Hungarian and foreign cultural players. Co-production and joint financing is not an external obligation anymore, but an internal principal starting point in forming cultural contacts.

respublica aesthetics

As a consequence, besides the traditional means of diplomacy, the importance of contact management, network building and project initiatives is becoming higher. �e creators and operators of cultural productions, instead of individual performances, now tend to look for partners to present their programmes in second or third countries in order to multiply the efficiency of reception. �at cannot be only the effects of globalisztion, and the trend will not damage or sweep away national cultures. On the contrary, it may encourage a discovery of its new characteristics and unknown sides. �at is already enough reason for Hungarian cultural diplomacy to pay extra attention to common cultural creation, and to encourage intercultural dialogue. Responsiveness to foreign influence is not exclusively a question of diplomacy, but the question of the “artistic atmosphere”, as mentioned above. Common creation is a task for the civil players; the state authorities must only provide spaces for that, be they an actual venue or a virtual one on the Internet. One of the most exciting developments of today’s cultural life is the realization of the fact that national cultures, thought to be homogenous in the past, are built upon numerous subcultures. A country’s culture consists of these colourful islands, and this diversity is what makes it so attractive, dynamic, and interesting. Representing this diverse world requires cultural diplomacy and that each player has a new view about their role. As a result of the development of subcultures, the concept of national culture has become much broader; we have to deal with this new cultural concept. What is more, there are often no direct paths between these subcultures, even within a country; they may even refuse to communicate, for various reasons such taste or technical difficulties. Cultural diplomacy cannot afford to create the missing link artificially, or to pretend to have it. It must bring the players of Hungarian and foreign analogue subcultures together, establishing direct access for them. Such “creative passages” will release new energies, new capacities will emerge, and dialogues of new content will begin. If everything goes on well, these 50

cultures, when in a new environment of reception, will draw much greater and broader attention than in their place of origin. Sometimes we see that Hungarian “subcultural” acts that go unnoticed here gain international success. Institutional and civil contacts, artists’ dialogues and access between subcultures, and having a cultural entrepreneur’s attitude, require a new strategy and a new set of means. �e sort of culture that older generations grew up with seems to be losing some of its attractive characteristic. In the age of computers, commercial television, discount airlines and the explosive development of communication technologies, we are not that old, isolated, barrack-like country that we used to be, which could find satisfaction only in football, chess, narrow elitist culture and gold medals at the Olympics. Today’s talents can emerge outside those fields, too. �e structure of culture is changing continually, and thus we need to renew its concept, to have a fresh, supportive cultural policy. We must make strong gestures to gain attention, to reveal that the situation has changed. Today, twenty years after the regime change of 1989, the historical period of post-communism is over, including the change of political and economic regime, Wild West capitalism, the accumulation of capital, and quick privatization. In spite of the relative poverty of Hungary, the time has come for us to realize the importance of cultural values. �e age of the “last giant state-socialist companies”, which could operate and spend irresponsibly and in the early years of capitalism were not transparent, is over too. It seems that Hungary is slowly but surely entering a world of cultural diversity that is more similar to the western European model, a world where the role of culture can once again be in focus. �e culture of the republic will be like we are. András Bozóki (1959), professor of political science at the Central European University and former Chairman of the Hungarian Political Science Association. He was the Hungarian Minister of Culture in 2005-2006.

Deutschland: e image of Germans in Polish literature PRZEMYSŁAW CZAPLIŃSKI In the mid-1970s, while visiting the United States, a certain Polish man was having a brief chat with an American. When asked the archetypal question, “Where are you from?” he replied, “Poland.” “Where is that?” probed the American, keeping up the friendly exchange. “In Europe,” said the Pole. “But where exactly?” the local man insisted. “Between Russia and Germany,” was the Pole’s succinct answer. “But there is no space in between there!” exclaimed the puzzled American. �ey finished their coffee in silence. �e present essay, whose subject is the relationship between Polish and German cultures, emerges in some sense from a place which does not exist – the place for which there has always been too little space.

Strangers at home In 1981, in the very midst of Poland’s experiment with Solidarity, Jan Jozef Lipski wrote his essay “Two homelands, two patriotisms”,1 which outlined a proposal for the renewal of Poland’s collective identity. �e need for this renewal, in Lipski’s view, came from the fact that Polish patriotic consciousness had fallen under the sway of megalomania and xenophobia, which work to unite society through feelings of hatred and injustice directed at its neighbors. Megalomania allows one to deride the Czechs, sneer at the 1.

primitive Russians, reproach the Ukrainians for their cruelty; xenophobia, meanwhile, relentlessly revives the loathing of Germans and reproduces the most nonsensical prejudices against the Jews. Megalomania works to bleach bloody stains out of native history – that is, wrongs that were done to the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Czechs or Jews – and assists in maintaining a sense of moral purity. �e hatred of the foreign Other certainly holds a community together, but such a community fails to notice that the glue which binds it is made of poison. �is toxic cement of collective life turns against the community itself: if it has coalesced around the hatred of Germans, it is easy to steer its emotions by kindling anti-German sentiments in order to exclude; if it is united in its contempt for Russians and all things Russian, then it will never discover Russian elements in its own culture, consequently failing to establish a true dialog with itself. Megalomania and xenophobia are not simply the rejection of the unknown, but, most importantly, they draw a narrow perimeter around what is seen as one’s own. a community which cuts itself off from the Other can only define its identity by stating who and with whom it does not wish to be. Such a collective is not interested in discovering how much of the Other it part of itself, or how heterogeneous it really is. �e author contrasts this kind of Ressentiment patriotism with critical patriotism which he also finds in Polish tradition. Critical patriotism is rooted in the readiness for solemn reckonings, acknowledging both the good and the bad, or even the worst, acts committed by the native community. It does not

First edition: Niezalezna Oficyna Wydawnicza NOWA, Warsaw 1981. �e present text relies on the following edition: J.J. Lipski, “Two homelands, two patriotisms,” in J.J. Lipski, Nessos’ Tunic and Other Essays. PEN Publishing, Warsaw 1992.

respublica aesthetics

shun the duty to love one’s homeland, but it always asks what kinds of actions this love seeks to motivate, and who it is willing to exclude. �is reflective patriotism does not question heroic achievements, but neither does it allow the past to be reduced to a catalogue of triumphs. Guided by a sense of responsibility, next to sources of pride it places causes for shame and disgrace. Lipski thus aims to convince us that the stranger is within us, in the shape of both denounced evils as well as regular cultural influences, so that any attempt at building a national identity based on excluding the Other leads to denial and hatred. Megalomania and xenophobia are not simply passions directed at outsiders, but they form a blueprint for relations within the community itself – their essence rests in coercing all members into a uniform model of identity, which in turn consists of a tally of despised characteristics. Lipski writes: “Patriotism derives from love and it is meant to lead to love – in any other form it becomes an ethical aberration.” �is Christian-sounding project can, however, be expressed in different terms: if we wish to communicate with each other better, we need to get to know ourselves more completely. �is entails allowing the foreignness within us to be heard, and consequently for the strangers standing by our side to be granted full expression. It is thus impossible for Poles to relate to each other differently without first changing their attitude towards Russians and Germans.

Strangers, go home! A few months after the publication of Lipski’s essay, martial law was instituted in Poland. Beginning in January 1982, on every monthly “anniversary” of this event – 13 January, 13 February, 13 March, and so on – people gathered in city streets to vociferate their hatred of communism, condemn the authorities for their crime, commemorate the victims of martial law, manifest their protest. �e demonstrations were surrounded by a tight cordon of militia. Robust and well equipped, they 52

were carefully selected for this kind of task. �ey were known as ZOMO, the Polish acronym for the official name of their unit: the Motorized Squad of Citizens’ Militia, which was the most despised segment of Polish security forces. �e crowd faced these dumb, baton-wielding warriors of the communist state, shouting, “ZOMO – Gestapo! ZOMO – Gestapo!” Louder and louder, with mounting aggression, till their voices turned hoarse. Sometimes this was enough: the militiamen marched into action with their rubber swords drawn, clashing with the small groups into which the crowd would have split. If, on the other hand, the protesters managed to advance a few hundred meters, a basic political message entered the chanted slogans. �e crowd passed the empty party headquarters, yelling, “Soviets – go home! Soviets – go home! Soviets – go home!” �ese were peculiar cries. ZOMO recruits were always young men: our neighbors’ sons, our classmates, cousins, brothers. �ey were our own society’s flesh and blood. �e cry: “Gestapo!” did not mean that they were German, but rather that they treated other Poles the way Germans had during World War II. �is insult served to exclude their actions from the set of acceptable community behaviours, expressing the underlying belief that being a member of ZOMO is as foreign to modern Polishness as the methods employed by the Gestapo had been during the war. �e second cry, meanwhile, meant that the martial law and the whole communist project in Poland were an eastern import enacted by people who were ideological and cultural outsiders. Both these slogans therefore meant more or less that under martial law, Polish society was beaten by forces so foreign to our identity that they could be equated with the Gestapo, who took their orders from a government politically so alien that it was essentially Soviet. Martial law – one of Poland’s greatest post-war traumas – was thus never named in local terms. And foreign names ascribed to it pushed evil outside the boundaries of the community, while bestowing on the community itself features of a collective suprahistorical martyr. As the two slogans implied, forty years after the war we were still besieged by the

Germans and the Russians. �e acute anachronism of this idea points to the need for different diagnoses and new evaluations. But the appearance of World War II stereotypes meant that the simple task of finding more fitting labels for militiamen and party functionaries first required a reconceptualization of the Gestapo and of the Soviets.2 And that is because collective identity always constructs itself in opposition to internal and external Others.3

Almost Jewish �e first attempt at such a reconceptualization following martial law was undertaken by Andrzej Szczypiorski in his novel �e Beginning (1986). �e significance of this book lay not so much in proposing a new version of history, but in a regrouping of sentiments surrounding the Other. With respect to Polish-German relations which are of interest to us here, Szczypiorski’s contribution is both apparent and ambiguous. It is apparent in that the author broke with the stereotypical portrayal of the German. Its ambiguity, meanwhile, lies in the fact that the renewal of Polish-German relations proposed in the novel takes place at the expense of the Jews and the Russians. �e author achieves this in a straightforward manner. He tells the story of a beautiful Jewish girl, who, having been reported to the Gestapo by a fellow Jew, becomes the subject of a rescue mission on part of her neighbours, while the final link in the chain of solidarity turns out to be Johan Müller – a German who saves Miss Irma Seidenmann from the hands of the Gestapo by pretending to be her friend. Years later, in 1968, Poland’s communist authorities expel Miss Irma from her job, and then from the country. �rough this story Szczypiorski not only points out that Germans could be humane and good, and that post-war communism was anti-Semitic, but above all he seeks to weaken

the effectiveness of employing nationalism as a key to interpreting collective experience. We have relied on this key to explain Poland’s twentieth century history: if we were oppressed by two nations motivated by anti-Polish ideology, then our raison d’être had to consist of nationalistic patriotism. Szczypiorski, however, shifts the centre of gravity from the nation to the totalitarian regime and, surprisingly, introduces the German as an ally in the Polish struggle against totalitarian authority. Post-war Germans are no longer national socialists, but rather – as befits their innate perfectionism – model democrats. Szczypiorski thus tells the story in which the Poles become almost Jewish: they suffer persecution, but all the more so when forced to watch the persecution and killing of Jews. Because of this double injury – empathizing with the Jews coupled with the immensity of their own sacrifice – years after the war the Poles, like the Jews, find themselves trapped in painful ruminations and in their hatred of Germans. �e author exploits this parallel to propose a change. His novel seeks to convince us that since, like the Jews, we treat Germans with emotional distance, we can use this to break the barriers and begin a new narrative – a dialogue between a doubly-injured victim and its sworn enemy. First, however, we have to let go of the generalizing view which sees all Germans as criminals or their helpers.

Germanus sedens Although full of shortcomings caused by sentimentality, Szczypiorski’s novel did a lot of good. It legitimized writing about the civilian experience of the war, it included the German civilian among the war’s victims, it showed that building human relationships in the post-war world is closely linked to how one talks about the wartime world, and it undermined nationalistic thinking. At the same time, the sense of

We should note that Russian identity – next to German and central European identities – is one of the fundamental geopolitical categories. New narratives of Polish belonging to Europe were formed through the operation of these categories.

An “internal” Other could be, for example, the Woman, the Sexual Deviant, the Jew. And “external” Other is a representative of nationalities bordering a given society – for example, for the Germans it is the Frenchman, for the Poles it is the German.

incompleteness generated by the novel created the right conditions for countless civilian wartime narratives to break through national categorizations and to unveil thus far overlooked experiences. As long as European consciousness was dominated by war narratives which centred on frontline campaigns, partisan activity or espionage, civilian experience remained on the sidelines. But the wartime picture changes radically when we introduce the perspective of those focused not on fighting and killing, but on surviving – the perspective familiar from books such as �e Tin Drum (1959) by Günter Grass, �e Silence of the Sea (1942) by Jean Marcel Vercors, or A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising (1970) by Miron Bialoszewski. And along with it change national characterizations. Soldiers are not really free to mix with enemy armies, but the mixing of civilian populations of diverse – and hostile – national provenance is a common occurrence. �ey are also often, for various reasons, isolated from the war itself. Precisely this kind of historical setting features in Stefan Chwin’s novel Hanemann.4 �e author recounts the life of the main hero – a German doctor living in Gdansk and specializing in anatomic pathology – who just before the war loses his beloved, Luiza Berger, in mysterious circumstances. Until Luiza’s death Hanemann studies human cadavers, convinced that they all conceal some immortal, immaterial element. But when her remains appear on his dissection table, he realizes that death takes away everything. Following this crisis of worldview, he quits his job, sits down in a chair and gives himself over to purposeless musings. Even the mass exodus of Germans from Gdansk in 1945 does not stir him from his melancholy trance. He awakens only when resettled migrants arrive at his home. So what does Chwin do with the image of the German and Polish-German relations? First of all he brings back the picture of a melancholy German, which constitutes a forgotten element of Polish cul-

tural tradition and derives its roots from the poetry of Heine and von Kleist, interwoven with the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich. Its essence lies in portraying a vulnerable subject who recognizes his frailty in the face of the elements. �us potent existence, depicted as stormy seas or soaring mountains, transforms, through a dark epiphany experienced by the subject, into a den of nothingness. �e melancholy subject espouses the belief that nothing is more certain than something, while the admission of his own frailty leads him to acedia. �rough his choice to be passive and his refusal to fight nothingness, he becomes the opposite of all models of active life. Hanemann thus presents the antithesis not just of Prussian Junkerism or Nazi will to power, but of a more general will to live. Hanemann is foreign by choice, an existential Other – a man contesting existence itself. �us, while Szczypiorski de-Nazified the German, Chwin demilitarized him. �e feeble German, the melancholy Germanus sedens, matters not only because of his reference to a forgotten aspect of German heritage, and because he illustrates the fraternal relation between Hanemann and Hamlet, thus complicating the depiction of all Germans as dangerous expansionists. �e mention of the mass escape from the city and the postwar episode encountered by the main character are equally significant. By allowing Hanemann to remain in the Polish city after the end of the War, Chwin opens up the vast chapter whose subject are German civilians in Poland in 1945 – a chapter until this point barely present in Polish consciousness.

Germanus sacer In the same year as Hanemann (1995), Giorgio Agamben’s book Homo sacer. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita5 (1998), was published in Italy. In it, the author discusses one of the main anthropological traditions, stretching from ancient Greek thought into the

All citations refer to the Polish edition: S. Chwin, Hanemann. Marabut Publishers, Gdansk, 1995.

All citations refer to the Polish translation: G. Agamben, Homo sacer. Suwerenna wladza i nagie zycie. (in English: Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Naked Life). Translation by Mateusz Salwa. Commentary by Piotr Nowak. Prószynski i S-ka, Warsaw 2008.

respublica aesthetics

twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which centres around the opposition between “naked life” (zoe) and “biopolitical life” (bios). Every political system based in this distinction reproduces a method by which the state achieves sovereignty and which is dangerous for society. �is method is shared by the Greek and Roman republics, by the medieval monarchy, by totalitarian regimes and democratic systems. All power seeks sovereignty. Sovereignty is achieved not when the state can impose laws, but when it acquires the ability to create exemptions from the laws which it institutes. �e fullest embodiment of the suspension of the rule of law – conceptualized in this way – is the state of emergency. �is should not, however, be understood as the time of stricter control. For Agamben, it is the ambiguous zone in which breaking the law is indistinguishable from obeying it, so that a given act cannot be judged as either atrocious or law-abiding. �is ambiguous zone, created through a sovereign decision suspending/breaking the law, gives birth to naked life – life that can be killed but not sacrificed. �is is homo sacer – the sacred man. Naked life is in the same measure exempted from the law, as it is essential to the law and to the state: if the state could not declare a state of emergency, thereby suspending the laws which it had previously instituted, and if it could not maintain naked life in this ambiguous zone, it could not be said to have power. �us, conversely, the exception proves the rule, the outcast embodies the society, martial law defines the rule of law, and naked life links the structure of sovereignty with the structure of sacrifice. �e totalitarian regime was one in which the state of emergency became permanent. �e concentration camp became its structural space, while the Muslim became naked life both exempt 6.

from the law and created by the law. In other words, the living dead found in concentration camps were not a by-product of the totalitarian regime, but rather the essence of its power, which through the camp manifested yet another, though not the last, of its incarnations. After prisoners were released from concentration camps at the end of the War, the state of emergency was in the first place applied to the German population. �is was permitted by a rule which, using Agamben’s conception, can be described as follows: Polish and Soviet armies formed a quasistate structure founded through the law of the fight with Germany. �is law (bios) specified who belonged to the community (whoever battles the Germans is a legitimate citizen) and who was the enemy. But the German civilians living in the Soviet Union and Poland were both included (as civilians) and excluded (as Germans) through the operation of this law. In other words, they were subject to a law which sanctioned the suspension of law. �is population, therefore, unlike members of other nations freed from concentration camps, acquired the quality of collective naked life (zoe) when gripped by the state of emergency. Germanus sacer became a purely biological being – he could be killed but not sacrificed. His killing was therefore neither registered nor rewarded.6 �e entrance of Polish and Soviet troops into occupied territories marks the beginning of many months of torment for the German civilian population: pillage, mass murder, rape, and concentration camps became the law of the post-war state of emergency. Polish literature abounds in texts dealing with this subject, whether documentary, journalistic or fictional. What is important, however, is both the

It is clear that the majority of Germans found themselves in Polish territories as a result of being settled there as part of the occupation process. It is also clear that during the War the Polish population was subject to the same restrictions and cruel regulations, as the German population was after the War. �e section devoted here to the post-war context neither questions German crimes, nor the right to a reclaiming of lands occupied by the Germans. Describing “Germanus sacer” I am simply trying to recall the causes and effects of this phenomenon, as well as to refer it to the forming of a new collective identity in Poland. �is is because I assume that a reconstruction of Polish consciousness – its Europeanization, modernization or universalization, whether in the spirit of Christianity or any other – is not possible without including the post-war story of the German civilian population into Polish collective narratives.

ending of the silence and the diversity of voices. �ese disparate texts, while describing a nationalistic reality, suspend the operation of the nationalistic criterion. When national identity retreats into the background, the War emerges first of all as the story of human bodies. �e less armed they are, the more vulnerable. �ese bodies can be freely disposed of; they do not resist. An example are female bodies, which shared the same cruel fate during the post-war state of emergency. Some were killed following gang rapes and dumped in city streets while their husbands and children dug mass graves for them. �e lucky ones served as sexual meat for longer.7 In Pomerania there were numerous cases of mass suicides committed by the women (and sometimes by the majority of a town’s inhabitants) just before the entrance of Soviet troops so as to avoid dishonour. �is was the operation of the so-called Nemmersdorf syndrome: “Nemmersdorf, a small East Prussian village, today known as Mayakovskoe in Kaliningrad county, was captured by the Soviets in October 1944. A few hours later it was recovered by a Werhmacht unit.” 8 But everyone was already dead: “By the first homestead four naked women were crucified on a wagon. (…) Two naked women hung crucified on the barn door, their arms nailed to it. (…) In the houses we found seventy-two women and children, plus one man, all of them dead. Almost all had been savagely murdered, only a few had been shot in the back of the head. We also saw swaddled babies whose skulls had been smashed with blunt objects.” 9 �e operational law was revenge: the Germans were dealt the same fate as that previously suffered by the Poles, Russians

and Jews. For years afterwards German women remained silent, aware that the soldiers were avenging their kin and that rape is sexual warfare in which the men are punished through the disgrace inflicted on the women. German women thus did not speak of their humiliation, because such confessions brought shame. It took forty years for European cultural discourse to create conditions in which the story of the raped German women could be told in a narrative free of repeated stigmatization of women. �e appearance of such books in Polish translation demonstrated that a gulf existed between war and peace. �is gulf was filled by time which simultaneously flowed and stood still. What was done to the Germans as the civilian population was being reduced to the state of naked life lingered in Polish memory as our national “outrage”. Outrageous, however, is not the same as “fictional” or “extraordinary” – rather, it is the “ordinary” which had been concealed. During the war, German criminality and Russian savagery were “ordinary”,10 as was Polish self-sacrifice. Polish acts committed on the German population are closest to wartime normalcy (the act of killing), but they are not linked to the war or to the fight with other soldiers. �e bestiality of these acts gives them their “outrageous” quality. But what is “outrageous” has to be suppressed. And as anything that is suppressed, this outrage came back years later in the form of horror. Such is the form given by Janusz Rudnicki to the confession of Ignacy Szypula, the commanding officer of the Lambinowice concentration camp,11 which between 1945-1946 saw around 60,000 Germans, Silesians, as well as people suspected of collaboration

See e.g. Kobieta w Berlinie 1945 (“�e Woman in Berlin 1945”) (anonymous author), Polish translation by Barbara Tarnas. Swiat Ksiazki, Warsaw 2004; Antony Beevor, Berlin. Upadek 1945. (“Berlin. �e Fall 1945”), Magnum, Warsaw 2004; Marcin Zaremba and Jolanta Zarembina, 1945 rok kobiet upodlonych (“1945, the Year of Disgraced Women”) in Newsweek (Polish edition) 2005, no. 29.

Włodzimierz Nowak, Obwód Głowy („�e Head’s Diameter”). Czarne Publishing, Wołowiec 2007, p.31.

Ibid.

10. See e.g. Michal Komar, Nadzieja (“Hope”) in Trzy (“�ree”), WAB Publishers, Warsaw 2000. �e author describes a tragic episode in East Prussian history: in the winter 1945 the inhabitants of a Kashubian village come out to greet Soviet tanks and end up crushed by them. 11. J. Rudnicki, Spowiedź mordercy Ignacego Szypuly zanim wypadl przez balkon i zabil sie (“Confessions of the murderer Ignacy Szypula before he died falling out of a balcony”) in Krytyka Polityczna 2005, no. 7/8.

respublica aesthetics

with the Nazis pass through its gates. About 80 per/ cent of them were killed. �e killing took all possible forms, becoming a competition in humiliation and sadism. Szypula ends his account dispassionately: “We buried those who had only fainted. �ey woke up as the sand fell on them. �ey screamed like mad, and the gravediggers threw the sand faster. If you ask me today if I still hear those screams – well, I don’t. I do not regret my sins.” �e entire monologue is an unbroken catalog of crimes, rapes and tortures committed because of the sheer ability and freedom to do so. �e criminal mind is filled with witnessed or overheard depictions of wartime horrors, so Szypula arranges the German deaths in accordance with his confused memory and imagination. In his consciousness – that of the master of life and death – the prisoners become a single uniform, amorphous body, whose boundaries are only established through torture. But bodies – beaten, crippled, quartered, raped, crushed – suffer increasing deformation the more intensely they are tortured. �e energy of unending torture does not nourish its perpetrators, who, seeking to purge the world of Germans and the Germans of their German-ness, encounter a corporal contradiction: they discover that just as it is impossible to establish guilt through punishment in a Ka�aesque procedure, so it is impossible to delineate the boundaries of a body through torture. �us the tormentors, acting through the legitimacy of the state of emergency, watch as the collective German body morphs into a shapeless liquid. �e body on which they wished to inscribe the verdict turns the sentence into rotting pulp. It seems that Szypula falls victim to the autotelic nature of the concentration camp: the camp produces only death, giving its facilitators no satisfaction apart from emptiness. Rudnicki’s story should not be treated as evidence of the crimes inflicted by Poles on the Germans12 – instead, it is worthwhile to observe in it the terror at the probability of such events. �e author’s own terror finds its voice

through being contradicted – his narrator is unrepentant, his account is marked by detailed exaggeration, by boastfulness, and by ostentatious arrogance whose only basis is the number of tortured victims. For Szypula, the multitude of those killed testifies to the immensity of German crimes, which could only be resolved through monstrous revenge. Rudnicki therefore had to create in his main character a monster: if Szypula sought to play down his guilt, if he contradicted himself, sanitized his crimes or showed remorse, then we could say that while still a criminal, unlike the Germans he is a repentant criminal. However, the precision of his depictions, the sadistic flare of his expression which even years later seeks to humiliate his victims, introduces a true novelty into Polish-German relations. First of all, we see the abdication of innocence – by accepting guilt, Polish literature renounces the myth of Poles as immaculate victims as the basis for claims made against the Germans. �is is not the renouncing of the claims themselves, but rather a change in motivation. Innocence is replaced by the reality of guilt, which leads to the admission that German victims of Polish camps can also have justifiable claims. �is specific notion of equality should not lead to a relativization of German crimes, but rather to the acceptance that “German” and “injured” are not mutual contradictions. We can thus easily see that the appearance of Polish texts about concentration camps for German prisoners turns claim-making into both a Polish and a German right. But these texts expose mutual accusations as merely a negative form of communication and persuade us to ask, what’s next? Viewed through this lens, Rudnicki’s story can be read as a strong critique of nationalism, as well as a challenge to the illusion that breaking with nationalism will automatically equal the achievement of a new way of relating. �e critique seems straightforward: nationally-based criteria for imprisonment in both Nazi and later Polish

12. �e historical account on which Rudnicki relies appears earlier – see Edmund Nowak, Cien Lambinowic. Proba rekonstrukcji dziejow obozu pracy w Lambinowicach 1945-1946 (�e Shadow of Lambinowice: Reconstructing the History of the Lambinowice Labor Camp 1945-1946). Opole University Press, Opole 1991.

respublica aesthetics

camps lay within strategies adopted by the twentieth century state. �is state legitimized the practice of selection according to national origin, by the same token exposing its ideological basis. But breaking with nationalism offers no real solution, either: the ease with which the concentration camp structure was recreated by the Poles, as well as their eager adoption of Nazi practices, suggest that modernity created the conditions in which cruelty can thrive regardless of the nationality of either the killers or the victims. Perhaps one conclusion that can be drawn from this novella is that the Poles and the Germans may honour each other’s claims, but should also recognize that respecting such claims does not provide sufficient basis for a healthy relationship. Rather, they should come together in trying to benefit from the critical memory of the institutions which they had created. Such common memory of past conflicts may lead to mutual guarding against the birth of violence within new, supranational institutions.

“An unbelievable oversight” In the volume titled An Anthology of Postnatal Work, Cezary Konrad Kęder includes a short story depicting a familiar scene: a town’s inhabitants are chased out of their homes by soldiers, rushed to the train station, shoved into cattle trains, the doors are shut behind them… �ere are shouts of urgency, battering, crying, falling bodies, a trail of abandoned suitcases… �is could be the transport of Jews to Auschwitz in 1942 or 1943. Or perhaps the exile of Poles from eastern borderlands into the depths of Russia in 19401941. But actually the author – in a very general sketch purposely devoid of detail – depicts a different moment: the resettlement of Silesian Germans in 1945. �e aim was not the recording of German suffering,

but rather a provocative challenging of our own assumptions by showing just how much our historical consciousness is dominated by national stereotypes. When we see civilians packed onto cattle trains, we are convinced that they must be our own people. Despite his irreverent tendency to mock, Kęder in fact touches on a serious subject. Historians estimate that between 1945-1948, about 9 million people in Europe were resettled. �e forced migrations followed similar patterns, but afterwards not everyone was permitted to remember. �is seems to be one of the pivotal points in Polish-German relations: the right to full expression and recognition of suffering. For half a century the tragedies of almost all nations attained increasingly greater expression, while the story of German resettlement was suppressed even by the Germans themselves. �e exile of Poles features in several dozen books which have appeared in the past twenty years. We thus have stories of resettlement from Belorussia (Lida (1990), God Does Not Hear the Deaf (1995) and �e Day before the End of the World (2008) by Aleksander Jurewicz), from Lithuania (A Brief Story of a Joke (1991) by S. Chwin, Seen and Arrested in Time (2006) by Zbigniew Zakiewicz, In Another’s Beauty (1998) by A. Zagajewski) and from the Ukraine (�e Last Stories (2004) by Olga Tokarczuk). But until the publication of Hanemann not much was written about the simultaneity of the transfer13 that was taking place: the Germans were being resettled at the same time as the Poles were being expatriated from the East. But it seems that, seeking to build a complete picture of post-war experience and thus describing in greater volume the stories of forced migration, our literature has made room for the tales of all deported peoples – including the Germans. One could argue that describing the expatriation of the Germans is a task for German literature. But precisely this belief – that societies are fundamental-

13. I use this term to refer to the play Transfer by Jan Klata (2006). In it, the director invites Polish and German resettlers, who take turns appearing on stage and telling of their wartime lives and of the time of resettlement. �is was the first symmetrical account in Polish cultural history, in which the experiences of the two civilian populations were equalized. 14. Günter Grass, Idac rakiem. Nowela (“Crabwalk”). Polish translation by Slawomir Blaut. Polnord, Oskar Publishers, Gdansk 2002. (Citation translated from Polish by the present translator – translator’s note).

ly national – formed the basis of two world wars, and later worked to suppress the German experience. After all, German resettlement was a historical product of events set in motion by the Germans themselves, so their sufferings and victims were counted among the perpetrators’ costs. And silence became a part of the atonement. Günter Grass attempts to describe the effects of this silence in his novel Crabwalk.14 He depicts three German generations. �e first gives its youth to the Nazi cause and pays for it through the loss of the East Prussian heimat. �e second commits itself to transforming the will to power into a collective willingness to atone, and works hard to build a democratic, pacifistic society free of any claims and ignorant of all memory of resettlement. �e third, youngest generation, refuses to accept the sense of guilt, instead searching the past for sources of pride and of injury, discovering heroes, martyrs, victims. Grass seeks to depict a heritage of humiliation, experienced by the grandparents, rejected by the parents, and embraced again by the children. But when the youngest generation acts to pay respect to their grandparents, it does so through nationalism and terrorism. �e novel thus shows how post-war liberals gave birth to fanatics – not by providing them with solutions, but rather because the liberals subscribed to a generalizing version of the past which condemned anyone linked to the war as guilty. And whoever wants to move from a sense of guilt to a sense of pride, does so through violence. One of the novel’s characters is Old Man (“the old one”) – Grass’ alter ego. Old Man is a writer who knows that he has failed in his duty to write a just novel: “�is bothers Old Man. Really, he says, his generation should take on the task of depicting the tragedy of East Prussian exiles: the caravans heading West in the winter, deaths in heaps of snow, by the roadsides and in blowholes as soon as ice on the Vistula Lake began to crack under the weight of wagons and falling bombs, and still more and more people from Heiligenbeil, terrified of Russian revenge, across unending

snowy plains… Escape… White death… No excuse, he says, to be silent over this massive pain, to eschew this topic and leave it to the right-wingers, only because one’s own guilt was so immense that repentance took precedence throughout all these years. It’s an unbelievable oversight.” (p. 94 in the Polish edition) It is not just German literature that ought to make up for this lapse. �is is because firstly, this omission denies one’s right to speak about suffering, and as such harms everyone. Secondly, the story is shared by all in its entirety: the paths of forced migration ended in Germany, having begun in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Romania or Hungary. And thirdly, the task is a general one because the account of German resettlement forms part of a process that is far more significant than a simple rehashing of grievances. Books treating of deportations help us realize that the cornerstone of post-war European order was not the end of the War, but rather the resettlement of populations with the goal of ethnic homogenization of states. �ere was a need, therefore, for a narrative of the painful loss of one’s real homeland, of material suffering caused by the forced abandonment of one’s property, of the hundreds of thousands killed, of countless tragedies suffered along the journey. �is narrative was needed as a prerequisite for new anthropology, simultaneously universal and rooted in specific historical experience. And situated at the heart of this anthropology is the exile.15 He takes the place of the settled, sedentary man. �e latter’s story ended at the time of the deportations, regardless of whether he had been shown as a tolerant and friendly neighbour, welcoming the new arrivals, or as a sombre landlord, the gatekeeper of identities. When exile becomes an integral feature of the human condition, rather than a mere accident of history, rootedness in turn becomes incidental. Viewed from this angle, history turns out to be a series of deportations, now halted, now resumed; our rootedness emerges as but a brief sojourn, our legal status – as but a card in the hands of the rulers. �e new anthropology, built around the

15. See e.g. Maria Podlasek, Wypędzenie Niemców z terenów na wschód od Odry i Nysy Łużyckiej. Relacje świadków (“�e Exile of Germans from the Territories East of Oder and Nysa Luzycka Rivers. Eye-witness Accounts”). Warsaw 1995.

respublica aesthetics

resettled, is the ethnography of forced migration, whose beginnings were unplanned by the migrants themselves and whose end they do not know.

Why we need the German A lot can be learned from the past quarter of a century of Polish writing about Germany and Germanness. First we witnessed a significant shift in perspective – from the experience of war to the experience of occupation, and later of exile and resettlement. Resettlement emerges in this literature as one of the most crucial experiences of the twentieth century. It becomes a prism through which any nationalistic discourse of sacrifice – whether Polish or German – becomes distorted, forcing the development of new categories. a new anthropology is proposed, one in which the human being is defined by his defenselessness in the face of exile, and who defines himself in reference to a relocated homeland. In other words, while it is easy to establish who started the War, it is impossible to decree who does or does not have the right to suffering and to active care. �e hybrid identity of the inhabitant and the multi-layered identities of the territories we inhabit emerge in literature because they offer ever new ways of unlocking history. One of these leads us, through archives and memoirs, to new knowledge about the past. �e issue of deportation and concentration camps for German civilians shows us that while there was a time when “the Germans did this to the Poles”, it was followed by a time when “the Poles did it to the Germans” – perhaps in smaller measure but with equal cruelty. But even such retrospective reopening of injured memory is ultimately an act of projection, since the essence of the reading which I have proposed here is based on the belief that any depiction of the Germans is aimed at imagining a different

Poland. �e less nationalism appears in the portrait of the German, the more likely it is to disappear also from our own worldview. A change in Polish identity is impossible without a previous change in how we think about identities of others. Any representation of others ends up projected onto our own identity. So what do we gain from reading about Germans in Polish literature? �e answer is, we can learn how to be free – free in the first place of the category “the Germans”, which, by being a collective category, not only imprisons those whom it subsumes, but limits the worldview of those who use it. Secondly, we can free ourselves from the category “German”, which as a national category confines the multifarious human subjectivity to ethnic and historical characteristics. By freeing a particular group of people from the application of the stereotype “the Germans”, and by freeing the human being from the identity trap known as “German”, we can free ourselves – free ourselves to think about people, rather than about Poles or Germans. By freeing ourselves of our own national identity, or even by relaxing its parameters, we can see that a different history is possible. Even the impossible history, which follows the slaughter of millions in the form of normal coexistence. We thus need Germany as a challenge to a different historiography. Trans. Dominika M. Baran Przemysław Czapliński (1962) – Historian of Polish literature of the twentieth and twenty-first century, critic, essay writer and translator. Co-funder of the Institute of the Anthropology of Literature (at the UAM Poznań). Recently published “Polska do wymiany. Późna nowoczesność i nasze wielkie narracje” (WAB, Warszawa 2009).

Central Europe as a literary category PETR A. BÍLEK Whenever we ponder over literature, we need to sort out the imaginary warehouse of all literary texts into usable – in other words, smaller – categories. �at is why we speak of national literatures, literary genres, periods or oeuvres. Within national literatures, we constitute for ourselves an imaginary security, some kind of national “family silver”: representative, canonical works that previous generations have studied in search of the nation‘s soul or, at a later date, its memory or conscience. In genres, we look for the most typical renderings, which we use to demonstrate what a proper psychological novel, epigram or socialist realist drama looks like. As for periods, we try to find „evolutionarily symptomatic“ works – works typical of the zeitgeist, in other words, works that we consider to attest well to what was characteristic of the times, what made it tick – as well as “visionary” works, where the temporary was surpassed by the timeless. And finally, in authors‘ oeuvres, we look for a path to the genius‘ soul or mind, the genesis of the author‘s quest, as well as their typical topics, topoi, methods or techniques. All this classification has an established tradition, which brings evident benefits as well as disadvantages and empty promises. Classification by territory has a less distinct tradition in modern-era Czech literary studies. We apply it more or less automatically to older Czech literature, where anything written in the historic lands of the Czech Crown is considered Czech. In newer literature, this approach has become habitual above all in the region-based method: what, from the viewpoint of the whole of Czech culture, is negligible, may, for a variety of reasons, seem important for a certain

region. When placed in the general context of Czech literature, Vilém Závada is just one of many interesting poets of the 1930s; from the perspective of the Ostrava region, from where he came and what was partially his topic, his works stands out as majestic. Similarly, when we travel in the environs of the town of Třebíč, we look for the sensation of countryside as rendered by Deml, Březina, Bedřich Fučík or Zahradníček. Sometimes we wonder what to do with Ka�a, Meyrink, Leppin and others: they wrote in German, but they lived in Prague, wrote about the city more or less explicitly, and a certain couleur locale, in a Romantic sense, is palpable in their works. �e territory criterion is intersected by the language one. �e former prevails where modern state formations include several literary languages, but is limited when states are based on the ideal of an ethnically homogeneous society and a single language. �is is clearly the case for the Czech Republic. From the global viewpoint, Czech literature as a whole may appear too small to be studied as a separate discipline. Czech Studies have for decades ended up under the umbrella of Slavonic Studies because, purely philologically, they create a clear linguistic unit, and because for a non-Slavonic foreigner with a good command of Russian, it is much easier to learn Czech than, say, Portuguese. However, from the literary and cultural perspectives, it is much more difficult to find likeness or similitude between Czech and, for instance, Bulgarian literatures – apart, obviously, from the imprint made on them during the period of the dominance of similar totalitarian regimes. �at is why, since the 1990s and the demise of the Soviet empire, there has been a clear retreat of Slavonic or Slavic Studies worldwide; those once

powerful university departments are either being disbanded or integrated into faculties of “modern languages”. Foreign academics, and partially also Czech ones, have responded to this with an effort to loosen the philological noose and incorporate Czech literature or culture into a wider context. Since the 1980s, we have therefore been able observe a kind of renaissance of the concept of Central European literature and culture, with an interesting underlying intellectual debate (though one that has yet to yield concrete results) and a “creation story“. �e concept of the Central European space as a specific territory first gained broader recognition in German rendering as Mitteleuropa during World War I. �e book by Friedrich Naumann, published under this title in 1915, is said to have sold 100 000 copies. With this concept, the political scientist and politician Naumann predicted a possible outcome of World War I. Mitteleuropa would unify Germany and Austro-Hungary to create a large political and cultural bloc between the western alliance of Great Britain and France and the eastern empire of Russia. �is concept was based on the dominant Germanic influence, but it also pledged to take into account the Jewish tradition, thriving throughout the region, as well as the Slavonic realm. �e symbiosis, which would be known as “Central Europeanness“, could be perceived, above all, in multi-national city spaces of Prague, Budapest or Lemberg (the main centre of Polish Galicia; today Lviv in Ukraine). However, the events of 1918 opened the way to new nation-states, and for years the idea of Central Europeanness was just a nostalgic notion in the essays of Hugo von Hofmannsthal or the prose of Joseph Roth. �e “Central European“ cultural space of Prague can be seen in Meyrink‘s novel �e Golem (1915), while Vienna before “the fall” was depicted by Robert Musil in the unfinished three-volume novel �e Man Without Qualities (volumes I and II in 1930, volume III in 1943). �e suggestiveness and power of such spaces are strengthened by partial literary depictions in works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Ka�a, Franz Werfel, Elias Canetti, Karl Kraus, Peter Altenberg and others. It is these clusters of city spaces,

scattered from the Baltic Sea to the Danube delta, that, in lieu of political unification, at least seemed able to promote the idea of cultural mutuality and proximity, precisely on the basis of the heterogeneity of ethnicities, religions and cultures that those cities hosted. At the same time, this gave rise to a sense of nostalgia and fragmentariness, a sentiment that became a significant feature of a certain way of relating to the world, one that would recur, along with the “impurity“ of genres, in subsequent attempts to conceptualize the Central European cultural space. As a consequence of the events of 1945, the idea of Central Europe was buried for decades by the idea of Slavonic brotherhood, which was supposed to comprise, apparently naturally, a few non-Slavonic cultures as well (Hungary, Romania, East Germany). Since this concept of a common culture was a politically and ideologically defined, it is logical that its antithesis was born in the minds of those that had to leave it. From the early 1980s, the idea of Central Europe was gradually developed in the essays by Polish poet and essayist Czeslaw Miłosz, based in the USA, who was quickly followed by Czech novelist Milan Kundera, based in France from 1975. Kundera‘s essay “�e tragedy of Central Europe” was probably the first comprehensive attempt at introducing a wider audience to a concept of culture that appears to belong to the East politically, but that traditionally asserts itself as part of the West, by whom it has been betrayed and abandoned. While Miłosz reminisces about Central Europe as a nostalgic, vanished space of his youth that also comprises Lithuania, Kundera’s Central Europe is defined by the old Danube monarchy, dominated by the city cultures of Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Cracow. As Kundera reminds the western reader, this space endowed mankind with Freud, Husserl, Janacek and Bartók; the “Prague circle“ of authors centred around Franz Ka�a and Max Brod; and the Prague Linguistic Circle, the cradle of structuralism. In his subsequent essays on the topic of Central Europe, Kundera establishes a range of predecessors who personify the Central European literary style for him: Franz Ka�a, Jaroslav Hašek, Robert Musil,

respublica aesthetics

Hermann Broch and Witold Gombrowicz. Kundera detects similar traits in the way these writers perceive and write about the world: a self-conscious artificiality or literariness of style; ridiculousness and irony; narration combined with essay features; and the character of the “man without qualities“. �ese techniques are a way to get rid of the psychologizing prose established of the nineteenth century, which was based on the western Romantic myth of man as an original and unique individual capable of defying history and achieving harmony between “self“ and the world – and even of changing that world. In the aforementioned authors‘ prose, Kundera detects a fascination with a history that prevents the individual from doing anything with the world, but also from escaping to the infinite “inner cosmos“ of the soul. Kundera‘s line of thought is expanded on by Josef K. (= Josef Kroutvor) in an essay entitled “Central Europe”, published in an issue of the exile magazine Témoignage (no. 63, 1981). Kroutvor describes a torso worn out by history, where cultural territory is characterized by smallness (a small life-world, a small history, and a small person, who has created a private Biedermeier): “�e smell of boiled cabbage, of flat beer, hovers over Central Europe [...]. �e boundaries are fuzzy, irrational; they can only be recognized for sure by sniffing.“ �e effort to constitute Central Europe as an imaginary community with a specific culture is also taken up by the Hungarian novelist and essayist György Konrád and his countryman Péter Esterházy, as well by as the Serbian author of Hungarian-Jewish descent Danilo Kiš. �ese concepts – which to a certain extent are only experimental or “playful“ – were discussed at a conference held in Lisbon in 1988, which included a panel on Central Europe, and the Round Table of June 1989, held in Budapest. Both debates took place before the collapse of communism,

and thus necessarily included political statements derived from the opposition to the East as represented by the Soviet Union. �ey characterize Central Europe as an area with a specific historical destiny, in which the human being and the nation are victims with no control over their own lot, the mere puppets in the hands of fate or surrounding powers. Such a definition is an antithetical description of Central European culture as a bridge and mediator between the East and the West, and was symptomatic of newly-constituted states and cultures after 1918 and reappeared briefly in the debates regarding the region‘s cultural orientation and identity shortly after 1945. Nor after 1989 did this aspect disappear in the newly created notion of “Eastern Central Europe“, in which political belonging to the East is a key element: the political thus triumphs over the cultural aspect. �erefore, Central Europe is a tentative cultural construct that usually refers to its obvious centres (Vienna, Prague, Budapest), but less so its outskirts and boundaries. Likewise, it promotes authors that clearly belong there (Kundera‘s five as well as Bruno Schulz, �omas Bernhard, Sándor Márai), but gives no answer as to what to do with the rest. Central Europe is an attempt at a territorial definition, based on the principle of an imagined community, which can be equally well used to interpret national revival movements. Yet it is not advisable, especially given Central European scepticism, to expect this concept to yield results similar to those of the respective national revivals. Trans. David Klimánek Petr A. Bílek (1962) – Czech literary historian and theorist, works at the Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University, Prague.

n neighbours

You’re only laughing at yourselves! Polish stereotypes of the Visegrad brotherhood

MAGDALENA M. BARAN As the Polish saying goes, families look their happiest when posing for a picture. And so part of the Visegrad family (minus the Slovak prime minister) posed for a picture during their June meeting at the Wawel Castle in Krakow. One could exclaim: what a happy family! It was Visegrad at its best, a beautiful scene in which, thanks to the freedom recovered twenty years earlier, being Central European cannot be equated with bleak namelessness. �e photo is eagerly reprinted in local and national press. �e caption reads: “Prime ministers of Visegrad states – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and… Slovenia”(!). Is this a sudden augmentation of the quadrangle? Did I miss something? Have we included someone new, or is it perhaps someone not noticed so far in this little-known family? No – it’s just an idiotic blunder, a mistake which no one bothered to fix. Because after all, what do we really know about these “brothers” in the photograph? We typically view our neighbouring nations through the one-dimensional lens of realityflattening stereotypes. We do not inquire into their national characters, into their cultural or scientific achievements; in place of knowledge we substitute stereotypes, “common-sense” depictions of “what they’re really like”. Let us therefore take a look at the catalogue of Visegrad stereotypes. South of our border stretch the lands of our nearest neighbors. It seems quiet over there; at first glance the place looks familiar, but after some reflection… it is strangely foreign. While the media, politicians or the world of culture spin stories praising to high heavens the achievements of the broadly defined West, and while more and more is said about 68

the programme of Eastern Partnership, with deep discussions of the political condition and future fate of the Ukraine, Belarus or Georgia, we continue to know little about those closest to us. Only occasionally do we raise our heads over the fence of mountains surrounding us to peer at the antics our neighbours get up to in their backyard. What do we see, what information filters through the tightly drawn curtain of ignorance, what will the Polish onlooker observe? �ere it is – a couple of poorly reported political crises, voices raised in defence of the populists/ socialists/eurosceptics, shocked words: “�ey already have the euro!” At other times – a report from the festival at Karlove Vary, some book or other, some goal defended by Petr Ĉech, novelties in the world of beer or mountaineering. When it comes to those closest to us, we harbour, more or less consciously, a legion of stereotypes which we happily apply to almost every member of a given nationality. Our social consciousness is filled with treacherous mechanisms which shape many of our beliefs and views, including those we have about our nearest neighbours. Or perhaps it is precisely about them that we are most likely to proclaim various false judgments, since we share a common historical and political heritage of the past sixty years. As a result, therefore, in our treatment of them we are guided by simplistic constructs, which contain not only one-sided, but most importantly untried and often plainly false beliefs about a given society. �ese constructs are nothing else than the aforementioned stereotypes, which halt our ideas at the level of narrow categorizations and generalizations, and unjustifiably stretch isolated observations, applying them to whole sets of events, people or behaviours. So and so

must be such and such. �e resulting representations are obviously simplistic, coloured by our emotions as well as by practices produced by broadly conceived “folk wisdom”. At the source of opinions derived in this way may lie observation and experience as much as the prejudices and phobias already present in the mind of the onlooker. Nonetheless, as Stanislaw Leszczynski wrote over two hundred years ago, while we might make assumptions about someone based on their national origin, “we should not judge a nation based on its one representative”. Let us therefore not generalize; after all we ourselves do not like to hear (as is still a current trend) that “all Poles are drunks and thieves”. Examining the stereotypes and superstitions which we apply to our southern neighbors, let us try to discover what we actually know about them.

“Is it possible to be such a moron?” “Sir oberleutnant, yes it is, sir!”1 �e image of a “classic” Czech which exists in the Polish mind is largely owed to the figure of the Habsburg soldier created by Jaroslav Hašek. Švejk – with his frequent saying that idiocy comes with the job – established a stereotype of a simple, somewhat thick representative of his nation. He is a blue-eyed beer lover, a regular at his local bar in Prague, docile, agreeable and fundamentally kind. He always has an anecdote or a story to share, and is blessed with a “typically” Czech bitter-sweet sense of humour. A list of similar stereotypes (largely based on the “knowledge” derived from Hašek’s novel) appears also in “A catechism of the Czech body”.2 In it, Stala writes: “What kind of body is the Czech body? It is heavy and lethargic […] What nourishes it? Beer and dumplings. Does the Czech body con-

tain a soul? ‘Soul’ is too grand a word; we should rather say, ‘a little heart’.” Such descriptions supply the picture of “Švejk-style attempts to slide through history” denounced by Vaclav Havel, and of national complacency, which is then harvested by Polish advertising. As it happens, the advertising campaign for one of Polish beers is based precisely on the image of the Czech as a gentle, friendly, story-telling beerdrinker – an image firmly implanted in our native consciousness. �e beer must be of unquestionable quality if even this chatty Czech joker (who fought for – nomen omen – Česke Budějovice) likes its taste. �e approval of such a connoisseur must be evidence of unparalleled flavour. After all, who better to judge this matter than a native of Prague? �e advertisement not only resurrects a flat, one-dimensional image of our neighbours, but most of all solidifies it in the minds of yet another generation. As another Czech, the hero of a once popular serial used to say, “If only stupidity had wings…” And although besides beer, excellent football skills (which we watch with discernible jealousy), Janda’s ski jumps and the good soldier Švejk, we might notice some other bits of culture (we need only to mention the films of Peter Zelenko, freshly rediscovered writings of Kundera or of Havel, the interest in younger literature, and so on), still our thoughts return far too quickly to the familiar stereotype of the “Pepik”.3 We might on occasion notice the advanced technological culture and the unquestionable industrial tradition, and we may be familiar with brands such as Bata or Skoda, yet we still easily go back to telling jokes based on linguistic games. Every Polish child knows from elementary school that in Czech “pigeon” is “dachovy obsranec”4, or that “szukanie” of Czech girls5 (another trap!) will elicit a few smiles. Oh

Jaroslav Hašek, �e Good Soldier Švejk, Polish translation by Antoni Kroh, Znak Publishers, Krakow 2009 (the present citation translated from Polish – translator’s note).

Zbigniew Stala, “Katechizm czeskiego ciala” (“A catechism of the Czech body”), Portret 16-17 (2004).

“Pepik” is a generalizing slang term for a Czech (translator’s note).

“Dachovy obsranec” is in fact a made-up phrase, based on Polish vocabulary but given stereotypical Czech phonology. Its Polish meaning can be roughly translated as “rooftop shitter” (translator’s note).

“Szukanie” means “searching” in Polish, but according to popular jokes it is a Czech slang term for having sex.

respublica neighbours

well – it is, after all, to Prague that we go in search of our first romantic adventures.

“Lengyel, magyar – két jó barát, együtt harcol, s issza borát” 6 Few Poles are able to pronounce this historical adage in Hungarian, which is meant to express the closeness and great friendship linking our two nations. �e tongue twists angrily, but the toasts come fast, mixing our native “na zdrowie” with their “egészség”. At such occasions we speak a lot of our mutual relations, mentioning the existence of societies for Hungarian-Polish Friendship, or perhaps Polish-Hungarian Friendship. We drink Tokaj wine, and our eyes pop as we try to swallow the goulash spiced heavily with paprika (which, despite what we believe, is actually sweet). In our conception, Hungarians eat exactly this – spicy goulash and potato pancakes. We still hear stories about the local salami (supposedly made from donkey meat), about Hungarian shoes, swimsuits, embroidered blouses, and crystal glass carried back and forth between our two countries for decades. Hungary as a tourist destination still brings up the stereotypical image of company holidays on the shores of the Balaton Lake, shopping at the Miszkolec, cruises down the Danube (no longer so “lovely and blue”). But we know very little about the real Hungarians – or perhaps we do not try to know them at all. We need but to consider the issue of culture. Although there have been several editions of the Visegrad Film Festival, we have a rather flimsy idea about Hungarian cinema (or the cinema of the other Visegrad countries, for that matter). Even the film Controllers, which triumphed in Poland, did not inspire a boom of interest in Hungarian culture. Critics noted the film’s multidimensionality and its rich symbolism, but it was easier to focus on the compe-

tition, provocativeness, swaggering self-confidence, stubbornness and the tendency to harbour unrealistic dreams. It was easier to gag with laughter at the sight of a girl dressed as a bear. And yes, it is “easier” to laugh at the incomprehensible, tongue-twisting language, than to look for culture in a country which to us is not quite the home of nationalistically-minded descendants of Attila, and not quite the partner assigned to us in the communist roulette. From this perspective we can see that our knowledge of Hungary is rather sparse. Aside from Tokaji wine we also know “�e Red Belt”, sung in a special kind of trance, and the Czardasz, but despite declarations of friendships we view these linguistically foreign Visegrad brothers with suspicion. We also eagerly repeat the stereotype that Hungarians are a masculine nation, that they are chauvinists who send their women off to take up traditional occupations, and their men off to “war” in its wider sense. At other times we might hear that “the Magyar7 is a horse-herder, or a horse-thief, or, at best, a musician”, sporting the obligatory mustache. Although they are polite, even chivalrous, as well as funny, friendly and charming, according to established notions Hungarians are at the same time stupidly stubborn, swaggeringly arrogant, and – while keeping up all facades – closed off and in their escapism… “somewhat daft.” Furthermore, they are – according to yet more stereotypes – “incompetent but moral,” gifted with strong sensibilities which do not let them cross certain lines. And if they do… they worry terribly, sink into deep sadness (we have heard so much about the effects of the “Gloomy Sunday”), pensive moods, isolation. �ey are – this time according to an American stereotype – “a nation of suicidal men dolefully chewing peppers”. Not an optimistic sentence. Perhaps then, instead of solidifying gossipy stereotypes, it is better to visit Hungary to enjoy its hospitality, humour,

�e Hungarian version of the Polish saying: “Polak, Wegier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki” (“�e Pole and the Hungarian are like brothers, both with the saber and with the [drinking] glass”).

“Magyar” means “Hungarian” in Hungarian, and is used as a slang term in Polish in its polonized version “Madziar” (translator’s note).

respublica neighbours

cuisine, as well as the smile which the guests-brothers from Poland continue to elicit.

“Bohužial’ zle” Looking through the catalogue of stereotypes, it is hardest to find a label that we can attach to the Slovaks. Following in the footsteps of their western neighbors, we could simply joke that they are “Magyars who learned Polish badly”. It would be simplest to say “Anyone (this means, “any Pole”) can see what kind of people the Slovaks are,” because ignorance comes most easily when a nation appears to resemble us in some ways. Differences seem to blur, forcing into our minds a pile of well-worn platitudes. Sometimes, by viewing the Slovaks as simple, good-hearted people, religious much as we are, we place them in opposition to the Czechs, that is, on “our” side of the historical boundary separating our own from the foreign. Linguistic closeness appears important here, as does a specific historical heritage. �is is because we like those who, like us, have suffered, whose history is marked by obstacles, who have to work hard at maintaining religious, linguistic or national identity. But it’s not so simple. We see the Slovaks (as opposed to the “godless”, in our eyes, Czechs) as fellow Roman Catholics, oblivious to the reality of Slovak religious life which partakes in traditions from all over Europe. While in the case of the Czechs and Hungarians we have some idea of their education and the quality of their universities, most of us treat Slovakia as an intellectual desert. Our knowledge of its science, art, literature and culture amounts to precious little. We are reluctant to peer into this religious, but also national, crucible. Amidst our stereotypical images, a “well defined” Slovak is still missing. He is nice, good-natured, kind. He could beat the devil at hockey; he brews excellent beer (never mind that, when asked about Slovak beers, we spew out a catalogue of Czech brands, and are surprised when told the names of some of the best Slovak breweries). We also appreciate Slovak 8.

mountains (although sneering at the fact that they walked away with the majority of Tatra’s peaks), their wonderfully maintained ski trails (“we can’t seem to get this organized”), and a plethora of hot springs, which each holiday fill with Polish bodies. And even if someone can’t afford it… Slovakia is cheaper (although recently, since our Southern neighbours introduced the euro, we seem to have been complaining, and looking more friendlily across the Czech border instead). �e closeness we claim to feel for them means that, instead of having prejudices against the Slovaks, we unfairly merge them into a shapeless, colourless, even boring mass. �ey appear as a nice little country where the people are good-natured, the food is pretty good, and holidays are pleasantly spent. Local proverbs, in which the Slovaks lament their fate, complete the picture: everyone is out to get the Slovak: the German, the Tartar, the Magyar, the Gypsy, the Jew. �at is why many of us believe that the Slovak answer to “how are you?” is “unfortunately not very well” (“bohužial’ zle”).

“Mądry Polak po szkodzie…” 8 �e popular co-produced 1985 film titled CK Deserters contains the full menu of Visegrad stereotypes describing – as one of its characters, oberleutnant von Nogay, said insultingly – “the band of Slavic apes”. �e image presented there not only shows, but also consolidates, a particular way of viewing our “brother nations,” emphasizing our common history, pointing out the significant Habsburg heritage, as well as displaying our most useful national characteristics. Kania, Chudej and Benedek are classical representatives of their nations. �e Pole is a crafty fellow, who knows how to sting everyone and how to lie his way out of the trickiest situations. His historical cousin, the Hungarian, adorned with his mustache, follows in the footsteps, eager to match him in mischief and self-confidence. �e Czech, just like Švejk, knows how to play the fool when the need arises, but when awakened from his slumber he makes a solid workmate

A Polish saying which means “A Pole wises up once the damage is done.”

and drinking companion. �e Slovak is missing again, and although he does get a mention by the other members of this brotherhood, he gets lost somehow in the pack of post-Austro-Hungarian nations, which seems to confirm his relative lack of lust. Once we add Haber, the Vienna Jew, to the group, we end up with a somewhat explosive, Visegrad/Austro-Hungarian medley, more than capable of avenging itself, and, most importantly, of being free. Meanwhile, the Pole does not know how to observe himself. According to our neighbours, we are a nation of litigious, stubborn zealots, always bent on following some ideology and blindly devoted to our national cause. In all this, we are guided by… stupidity, bullheadedness, and frequently also ignorance. We get angry when told: “A Pole wises up once the damage is done” (“Mądry Polak po szkodzie”), “Poles and apes both want to have everything they see” (“Polak jak małpa, co widzi to chce mieć”), or “Two Poles, three opinions” (“Gdzie dwóch Polaków, tam trzy zdania”). �en, if we add to this the label of drunks and thieves, stuck to us in German jokes… We shake our heads disapprovingly, we take offence, as if the crooked mirror somehow should not be used to twist our own reflection. Yet, meanwhile, we create and solidify heaps of unkind stereotypes, based on our own ignorance and unwillingness to learn. We would rather not know how we are perceived; instead, we try to cure our own insecurities by ridi-

culing and demonizing others. And we certainly do not lack insecurities, while at the same time easily falling into the trap of competitively tabulating our assets against the shortcomings of others. We like to portray ourselves as modern Europeans, open to the world, while in reality we continue to mull over tired disputes, and to rely on formulaic opinions. We forget that a stereotype, because it measures each person with the same yardstick, and because it automatically transfers individual qualities onto the whole nation, causes more harm than good by homogenizing and flattening the picture. While looking into the crooked mirror at the vices of others, we fail to notice that in doing so, we are often only laughing at ourselves. Trans. Dominika M. Baran Magdalena M. Baran (1979) – editor and a permanent member of the editorial board of Res Publica Nowa, graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of �eology in Krakow, preparing her PhD dissertation on political philosophy; scholar of the IWM summer schools an VSS, scholar of the Politische Akademie der ŐVP and the University of Vienna. Cooperative of the kulturaliberalna.pl. A Cracovian.

What are the Czechs like? ZSOLT CSALOG Karesz says brandishing his mug of Riezlingszilváni wine: You listening?, he says. I just wanna say that the Czechs, in short, that the Czechs… Can I say it like it is? Don’t you think I know the sort of people they are? I know them inside and out. �ey’re Slavs and Prague is their capital and they jibber in Czech and stuff themselves with knedliky. I know, ‘cause I learned it when I was a kid, and also, I saw it with my own two eyes. But OTHERWISE?! I don’t wanna say nothin’ bad ‘bout nobody ‘cause I’m not like that, but why beat about the bush, they’re not like us. �ey’re different! Take their habits, for instance. Hungarians, they got proper HUNGARIAN habits. But what have they got? I’d rather not even go into it. I’ve been to Prague and saw with my own two eyes and what can I tell you? A miniature Budapest. Can I say it like it is? It’s no big deal. It was a bonus trip from the plant. So why not? A freebee. But I wasn’t impressed. A buncha churches. But I’m no church goer, so what was I supposed to do with all them churches? A side like in Buda, a side like in Pest, and between them a small imitation of a Danube, but so small, it brought tears to my eyes, I got so homesick! And them bridges! �e Charles Bridge, lordee lord! An antique with nothin’ modern about it. Nothin’! Back home we’d give it to the panhandler at the Ecseri. You put it next to the Elizabeth Bridge and you wouldn’t believe your eyes! And if that weren’t bad enough, for three days you couldn’t get a decent plate of goulash anywhere, just slices of roll drenched in all sorts of sauce with a side of cabbage. And that’s what they call food! Enough is enough, guys, let’s head for home! But what really got my goat was the uvaga, uvaga, everywhere uvaga, blah-blah-blah, and

you’re supposed to know what they’re talkin’ about! Which is something I’ll never understand. Why can’t they speak proper HUNGARIAN and say, this here is a chair, this a table, and this here’s a mug of beer, lordee lord! ‘Cause, sure, the Germans speak German and the French speak French and not Hungarian, which is bad enough, but there ain’t a lot we can do about that. But speakin’ CZECH? What an idea! At one time the Czechs used to come to the Balaton. Our socialist brothers soaked their fat Czech asses there. What do I care, let ‘em, they haven’t got an ocean or a Balaton, poor guys, I can buy that, I don’t look my nose down on them or anything. But things got to the point where we didn’t call the Balaton the Hungarian sea any more, we called it the Hungarian-Czechoslovak sea! And my wife, too, that’s when she had the bright idea, okay, let’s go down to Aliga for the week. So fine. Let’s. I was hoping for some diversion. And what happened? I didn’t have no piece of mind because of the Czechs, not for an instant. A huge bowl of chicken soup made of Czechs! I’m not sayin’ there weren’t a couple’a fine assed Czechoslovak women, but what use was that to me when they spoke Czech? You may not believe this, but I slept with my wife every night for a week! Which is as much as I got outta the Balaton, all because of the Czechs. How ‘bout another round? I’ll have the Riezlingszilváni… Or take their culture, though the less said the better. My wife dragged me to the movies. a Czech film, something about a beer brewery. Big deal! Still, I didn’t say ‘nothin’, I was disciplined, I sat through it. And guess what the clincher was. �e clincher was that the mother of the director, or the writer, or whatever, she takes a mug of beer and ceremoniously gulps it down in one go! And, buddy, I swear on my mother’s grave, that mug was bigger than this here! Tell me the truth,

respublica neighbours

was that supposed to impress me, or what? For one thing, a Magyar drinks WINE. I never thought much of beer myself. And another thing. We’re talking about his MOTHER! My maternal aunt – are you with me, buddy? – she drank. I’ll say it like it is, she was an alcoholic. It wouldn’t have been the first time. On top of which, she drank pálinka. All the time! It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, the old gal, she’s dead. I might as well be above board about this: Aunt Betsy drank like a skunk. But to BRAG about it? �at’s really too much. A Hungarian, if you ask me, doesn’t trumpet a thing like that about. On the contrary. HE DENIES IT. Even on the gallows. What? You say my mother drinks? You’re LYING, you piece of low shit! I’m gonna throw your innards to the dogs if you ever so much as mention my mother’s name again! Get me? Or for another thing, take their literature. ‘Cause for your information, I ain’t no boor, I know my letters! Or most of ‘em anyhow. In short, I read now and then, besides of which, I’m curious: let’s see what’s going’ on next door. �ere’s that Svejk, for one. �eir good soldier, or what have you. �e one that waddles through the Great War, stepping into cat’s shit with those two left feet of his. And that’s the story. Okay, I ain’t saying I didn’t laugh. But that this should be their renowned national whatchamacallit that’s supposed to make you gape in awe? Well, just try putting it next to Petőfi! “One thought only weighs on me, to die among pillows in ignominy! To arms, Magyar, your country beckons! Is it chains we want or freedom’s ring” and the like. Compare that to Svejk. Lordee lord! Which is what I’m trying to tell you. �ey’re a different sort. DIFFERENT, not like us! Different feelings, different morals, a whole different level of quality! And also, look at their history. Is that what you call history? �ey were always up in arms when they shouldn’t of been, and when they should of been, they lay low as a snake in the grass. For instance, when we came into the area, they fled head over heels from our Chieftain Árpád. I’m not surprised! But next thing, they made the shit hit the fan every chance they got. It started with their John Huss, ‘cause our 76

Roman Catholic religion wasn’t good enough for him. Now I ask you. If it was good enough for us, why wasn’t it good enough for them? Just askin’. King Matthias tried to occupy them, which would’ve been great, get ‘em annexed to Hungary, lock, stock and barrel! Except the Turk appeared on the scene, and the Czechs had the last laugh. If only we’d won the Battle of Mohács, we’d have made those Czechs see the light, oh, good Lord in Heaven, it’d been a sight! �en came the HABSBURGS, the Germans. And who gave the country its best soldiers even then? �eir lives and blood? Well? Us or them? Or were the valiant Haidek hussars Czechs? Or have you ever heard of a Czechoslovak soldier? ‘Cause I sure haven’t! And then in forty-eight, when we stood up for freedom, fighting the Germans and fighting the Russians, shedding our blood, where were the Czechs? Laying low again. ‘Cause they didn’t want no Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, they wanted an AustroCzech Monarchy. �e very idea! With the Magyars coming in a weak third. But then we ended up as the dual monarchy anyway, and not them, ha-ha-ha! �en there was the First World War and we had to go fight again. And what did the Czechs do? �ey lay low again. And why? ‘Cause they wanted to lose the war. And why? So they could win it. And they did. Of course, I won’t deny it, our history depends on what happens to us. And I’m not gonna bring up how we lost nearly half the country because of the Treaty of Versailles, even if I still haven’t gotten over it, and that’s the truth. What I’m sayin’ is when we had our revolution and the Republic of Councils, what, I ask you, were the Czechs doing? �ey stabbed us Hungarians in the back, that’s what they were doing, ‘cause that’s the sort of people they are! And in the Soviet Union under Lenin, when them tens of thousands of Hungarian POWs were valiantly fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat, who did we find ourselves up against once more? �e Czechs, old buddy, the Czechs! ‘Cause international socialism wasn’t to their liking! You get the picture? Or you want I should go on? So then, there came the other world war, the second, when the Hungarian soldiers fought so bravely to

protect our thousand-year-old Versaille borders at the Don. We even got Kassa back from the Germans. And the Czechs, they were nowhere in sight again. �ey didn’t even have an army. �ey let the Germans disarm them just so they wouldn’t have to march to the front! �e Slovaks, at least they made an effort, they even had fascism for a while, as a result of which they got Kassa back. Of course, soon they were also building socialism, like us, even if they didn’t get much out of it neither… �en came fifty-six, when this small Hungarian nation did so well by itself that the whole world applauded. And buddy, you remember what the Czechs had to say about it? What they had to say is, they send Kádár three wagons of rubber truncheons to have something to beat the Hungarians with! �at’s what the Czechoslovaks had to say in fifty-six. �ree WAGONS of rubber sticks! I know, ‘cause I was at the shunting yard at Rákosrendező unloading all those first-class Czechoslovak truncheons from the wagons. I was hauling the crates with these two hands of mine, so I know! Anyway, then came sixty-eight. What can I tell you, we were worried, what’s gonna come out of this, and then what happened happened. Just as I thought. I was in the reserves and on August the twentieth I got called up. To arms, and on the double! So much for that, I thought, the Czechs can now also kiss their whatchamacallit with the human face good bye! �ere was a young boy from Csepel with us, a scrawny toolmaker, and soon as he puts on his uniform, he flips. Says he’s not going. He wasn’t scared, that wasn’t it, he just didn’t want no part in this filth, as he called it. He was shaking from nerves all over! You’re a smart kid, kid, I says to him, so you’re not coming? You’d rather volunteer for the firing squad? Look at your uniform, I says, you’re a soldier ain’t you? Well then? And also, I says, let me tell you somethin’ else, kid. ‘Cause it’s not as simple as you think with that chicken brain of yours. ‘Cause have you thought, I says to him, if we now go through this stupid nonsense like we’re supposed to, we might easily get Kassa out of it! Or Érsekújvár at least. Have you thought of that, kid?

And you know what he said? He didn’t. He just walked up to me and spit in my eye. He spit me in the eye! Big deal. I wiped it off and didn’t hurt the little squirt, I didn’t break his bones. a man that’s suffering from nerves, I wasn’t about to hurt him. Besides, the others held me down. �en the boy from Csepel disappeared. He was taken to hospital. Or who knows… And off we went. Lordee lord seein’ all them Czechoslovaks blubbering like babes. Even the border guard, he was crying, his tears rolling down his cheeks! For crying out loud, I says, ain’t he ashamed of himself? My dear Czechoslovak brother, I says to him, are those TEARS I see? Tut-tut! And you a SOLDIER! Look. �at’s how it goes. So don’t take it to heart. What’s the use of crying? ‘Cause I’m the type that hates crying. Especially when it’s a man! I don’t like it in women neither. If for instance my wife starts up, listen, woman, you stop right now or I swipe you in the mugger! ‘Cause I CAN’T TAKE IT! Which is generally enough to make her stop. But if it’s a MAN starts crying, ooooh, NO WAY! If you ask me, a HUNGARIAN MAN DOESN’T CRY! Not like the Czechs. Believe it or not, as we passed the villages, there they were, long lines of blubbering women and old folk and children and PEOPLE. God only knows, I would’a felt better if they had sniped at us from the attics. But no. �ey just cried… But then nothin’came of Kassa, not even Érsekújvár, ‘cause you know what the Ruskies are like. It’s no use even talkin’ about it. Are you with me, buddy? You gonna pay for another round, yes? Riezlingszilváni, but no soda, God forbid. Straight up! In short, Karesz says, in short all I wanted to get out of this whole thing is… God only knows, ‘cause in the meantime… Anyhow, that week I sat in front of the TV every single night, and I mean every single night. And kept switching from the small radio to the big radio, and the big radio to the small radio, from one channel to

respublica neighbours

the other, hoping to hear something. I was so curious the whole week, without letup, wondering what the Czechs were botching up. Even my wife hated me, why can’t you wait to find out from tomorrow’s paper? Must you watch that stupid TV ALL THE TIME? She was fed up, and I don’t blame her, and by Friday she ran out of patience. I come home from work on Friday, and she greets me with, listen, she says, we’re going to the movies. I got us two tickets! Fine, I says, but I got other plans, go to the movies with the boy! I can’t, she says, ‘cause the film’s rated R! Okay, I says, then take your ma! ‘Cause I got somethin’ else to do tonight! ‘Cause there were a hundred thousand on the street by then, TWO hundred thousand, THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND, and the rubber sticks worn down to the handle, and then the head soldier says, the armed forced aren’t gonna put up with this any longer, and… Lordee lord, I’m thinkin’, what’s gonna happen, another Peking?! �ey should stay home and not be idiots, and well, a man’s throat dries out somethin’ awful… My wife Ani was making faces, of course. Will you just get goin’, dear! And of course, I got stuck with the kid, I gave him somethin’ to eat, put him to bed, and I headed for the TV… Are you still listening, buddy? What am I amusin’ you for, anyhow? Don’t you care what I’m saying to you? And then, oh, Lord! When I see them champagne bottles, and them pullin’ out the corks, and the champagne spirting all over, on their hair, down to the asphalt, a million people shouting on Wenceslas Square, the corks popping… oh, lordee lord, god-

damn, they did it, WE DID IT! And it got so hot in my chest, right here, my heart was on fire! Like the champagne from the bottles in Prague, that’s how the tears came rolling from my eyes! I’m tellin’ ya, if a Czechoslovak had been within reach, I’d’ve licked his ass clean! I ran at the TV like a demented man and showered the screen with my kisses, and with my stupid head I even pushed over my bottle, I didn’t even grab for it, and the rug soaked it up, so who the fuck cares, let it drink, too, the kid crawled out of bed, too, naked, what’s goin’on, dad, nothing, son, except, lordee lord, you’re too young to understand, I’ll explain some other time, go back to sleep, but no, come here, I wanna kiss you… And the tears continued rolling from my eyes in buckets, and I cried like a stupid kid! I’m not ashamed ‘cause it felt good, and I’m not ashamed now neither in front of you, if you don’t like it, ask for the manager! Shit, it was so beautiful, I’ll never forget it long as I live, my dear, dear brothers, my little Czechoslovaks… Hey, buddy, you gonna pay for another round? I hope you’re not offended ‘cause of what I… I can still stand, and I’m gonna be fine in a minute. Riezlingszilváni, straight up… Well then chin-chin, bottoms up, as the Czechs say! Trans. Judith Sollosy Zsolt Csalog (1935-1997), Hungarian writer, sociologist, author of many documentary interviews, reportages on ˝tabu” issues in samizdat, worked a lot with and about the Hungarian Roma http://www.socio.mta.hu/mszt/19942/csalog.htm

b books

What is the Hungarian? CSABA DUPCSIK What is the Hungarian nation, who is a member of it and who is not? �e question has given rise to reams of paper in recent centuries. While the context of the discourse has shifted radically several times, its intellectual aspect (concepts, controversies, arguments) has changed astonishingly little. Although it is an oversimplification, one can say that the political and ideological field in Hungary has tended to fall into an opposition between two sides. One of those sides could be called nationalist, at least in English; in Hungarian the term often has a pejorative overtone. Members of this camp prefer to refer to themselves as nemzeti, the adjective derived from the noun nemzet (nation). “National” would be a literal verbatim translation, though in English this word is the synonym of “nationwide” or “country-wide”. In the Hungarian nationalist vocabulary, nemzeti includes the acceptance of the values, tradition, and “fate” of the nation. In the nationalist view, members of the other side are not able to undertake this “task” because of their lack of “competence” or, in the extremist nationalist view, their “real” ethnicity. Moderate nationalists allege that it is only nemzeti commitment that they share with extremist nationalists, while other political values separate them. �e members of the other side allege that they are socialists and liberals, and that it is only “aggressive rightwing nationalism” that has placed them in one camp, both intellectually and often politically. While, the two sides disagree in the content or the relevance of nemzeti values, they agree that the way this question is dealt with is the most divisive factor in the Hungarian political-ideological field. 80

�e majority of the authors of the essays collected in the volume What is a Hungarian? (Romsics, Szegedy-Maszák [eds.], 2005) are literary critics and historians. With some hesitation, I will characterize the position of the most interesting group of these essays as examples of “critical nationalism”. �e representatives of this approach have an inside view of the languages, topics, arguments and the classical texts of the nemzeti discourse. �ey are obviously committed to this idea, though reject its extremities. In a modern and euro-conform country, this approach must be the mainstream of the nemzeti discourse.

Romsics remains exceptionally balanced, but perhaps the price of this objectivity is that his analysis of our age is too sketchy. However, the authors repeatedly express their frustration at their marginal position. �ey feel that the dominant voices of the discourse are depressingly extremist, sub-standard, and aggressive. Péter Esterházy cites some typical nationalist phrases that I will not try to translate, because Esterházy, one of the most prominent Hungarian writers, himself writes that he has problems with the language being used. Among the slogans he quotes is, “I got the impression of nix dajcs [“nichts Deutsch”, the approximate equivalent of “no Inglish”], that we speak different languages.” It was probably not only Esterházy’s

arguments but also his irony that contributed to this clash with the nemzeti discourse. �e representatives of critical nationalism would probably dislike this term: their position reminds me of the reform-communists of late 1980s. �ey believed themselves to be the real heirs of Marxist values, and though they were frustrated by the contemporary Marxist discourse, they wanted to believe, for as long as they could believe it, that they were inside this discourse. Not of all the authors in What is a Hungarian? are so polemical. For example, the historian Ignác Romsics, analyses typical answers to the old question: “Are we part of the West or are we the Orient’s people in Europe?” Answers have astonishingly long tradition, sometimes dating back to the Middle Ages. Romsics remains exceptionally balanced, but perhaps the price of this objectivity is that his analysis of our age is too sketchy. Most of the authors of Minority–Majority (Tamás, Erőss, Tibori [eds.], 2005) are sociologists and minority researchers, and it is the social sciences rather than literary criticism and classical history that influence their style. I will try to demonstrate the difference between the dominant attitudes of the two books by means of the concept of minority. �is concept could refer to ethnic Hungarians who after the Great War found themselves in neighbouring countries. It could also refer to certain groups inside Hungary, including “real” minorities and “attributed” minorities (such as, for example, Jews or Roma). Nationalist discourse, including the non-extremist

versions, has always declared that Hungarian minorities are an inseparable part of the Hungarian nation, but has tended to treat the presence of minorities in Hungary as the source of problems. �e authors of the Minority–Majority try to refute these convictions, to deconstruct concepts taken for granted in the nationalist discourse. �e author of this review, who probably cannot hide his partiality, follows this endeavour with attention. But he must point out: so far it has left no trace on the dominant nationalist discourse. �is is bad news for the whole nation. Romsics Ignác, Szegedy-Maszák Mihály (eds.), Mi a magyar? [What is a Hungarian?], Habsburg Történeti Intézet – Rubicon, Budapest 2005.

Tamás Pál, Erőss Gábor, Tibori Tímea (eds.), Kisebbség – többség. Nemzetfelfogások 1. [Minority–Majority. Concepts of the Nation 1.], Új Mandátum – MTA Szociológiai Kutatóintézet, Budapest 2005.

Csaba Dupcsik (1964), Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. �e areas of his research include the history of Hungarian Roma; the Balkanism; the teaching of twentieth Century history. He is co-author of many history textbooks for primary and secondary schools. His latest book is: a magyarországi cigányság története. Történelem a cigánykutatások tükrében, 1890-2008 [�e history of the Roma in Hungary viewing through the researches, 1890-2008], 2009.

e new orientalism? MÁRK ÁRON EBER How is it possible that since eastern Europe began to turn to the West in the 1980s, there has been an upsurge of nationalism and the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have collapsed? How can we account for the fact that while our region was undergoing a process of “normalization” (i.e. Europeanization and westernization), the Balkans were shattered by a devastating civil war and religious, national and ethnic discrimination and segregation opened up everywhere? In On the East-West Slope (Central European University Press 2006), Attila Melegh argues that the typical answer to the question suggests that these anomalies are generated by the eruption of characteristically “eastern” features, which the countries of the region wish to overcome.

Yet, he is not consistent enough in his own aims, which means that he fails to dismiss a potential misunderstanding regarding his argumentation. In the 1980s, the discourse of modernization based on the competition between eastern European state socialism and western capitalism was replaced by the civilizational East-West “slope”. With the sealing of the Eastern Bloc’s fate, the rivalryinfused bipolar structure of the world economy gave way to a hegemonic capitalist world order. �e 82

victory of capitalism and of parliamentary democracy (“the end of history”) led to the formation of a slope-like discursive order; this closely resembled the orientalist-hierarchical world order at whose apex was the „developed West” and at whose base was the “undeveloped East”. However Melegh does not focus on the extremities of the scale, but at the intermediate, mid-range, looking at how the states and nations of eastern Europe (or central Europe?) changed their original course to strive competitively toward the West. In the last thirty years, the East-West slope has become an almost matchless discourse. Melegh identifies the dominant patterns of self-understanding over this period through life stories, public discourses, and the public statements of political actors, parties, NGOs, transnational companies and foundations in the region. Using diverse sources, he creatively combines methods of discourse analysis and the hermeneutical analysis of narrative interviews. As an associate of the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, he focuses primarily on population discourses and on the main arguments in Hungarian public life. On the East-West slope can rightfully claim the attention of eastern European public opinion. However, Melegh’s critical engagement leads to side taking and his analysis contains more dismissive gestures than one would expect from value-free sociology. Melegh’s moral indignation cannot be restrained by the “positivism” of scientific objectivity, although admittedly, it is this indignation that serves as the fuel to his criticism of the East-West discourse. Yet, he is not consistent enough in his own aims, which means that he fails to dismiss a potential mis-

understanding regarding his argumentation. When Melegh criticizes the East-West slope, he does not call for a struggle against the West – however tempting it would be to read his book from this point of view – but aims to promote the reformation or abolishment of the global market system. He does not simply rebuke the winners; he launches an attack on the very system of global economic relations that makes states, nations, individuals, governmental and non-governmental organisations either winners or losers. He criticizes the East–West slope in its function as the ideology of the global system of inequality, an ideology that produces inequalities and legitimates them gratuitously at the same time. �e

book experiments with the possibilities of critical sociology. It is particularly addressed to those eastern European intellectuals who are discontented with depictions of the dominant socio-economic system as “the best of all possible worlds”. Attila Melegh

On the East-West Slope: Globalization, Nationalism and Discourses on Eastern Europe, Budapest/New York: Central European University Press 2006.

Márk Áron Eber (1981), sociologist, PhD-student, Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Social Sciences (Budapest, Hungary)

Stories of a high shore MAŁGORZATA MOSTEK �e Wanderings With No Return is a strange book. �ere are traces of deep fascinations, hints of important, intense presences, and accounts of delights. Anna Micińska – an outstanding literary historian and editor of numerous masterpieces significant for Polish and European culture – writes here about the twentieth century humanities. �ese are not, however, essays on texts, but stories about the people who wrote and agonized over them. �e humanities are perceived in a specific way – not as a scientific discipline, but as a certain way (or even ethos) of life, whose integral and indispensable component is active cultural participation. In her approach towards literary figures, critics, writers, artists – people commonly known only through their works – Micińska undertakes an unusual and intriguing inversion. �is consists in deriving literature deriving from life; then again, these are not stories about everyday life, or about its signs in literature. Rather, they are an effort to render the essence of what Micińska calls “individual existence”; to talk about particular people in the perspective of their lives and the culture they were subjected to. Micińska’s portrayals are like photographs taken at very close range, with wide-angle lens: a character in the foreground is perfectly visible, but the horizon forms a long line behind his or her back. Art and reality are inseparable; there is no division, even, between who one is and what, or how, one writes. Essays from �e Wanderings are far from psychologizing or biographizing; the author shows no tendency to objectivize. �is is because she writes from the point of view of her own feelings, experi84

ence and memory. �e characters in Micińska’s texts are not accidental in the way life is not accidental. �ey are people she met during her academic work who were important to her not only as a researcher of intellectual life, but also as a human being. She has managed to do something rare: her texts are the mixture of scholarly reliability and deep fascination with individual existence. Micińska writes with amazing tenderness. Such a close, almost intimate perspective is the result of a deep, personal relationship between character and author. �is depth is caused, I suspect, by time spent together, the ability to listen and to pay close attention, very uncommon qualities nowadays. �e intimacy of these texts is created by their occasion as well – they are often written as a kind of epitaph or memorial. To a great extent, their essence is reminiscence or an expression of gratitude for time, knowledge, presence. �is occasion sets the tone of these short essays – a bad word hardly ever appears; death smoothes out all the wrinkles, covers splits and scratches. Such a tone of confession may sometimes irritate – not because of the style of writing, however, but rather by the radicality of exposure. Revealing the hard and tangled fates of her characters, the author spares them as rarely as herself – she does not refrain from the most personal stories. Even the index of persons contains information on relations and kinship. �is might annoy those used to the cool, objectivizing distance of a historian, critic, academic. �e radical sincerity of confession is, nevertheless, the explicit declaration: “I am a human being and I write about people”. It is also a feature of the personal approach towards a subject, uncommon in essay writ-

ing. Micińska manages to avoid not only psychologizing but also exaltation – her stories are not uncritical paeans to her friends. Besides, she has no reason to write false hagiographies. Her characters are not second-rate artists, but persons significant and essential for Polish and European culture.

Such care of the artistic heritage is not only museum-like collecting, but also an effort to continue the tradition, to maintain the ethos. Writing of her father Bolesław, a brilliant though still unknown author and essayist, Micińska describes him as “a writer of a high shore”. �is metaphor of people as rocks – surrounded by the current of culture, submerged in the river from all sides, separate from or determining its how – applies to all the characters in Micińska’s texts. Each is a rock, each is individual, important from different reasons, but each as intensely present. All have something more in common: a feeling of membership in the spiritual formation of the Polish pre-war intelligentsia. �e

formation which, despite the experiences of totalitarianism, emigration and isolation, determined the identity of many Polish writers for a long time. Typical of the essays in The Wanderings With No Return is not only its reminiscent nature but also rootedness in memory. Micińska’s texts become a sort of testimony – and an effort to retain important characters in memory. �ey are often also an appeal, an attempt to draw attention to deteriorating collections, forgotten texts, lost sculptures. Such care of the artistic heritage is not only museum-like collecting, but also an effort to continue the tradition, to maintain the ethos. It shows that the humanities are not just about writing wise and interesting texts, but rather a specific style of life, openness and attentiveness. Trans. Katarzyna Szymańska Anna Micińska Wędrówki bez powrotu [�e Wanderings With No Return], Biblioteka Więzi: Warsaw 2009.

Małgorzata Mostek (1987) – student of Interfaculty Studies in the Humanities University of Warsaw.

When there is no one to ask KATARZYNA KAZIMIEROWSKA Bereszit haja ben Adam, in the beginning there was a man. Or perhaps it was a word? In Piotr Paziński’s book there are railways leading from Warsaw to a Śródborowianka guesthouse 30 kilometres outside the capital owned by the Jewish Social-Cultural Society. �is is the spot where the author spent his childhood, and the main character of Guesthouse looks out through his eyes at the world surrounding Śródborowianka.

What about us? Where is our identity, hidden between old photographs of our grandparents from the Second World War? In the beginning there is a journey and an arrival: a confrontation of childish memories with present reality. In that alley I learned how to walk; over here I used to hide while listening to the voices in the house; over there I used to go for walks with Mr. Leon/Chaim/Abram while we looked for mushrooms and I collected bark to build little boats. Here I spent the springs and summers of my childhood. But now it’s autumn, and the place that used to be full of life is almost empty. Only a few old residents remain, and every evening they keep telling the same stories. Even so, the guesthouse is full not of their stories but of those absent, those already on the other side, who cannot be asked anymore. All they left be86

hind are some photographs, the smell in the rooms, and the memories of those still alive. And from these memories our main character weaves stories, brings up dialogues, and repeats anecdotes. Yet insistent searching for the past leads to sad reflexion: “I do not remember much more. Sometimes I remember nothing. My past sticks deep inside me but whenever I try to reach to it, I find drilled emptiness, just like I was born yesterday. �e awareness of the past creates the identity of main character and, at the same time, his severe inability to bring it to the surface gives him the feeling that “[...] I am living on an island, the feeling of inadequacy or unfitness”. �at feeling is so strong that when the main character sees the ghosts of dead guests among the juniper trees in the climactic night-time scene, he shouts: “I am going with you!” What does the final link on the chain of generations do when the last generation of witnesses of history simply passes away in front of him? When Paziński’s character sees his childhood paradise faded by sun and time, he is conscious only of the “bitter taste of passing-by and too much old age”. �e scene before him is full of melancholy, with the forest in the background. He tells himself: “It seems that what I am doing is the archaeology of a dark and hollow memory”. He calls the remains of history perpetuated by those who are still alive a “Huge sale of memories”. It is a sale that attracts only those interested in it because they were the last at the very end of the chain. Who will come after him? How does one hand the memory over to subsequent generations when the memory does not belong to us anymore, is not a part of us anymore, just like the history that we never took part in? How should the third generation take up the effort to preserve a memory that is not its own?

As a book, Guesthouse has the atmosphere of old photography in its evocation of the house with its great past behind it, surrounded by forest and wooden houses with porches, where in the corridor, in the dining room, and on the stairs and verandas there is still a memory of old life. �is is the place where conversations between guests, even if they are careless and humorous, are still underscored by the uneasy symbolism of history – particularly with the stain of war and Holocaust. �eir history. �ere are stories in the book about the nation that can talk amusingly about its vocation, Egyptian plagues that touch every generation, and about Jewish piety. �ere are stories that Jews never work, because they pray or they are waiting to pray or they must rest after praying. About the never-ending story of waiting for the Messiah, but we all know that the Messiah who arrives is not real in the end. In these conversations we may hear echoes of the language from short stories written by Edgar Keret, but in its softer version. In Guesthouse no one laughs at faults, superstitions, stereotypes or old-fashioned tradition. It is more like looking at someone we have known for many years with love and acceptance while remembering the pros and cons of living with that person. But the call that comes in the end is that of every Jewish generation crying out to God all together: “Dear God, stop that chain of wounded generations!”. Guesthouse tells a universal story. It is not only about the third generation after the Holocaust, but

also about the third generation after war in general, non-Jewish third generations. And what do we – the generation of 30-somethings – do with the memories of our grandparents? Which of us brings up memories, searches for photographs, and, most of all, asks questions and listens, listens, listens to what they have to say? In Howard Jacobson’s Kalooki nights, the main character tries to understand his own Jewish identity – he accepts it and refuses it, he laughs at it and fights for it, and between love and hatred or through a dark sense of humour he tries to find a stable place in his schizophrenic life. What about us? Where is our identity, hidden between old photographs of our grandparents from the Second World War? What is left is our own memory, like in Guesthouse, where Paziński’s character arrives at the remembered location too late. �ere are still people who remember bits of old conversations and there are things that do the talking and bring back memories, like old furniture and photographs, but the feelings they evoke are faint and easily manipulated by deceptive memory. Piotr Paziński Pensjonat, [Guesthouse], Nisza: Warsaw 2009.

Katarzyna Kazimierowska (1979) – assistant editor, Res Publica Nowa, graduated from sociology and politology at University of Warsaw.

Milan Kundera as a writer JAN NĚMEC Czech literary criticism, as represented by the critics Jiří Opelík or Zdeněk Kožmín, seems to have said everything essential about the work of Milan Kundera as early as the 1960s. Later, some more or less knowledgeable discussion went on in émigré journals. But the last two decades offer a rather strange sight: everybody assumes that Kundera himself said everything in his essays or in the rare interviews he gave, and that his later writings are not worth serious attention. Of course, both ideas are pure nonsense. For these reasons, we can only welcome �e World of Milan Kundera’s novels by Květoslav Chvatík (Brno 2008). �e title promises that Chvatík will focus on what is so obvious that it is often ignored: that Kundera is first of all a novelist, a novelist par excellence, and as such speaks and acts mostly through his books. �e author Milan Kundera and his interpreter Květoslav Chvatík are interconnected in many different ways. �ey were born within a year of each other at the turn of the 1930s. After the Soviet invasion in 1968 they were both forced to leave their academic posts in Prague. Chvatík’s main field of interest was the aesthetician Jan Mukařovský and Czech structuralism, which despite Mukařovský’s self-criticism in 1951 was never reconcilable with scientific materialism. Later both Kundera and Chvatík emigrated – the former to France in 1975, the latter to Germany five years later. Chvatík developed his original orientation in the study Structural Aesthetism, in which he creatively picked up the concepts of Jan Mukařovský. �e World of Milan Kundera’s Novels can be considered 88

his most important work in the field of literary criticism. It was first published in Czech in 1994, has been translated into several languages, including French, German and Spanish, and belongs to the basic secondary literature on Kundera. Here, Kundera’s and Chvatík’s common journey reaches its peak and comes to an end. Milan Kundera is an author who permanently reappraises his work and life. As concerns the work, Kundera discards whatever he finds immature, unsuccessful or just occasional. What remains, on the other hand, is marked with opus numbers. “I have no reason not to respect Kundera’s concept of his own work”, says Chvatík, and subsequently deals only with what Kundera wants to be dealt with. In practice, it means he only explores the novels, completely skipping the early stages of Kundera’s evolution in the 1950s. Two thematic fields are neglected in particular: the author and poetry (Kundera published two books of verse and one longer poem), and the author and ideology (in 1948 and 1956, Kundera twice joined the communist party). In both cases however, this experience was not only negative, but also significantly constitutive. Later, Kundera opposed lyricism as a worldview both in his essays and his novels, and developed his own contrasting concept of human and artistic maturity. �e theme of ideology, on the other hand, permeates �e Joke; here Kundera himself was to take a cure of his own. Chvatík’s lack of interest in certain topics stems not only from his respect for the author’s wishes, but also from his academic leanings: as a structuralist and a disciple Mukařovský’s, he insists on the autonomy of the work. For this reason, the reader will learn nothing about the biographical background of

the novels or the contemporary literary context of Kundera’s work. Despite this, Chvatík’s background has a positive impact. In the introductory chapters, he makes good use of his broad outlook as an aesthetician and literary theorist while grippingly telling the story of the modern novel. Among other things, he proves his talent in choosing apt quotations:

Today, we can just add to this scholarly wisdom a long list of thinktanks and different ‘strategies’. “’Novels are Socratic dialogues of our times. In this liberal literary form, worldly wisdom has taken refuge from scholarly wisdom’, wrote Schlegel. Today, we can just add to this scholarly wisdom a long list of think-tanks and different ‘strategies’.” �e book’s core is subsequently composed of chapters interpreting individual works by Kundera. It is obvious that these were not written concurrently,

but are rather based on texts written after the publication of the novels (some have been already used as afterwords). �e outstanding and generally acceptable explanations of most of the novels written in Czech are unfortunately followed by descriptive chapters on Kundera’s more recent novels written in French, mostly in a different form. In his book, Chvatík has no intention of reproaching Kundera for anything, nor, unfortunately, of entering into a productive debate with him. Any great work merits not only exegesis but also heresy; Chvatík simply stands up for Kundera. Nevertheless, his study can be read as an informed, but at the same time widely accessible introduction to the work of the writer Milan Kundera. Trans. Marek Sečkař Květoslav Chvatík �e world of Milan Kundera’s novels, Brno 2008.

Jan Němec (1981) is a Czech journalist and critic and an editor of the literary monthly Host.

e borders of imagination PAVEL JANOUŠEK �e uniqueness of Jáchym Topol’s prose arises from three constants. �e first is his need to narrate, or to fabulate stories which toy freely with both “reality” and a variety of literary schemes and archetypes. �e second constant is Topol’s politicality, his emotional approach to social problems and his need to mark himself off critically from the establishment. �e third constant is his faith in group or clan collectivism: his quest for the positive side of life, his hope that if we succeed in really engaging with other people, at least for a while, we shall be able to find our integrity.

e logic of the genre makes him counter the darkness with good and construct his narrative as a story of how the town could be rescued if… if dullness, stupidity and bureaucracy did not, as usual, defeat human spontaneity. All these constants can be found in Topol’s new novel, Chladnou zemí (�rough the Cold Land, 2009). Its basic topic is the boundlessness of evil in the organized killing unleashed by the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century in the name of ideology. �e author’s sensitivity to this past provokes him time and time again to ask how a person today can live with it, and whether they can come to terms with it. 90

Chladnou zemí is built on two parts, almost identical in length, both inspired by the author’s personal encounter with a specific form of organized human perversion, and its projections onto a present day only seemingly unassociated with its legacy. �e first seventy pages of Topol’s text is linked to �eresienstadt, Terezín in Czech, a town permeated with traces of the Nazi Holocaust. Topol’s intention to capture the memory of this locality is decisive for the choice of characters. �e narrator is a boy and later a man born into this strange space-time; he has accepted it as his own, including its bloody history. Furthermore, the author has his hero grow up in a family directly linked to war and the local concentration camp – his father was a soldier, a war hero and liberator, his mother a Jew who survived the despotism of her jailers only by chance and whose fragile psychological state is a direct consequence of her previous suffering and her uncontrollable fear that it could all come back. Terezín is a bizarre space for the narrator’s childhood and adolescence: its rectangular garrison architecture blends with ubiquitous death and secrets hidden in dark corners of catacombs, as well as with the freedom provided by adjacent meadows. �e setting prompts the author to render his narrator as a divine simpleton, whose natural naivety counterbalances the traces of past cruelty. As is typical of Topol’s personality, this bucolic idyll is to be shortly debunked in a grotesque way. �e narrator’s endeavour not to grow up and to remain a boyishly innocent goatherd is cut short by the strange murder of his own father, which lands him a prison sentence. But also there, both his simplicity and ability to coexist with death are manifested:

he becomes the executioner’s hand, and just his presence has a tranquillizing effect on those sentenced to death.

Terezín, the dying town Topol’s emphasis on the depiction of space marks him as a postmodernist whose works links characters with the genius loci of a particular city, with its specific visual form and its existential memory. He proceeds in a way that is typical of him: somewhere backstage there is a committed journalist who maps out the “subject matter” in an almost documentary style. However, Topol does not want – and is not able – to report this “reality” by means of mere description. He needs to convert it into simple material, which he then can handle totally at will and based on the rules of literary “invention”. He breaks it up into individual fragments, from which, toying with literary meanings and insinuations, he assembles new actions, images and thoughts. �e result is a kaleidoscopic image of what is experienced and reflected on, a portrayal benefiting from the suggestiveness of words and images, from the tension between facts and fiction and contrasts of meaning brought about by incongruous contextual relationships. �is tension is reflected in the author’s final “acknowledgements”. Topol thanks those who have sent him to Terezín on “his first reporting trip”, as well as those who have initiated him into the secrets of the town, above all the mayor and the historian of the local museum. �e author not only appreciates their “time and patience”, but also apologizes for not being able to “write about daemons in an utterly realistic way”. �e reason for these apologies is clear: in his literary reflection of Terezín as a current problem, the municipal council and local museum belong to the “dark side of power”. �e initial reporting impulse and his personal perception of Terezín are rendered by means of Topol’s traditional subject of a dying town, a town that is decomposing physically, but that above all loses its uniqueness under the pressure of the implacable new times. �e logic of the genre makes him

counter the darkness with good and construct his narrative as a story of how the town could be rescued if… if dullness, stupidity and bureaucracy did not, as usual, defeat human spontaneity. An important figure in the first part of Topol’s work turns out to be Uncle Lebo, who was conceived in Terezín during the war, despite the inhumane bans and restrictions. From the very beginning, the reader suspects Lebo to be the narrator’s brother – the child whose birth almost cost their mother her life. Lebo embodies the hope that Terezín can be salvaged as a place that preserves its memory, without turning into a dead museum. �rough his enthusiasm for this cause, he manages to found an international community of young people who carry within themselves the ancestral trauma of the Holocaust, and who are fully dedicated to the idea of Terezín. After the fall of communism, the Komenium fellowship created by these free-minded squatters receives the necessary international publicity. �e important thing is that they have nothing to do with commercial interests, nor with “museification” of the living, and so can rescue and enliven the town. However, their nonconformist lifestyle and antipathy to bureaucracy are a thorn in the side of the official and incompetent Terezín Memorial, and to the state as such. And so Komenium is later violently disbanded and the opportunity that it represented lost forever.

Belarus, the devil’s workshop Had I the opportunity to tell the author my opinion, I would have recommended he end at this point, since it forms a fairly consistent unit and could be an impressive novella in typically Topolesque style. Nevertheless, the author wanted more and on the next seventy pages, tries to link the motif of Terezín with another source of inspiration – a similar one, but different. He relies on his discovery of a “devil’s workshop” and tries to make Czech readers aware of the death factories that existed under Soviet and Nazi rule in the territory of today’s Belarus, a country where totalitarian methods of manipulation are still present.

respublica books

Since almost anything can be achieved with words, Topol takes his narrator, using some none too plausible fictional tricks, somewhere eastward and lets him roam throughout that region and live the horrors of concentrated evil that led to millions of wasted lives. �e literary attractiveness of the story is provided by motifs of various espionage and manipulation games. As for its message, it is a warning about the efforts of today’s rulers to use the dead for political propaganda and commercial ends. Combining totalitarianism with commerce is the most horrifying vision for the author. When reading the second part of Topol’s work, I could not ignore his talent and his ability to weave stories and evoke images of horror produced by human cruelty. At the same time, I could not help thinking that the writer is losing the battle as a documentarist and publicist. In this part, Topol’s need to narrate clearly stems from his desire to address indifference at home, which is somewhere in the West, to tell them what real evil can do. Yet the author’s surreal fabulation works as an empty literary trick that makes light of what it should lend force to. What is the horror image of the mummification of human victims that are to serve as grotesque guides in a museum of death compared to the bare facts that shine from behind the author’s “literature”? �e reader cannot avoid the feeling that the subject matter might have been better grasped in the genre of reportage, which would have named the horrors matter-of-factly and without useless ornament.

�e Belarus part of the story was undoubtedly intended to be the climax of the work, but its placing actually decreases the impressiveness of the narration. In my eyes, it makes the whole message of the novel problematic. It is not only that there are two parts grafted onto each other, which are different as regards their main ideas and structure. Putting their meanings side by side also might present Terezín as innocent children’s entertainment – at least when compared with what was going on elsewhere. I guess that was not the Topol’s objective, since for a humanist like him, the death of one person is not less than the death of millions. �e motif of the powerless, gaunt and naked girl chucked onto a pile of corpses after giving birth without permission cannot be less than the festival of cruelty in another devil’s workshop. �is is why I think there are works by Topol in which his threefold talent works much better. Trans. David Klimánek Jáchym Topol Chladnou zemí [�rough the Cold Land], Torst: Prague 2009.

Pavel Janoušek (1956) is a Czech literary historian and critic. He a member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of Charles University in Prague, and is director of the Institute of Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Let politics name PAWEŁ MARCZEWSKI �e material of politics are words. Even when a hum of political discussions is drowned out by a roar of cannon and a political pamphlet full of luxuriant sentences is replaced by a military map, political conflicts are still based on a word. Clausewitz was aware of that, formulating his statement that war is politics carried on by other means. �e fact that politics is born of words is a blessing, making it a subject of discussion and our truly common undertaking, but as well a curse, condemning it to ambiguity. Not by accident some thinkers who got engrossed in politics, being aware that such a river of words cannot be put into a theoretical framework at all, thought of it rather in terms of art, poetry, creative activity.

Certainly this would not be any objection if the book contained some effort to face the essence of the just war’s problem. If some indefiniteness belongs to the nature of political activity, the point of creating great dictionaries of politics should be questioned. Are the efforts to arrange all the most important words used by people arguing about common issues really doomed to fail? Or even — are they not a betrayal of the nature of politics in a certain sense? It seems that books which lay claim to describing all the multiplicity of meanings in political vocabulary have something in common with

the Tower of Babel. �ey are accompanied by faith in the force of reason, lack of humbleness towards living common issues and pride making believe that the author fully understands the phenomena transcending perception of an individual, community or generation. a good example of such an undertaking — for one thing commanding some respect by its impetus, for another questioning its relevance — is a Dictionary of Modern Politics by David Robertson, which could be subheaded as Exercises on Dispassionate Political Rationalism. Rationalism in politics — according to Michael’s Oakeshott diagnosis — means a sin of pride, an unfounded belief that the variety of the “conversation of humankind” can be reduced to a less or more expanded set of theoretical categories. �at it is enough to shoehorn politics into a clearly defined conceptual framework and the temperature of argument will drop, showing new solutions that have been so far hidden in the mist of political passion. Robertson gives expression to such a liberal dream in the preface to his Dictionary. He quotes Elisabeth Jennings’s poem: “Since clarity suggests simplicity,/ And since the simple thing is here inapt/ We choose obscurities on tongue and touch,/ �e darker side of language,/ Hinted at in conversation close to quarrel/ Convinced within the mind in aftermaths.” �e poet proves to be a more penetrating observer of the political life than a political scientist himself. Stating that “clarity helps avoid emotiveness getting in the way of serious policy”, Robertson seems to lose sight of the essence of politics. �us it should be doubted whether any serious policy is able to last without emotiveness. �e author’s view of a liberal builder of the Tower of Babel condemns his project to some fundamental weaknesses. Firstly, a Dictionary of Modern Politics

respublica books

resembles a monumental fortress, raised to defend against enemies (in this case: against the avalanche of “ignorance of technical terms“) for years, which — when already finished — proves to be obsolete and falls pray to a light cavalry of the opponent. It did not even help that a source text for Polish translation was the third altered edition (2003) of the book. �e volume bears a stamp of the period when there were no premises of the conflicts contributing to the end of the Bush’s and Blair’s era. For example, in the entry on the just war there is only the Gulf War mentioned, and not a word about the intervention in Iraq in 2003. Certainly this would not be any objection if the book contained some effort to face the essence of the just war’s problem. �en the burden of consideration how much some author’s arguments correspond to the events described by him would lie on a reader, richer in experiences unobtainable for the author at the very moment of writing. Objectivizing, rationalist perspective condemns Dictionary to continuous updating that would never suffice. Secondly, Robertson is not able to cope with the words which to some extent by their definition contain some contradictions, ambiguity and heated controversies. Although entries on “Amnesty International” or “AIDS” are proper encyclopaedic introductions, the short essays on left or right wing are rather a manifestation of helplessness. �e author writes, for example: ‘�e whole idea of the left/right dichotomy assumes that political life can be put into one-dimensional framework. In western political terms a ‘left-wing’ position has come to signify belief in state intervention in society and the economy to enhance the political and economic liberty and equality of the people, in contrast to the right which emphasizes the ability of individuals to secure their most favourable conditions. However, in the old communist societies, ‘left’ in western eyes, the labels were reversed, limiting the consistent application of the term to radical opposition to an establishment.’ �e left/right dichotomy was never an idea, but a certain way of naming the differences between participants of political game. Robertson admittedly notices that the names were coined after 94

the places occupied just before the Revolution by deputies to French States-General with specific political views. He does not, however, draw any more serious conclusions from historic roots of the terms described by himself. He also ignores the fact that terms “rightwing” and “leftwing” could not be ever reduced only to the economic criteria. In such a case ordering and explanation of terms turns into an unjustified simplification.

Such publications arrange vocabulary used by representatives of particular way of thinking, without expressing political emotions. �e entries on left-and rightwing contribute also to the third problem of Robertson’s book. �e author trusts in the objectivizing power of rationalist approach so much that he does not even notice how his view is determined by Anglo-Saxon realities. Dictionary definitely cannot cope with description of the ideological conflicts which took place in Eastern and Central Europe and still do. Robertson points out for example: “During the revolution [...] in the period 1989-91 rightwing invariably meant orthodox communists dedicated to Marxism, and the left were understood to be in favour of liberal values and a capitalist system”, ignoring at the same time the whole multidimensionality of political discussions led before the fall of communism and after it as well. If the only one criterion of division proves to be an attitude towards the capitalism, it is really hard to understand why some rightwing parties combined reluctance to a free market with radical condemnation of the communism. Does this set of objections towards a Dictionary of Modern Politics mean, therefore, that all the efforts to create similar dictionaries are hopeless? Not necessarily. Declaring partiality, one can escape from the serious danger of proud objectivising. Dictionar-

ies that meant to be some notices of a way of understanding particular terms by a specific tradition may have a value of arrangement and does not require continuous updating. �e book that has crossed my mind is Robert’s Nisbet Prejudices: a Philosophical Dictionary, a fluently written report on the state of mind of an American conservative in the first half of 80’s. Such publications arrange vocabulary used by representatives of particular way of thinking, without expressing political emotions. �ey irritate those who think about politics in completely other way but simultaneously they make them aware of some conceptual categories of the opponents. It is perhaps high time for a similar dictionary written from the point of view of the Central Europe, giving an account of conflicts which moulded the thinking of the considerable part of people here. If we name ourselves post-communist societies time and again, and in the dictionary by Robertson there is even no such entry as “post-communism“, this is a clear signal that we have to tell our story

ourselves. Probably Czech, Hungarian and Ukrainian people will not feel familiar with our set of concepts. Furthermore, it might be even impossible to create a dictionary, which would hold the multiple shades of all the debates in Poland. Nevertheless, it is not about raising another encyclopaedic Tower of Babel, but this time for Eastern Bloc. Instead, on the plain where it would rise, it is better to fight a battle of word and books. Trans. Katarzyna Szymańska David Robertson A Dictionary of Modern Politics, Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2006.

Paweł Marczewski (1982) – historian of ideas, PhD candidate at the Institute of Sociology at University of Warsaw.

e europe â&#x20AC;&#x201C; discussions

Can the EU defend itself – against itself? SAMUEL ABRAHÁM Today, Europe seems as stable as ever. Indeed, a bulging and prosperous European Union combines happily with secure and democratic former communist countries; liberal democracy is the norm, anything else an aberration. EU expansion – in combination with NATO – has provided strategic guaranties and healthy psychological unity, seemingly leaving no place for the dark forces of the past. �is newly emerged political, economic and bureaucratic unit is without historical precedence, even if we go back as far as the Roman Empire. Yet there are signs that stability and security in Europe cannot be taken for granted. �e peace and prosperity that Europe has enjoyed for decades is not a given but a condition to be strived for in every period – whether stable or tumultuous. Today’s Europe is no different: there are plenty of causes troublemakers can exploit to win popular support. Paradoxically, a future threat to European stability is less likely to come from outside or from the economic crisis, and surely not from the arduous but healthy search for a common European identity. Rather, the threat could arise from the fact that Europe – built and expanded on the ticket of economic cooperation and solidarity as well as political consensus – has no strategy to inhibit a member-state that becomes hostile to its political status quo. �is is a potential, though not an inevitable threat to Europe’s stability. One would expect a debate to take place about the measures necessary in such an emergency, and that the results of this debate be implemented. Gravely, this has not taken place, and nor will it – a fact that is explainable but illogical. 98

Recent developments indicate that the greatest potential for radicalization emerges from the countries that entered the EU during the last waves of expansion. �e group of states that could nurture radical political groups or movements does not exclude the Visegrad Four. Indeed, these very countries have recently brought forth politicians and ideologies that might be heading in a direction that could endanger the EU.

e spectre of illiberalism In some of the new member states, including the V4 countries, there are tendencies towards a preference for a strong, dominant leader who often defies liberaldemocratic rules and always uses nationalism, demagoguery and xenophobia as a mean to sustain a high support. �e spectre of a new type of leader haunts the V4 countries: instead of being in the service of the rule of law, respecting the principles of political opposition and an independent judiciary and media, these new leaders are becoming impatient with the central tenets of liberal democracy. �eir main political tools are the use, at will, of populist, nationalist rhetoric; the total control of their parties; and mafia-style power brokering. �ey do not shy from entering into coalitions with extremist parties and leaders – often presenting themselves as moderates and guarantors of stability and democracy. What is more, they enjoy a high degree of popularity. Are they dangerous to their society and perhaps to the stability of Europe? Not as dangerous as the authoritarian leaders of the 1920s and 1930s – at least not yet. So far, the enemies that are blamed for the ills of society have been internal or among imme-

respublica europe – discussions

diate neighbours. �e danger will arise once blame is sought in the structure of the EU itself. For now, the EU provides enough guarantees to discourage these leaders to become dangerous. At the national level, the infrastructure of the EU offers transfer funds, free trade and social prosperity. Personally, the EU is a source of legitimacy for these politicians, who enjoy the perks connected with their status and would certainly not pass up the opportunity of socializing with other European leaders on various state and festive occasions. Being seen in the company of foreign luminaries always enhances respect at home. It is not clear whether any leader – whether incumbent or in opposition – within the V4 or elsewhere could endanger the stability or even the existence of the EU. We cannot predict whether a leader within Europe will turn into a demagogue with a strong ideological agenda that would eventually paralyse the Union itself. However the signs of danger need to be analysed; we have to distinguish what is a real threat to the EU and what is only temporary or rhetorical. �e Kaczyński brothers in Poland, Robert Fico in Slovakia, Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Jiří Paroubek and Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic are politicians that are very different personally and politically, but might under certain circumstances threaten the stability of the EU. Not because they wish directly to undermine the EU, but because their policies might unleash processes that the EU would not able to halt. Certainly, none represents a threat to the EU today, despite their populist, sometimes nationalist, and sometimes demagogic policies and rhetoric. However their successors, or they themselves under certain circumstances, might become dangerous. If so, the EU would have no defence.

EU stability: Here today, gone tomorrow? What is frightening and disconcerting is that if such a leader emerges, the EU has no procedures, no contingency plan or power to isolate and restrain them. It seems that the EU is conditioned and suited, at best, for moderate political or economic crisis. �ere 100

is no legal or political strategy for countering a major crisis that could undermine the EU’s own existence. �e reason for this lack of self-protective instinct is that the EU is a voluntary union and not a state, or even a federation, and hence has no legitimate means to repulse a threat to itself. For now and the foreseeable future, the EU is based on collective solidarity, peaceful coexistence, good intentions and great deal of trust. Noble and cherished attributes, indeed; but also vulnerable and detested by many. Until now, the EU has been guarantor of stability: it is a legal and political safety net, a source of restraint over overt extremism in any member country. Open borders connect citizens, especially the younger generations; open markets and financial redistribution provide economic stability and cohesion among nations. However, the gaping economic disparity between member states as well as competition for limited resources and investment cause a strain that could threaten this stability. Economic prosperity can no longer “integrate” Europe. After the wave of eastern expansions, the stress is more on culture, history, religion and solidarity – even individual solidarity as a precondition of any meaningful source of unity and common legitimacy. However, these useful and perhaps necessary values are too intangible and abstract to be able to guarantee the same degree of cohesion as economic prosperity and institutional solidarity.

e difficult task of the demagogue What would be the necessary internal preconditions for the emergence within a member country of a demagogue that could undermine the status quo of EU? First, a strong extremist ideological agenda, as has commonly occurred in various member countries. Second, a leader would need to secure a constitutional majority within society. �e constitution of each member country would have to be radically altered in order to give a free hand to an extremist leader. �ird, a permanent frustration must be present that could continually be mobilized. �is is a very difficult goal to achieve for any extremist in a prosperous and

101

democratic EU country. Finally, there would have to be a continuous economic crisis. Until recently, this looked unlikely, though not since the crisis of global economy that began at the end of 2008. It must be said, however, that only a combination of these factors could pose an overt threat to the security of the EU. �ere are also several issues, or rather antipathies, that might mobilize large segments of a population to support radical leaders. Turkish entry into the EU has been and could be used and misused by many radicals in Europe. �e dispersed and often despised Roma population, especially in central and eastern Europe, could become a convenient object with which to harness large support for a radical demagogue. Finally, and this is a European-wide issue, the status of immigrants – especially from Africa and Muslim countries – has the potential to heighten the crisis in Europe. One could list more factors, antipathies and issues, all of which represent a vehicle for radicalization.

Debate unlikely Hopefully, the EU will not experience a combination of these factors or a deterioration of these issues. Hence, at least theoretically, there is no immediate threat to the EU. �e problem is that we are unlikely to witness any time soon a serious debate, either in the EU Parliament or among the EU leaders, on protecting the EU against the potential threat posed by a demagogic leader to its own stability and security. Such a debate, not to mention the implementation of its results in legal and constitutional form, would be a prudent act of anticipation of all possible developments in the EU. However, European politicians are preoccupied with day-to-day affairs, economics, national issues and their re-election. �e stability – or mild crisis – in which Europe finds itself today gives no grounds and allows no time for a potentially explosive debate on power-limiting measures.

However, even if such debate were to take place in the EU parliament, or at the Commission or during a summit, the necessary precautions would be widely refused by numerous member countries. Measures to contain any member state that threatened another state or the EU itself – measures that in times of crises would limit, in major way, the political sovereignty of a single state – would require broad consensus. In the current period of peace and stability, such laws would be impossible to pass in the EU parliament and even harder to implement in most European countries. Paradoxically, passing such laws would be more feasible if the EU were to face a concrete stability crisis, in response to an emergency situation in a member country. However, by then all the steps and counter-measures might be erratic, insufficient or simply too late. �e case of failed containment of Austrian leader Jörg Haider was a clear example of incompetence and lack of coordination. �e EU failed to face down a rather insignificant figure in a small EU country: after all, Haider was only a minor partner in the government of pro-EU prime minister. My aim is not to forecast ominous threats about to engulf the EU. It is to show a principal vulnerability of the EU to a combination of factors – for now fortunately unlikely. Even if the crisis did not take place in the immediate future, a debate about this vulnerability and measures to counter it would strengthen the EU’s stability and legitimacy. It would also discourage potential demagogues from trying to bolster their positions of power at the expense of EU security. Samuel Abrahám (1960) – Political scientist and the rector of Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts (BISLA). He is the founded and editor of bilingual Slovak-English journal Kritika & Kontext. He returned to Slovakia in 1995 after 15 years living and studying in Canada.

103

ÉVA KARÁDI I want to support my argument with a reflection on now widely debated new language law in Slovakia. Some say that it is not such an important issue and it just distracts attention from the real problem, which is corruption. �e two things are connected and I will try to show this. I think that the reason for corruption lies in the lack of ideology, pragmatic attitude towards moral values and responsibility, while this language law is connected with identity politics, which is playing on emotions. I would like to introduce into this context certain concepts that will help us with the analysis and to understand these problems better. One was indicated by the Polish-Australian constitutionalist Martin Krygier, who spoke after the changes in 1989 about institutional optimism and cultural pessimism in our countries. If the institutional system and the independence of judiciary (we could also include here media independence) is well developed, the personal qualities of the political leaders do not matter that much. Cultural pessimism concerns the mentality and political culture we inherited with the legacy of communism labelled homo sovieticus – maybe this is why we are ready to accept a strong leader. Actually, in case of Hungary there still is a leader, rather a soft one, that is popular among large parts of the population – Kadar. Approximately in his era the whole political culture became corrupted in a sense, so that the “society” accepted a “pact” with those “in the saddle” not to feel responsible about and not to mix in big politics, receiving in return a promise of better life, “being able to cultivate one’s own gardens”. �at is what I considered corruption in much larger sense. Corruption en plays is a part of our political culture, a decisive role in the relationship between the state and its citizens. �at is why we can still be labelled as post-communist countries 20 years after 1989. I would like to include two other termini in the context of the language law, formulated by Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist, who gave a lecture at the Collegium Budapest about identity politics. He was introducing the terms of status quo and primordial

loyalty. I think the language law is dangerous because it is changing the status quo and arguing with the rhetoric of primordial loyalty. It is changing the habit of using the Hungarian language in Slovakian villages. People can get penalty up to 500 euros if they don’t use Slovak language, for example in healthcare institutions. One can say that it does not make a big difference, but it is law, which can be instrumentalized on everyday local level while on the level of symbolicla politics it can disturb the relationships among our countries as parts of the Visegrad four and of the European Union, as it uses confrontation instead of cooperation in local and international politics. MAREK SEČKAR Member of the European Parliament Jo Leinen once said that the EU is like a bike: it must move on, otherwise it will fall. By the way, this is a condition of any existence: should the EU survive, it must keep transforming into something else, respond to the ever-changing reality. For this reason, the coming up of the “boorish” politicians from the new member countries could be even a hope for the EU’s future: they can function as some kind of vaccination whereby the organism undergoes a latent form of a disease and thus creates the necessary antibody. Taken from the other side, EU membership should have a definitely positive effect on the new countries. �e Union defines itself as a community based first of all on negotiation and consensus, where would-be strong postures prove to be counterproductive and in the long run positively detrimental for the particular country. Hopefully, it is just a matter of time when the voters notice this. If they do not, we should ask if the EU really is what it presumes itself to be. �e above-mentioned concurrence of ominous factors would be deadly even for a democratic system in one compact country, no need to speak about such a complicated conglomerate. In case this catastrophic coincidence should occur, there are simply no mechanisms to prevent a collapse without threatening the

respublica europe – discussions

principles of freedom and democracy at the same time. Should all the given conditions be met within the EU, it would not only endanger its very existence, but it would also be a proof of the fact that the EU does not work well – is ineffective and the citizens do not want it any longer. �e EU should not be seen as a sacred cow, it is not a goal we strive to achieve. But it is a means by which we proceed towards certain goals, such as democracy and protection against would-be strong leaders. Consequently, the question is not what should be done in case these factors concur, but how we could prevent their concurrence; not how we can protect the EU from demagogic leaders, but how the EU can protect us from them. What is the answer? As has been said, the manoeuvring possibilities of the EU as a whole are very limited and cannot be relied upon. �e best and probably the only means of protection are the very principles of the EU: freedom, communication, equality and profitability for all its members. �ey must be kept to at all costs. As for the rest: only time with tell. WOJCIECH PRZYBYLSKI Far more frightening than populism in Europe is its citizens’ belief that the EU is the answer to national problems. We live in Europe where the new member states are often facing a paradigm of getting developed enough in order to fully participate. Indeed, one could say that an institutionalized democracy is not a long-time experience for Poland, Slovakia or Hungary. �erefore, they should humbly accept lessons from those more experienced states. On the contrary, examples of radical political language is often the case in much more “mature” systems like the Netherlands or France. Furthermore, taking into consideration the history of some countries, the question of radical populism is like a ghost of the past. Austria had to face international pressure when Joerg Haider got support for the first time. Luckily, international intervention from the EU was limited and never repeated again, 104

even though populist parties now have a well-established place on the political scene. It is of course the dread of a “new Hitler” that unleashes non-standard responses of hate speech. One cannot forget that the little corporal also took advantage of the persisting feeling of humiliation among Germans ostracized by victorious powers of the First World War. I believe that national states have enough instruments, ranging from public opinion to constitutional tools, against such threats. Especially those that are entangled in a net of international agreements and economic relationships. Moreover, I consider lack of such belief dangerous to democracy itself. Having just escaped from the political rhetoric of moral ends in Poland under the twin rule I feel relieved. Nonetheless, I would again be frightened if any supranational body with no responsibility to citizens but to governments only would suddenly interfere with the politics of Kaczyński. Nations don’t want to be treated like children even if they behave as such. So the question is not about finding systemic solutions against populism but making good political decisions despite permanent presence in politics.

p politics

e Visegrad Group yesterday and tomorrow

Interview with Aleksander Kwaśniewski

Res Publica Nowa Aleksander Kwaśniewski (1954), one of the leading figures in European Politics, former President of the Republic of Poland (1995 – 2005). He participated in the “Round-Table” negotiations in Poland. Co-author of the new democratic Constitution of Poland (1997). Under his leadership Poland joined NATO in 1999 and EU (2004). He inspired the international mediation efforts during the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

What is the Visegrad Group today? What aims is it looking to achieve? I still remember when the Visegrad Group used to be a very efficient instrument. It was created, among other things, to help Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia on their way to the EU and Nato. �ese aims are now already achieved, which means that the original formula is no longer valid. �at is when the stillrelevant question appeared: “what now?“ �e issue has been accompanied by a great deal of scepticism. I remember at the end of my presidency when I met with the group leaders for the last time; Vaclav Klaus said openly that our future political cooperation lacked real aims. At that time I said – and I reiterate it today – that such type of regional cooperation should be regarded as an insurance policy. In a crisis or in difficult situations, an already existing insurance like that which we have at hand could be very useful. Should we find ourselves in a turbulent situation, for instance if the EU decided to split into core and not-so-core countries, it could be very helpful to have such a structure already in place, which could be used to exert strong political pressure. It is not my intention to get involved in political fiction; however, I can imagine situations when it would be helpful for our group to have a common voice. But in order to make this insurance work we need common aims. What are some potential common issues between Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary? We cannot forget that the Central European countries still aspire to play a larger role within the EU. �e Visegrad Group can be a platform for the accomplishment of specific and common aims. �e biggest difficulty is defining which specific interests we share with the other countries. Looking at the contemporary policy line in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, I would have trouble define the political identity of the group as a whole. It is certainly our weakest point. However, there doesn’t currently seem to be a need for a stronger identity. If the group has so far been used for the aim of integration with the West, might it be a good time to use it for integration with the East? I put a lot of effort in making the Visegrad Group take an interest in what was happening behind the EU’s eastern border. I insisted on creating at least an outline of a common eastern policy. However, it must be clearly and openly stated that

106

107

there are fundamental differences between Poland and other member states when it comes to eastern issues. �ey can best be shown in the following way: Poland is strongly pro-Ukraine and is cautious toward Russia. �e Czech Republic does the opposite – it is sceptical towards Ukraine, but very open and interested when it comes to contact with Russia. Slovakia shows interest in Ukraine because it is a neighbour, however, one cannot talk of a “mission” of any kind. And Hungary seems to be looking at our regional policy from the perspective of its national minorities and is not interested in a more active role in the eastern issue. Can the recently adopted Eastern Partnership project make a change here? �is depends a lot on the member countries of the Partnership themselves. We do not know, for instance, what direction Ukraine will take. �e coming years are going to show if Kiev, after turbulent times, will be willing to continue its cooperation with the EU or not. �is will also influence the relationship with Russia, which is undergoing changes itself. Everything is changing very quickly and maybe in the future we will have a situation which will help Poland and the other member states to work together and unite their interests. It is very difficult at the moment, though. In the past, when we had Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, a partner who was more open toward the partnership issue, we also did not manage to achieve anything specific. �e current President Klaus is much more skeptical toward Ukraine. On top of that, the “original” approaches of at least two out of the four presidents complicate the issue further and make it even more difficult to come up with a common eastern policy. Russia seems to be a powerful reference point for us and for other member countries of the group. However, given its constant threats to cut oil and gas supply, shouldn’t this rather be a factor that unites us against Russia? Today the issue of oil and gas supply to Poland or Hungary is no longer just those countries’ business; rather, it concerns the whole European Union. If we want to have a good Russian policy we should make sure that EU’s policy is good. Russia is aware of the fact, hence it has adopted a very clever strategy, which I call 27+1 diplomacy. It is all about having separate relations with every member state and additionally with Brussels. �at is how Russia is able to make use of privileges and tribulations, what clearly makes a common policy impossible. Poland, as well as other post-Soviet countries, maybe except the Czech Republic, is for Russia a kind of political vacuum. No one does anything particularly unpleasant here, but it is not an area of any greater activity either. It can be clearly seen just by looking at the visits between Poland and Russia – in no other country are they so rare. So, if we want to establish a successful policy toward Moscow we cannot base on a relationship with other countries treated similarly by Russia – like the Visegrad Group. We need to make use of Brussels’ position. However, as far as I’m concerned, the EU will find it easier to establish a common policy toward the US or China than Russia.

respublica politics

In that case what could Poland expect regarding the Visegrad Group? I nevertheless think that the group still has more non-political substance at hand. �e Weimar Triangle is more useful as a strictly political tool. However, it’s worth noting that political promises lead to cooperation in other areas, mainly in culture and science. It’s a shame that we did not manage to work out a common economic policy, in spite of multiple attempts. But we should be happy that there exists a non-governmental cooperation, regardless of changing political moods between Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. It would be very wrong if it came to such problems like with Ukraine today – positive progress was made with the big reconciliation with Kuchma and a great effort was put into solving problems like the Orlęta Graveyard or the issue of the Volyn crimes. Now, however, we have a problem with a group of bike riders crossing the border. We need to understand that politics can open the door also for the other areas and the Visegrad Group does it very well.

Aleksander Kwaśniewski was interviewed by Artur Celiński

108

e meaning of the Visegrad Group in Hungary Interview with Péter Balázs

Res Publica Nowa Péter Balázs (1941), Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs since April 2009, former Hungarian EU-Commissioner holding the regional policy portfolio, professor at the Corvinus University for Economics and of the International Relations and European Studies Department of the Central European University. He established a new research centre for EU Enlargement Studies at the CEU.

In terms of Hungary’s foreign policy, which is more important: East or West? With the accession of Hungary and other central European countries first to Nato and then to the EU, the notion of East and West has changed significantly. We saw in the symbolic reunification of the continent evidence that Hungary and our whole region belongs to Europe. We became part of the West, but we also realize that with the historical changes, the terms East or West revert to their geographic meaning in Europe. We now look at the EU as the primary framework for Hungarian foreign policy, enabling deep cooperation in the widest range of issues with our western neighbours. We are open to cooperation with eastern European countries and support and appreciate the development of the EU Eastern Partnership, which brings Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and the Caucasian republics closer to European integration. We aim to maintain balanced, interest-based relations with Russia, developing mutually beneficial economic links that are of crucial importance in securing Hungary’s energy supply. �e US is a key ally and a privileged partner. Our close ties are based on common values and interests. It is essential that US foreign policy should not lose sight of Europe, including our region, when focusing on key global challenges. We are also in the process of constantly strengthening cooperation with fast-developing Asian countries, something rendered all the more important by the major shift witnessed in the world economy. What are your expectations as regards the possible enlargement of EU and the role the V4 might have in that? Hungary remains an active and committed supporter of the enlargement. We are convinced that there is no better tool for the lasting stability and prosperity of the western Balkan region than Euro-Atlantic integration. For us, the European integration of the western Balkans is a moral obligation and a vital economic and political interest. However, in the present context, we have to be realistic. �e conditions are not particularly favourable to enlargement; the process is being hindered by “internal questions” (uncertainties regarding the Lisbon Treaty) and bilateral disputes (the Greek-Macedonian name issue, the Slovenian-Croatian border dispute). Hungary is striving to keep the question of EU integration high on the EU agenda and to detach

respublica politics

these factors from the enlargement process to the greatest extent possible. Despite the difficulties, we should not forget that in relations between the EU and the western Balkans there is one field where we are very close to an outstanding success: visa liberalization. We do hope that in case of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, visa free travel will be achieved as of 1 January 2010, and that this tangible achievement will also serve as a catalyst in their EU integration. We also believe that the countries left out this time will be able to duly address the deficiencies indicated so that they can also join the visa-free regime soon. �e V4 could certainly play an enhanced role in the EU rapprochement procedure, since all of the participating states are enlargement-friendly countries. Our sincere and concerted efforts to help the countries heading for the EU (by spreading the spirit of regional cooperation, sharing experiences and best practices, etc.) could assist their integration endeavours; on the other hand, the V4 countries – as EU member states – could also keep enlargement in the centre of Brussels’ attention. Do you expect much of the Eastern Partnership? It is crucial that the new initiative provide additional impetus to the economic and social development of our eastern neighbours. Consequently, it can help to ease the impact of the global economic crisis, which has badly affected the region. However, the Eastern Partnership is a long-term programme, and not a panacea for every problem. It offers a broad “menu” from which the partner countries can choose, according to their aspirations, needs and level of ambition. �is is not a carte blanche, of course; conditionality and differentiation are key principles of the Eastern Partnership. Better performance of partner countries is a prerequisite to make effective use of the framework of the Eastern Partnership. It is no surprise that energy security is among the main issues of the initiative. �e programme aims to strengthen energy security through cooperation in establishing long-term, stable and secure energy supply and transit, including through better regulation, energy efficiency and more use of renewable energy sources. �e Eastern Partnership – for internal EU political reasons – could not explicitly offer the prospect for integration, but its programmes for facilitating the adoption of the acquis and the convergence to the EU’s system of values and rules should prove helpful in practice for those Eastern Partnership countries who aim at integration in the long-run. �e successful work of the Czech presidency laid a good basis for the implementation of the initiative. It will be a key priority during the Hungarian EU presidency in the first half of 2011. �at will be followed directly by Poland’s EU presidency, which as the co-initiator for the Eastern Partnership will of course focus on the continuation of the programme. Have the gas and oil crises of the last years strengthened the V4 partnership or weakened it? �e gas crisis of January 2009 clearly showed to all V4 countries that the present framework of natural gas supply and transit from Russia through the Ukraine is not reliable. Similar problems may occur in case of oil supply, but these are not as 110

111

critical for energy security as the gas supply disruptions. �e Visegrád countries have therefore taken measures to coordinate their position in the field of energy security by establishing a V4 high-level group on energy issues. �e Hungarian V4 presidency will make energy issues a high priority and will work out detailed plans in order to develop a common V4 voice on infrastructural issues as well as on the prevention of a new gas crisis. What are your country’s and your own personal expectations of the V4? �e Visegrád Cooperation was set up in 1991 with the aim of supporting the EuroAtlantic integration of the three post-socialist central European countries: Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Since then, the V4 has become an efficient framework for consultation and cooperation, as well as an internationally known and acknowledged “trademark”. �e fact that the four countries achieved their initial goals, namely accession to Nato and afterwards the EU, placed new and greater expectations on the Visegrád Group. �e essence of the cooperation has been reinterpreted. As full-fledged members of the EU and Nato, the V4 countries have refocused their intergovernmental activities to identify common interests over important issues figuring on the agendas of various EU fora. �e V4 countries endeavour to elaborate and represent common positions in the EU. �is new kind of cooperation is based on pragmatism, solidarity and flexibility. Another, though no less important sphere of activity of the V4, is the development of the civil society in our countries. �is dimension is gaining increasing significance. Representatives of civil society in the four countries are looking for mutual cooperation with growing intensity. Hungary holds the presidency of the cooperation for a year from July 2009. We are committed to carry on harmonizing our interests so that they can be better represented within the EU. Our cooperation covers a broad range of areas, but we intend to put special emphasis on the western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership, energy security, cohesion policy and Roma issues. �e Hungarian V4 presidency attaches great importance to the sole institutionalized element of the V4: the International Visegrád Fund, which supports and assists cross-border cooperation in the fields of culture, science and education. An increase of its budget from 5 to 6 million Euros starting from next year means the fund will be in a position to consolidate its ongoing programmes and to initiate new ones. Apart from the traditional foreign policy cooperation focusing on the Eastern Partnership and the western Balkans, our presidency programme intends to bring about tangible results for the people of the Visegrád Group in their everyday lives: issues like energy security, the global financial and economic crisis and Roma integration are among the priorities of our presidency programme.

Péter Balázs was interviewed by Éva Káradi

e dynamics of equilibrium Interview with Iveta Radičová Res Publica Nowa Iveta Radičová (1956) – Professor of sociology and prominent Slovak politician. She has authored many books and was director of the Sociology Department of the Slovak Academy of Science. In 2009 she was a runner up during the Slovak presidential elections and during 2006-2006 she was an MP in the Slovak Parliament for the Slovak Democratic and Christian UnionDemocratic Party (SDKU).

What do we still have in common eighteen years after the Visegrad Declaration? Karel Čapek once wrote: “�e Creator made Europe small, and even divided her up into tiny parts, so that our hearts could find joy not in size but in diversity.” To enjoy and understand diversity, however, requires a high degree of openness, liberty, responsibility and tolerance. A common, diverse world should be created by encouraging solidarity, protecting human rights and counteracting xenophobia. �e coexistence of national and supranational identity lies in ways of forming cohesion in diversity. �e path to this goal is full of trials and tribulations. It means resolving to subordinate one’s individual, individualized and often egocentric interests, the fulfilment of one’s notion of life’s necessities. Seeking and carrying out common “welfare” – as opposed to “warfare” – has its own socioeconomic, political and cultural dimensions. I first set foot in a country behind the Iron Curtain on 1 April 1990. For me, Oxford was both impressive and totally stressful. �e English I had learned resembled very little the language people used to communicate in the United Kingdom. I failed to understand not only verbal, but also non-verbal communication, mores, and elementary everyday routines. I learned about helplessness (a phenomenon we wrote theoretical studies about in Slovakia) in its full, naked glory. Helplessness, tears… and a determination to succeed. At an invitation to the “high table”, I managed to spill red wine over myself at the gong announcing the start of dinner… and trying to salvage the situation, managed a single sentence: “I am sorry, I am from the Eastern Bloc.” What can we learn from the experience of our neighbours? �e transformation of Slovakia – a former part of socialist Czechoslovakia integrated into the Soviet sphere of influence – took place under conditions that were more complicated than in other Visegrad countries. Two decades on, we can say that Slovakia managed to meet its basic challenges: it succeeded in establishing a pluralistic democratic system, a market economy and an independent state, and in becoming integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community. Even though in people’s minds the Velvet Revolution is one of the most positive events in modern Slovak history, it cannot be said that the majority has enthusiastically embraced the new way of life, the product of a complicated social and economic transformation. By contrast, not an insignificant part of the population found more shortcomings in the post-communist regime than in the previous one. �e development of attitudes towards both regimes resembles more a wavy line

respublica politics

than a steady incline in support of the new establishment. �e democratization of totalitarian regimes – in the early 1990s as well as later, during the building of an independent state – was itself not linear, straightforward or without serious perils. Tendencies towards authoritarianism and the undermining of democratic institutions accompanied the transition. �e most significant swing towards the current regime occurred in 2006, when supporters of the present regime clearly outweighed the critics. Nevertheless, approval is still not the sentiment of the majority of the population. Democracy and civil and political rights clearly dominate among the advantages people associate with the present regime. On the other hand, the critique of the new establishment is rooted especially in the loss of long-term social securities. Another reason for frustration is the widespread notion that after the fall of communism, those who had privileged positions before – former managers of state companies and communist party officials – retained them. People see the type of change that occurred in our countries not as a circulation but as a significant reproduction of elites. Can we still talk about common political and economical goals? An important factor of the critical perception of post-November developments was an insufficient awareness of the need for profound change. �is is related to the late socialist modernization of Slovakia as well as to the specific, softer course of normalization after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. �e majority of the Slovak population at the end of the 1980s did not perceive the communist regime as an unredeemable realm of evil; they did not experience first hand that the socialist economic system had reached the limits of its growth and was living at the expense of future generations. �is insufficient admission of the need for profound economic change has since remained impressed in the minds of a large portion of the Slovak public. �e ratio of economic “realists” to economic “illusionists” in Slovakia has long shifted towards the latter. Behind people’s insistence on the strong role of the state lies their critical reaction to social inequality, which grew significantly in the new economic conditions. �e public was not ready for the deepening social differentiation – the communist era instilled in their minds an ideal of equality that refused to compensate workers differently according to their productivity or added value for society. After 1989, the levelling of Slovak society started to disappear, and the vast majority (68%) of the population has come to believe that the new economic differences are less fair than under socialism. What opportunities have been missed by the Visegrad countries during the past two decades? �e general attitude of the Slovak public towards economic transformation was considerably reserved even at its inception. Positive expectations focused mostly on the reforms’ potential to increase opportunities for talented and able individuals, to bring better goods and services, and to increase possibilities for the improvement of 114

115

the environment. Negative expectations anticipated the deepening of social inequalities and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number individuals at the expense of the majority; rising unemployment; the worsening of interpersonal relations; the sale of national assets to foreign capital; and “brain drain”. And what is probably most significant, only a third of the Slovak population believed that the economic reforms could create the resources for a strong social policy. By the time of the April 2006 elections, the effects of the reforms were clearer. People could compare their previous fears with reality. With the exception of the healthcare reform, none of the reforms generated a majority opposition strong enough to call for their fundamental alteration. Most commonly, the reforms were though to be basically good, although requiring fine-tuning and improvement in certain details. Could the V4 play a meaningful function in resolving Slovak-Hungarian tensions? An important factor that aided the increase of economic optimism was Slovakia’s admission into the European Union on 1 March 2004. During the accession process, the Slovak public strongly supported this step and its positive attitude strengthened even more after membership was achieved. Within the central European region and the Visegrad countries, Slovakia together with Poland are among the more euro-optimistic countries. Contentment with EU membership is due to several circumstances. Notably the fact that negative scenarios – a dramatic rise in the prices of food, services, and so on – did not materialize following Slovakia’s entry into the EU. On the contrary, since 2004 the Slovak economy has grown, real wages have increased, inflation has been low and unemployment has fallen. While this favourable macroeconomic development did not occur only as a result of EU membership, and while it took place alongside lasting regional and social disparities, it still managed, together with other non-economic benefits, to contribute to the positive evaluation of EU membership. In public opinion, the other side of the coin – the disadvantages of EU membership – is represented mostly by the abuse of cheap labour force in Slovakia, the departure of experts and young people from Slovakia, and fears of a decrease in living standards. Does support for cultural and scientific cooperation between V4 countries create a real opportunity for regional development? �e development of the sentiments and attitudes of Slovaks towards the individual challenges of the transformation contains elements of surprising continuity as well as notable change. �e success of the Slovak transition is the result of several factors, including the effect of the civic potential of the Slovak population. Some key socioeconomic and political changes have occurred as a result of public demand; other changes have occurred despite public disapproval, and people have merely adapted to them. In the short-term, the majority of the population will probably evaluate the direction of the country and the achievements of its government above all through the prism of its own wallet. Crucial to fulfilling the modernization challenges facing

respublica politics

Slovakia, however, will be the extent to which the political representation focuses on long-term investments in education and the environment, as well as support for real equality of opportunities, respect for human rights and non-discrimination. Democratization is the protection of diversity. �e story of contemporary Europe is unique in the complementary and parallel strengthening of national identities together with respect for the spirit and values of Europe as a whole. Several profound changes have taken place in one historical moment: the transition of totalitarian regimes, the emergence of new independent states, and the enlargement and strengthening of a supranational union. How a regime is evaluated is significantly connected not only to expectations but also to the perception of one’s own gains and losses that the regime change has brought. From this perspective, two opposing streams will always emerge. �e first, characterized by the will for significant socio-economic change (supporters of the post-November regime), will be open to transformation. �e second will be closed to transformation and reject it. �is diversity is the natural result of varying political values and economic orientations, differing social and cultural capital, political affiliations concentrated around basic political subcultures and the socio-demographic differentiation of society. To conclude: differences will always remain! �ey provide for the permanence of dynamics and the dynamics of equilibrium.

Iveta Radičová was interviewed by Samuel Abráham

116

What did the Visegrad Group give the Czech Republic? LUBOMÍR KOPEČEK While evaluating the importance of the Visegrád Four membership, it is necessary to take a larger political context into consideration, particularly the fact that in the 1990s Czech policy didn’t adopt a unified posture towards membership. �is was linked to the dispute concerning the contribution of this group, especially with regard to the country’s accession into the EU and Nato, which were the crucial priorities of Czech foreign policy. �is dispute was enhanced quite a bit by the personal views of the two main political figures of the time – president Václav Havel and prime minister (until 1997) Václav Klaus. If we put it in a slightly simplified way, for Václav Havel, a liberal intellectual and one of Visegrád’s founding fathers, the group was a means of differentiating Central Europe from the – in the West’s eyes – chaotic and hardly legible space of the post-Soviet countries and the Balkans. And conversely, as stated by the pragmatic economist Václav Klaus, Visegrád could not help with the transition towards a market economy and economic revitalization – as distinct from the economically oriented projects, such as the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), much supported by Klaus. As far as politics were concerned, Visegrád could even be harmful in Klaus’s eyes. Instead of individually differentiating the Czech Republic in the EU and the Nato’s eyes in the enlargement process, during which (according to the prime minister) preference was to be given to the best-prepared countries, Visegrád could act as a disincentive to the “Czech journey to the West”. Klaus’ point of view was given a boost by the subsequent development in Slovakia, where Vladimír Mečiar’s governments were behaving in ways that froze the country’s accession ambitions for some time. During the late 1990s, Nato’s enlargement included the Czech 118

Republic, Poland and Hungary, but excluded Slovakia the fact that this took place in the context of Czechia’s declining interest in Visegrad resulted in a slump of the group’s functioning. Later, during the EU enlargement, the Union imposed its own criteria and didn’t give much consideration to co-operation from Visegrád, which was experiencing its second springtime. With the benefit of hindsight we can say that during the crucial period of Czechia’s “journey to the West”, when the group might have played an important role in implementing both of the country’s main diplomatic priorities, Klaus’ lack of interest in Visegrád prevailed. It is somewhat paradoxical that Visegrád was more beneficial in other spheres. In the Czech milieu, it has helped – and is still helping – arouse interest in the very notion of central Europe and its historical, intellectual and cultural aspects. In the context of Czech politics after 2004, a major part the political elite has shown little interest in further cultivation of the Visegrád idea. �is is not in conflict with the fact that espousing Central-European co-operation often makes its way into a host of governmental documents or programmes presented by the political parties. In reality, this is of limited importance. We can instead speak about efforts to proceed pragmatically. �is is a result of the altered external context, wherein political alliances are created across the whole EU. To exaggerate only slightly, from the point of view of an “ordinary Czech politician”, cooperation with Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks can be useful in some respects, but in other respects our interests differ and allies must be sought elsewhere. Lubomír Kopeček (1975) is Czech political scientist, member of the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno

p philosophy

respublica philosophy

Conscience of time of changes ZBIGNIEW STAWROWSKI Józef Tischner was one of the most important people setting the trend of intellectual debates in Poland in the last decades of the twentieth century. He became widely known in the years 1980-81 as the author of “�e Spirit of Solidarity”, in which he was trying to show a deeper, ethical sense of contemporary events. However, the peak of his popularity happened to be in the early 1990s. In his numerous works and interviews, Tischner was always speaking about the most important issues concerning our country. At the same time he appeared to be an unusually “mediagenic” person. He was eagerly invited to television and radio programmes, where he showed his ability to present deep and complicated matters in a very straightforward and witty way. Occasionally he knowingly sought to provoke the Poles to awaken from their “dogmatic nap”, which also caused some negative emotions. Many priests still take issue with one of his statements: “I haven’t met anyone who would lose their faith after reading the works of Marx and Lenin; however, there are many who have lost their faith after meeting their own rector.” A similar effect and a huge number of protests were caused by what Tischner said on TV after the defeat of Tadeusz Mazowiecki in the first round of presidential elections in 1990: “On this very day a homo sovieticus – a Soviet man – revealed his presence among us.” �is “journalistic” image of Tischner that dwells in social memory is well hidden by the fact that he was superb philosopher who intentionally played this public and educational role for the good of so1.

120

ciety, and whose contribution to Polish culture and ideas is much greater than is usually believed. Although some accused him of being an essay writer rather than a philosopher, Tischner possessed excellent technique and a perfect ability of precise analytical thinking. His first tutors were father Kazimierz Kłósak – a great critic of the pseudo-scientific approach to Marxism and a mentor of many outstanding philosophers of science, such as Michał Heller or archbishop Józef Życiński – and then Roman Ingarden. His doctoral thesis, dedicated to the concept of “ego” in the works of Husserl (1962), dealt with the matter that interested Tischner the most. His next effort – looking for the answer to the question: “what is a human being?” – was his postdoctoral thesis: “Phenomenology of the ego-conscience” (1972).1 �ere are many reasons why this piece deserves special attention. If read nowadays, its quality meets the standards of the most important works of twentieth century philosophy. At the end, Tischner presents his own, original vision of the human being as an “axiologic ego”, an idea to which he was faithful, constantly, until the end of his days, modifying and deepening it. Earlier, however, he was preparing the ground by entering in a critical argument with the most famous exponents of contemporary philosophy, such as Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Ricoeur and Gadamer. It is worth mentioning that in those times, when universities were ruled by officially imposed Marxism, it is mainly thanks to Tischner’s essays that the works of these philosophers became known and present in Polish intellectual life. It is characteristic that the thesis, full of excellent phenomenological analysis of human subconsciousness

Both of these works, i.e. his doctoral thesis: “Transcendental ego in the philosophy of Edmund Husserl” and his postdoctoral thesis “Phenomenology of the ego-conscience”, were published for the first time only three years ago as the first part of the Complete works of Józef Tischner. Studies of the philosophy of the consciousness, the Józef Tischner Institute, Kraków 2006

121

that would normally open for him all the doors of philosophic salons, was not his favourite. He did not even care to publish it. A few years later, in an essay “What is the philosophy that I practice”2, he described his thesis as a few pieces of paper hidden away on his shelf which, as time passed by, were becoming more and more unfamiliar to him. �is short essay had a special place in Tischner’s heart, being the proof of a decision that was a milestone marking the direction of the rest of his work. In it, Tischner presents this philosophic credo: “I think that, especially here, before starting to philosophize, one has to make an important choice: from the group of things that can be thought of one has to choose those that must be thought of. However, what must be thought of cannot be read from a book but from the face of a man concerned about his fate. [...] �e quality of philosophy is measured by the amount of human suffering that the philosophy is going to show and against which it wants to fight. He who cannot see it is close to treachery.”3 It is worth remembering that this declaration of resigning from an academic career of a philosopher who hides away with his books in an ivory tower, and the choice that he made to become a thinker concerned with the most painful problems of his nation, had their very specific, ethical and political context. �e above words were written shortly after the death of Stanisław Pyjas and the creation of Students’ Solidarity Committees, whose creators and members were people very close to Tischner. Since then, Tischner, as a thinker, was also becoming more and more involved in the area of widely understood politics. In his book �e Polish shape of dialogue (1979), in a very radical way he reports back with Polish Marxism. �anks to this, during August and the time of Solidarity, he was perfectly prepared for his new role – of the ethical teacher of the nation. He was active in this role until the end of his life, first, in the 1980s, by awakening trampled hopes for freedom, and then, in the 1990s, by showing that the regained freedom does not have to be a “wretched gift”.

�e milestone mentioned earlier was related to the discovery of a new philosophic master. Since then, apart from phenomenology of Husserl and Ingarden, Phenomenology of Spirit became for him the source of inspiration. Around 1978, Tischner took up more detailed studies of Hegel’s ideas while reading Hegel’s most famous work while in the seminary. �e first public result of these studies was a course of lectures held at the Jagiellonian University that started in autumn of 1981 and continued during martial law.4 Hegel’s manner of describing history as a way to man’s liberation from a false image of himself, his description of important freedom measures and of types of human self-knowledge, responsible for a specific form of the world around us, became for Tischner not only a perfect tool for commenting on and explaining current affairs, but also a universal perspective allowing us to better understand the drama of a man living in constantly changing conditions and context. No wonder that a few years later, already in new circumstances, sensing the change that was to come, Tischner returned to his research on Hegel, writing for the monthly Res Publica a course of essays called Confessions of a revolutionary.5 �is other, much more detailed, “Hegel reading” that started in 1987 came to an end once Poland became free.6 Clear references to these readings can easily be found in many issues that were later taken up by Tischner. Trans. Magdalena Janik Zbigniew Stawrowski (1958) – philosopher of politics, professor of the Institute of Politology at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University and of the Institute of Political Studies at the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw, director of the Józef Tischner Institute in Kraków. Author of : “State an Law in Hegel’s Philosophy” (“Państwo i prawo w filozofii Hegla”, OMP, 1994), “Nature’s Law against the Political Order” (“Prawo naturalne a ład polityczny”, Znak, 2006), “Immoral democracy” (“Niemoralna demokracja”, OMP, 2008).

�is essay was published in monthly Znak in December 1977 and in his book �inking in Values (See: J. Tischner, �inking in Values, Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, Kraków 1982, s. 9)

J. Tischner, �inking in Values, quoted edition, p. 12

Lectures on Hegel from the years 1981/82 and later lectures on Kant and Scheller were published in the second part of the Complete Works of J. Tischner, Ethics and History, the Józef Tischner Institute, Kraków 2008.

Almost all of them were published in Res Publica, starting from its second official issue in August1987.

�e last text of this course called Traps for Clear Conscience, was published in the magazine Tygodnik Powszechny, in August1992.

respublica philosophy

Towards ethical substance JÓZEF TISCHNER How much bitterness must a person drink so as to learn how to build a genuine human community? How much bitterness, and of what unique flavor? If we look for methods of building a community, we can proceed in two directions. Some look towards the sky and wonder how they might erect a roof over the human anthill, constantly torn apart by egotisms. Hegel dissuades us from going down this route. He is convinced that we would not become aware of the tearing apart, or feel the pain of rupture, if we did not, fundamentally, carry within us some conviction that we are all in some way united. People fight not just because they hate each other, but also because they are unable to go their separate ways. And the only paradox is that the pain of rupture is so captivating, it leaves no room to think of unity. �e unity which lies at the base of rupture is, ultimately, of ethical nature. Hegel gives it a beautiful name: “the ethical substance”. Since the beginning of time, this unity has in various ways made itself known to us; however, only now is the time ripe for describing it. Not surprisingly, the substance can be known only in the end, once human curiosity has been satiated with the hues of affliction. So what is the ethical nature of this “substance”? We are especially intrigued today by this question. We also have our own theoretical and practical accounts to settle with ethics, hoping that it will teach us something. We are only just beginning our reflections on ethics. �e ethical substance is given to us more as something we sense than as a concrete notion, but that is enough to be able to note three important points here. �e first is the idea that a person’s reality is composed not so much of objects and things, but of duties which stake a claim to universal sig122

nificance. �e second is the conviction that who a person really is emerges from his action, not from what he suffers or is subjected to. And the third conviction, which appears to contradict the first: man is an ethical being because he is free, but no one can be completely free if others are not free also. Hence, the dilemma: how can we entice a free individual to exist in unity with another free individual? �e community of free human beings is not a gift of nature, but a true work of art. �e time has come to uncover the substance in which we are immersed, and turn what already binds us together into unity. Who will guide us today in our journey downwards, towards the substance? Hegel does not give us any clues. But we would be justified in saying: the intellectual. In Renaissance Europe the age of intellectuals had just begun: scholars, inventors, artists. So who is this strange product of history? Let us remember the words of Jean Hyppolite, which fittingly complement those of Hegel: the intellectual is one who believes not only that he has reason, but most of all that he is reason. Hegel discusses this matter in the closing chapter of the first volume of Phenomenology of Spirit, titled Individuality which takes itself to be real in and for itself. �e intellectual makes a break with the past: he doubts in the existence of God, does not trust religion, despises kings. He resists bewitchment by the likes of Faust, by errant knights, by defenders of virtue. Still, he inherits some kernel of their faith: the world is not evil. So what can we do with this world? To answer this question, we must describe more closely both the nature of the world, and the nature of man. �e initial blueprint for describing the nature of the world is as follows: the world is man’s grand mirror; wherever you look, you will see your reflection. �e description of the nature of man can be drafted like this: man is what his action is, and man’s

123

action is his creation; the truth about man should be read in the creative products of scholarship, art, technology. In this way, acting according to his concrete nature – deriving his action from his nature – man constructs the world which proclaims his glory. “�e true being of man is his action.” �ese often quoted words of Hegel’s will from this point on guide our reflections on the nature of man. Action is not the same as work. Work was the labour of slaves, aimed at satisfying the needs of their masters. If it expressed any truth, this truth belonged to the masters and not to the slaves. Moreover, work produced goods for consumption which were transient. Action is the expression of concrete, individual nature of free, independent human beings. Its creation stakes a claim to permanence. Most importantly, however, it reveals the truth about man; action is the manifestation of this truth more so than words. We read: “Action alters nothing and opposes nothing. It is the pure form of a transition from a state of not being seen to one of being seen, and the content which is brought out into daylight and displayed, is nothing else but what this action already is in itself.”1 And elsewhere: “Consciousness must act merely in order that what it is in itself may become explicit for it; in other words, action is simply the coming-to-be of Spirit as consciousness. What the latter is in itself, it knows therefore from what it actually is. Accordingly, an individual cannot know what he [really] is until he has made himself a reality through action.”2 Here begins man’s new adventure with himself. Man throws himself into the storm of creation. Like a spider weaving its web, man brings ever-new creations out of himself. He hangs them up amongst the trees and the stars until yesterday’s world is completely veiled by them. �ese will now be his world, and the world will be him. �e analogy to a spider reaches to the heart of the matter because, as it happens, spiders do not

live in a community. Every spider weaves its web in solitude, preoccupied only with itself. Intellectuals likewise are loners, at least in the beginning. Has anyone ever seen a genuine community of intellectuals? Can intellectuals stand in a line, can they serve in the army? Still, there is something which raises them above the troops: they can be presumed “innocent”. �e creation which they bring forth from their talents can never be deemed evil. What matters is that it is woven from one’s own talent, from one’s own concrete nature. �e creation is thus such as is man. “Whether something is held to be good or bad, it is in either case an action and an activity in which an individuality exhibits and expresses itself, and for that reason it is all good; and it would, strictly speaking, be impossible to say what ‘badness’ was supposed to be.”3 �e intellectual is in his first actions an immoralist. �e search for ethics begins with his immoralism. Ethics is the foundation of a community. But the immoralism of intellectuals means that they form a caravan camp more than a community. Hegel calls this camp “the spiritual animal kingdom”. �is sounds like a sneer as much as like a description. We read: “�erefore, feelings of exaltation, or lamentation, or repentance are altogether out of place. For all that sort of thing stems from a mind which imagines a content and an in-itself which are different from the original nature of the individual and the actual carrying-out of it in the real world. Whatever it is that the individual does, and whatever happens to him, that he has done himself, and he is that himself. He can have only the consciousness of the simple transference of himself from the night of possibility into the daylight of the present, from the abstract in-itself into the significance of actual being, and can have only the certainty that what happens to him in the latter is nothing else but what lay dormant in the former.”4

G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 1977, p.237.

Ibid., p.240.

Ibid., p.241.

Ibid., p.242.

respublica philosophy

�e intellectual couples two contradictions within himself: animal essence and spirituality. Animal essence expresses itself through isolation. Spirituality does so through creativity. And the goal is for spirituality to overcome animal essence. However, spirituality resides not above, but inwards. It is “the ethical substance”. Abandoned to loneliness, intellectuals do not even realize how deeply they are tied to each other. On the road towards the substance one must drink the cup of bitterness. What kind of bitterness awaits the intellectual? First, his creation is defeated. �e intellectual, although intending to erect an eternal monument of bronze, discovers that his creation is left to succumb to the slow passing of time. �us the creation is not him, nor is he the master of his creation. �e spider must weave a new web every spring. �at alone would not be so bad, but there is something else. �e spider sees that all around there are other webs, other spiders. Who knows if they are not better? �e intellectual sees that in the library, his books are crowded by other books. In the gallery, one picture competes with the next. Someone invents something, someone else invents something better. �e intellectual witnesses “the dispute amongst creations”. �e world of products is a conflicted world. �e hidden discord among spiders illustrates this conflict. �e community emerges as something that cracks open. But it is able to crack only because at its core lies “the substance” which prohibits dispersal. And what is our poor spider supposed to do now? Pretend not to care? But that’s impossible! �is is, after all, his world, his web, his image! When the mirror is gone, what else is left? Such thoughts can drive one to insanity. Have you ever seen an actor without a part? He’s but a shadow of a man! And then – revelation! �ere is a solution! It is not the creation – the fruit of action – that matters, but rather the cause expressed through it. One must

124

give oneself to the cause, and not to the creation. �e web is unimportant; it is catching flies that matters. �e world is no longer an aggregate of products, but the totality of “causes” – causes to “be served”, to “be carried out,” to “be realized”. �e intellectual who discovers this frees himself from the yoke imposed by his creation. �e poet no longer writes poems, but “practices poetry”, the artist no longer paints pictures, but “practices painting”, the scholar no longer studies the anatomy of birds, but “carries out research”, and everyone now “gives themselves to the cause”. “�e cause” lies at the entrance to ethics. We are almost touching the substance. We are already reaching the community. �e caravan camp slowly morphs into a society. a new signpost emerges. Everyone talks about “honesty”. �e intellectual is supposed to be, above all, “honest”. “Honesty” will solve everything. Let’s bet on honesty… But good luck to those who claim that the notion of honesty does not pose new problems. Trans. Dominika M. Baran Józef Tischner (1931-2000) – one of the most eminent contemporary Polish philosophers. Dean of the Department of Philosophy at Pontifical Academy of �eology in Krakow, lecturer of the Jagiellonian University and the State High School of �eater in Krakow, co-funder of Viennese Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschenn. Great moral authority and one of the most famous, brilliant and loved figured of Polish public life. He was the Solidarity’s first chaplain. He wrote and published more than 600 articles and books. Catholic priest.

�e published text is found in the collection Confessions of a Revolutionary. Published with the permission of the author’s heirs.

p poetry and prose

Ripping Europink (Graffiti Ripsong, Pigsong, Lapsang Souchong)

LAJOS PARTI NAGY … as when, nestled in an armpit, the thermometer bulb just cracks, fever, with all that comes with it: boils and bubos, runs high and fat…

…you’re here, but then you’re there also, - where that there is: that’s the question, if it is both rattling window and putty chewed for adhesion…

… arms whirring wild, fast wingwagon, happiness seen as a mirage the grunting verse sweetly wags on, shedding its silky pork pelage…

… You’ve sat on Europe’s sill so long without seeing what seems so plain now you’re in without getting on: mildew’s creeping all o’r the pane

… Influenza dell’ Atichoo needleshop and feather boa sparks up winter nights, just as though it were Iasi, or Lisboa…

… Dark night, the greatest pignapper strange-looking, hairy grandmother, sparkling on her light silken wrap tiny flea-sized diamond flowers … … Always busy with tea-sipping, biscuit-nibbling and baccara, cooing in ripping euro-pink Europe is a real wolf-grandma…

…Rejoice yee all: here’s Europa! - fun-fair carol, off-key refrain our hand is stretched, plim umtata, quick run: we’ll help you catch the train…

126

… Europe is yellow and brittle, like a faded lace table-cloth, threadbare, tattered, frayed a little both nibbled by time and by moth…

… oh sweet, lemon-garnished Europe, you are still only suckling, even if your make-up’s tarnished and your age, past its first spring…

… Europe is bevel-edged card, rain softly sogging your shy lore as you stand raking out the yard taking your share of others’ gore…

… you’re pink sugar coat on our pill sweet piglet covering bitter drug grunting softly as we grow still squeaking to see graves being dug…

… Europe, oh dearest safety boat, in which we live, in which we float, by which we’re fed up to the throat, as we take out our union load, we now are five or six to roam around, rationing our last loaf without as much as sigh or moan, until we are given free road, and finally can vote …

…our Europe, as you’re lying on your distant beach, stretching your limbs your hide’s a fossil mastodon’s massive and overrated skin… …on your embossed, heavy nape deeply moved Yetis sit in awe How beautiful, those great apes say before turning you into gloves…

127 127

Europe is bevel-edged card, rain softly sogging your shy lore as you stand raking out the yard taking your share of others’ gore…

… oh sweet, lemon-garnished Europe, you are still only suckling, even if your make-up’s tarnished and your age, past its first spring…

… you’re pink sugar coat on our pill sweet piglet covering bitter drug grunting softly as we grow still squeaking to see graves being dug…

… She is a beautiful old map, a femme fatale glimpsed through past times, Europe is only old words’ trap indifferent to my lay charms…

…on your embossed, heavy nape deeply moved Yetis sit in awe How beautiful, those great apes say before turning you into gloves…

…I leave her cold for I am her, her own mixed-up identity, her shrill and shy doppelgänger trying to appear less petty… o hear, popping out of the throat of our Snowwhite: the apple core and a faint, loving yeee that floats… … from out of the coffin away, for here comes, ready for live amore: the great prince from the Uessay…

…our Europe, as you’re lying on your distant beach, stretching your limbs your hide’s a fossil mastodon’s massive and overrated skin…

Translated from the Hungarian by Kinga Dornacher and Stephen Humphreys Lajos Parti Nagy (1953), one of the most important contemporary Hungarian poets. A selection from his poetry was published in a multilingual edition, in Hungarian and in English, French and German translation with the title “Europink” (Jelenkor-Lettre, Pécs, 1999).

t’s great when you get a whisper; you don’t have to think. Obviously, it depends who puts the whisper on. It’s rare for anything to occur to me off the cuff. A request came through that a special number of the journal Ex Symposion was taking shape on whispers about informing, and more specifically under the working title of “My buddy the grass”, and it turned out that I had trouble writing anything about that. Not that I didn’t have buddies who were grasses; or to be more precise, it had not come to light that any of my buddies had been a grass. �ough it had turned out about one, and he wasn’t a close buddy, just a mate, and he hadn’t grassed on me; all he had grassed was that he had nothing to grass on, he put zilch down on paper, because word of mouth was not enough for them. Zero morphemes. Or does even that mean something to them? So, he didn’t squeal anything, but he took even non-squealing to be squealing, and if one takes him at his word, I for one unhesitatingly believed him, by and large, on that; that is to say, he put his life on non-squealing. �ey put the screws on him through his dad. You’re eighteen, and they put the screws on you through your dad; that they’ll let him have it. No one put the screws on me through my dad. It now seems more than likely that they could have. Hands up anyone whom it’s a dead cert they couldn’t, not on your life, who’d be hanged if he would, a hundred to one. �at’s exactly when it comes to light, if it’s happened to you. He came clean thirty years later. Until then he’d kept it to himself, rotted away his life with it. If something had presented a chance to pull out as they say, he would immediately think and how will it look if it’s screened. You are screened just by living. In practice you screen yourself; you go around fully screened, and it’s not the golddarn silver-fir Sun that did it, but you arranged it, you put yourself on ice. We are strolling in the street, some such cold day, we were going round a housing estate, he was apparently relieved, me in deep confusion; I should have squared matters with my tempers, only I had no tempers, there was no reason for me to be angry, because the whole thing was now over, it wasn’t possible to get angry at it; and as to the person who said he could not say anything, to be quite honest, what I felt inside was more a sort of tender feeling that was reminiscent of affection, as if I were talking with somebody who had got over a protracted serious illness, taking a stroll with some such person in the grounds of the sanatorium, gripping his elbow every now and then lest he topple over. He rang me up to say he had something to tell me. My thought was it must be graft, graft, more work to be done; how am I going to say no to an old mate. We met at his workplace. A fairly big dining-room, refectory, or whatever, with him sitting at the far end of the hall with a few colleagues, and the way he got to his feet, almost jumped up, when he spot-

Gábor Németh

Screening

respublica Poetry and Prose

ted me, a seemingly exaggerated readiness to be of service, that was the only thing that struck me as odd. Like a nail sticking out of something totally smooth, like that. “I saw a big-bodied fur animal from behind, its head twisted uncomfortably to the left as it looked fixedly at the morning star. �e lacklustre tip of its nose was not real, nor was its pelt real, or the animal or the morning star; only the discomfort was real. Only the discomfort – that was real.” �e readiness to be of service was not real. Or not what there had been up to that point, the whole thirty years. �ere was something ghastly about him. He had always been more than a touch supercilious on the odd occasions we had met during the thirty years in question; supercilious or phlegmatic, more phlegmatic, cool and phlegmatic, the grimaces he made while he spoke, looking slightly over your head. He had switched off that phlegmaticness, because he knew what he was going to say, what story he was going to come out with a few minutes from now; he had got past the decision to tell, and he was now free; it was a free man who got to his feet, he did not have to pretend any more, he could even allow himself to hurry. What should I tell you. I told him, as if I were praising him, phlegmatically, what he ought to have told them about me, what they were expecting from him was what, how big a danger, in meticulous detail, they had to defend the People’s Republic of Hungry from. �ey had asked him because they knew from the start; indeed, they knew more from the start than he could ever have known. Forget it, I told him. It wasn’t he who ought to be ashamed, but them for putting the screws on an eighteen-year-old kid through his dad. Several people said, when it was the fashion to do it, why didn’t I ask to see the files, and I too had already given some thought to asking to see them; honest, a couple years ago I even had a plan to write a book about what sort of things had been reported back, of writing down just what my recollections were; or, to be more precise, weren’t. And that is precisely what would have been good about it, what with my memory being so catastrophically atrocious; maybe going through all that paperwork would have helped it a bit. Don’t think of anything serious. We nibbled Neapolitan biscuits with one hand. Chuck them in front of the squirrels. More a matter of the situations where you were sitting at a shindig, say in seventy-eight, or eighty-six, half a bottle of lousy wine in your hand, and you prattishly sound off that the regime can get stuffed. You read out a few bits of this and that, tuck a few cyclostyled sheets of paper in a letter box. Put your signature on something. You go somewhere you shouldn’t. And that’s all seen by somebody. He sees it then goes back home and writes up what it was you did. Writes it out on a sheet of paper, then hands it over to someone else. So I thought to myself, I can do that, there’ll come a time when I write down what the utterly hopeless, sodding country that we lived in really looked liked from the other side. �at reminds me. �e day before yesterday I went to the Kossuth Square, to take a look at the Parliament building. I wanted to go to Batthyány Square, but still a bit of time; I only needed to get out to Froggy Bottom for 8:15. 130

131

I would have a look, see who was there – what sorts of faces. �ere was nothing special; I found what I had expected: a clueless middle-aged married couple in shabby overcoats, spotty neo-Nazis in Doc Martens, a few nutcases, slightly squiffy perpetual losers, fresh-faced high-school kids, a couple of homeless bums, then an acquaintance, or at least he seemed familiar, because he looked me straight in the eye and, a long way off, gave a smile like people do who, it turns out, are acquaintances, only I simply don’t remember who they are; well anyway, he was coming towards me in the crowd, there was a woman with him, and the fellow is more or less one of those intellectual types, close-cropped hair, greying beard, black polo neck, and, let’s say, a SzDSz sympathiser, a supporter of the Alliance of Free Democrats, not that I mean to suggest he was a Jew, just an old face from the glorious past, one of the Danube Circle or whatever. I thought to myself, obviously he has also come along to take a look, and now we’re going to have to swap views in choked voices, but his smile is increasingly odd, sneering or whatever, and he takes a broad swerve and moves off, so it looks like I won’t have to chat after all, a good job too, but what is not so good is that he ends up behind me, and he says to the woman, wonder how he got here, and then a few steps later, another sentence out of which all I understand is four-by-two. Like he said to her that I’m a four-by-two. It did cross my mind for a second to kill him. To turn, go after him, politely ask whether I had heard him right, then nut him in the face and, without paying any attention to the bloody red pulp where his nose had been, squeeze his windpipe until he ran out of puff. Or I did, of course, because that too is on the cards. I did nothing of the sort, though. Someone was saying something about the theatre, utter tripe. �en another started yelling into the microphone. Did the bearded fellow really know me from somewhere, or had he seen me once on the telly; I could have been talking about some Jewish stuff. Maybe he just knew that people who are invited onto the telly, that’s what they all are. I mused as I set off back to the subway: Jewish therefore a Commie therefore a four-by-two – was that the algorithm. What business indeed did I have here. But then I’m a foreigner everywhere. A homeless wretch. A four-by-two. One day, five years ago, I was called to the telephone in the Magyar Orange editorial office and a moderately confused but all the same, when it comes to it, resolute voice started to talk about screening in a barely comprehensible voice. I supposed he just had a goofy way of putting it: “A moving picture of various possibilities runs at lightning-quick speed through Auer’s brain. His uncle has arrived from America. �e headmaster was calling him because there had been a staff meeting, and the teachers had finally agreed that Auer was a quite exceptional, unaccountable genius of the kind that the zeitgeist gives birth to just one in a century, and therefore he immediately had to grant him a school-leaving certificate plus a scholarship for one thousand crowns, accompanied by a big speech that the headmaster would deliver in the teachers’ common room. He is being called by the minister of education, who was at the staff meeting and had come expressly on his account, because someone had had passed on to him the latest essay that Auer had written for his Hungarian homework and it had just been read out, amidst

respublica Poetry and Prose

copious tears, in the Houses of Parliament, and this government representative now wanted to shake hands with Auer. �e drawing master was calling for him, because a wealthy patron of the arts had seen his sepia ‘Stylised leaf-shape’, and he wanted to purchase it for thirty thousand crowns to replace the City Park’s Feszty panorama that had just been auctioned off. I’ll give it him for twenty thousand, it suddenly struck Auer, panting as they reached the fourth floor,” yet lest there be any misunderstanding, the voice started to use the expression “implicated”, which rang a bell from newspaper articles. �ey had found me to be implicated, he said, and would I be so kind, be so kind as to go along to Hunter Street, at such-and-such a time, and bring any papers which had a bearing on my case, if I had any. Like, what sort of papers, and on what case. He had no way of knowing, and he couldn’t say anything. And right then and there, on the telephone, I was a dumb enough arse to start explaining in an injured tone. I shouldn’t get worked up; you never know, in the end they might want to give me a medal. It was hard to decide if he was seriously trying to set my mind at rest or just taking the piss. I put the phone down and sat back. �e magazine was just going to press. But I couldn’t work. Suspicion would not allow me to work. What if I couldn’t remember. If I had been arrested once and made to sign something. And I had forgotten, because it was best that way; they had nothing on me, I had not reported anything, I was quite sure of that, because if I’d blabbed and written reports, even just one, obviously I wouldn’t forget that. Ten years on from the last time I’d seen her, I met up with the girl with whom I had been desperately in love at the age of ten. Apparently she knew nothing about that. We sat on the bed and had a cup of tea, but before the tea she slipped into a yellow terry-towel bathrobe. When I made my slightly delayed confession, she laughed that that I spat on her once, that was all she remembered. I didn’t remember a thing about that. She said it calmly, more chirpily than scoffingly; in fact without putting on any act at all. I had regularly stood for hours in front of their front gate, and I really almost died the one time I was able to touch her. I recalled that touch, her school smock, the narrow Red Indian belt that her parents had brought her from Canada, her laugh, all her movements. �e smock, yes, but not the spitting. Very funny. �ere was no spitting, because I didn’t remember that. �e week passed very slowly. I somehow killed the time. What came to mind, for instance, was an afternoon when I was lying in bed at home, in Old Street, with a temperature of 39� and the front door bell rang. I supposed it was Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it wasn’t. It was two policemen, in plain clothes, or maybe security men or whatever, and they drilled me about my favourite teacher, and what did we do, what did we talk about with him at school, in the literary & debating society. Was there nothing fishy that we’d noticed. I played stupid, which wasn’t too hard. But they didn’t want to 132

respublica Poetry and Prose

leave, so I made out that I had to go off somewhere. �ey came with me as far as the corner of the street, then they said I should give them a buzz if I noticed anything after all. “Call me, babe, the nu-u-u-u-mber’s one–two–three–four–five–six–seven.” Twenty-five years on, I found this patter pretty laughable. Admittedly, phone numbers in those days were only seven-digits long, but the way they said it was almost as if they were joking, or were they really so thick that this was the only way they could remember their own phone number. �en I realised that it was so that you would never forget the moment, the Sixth District of Budapest, the corner of Old Street and Nagymező, March the somethingth, 1973. You nod: of course, you‘ll give them a buzz, a thousand guineas on it, if the socialist homeland ever gets in such deep shit that it comes under attack by high-school Hungarian teachers. Only get off my case. I had a hard job finding the place in Hunter Street. No kind of office was evident. No signboard, door plate, flag or anything like that. Typical, this lying low, murky state-security, an old trick, no sign outside as they work in secret, screen in total darkness, take a look through Mon-sewer Never-Ever’s body in the dark. I rang the bell. For a long time there was no response, then someone shuffled down the stairs after all. As the door opened I could see he was wearing a tracksuit. He looked out through a crack in the door to ask what I wanted. Someone had phoned up to tell me I should come here, only I wasn’t sure now whether I was in the right place, because there was no sign outside. Anyway, was this the place where they did the screening. He did not so much as bat an eyelid, just nodded: come in, he said, and set off back up the stairs. He seemed to be muttering to himself, screw this for a game of soldiers, they’ve gone and blagged the sign-board and flag again. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was like a bad dream, the way he shuffled and wobbled his way slowly up the stairs; all of a sudden, I had a feeling, no, I was quite sure, that it was him who had called me, they had had told him to tell me I should come in; they’d found something. His job was to sort out this and that, a real Jack-of-all-trades, fix the lights, bring ham rolls, put in calls to the freaks. �e ones who were implicated. I was quite sure he would deny it. At the top of the stairs a door opened with an strange buzzing noise as we entered, then it shut with a click. No way of getting out now, unless they wanted. A few more steps and another door, a buzz, a click. We were in the waiting room, a crooked porcelain official coat of arms on the wall, with a crown, an ashtray, two extremely beat-up couches, shit-brown in colour, the foam-rubber wadding poking out. Take a seat. �ere are others still ahead of you. He went out, and again the door clicked. �ey might at least have given me a jabby-wabby. �e building began to shake as it were afraid or freezing, but then the muffled jerking noise of a lift could be heard somewhere. �e door opened. An old biddy came in, scuttling, they’re good at that – shuffling, in drooping stockings, a greying white overall, holding an enamel pail. Like the crazy grandma in András Jeles’ Little Valentino whose nightie catches 134

135

fire. She shuffled across the waiting room and vanished behind a door I hadn’t noticed before. Eventually the door to the screeners opened up, after all, and they called out my name, though no one had come out the whole time. I went in, they asked if I had any papers, so I said I didn’t, nor did I have a clue what it was all about. I’d not been an agent, no number so-and-so much. I’d never been recruited, though there might a bit of paperwork about me, in which case that was probably where the misunderstanding had come from. I stuttered out a few things it might be about. As far as I could see, there was no other way out. �ey nodded. �en they said an index card had been filled out about me. �ere you are. But not the usual sort of index card that was filled out for an agent before he was recruited. So they didn’t recruit me. No sign of it, said the weariest one, no sign that they succeeded. You weren’t given a #6 card. �e only strange thing is that it is carrying a stamp for 1989. Which means they were still intending to recruit you, even that late in the day. You know, the one sitting in the middle said all of a sudden, you wouldn’t believe how many things we’ve witnessed in this room. A person comes in, protests just like you, then shouts and rants, and then, when finally shown the piece of paper that was signed when they were on military service, they crumple. �ey had forgotten all about that. Just as I say: it’s no lie. He really had forgotten, because he wanted to forget. �en he starts sobbing his eyes out; that’s how to get it out. So, you didn’t sign anything, the man in the middle asked again. No, like I said. Fair enough, so you’ll write that down, he said to the third. �ey completed a form to say I was not implicated. �at’s it? I can go? �at’s it. I was in no mood to say, I’ll be seeing you. In ‘89 I divorced, my mother fell ill and died, and I got to know my children’s mother-tobe. And just by the bye, the Hungarian regime bit the dust; a member of the old Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party proclaimed the new Republic (I read that only the other day he was even slagging Commies a bit in a speech he made in parliament). As far as I can recall, I wasn’t overimpressed even then. Someone heard me and wrote it down, no doubt thinking I too would come in use some day. Sure. A select apparatus. On the occasions when we meet, the mate who did not inform on me, or rather, the information he gave was that he knew nothing about me, looks me straight in the eye, we smile at each other; I exaggerate this a little, lest he get the idea that I am thinking all the time about what he always thinks about when we meet; what, ever since he told me, both of us will now think about as long as we live, inexorably. Trans. Tim Wilkinson Gábor Németh (1956), writer and screenwriter, former editor-in-chief of the online literary journal litera.hu

136

he sky behind the large, curtainless windowpane is jet-black, yet it is already morning. It is the moment when the night time sinks to zero and the day begins from number one. Catherine can imagine this. With her inner eye, she can see a line of numbers, as if written on a blackboard with chalk, but there is no chalk, no blackboard, and the numbers are hovering in the air where there is no air. “Where are those numbers?” she used to ask when she was much smaller, and her parents drew tallies for her in the dust of the path. “You see: one and one make two, plus one makes three, plus one makes four, plus one makes five.” Daddy crossed the vertical lines with a horizontal one. All she could see was a picket fence. She did not understand at all what she was meant to understand; she was nodding only so that she may finally stand up and leave, go further down the path among the pines towards the ruins, on that hot summer day that she still remembers as that time when she could not yet count. She has still, deep within towards the back of her head, that uncomprehending look, which she used to see the lines or pebbles put before her eyes only as lines or pebbles. In a similar way, she can still remember the unintelligible shapes of letters on notice boards and in lines at the time when they were not yet letters, but a mystery. She cherishes this memory of non-numbers and non-letters of her ten-year-old self as a treasure, as her true childhood. It was probably no coincidence that the illness came to her at the very time the numbers emerged from behind the lines and pebbles. She no longer asked where they came from. She saw them; yes, they were quite different from the surrounding landscape, but they were equally natural in their flat world somewhere behind the eyes. She understood that the horizontal line with which Daddy crossed the first five lines could cross out all the lines anybody wrote. It is some kind of invisible ruler which, contrary to the visible rulers at school, can be put across anything – across five hills on the horizon, across five teeth on a comb, across five swallows, and not only when they are sitting on a wire like in the textbooks: when each flies in a different direction, too, the ruler will fly out with them, turn into a string on which all of them are threaded, and say: five swallows. Cathy was gazing at a world that was suddenly changing, and she counted and counted. And then she did not even have to count. She realized that the rulers and threads in that invisible world that clings so closely to our visible world are strung out all the time, and that every step she takes has been counted, every needle among the needles of this beautiful pine-tree has its number, and when it falls it is deducted from the living and added to the dead that lie on the ground in the forest. It was suddenly so obvious that she preferred not to tell anybody. She thought that only she knew about it. All the others do is stupidly move the balls about on the abacus. Only she knows that this is not necessary, that everything has been counted, and she can ride up and down the lines of numbers, big and small, just like riding a bicycle. Only she could not ride the bicycle any more. She was suddenly so weak that she could not lift it. She stayed lying under it as if it were a log; she did not even try to move it. For-

Jan Balabán

A child on fire

respublica Poetry and Prose

tunately, there were other hands to lift it, and they lifted Cathy as well. �ere were Daddy’s hands, and Mummy’s, and then the hands of nurses and doctors. Suddenly she was living in a hospital where they would put a thermometer in her armpit, and while they were doing it she recognised that long line that stands upright next to Daddy’s vertical one, and every division on it can be added to one division on the left, and when the two are extended, always one in parallel with the other, there appear squares and rectangles of various sizes, such spots that change in exact accordance with how the riders on the mutually square trajectories change the length of each side – the people around her bed watched with horror as the curves ran up and down the diagonals of those wild rectangles, they coaxed the riders in her blood to stop their wild running and to walk at an even pace like before. Just like in those infinitely distant times when there were only lines and pebbles, and no invisible world. �is way Cathy counted down to the morning even before the morning. �is way she reached the zero point, which may just be a thin hair in the numeric line, but as it has no value it can separate the real numbers. Zero always seemed suspicious to her. �e teacher said that it was impossible to divide by a zero, but that it was possible to multiply with it. �is small circle representing nothing can swallow even the biggest number as if it were nothing at all. Inside that ring must be wrapped whole multitudes of numbers. Now she can see them as a spool of the thinnest thread in the world. So thin that it cannot be measured, even by the finest ruler in the invisible world. �is thread is invisible in the invisible world, too. If somebody were able to divide a zero, they would discover another invisible world, and inside that another, and inside that another. Cathy smiled at the depths at whose verge she had found herself. Just a little, and only in her soul, did she mourn another mystery – one that was deposited in the cemetery of mysteries in the back of her head. It is strange, but already comprehensible, that a night in a hospital is just an evening extended for a very long time – a disgusting supper, then the doctor comes, strokes her hair and wishes her goodnight even though she knows that Cathy cannot sleep; then the nurse comes to see if she is all right, though she knows she won’t be all right ever again; then the nurses and orderlies talk for ages in the examining room, like her parents used to behind the closed door of the sitting room; there is the sound of a television somewhere; someone goes to the loo here and there, and the conversations die down. �e nice, fat nurse Dagmar sits in an armchair between the rooms of intensive care so she will hear if anything happens, meanwhile knitting a white sweater for her granddaughter which she will finish for Christmas. �e doctor on duty goes to take a nap in the doctors’ room for a few hours. Nobody speaks, but the evening continues. Even the pain that ticks in Cathy’s body feels like an evening pain – quite a good kind of pain, rather like green needles descending silently into white snow. Cathy can see precisely how the evening’s night is dripping away and diminishing like a transparent infusion sack, until there is nothing in it and the new one has yet to be punctured. Just for a moment it feels like in Sleeping Beauty. �ere is nothing. And now it’s morning. Everything is different, unpleasant. �e sky beyond the window is still black, but already the nurses, the cleaning ladies are new. �e doctor looks strange in her civilian clothes, and she is talking to a colleague who has yet to settle into her white robe. First the pot, then the breakfast that Cathy won’t eat anyway, medicines, injection, good morning, Cath, and a fresh infusion hanging from the stand as on any other long day. 138

respublica Poetry and Prose

Why us, why our girl? Cathy’s father stopped on the stairway landing. A warm coat, a sweater, a scarf; it is so hot in the overheated hospital. He felt he had no right to put this question, when children the world over have to die of incurable illnesses… But he must ask it anyway, even though, and which is much worse, he feels how they – his wife and the other children, that is – are alienated by this question from this small human being in the hospital bed. When we ask it, and we do ask it, then we are not with her any more, we want her to be different from how she is now. We stuff ourselves with kitsch; because that’s what I insist it is, kitsch, that image of a healthy child before our eyes, like from a juice or cocoa ad. �e golden calf of health that every normal person is entitled to, and Cathy is deprived of it only by some oversight, or perhaps she herself is the oversight?! Sweaty, gasping, hot, he stood on the white stairway, and decides not to move until he has chased the question not only out of his head, but out of the world. It was a busy morning on the children’s ward. �ey are sending everybody home for Christmas whom they can let go. So many cars in front of the hospital. So many solicitous parents with children’s fur coats, anoraks, hats and gloves in their hands. So many children’s telephones, music players and magazines hastily packed into bags, and out of the room into the corridor. Parents queuing in front of the examination room, yet to collect medicine, prescriptions, discharge papers, into open arms and hurry, hurry home to the Christmas tree. �ere are whole forests of them, silver, gold and violet. �e gifts won’t even get through the door; raging teenagers are enlarging the windows with chain saws and baseball bats, to get more from life once again. Cathy’s father stood by the white pipes of the central heating, saving himself with the memory of a cartoon story from an ancient children’s magazine. Proper boys making their own boys’ Christmas. Trimming a tree in a wood outside the town and putting their proper boys’ presents under it. And suddenly – the gifts are gone. Stolen by a vagabond, the orphan Tony Feather, who sleeps in a nearby limekiln. He was imagining poor Tony in torn clothes, running with the colourful packages in his arms, into the darkness, under real, untrimmed trees. No matter that a happy ending was reached when he returned the presents and the boys found a new home for him. Only this image, which did not appear in the comic, only the stranger with someone else’s gifts in a dark and frozen world of limekilns and fosterhomes is real. Only this is really us and our “more from life”. He had to smile at all that sorrow. It was a good smile. In the mirror of the glass door he could see his eyes and lips which were so similar to Cathy’s eyes and lips at one of those moments when she had to deposit another secret in the cemetery of secrets in the depths of her little head. (He had seen this; it had happened several times while he was there.) He weaved his way through the groups of more fortunate parents and children and headed for the rooms where nothing changes on the twenty-third of December. He was reaching for the door handle when he was detained by a doctor, the senior consultant on the children’s ward. “Cathy’s taken a significant turn for the worse. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but her fever’s up. �e child is febrile, and really not quite herself.” “And can we see her? My wife’s on her way.” “Of course, for as long as you wish.” He entered the room and swallowed the prepared sentence: Black knight to H3. He always tried to play imaginary chess with his genius of a child. But he always had to prepare 140

respublica Poetry and Prose

his moves himself and learn them by heart. Cathy always saw through this when he got lost after the third move. It didn’t look like chess today. It seemed to him that the child lying there connected to all sorts of tubes was on fire from within. When he touched her he could feel the same thing happening to him. He did not feel like talking, but the words just came out. “How about a fairy tale?” Cathy nodded. Beyond the window it was sleeting. �e ward was silent again, as on any other day. He was telling her a favourite story about people who were chased out of their beautiful seaside home by an evil emperor. �ey had to cross desolate plains with herds of antelopes and wild horses, where they were threatened by cruel nomad tribes, and they didn’t stop until they reached the foothills of the mountains in the north. For the first time they saw snow, which was falling from black clouds above rocky peaks. �ey advanced through a valley of tall spruces and firs; from the shadows under the trees reindeer and moose were watching them, and in the dark the eyes of lynx, wolverines and snow lions were gleaming. �ey had never seen so much horror and so much beauty… He did not even know if his daughter was listening to him. Her expression was concentrated, as if she were thinking hard about something, or she were counting something again. How many horses, how many dogs, how many spears, how many axes, how many trees will it be necessary to cut down for the construction of the house, how many logs must be prepared for a long winter, how much meat must be hung… “Go on,” his wife encouraged him. She had crept silently into the room and was sitting on the other side of Cathy’s bed. “But I don’t know how it continues,” he admitted truthfully. “But it must go on somehow.” “Daddy, how many numbers are there?” Cathy asked suddenly. “Altogether? I don’t know.” “Come on now, how many?” her mother insisted. “You have to tell her!” “�ere is an infinite number of numbers,” he said, drawing with his finger a large recumbent eight on the blanket. “And what does that mean?” “It means that after the last number in the line, there is always another one.” “And after that there is another,” the daughter added. “And so on and so on.” Her father nodded. �e child smiled. Her satisfaction was because she had understood that that tiny hair of time left to them was equal in length to all the times of the world. Translated from the Czech original “Hořící dítě” (first published within the collection of short stories Možná že odcházíme [Brno 2004]) by Ivory Rodriguez Jan Balabán (1961) is a Czech writer, journalist and translator, living in Ostrava. Has published collections of short stories, including Možná že odcházíme or Jsme tady, and novels including Černý beran a Kudy šel anděl.

142

n notes about partners

respublica notes about partners

Eurozine: Europe’s leading cultural magazines at your fingertips Eurozine is a network of European cultural journals and a netmagazine linking up over 75 partner journals and connecting many other cooperating publications and institutions. Eurozine grew out of the informal meetings of editors of cultural journals that had been taking place annually in various European cities from 1983 onwards. In 1998, the success of these meetings, along with the increase in participants and the rapid development of the Internet, prompted the editors to strengthen the network by making it virtual and more systematic: Eurozine was born. Eurozine is a showcase for the many possibilities that cooperation between print and electronic media creates. In presenting its partners online, Eurozine opens them up to new readerships. At the same time, Eurozine’s base in print journals with longstanding intellectual traditions makes it unique among other web-based projects.

HOST �e literary journal HOST in its today’s form was created in 1985 as a samizdat magazine published once a year. After 1989 it was legalized and underwent many changes in periodicity, size and orientation. As from 1999, it has become a monthly and has been considered one of the most important cultural periodicals in Czechia. HOST especially deals with contemporary Czech literature and literary criticism. An important part, nevertheless, is dedicated to world 144

Eurozine publishes original articles on issues of contemporary cultural and political interest, providing a Europe-wide overview of current topics and discussions. Authors and essayists write from different viewpoints and with a wide range of perspectives; they include established names – Seyla Benhabib, Slavenka Drakulic, Jürgen Habermas, Miklós Haraszti, Susan Neiman, to name a few – alongside a great range of contributors who will be new to an international readership. By presenting the best articles – with additional translations – from the partner journals, Eurozine plays its part in the creation a public sphere for transnational debate. In doing so, the Eurozine network overcomes language barriers, crosses geographic and economic borders, and widens the scope for distribution. Eurozine partner journals include: Arche (Belarus); Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik (Germany); Edinburgh Review (UK); Esprit (France); Host (Czech Republic); �e Hungarian Quarterly (Hungary); Kritika & Kontext (Slovakia); Kulturos barai (Lithuania); Magyar Lettre Internationale (Hungary); Merkur (Germany); Neprikosnovennij Zapas (Russia); New Humanist (UK); Osteuropa (Germany); Ord&Bild (Sweden); Res Publica Nowa (Poland); Sodobnost (Slovenia); Transit (Austria), Varlik (Turkey); Vikerkaar (Estonia); Wespennest (Austria). www.eurozine.com

literature as well as to further subject areas of the humanities, such as philosophy, literary theory and history, aesthetics, history of art, or social studies, among others. A lot of space in HOST is dedicated to reviews of current book production (Review Supplement), original literary output and presentation of the personalities of contemporary literature. �e most outstanding figures of today’s Czech literature, such as Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký, Ivan Wernisch, Zbyněk Hejda, Karel Šiktanc, Ivan M. Jirous, Jiří Kuběna, A. J. Liehm, and among the younger generation J. H. Krchovský, Jáchym Topol, Pavel Kosatík,

145

Miloš Urban, Bogdan Trojak, Petr Borkovec, Michal Viewegh, etc., have published their texts in HOST’s pages. �e monthly also deals with poetic and prose creations of young and unknown authors. Coverage of different literary events and festivals as well as

news from the world of literature also make an integral part of HOST. �e monthly has a distinctive layout and its texts are accompanied with photographs and profiles of their authors.

Kritika & Kontext

on equal footing. It is critical to discern what is an intellectual asset and what is only a vain mannerism, often embellished with incomprehensible gibberish. An atmosphere of critical thinking, to be sure, cannot be created overnight, through “schnell” courses or with some lofty manuals. What remains indispensable is the tedious mapping of the historical context while remaining up-to-date on the latest developments. �e motto of Kritika & Kontext is Joseph Schumpeter’s famous dictum “to realize the relative validity of one’s convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian”. Only in this delicate constellation, neither fanatical nor relativist, is one able to accept and benefit from criticism, and criticize others without forcing one’s own opinion on them. �is is exactly the atmosphere in which critical thinking can flourish. Kritika &Kontext tries to create a forum for critical thinking for scholars from Slovakia and the Czech republic. It strives to be a forum without pathos and reminiscence, one for these two distinct communities with much to say to one another; with the added benefit that there is no need for a translator between Czechs and Slovaks. We cannot be connected by commercial television or by nostalgia for things past. Our duty is to debate critically matters that surround us, torment us, interest us, and things we do with joy. To be critical of ourselves and of each other is a healthy manifestation of self-confidence and kindred spirit. �ere are many topics we did not have the opportunity, nor the courage, to address. If we do not address them, they might be used and abused by others.

Kritika & Kontext is a quarterly, bilingual (Slovak, English) journal of book reviews based in Bratislava, Slovakia. �e aim of the journal is to encourage dialogue on important issues between East and West by offering Slovak and Czech scholars and students certain seminal books from the social sciences and humanities that were published in the West during the past fifty years, but for various reasons were translated into Slovak or Czech only after 1989. Each issue includes book reviews by contemporary Slovak and Czech thinkers and articles by western, Slovak and Czech scholars that briefly chart the developments in a discipline since a reviewed book was published. In contrast to literary and music criticism, reviewing in the social sciences and humanities is not an independent discipline. A review of a sociological study might be written by someone who is not a sociologist, however only a review by a respected sociologist will be of decisive importance, supporting or dismissing the thesis of the book. In this manner, each discipline will naturally select its “classics” and its “flops”; the works that represent the pinnacle in the field and those that contribute to the discussion but do not influence the direction of the discipline. It is important for central European scholars not to get sidetracked and overwhelmed by the many trends that have engulfed western academia during the past thirty years. A critical stance free from unnecessary veneration is a precondition for participating in a dialogue with western colleagues

respublica notes about partners

Magyar Lettre History: Founders of the periodical and the foundation behind it, like Esterházy Péter, Konrád György, Miklós Mészöly, were authors of the original French edition of the European cultural quarterly funded by the Czech émigré Antonin J. Liehm in the mid 1980s, which aimed to present the east- and central European intellectual and cultural values in translation. Ágnes Heller, Imre Kertész and other prominent Hungarian thinkers and writers are since the early 1990s on the board of the Hungarian edition, which

Res Publica Nowa Res Publica Nowa is an independent cultural journal focused on Polish and European public sphere. It is today a leading intellectual quarterly. �e editorial staff regularly organizes public debates and lectures and often appears in the media. �e editorial space in the centre of Warsaw is also an art gallery open to the public. �e Current RPN editor (Wojciech Przybylski), together with another editorial board member Jarosław Kuisz, runs a regular weekly radio programme on books. In 2009, Res Publica Nowa began its series of public debates – called „�e DNA of the city” - to encourage a republican spirit and practice in the public spheres of Polish cities. �e journal is published by a non-for-profit foundation. �e history of Res Publica Nowa started in 1979 when a group of polish intellectuals set up an independent underground journal. By 1981, eight issues of the magazine, initially called Res Publica, were published. Among the prominent contributors were Marcin Król (editor-in-chief), Paweł Śpiewak, Barbara Torunczyk, Andrzej Micewski and Stefan Kisielewski. In 1987, Res Publica Nowa was restarted with the approval of state officials. At that time it was probably the only journal of its kind in the Soviet bloc. 146

became one of the most prestigious publications in the country and in the region. It is member of the eurozine network. Concept: We try to present important discourses, relevant issues from different perspectives, in the genre of essay; we have thematic dossiers with international authors and special dossiers introducing the cultures of less known European languages and countries. Policy: help the process of European integration in its cultural aspects, on regional basis, we try to follow and influence the ongoing discourses.

Res Publica has earned its fame for hosting forbidden intellectuals from Poland and other countries like H. Arendt, I. Berlin, M. Oakeshott and many others, virtually unknown to the Polish reading public of the time. �e magazine has also played a major role in creating the necessary political climate to make the Roundtable Negotiations possible. Despite all the political and personnel changes, Res Publica Nowa has managed to defend its position as an opinion-making journal. Over the decades it has been offering articles from various disciplines including philosophy, politics, sociology, literature and arts.

147

Villa Decius Interview with Danuta Glondys, director of Villa Decius Magdalena M. Baran: �anks to its activities, Villa Decius is seen as an exceptional place for promoting Central European relations. Where does such a strong interest in these issues stem from? Danuta Glondys: I believe that the two most important reasons are the following: common historical experience and a necessity to face the so-called European challenges. �e map of Europe shows that the societies of central and eastern Europe are bound by separate cultural and historical experiences. �ey also posses their own memory of the past, unique sensitivity and attitudes toward the outside world. By entering the EU not only did we bring in the cultural achievements of the whole region but also we enriched the existing cultural heritage of the continent by contributing values such as solidarity and soft revolutions which brought down the totalitarian system. However, the common cultural heritage and our joined contribution to the European civilization were not the only factors uniting our region. �e necessity to prepare ourselves for the accession and working together on the European platform were also important. Villa Decius was one of the first institutions which took notice of the European challenges facing us. As early as in 2001 we had planned Visegrad Summer School (VSS) – a long-term programme addressed to the young elites of the Visegrad Group and to our eastern neighbours. In time, it has become the most outstanding educational undertaking in the region. However, the School is not our only macro-regional programme. For years we have been organizing, among other things, Poland’s biggest exchange programme for young writers “Homines Urbani”. Its participants were for instance Dorota Masłowska, Michał Witkowski and Sylwia Chutnik

from Poland; Taras Prochasko, Natalka Sniadanko and Nazar Honczar from Ukraine; Juhasia Kalada and Andrij Chadanowicz from Belarus; Kolia Mensing and Juli Zeh from Germany. We are confident that the creation of a platform for meetings and international cooperation, as well as the promotion of respect and responsibility for the future are important for the preservation of the genius loci and the development of the whole region. MMB: �is year has marked the eight edition of the Visegrad Summer School. From this perspective, what is your opinion on the school and its participants? What made Villa interested in Visegrad? DG: �e first edition of the Summer School took place in the year 2002. It marked the beginning of our cooperation with the International Visegrad Fund as well as with our partners from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Every year the program enjoys a growing interest, and the number of applications from students and young academics is on the rise. �is year we received 324 applications from 9 countries (Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Kosovo, and Kirgizstan) for the mere 45 places. From the very beginning we did our best to assure the development of the programme with respect to its contents and organization. It has always been important for us that the programme answers the most topical problems and takes up the most difficult questions from the area of social and political life. �erefore, with help of our partners, we invite the best experts and lecturers from both European and Mediterranean countries. �e debates we organize are a good opportunity for a confrontation of opinions and “academic schools”. I believe it constitutes an important asset of our programme. We also introduced individual student projects, that enrich the lectures and workshops, that have been originally the main part of the School. MMB: Villa Decius is a place full of life, people and cultural events. What are your plans concerning

respublica notes about partners

the changes of your programs in the upcoming years? What will be the direction of these changes? DG: It is worth looking back at the genesis of the place. Villa was created during the Renaissance, and from the very beginning it has been a contact place for different cultures, especially from central Europe. Villa’s founder Decius was from Alsace. However, he was an envoy and a personal secretary of the Polish king Sigismund I the Old. �e last great owner of the Villa was Duchess Marcelina Czartoryska. She had a political salon there, and also being a pupil of Chopin herself, she organized concerts of his music. �e founders of our association, for example professor Jacek Woźniakowski, referred to these traditions. �ey wanted to set up in Villa an “European Academy”. �is was made possible thanks to Krakow municipal authorities. Since 1996 we tried to follow these concepts. It was in Villa Decius where Albrecht Lempp created Zespół Literacki Polska 2000, which later transformed into Instytut Książki. It was here where in 2003 together with Janek Piekło we initiated the Sergio Viera de Mello Award, who was a High Commissary of Human Rights (2002-2003). During this project we have been

148

working with the Polish foreign ministry. �e ceremony itself is becoming an important world event and a flagship of Poland abroad. It was also in the Villa where European cultural elites “learned” about the history and art of central eastern Europe. In cooperation with the European Cultural Foundation (among other institutions) we organized a number of international projects. An example of such a project is one of the most important cultural portals www.labforculture.org. �anks to our involvement it has been available also in Polish. On the regional and local platforms we have been managing programmes that aim at rendering historic buildings accessible and usable for the public. �ese programmes include Chopin’s Heritage, Renaissance Trail in Lesser Poland or Night Classes in Villa Decius. �ese initiatives have been organized in cooperation with Krakow and Lesser Poland’s authorities. Along with the Summer Visegrad School and “Homines Urbani”, these are the main areas of our activity which we want to develop in the upcoming years. Understandably it is a great challenge for us. Moreover, considering the “nobility of the place“ it is also an obligation. We hope that the years to come will be as successful as the past ones.

a abstracts

Magdalena M. Baran

Petr A. Bílek

Stereotyp bywa efektem złych przywyczejeń: lenistwa, ignorancji. Jednak nader często właśnie z takiej perspektywy patrzymy na naszych sąsiadów. Jak Polacy widzą swych partnerów z Grupy Wyszehradzkiej? Jakie łatki zdolni są im przypiąć, by uciec od myślenia o własnych przywarach? A stereotype is often an effect of bad habits: such as laziness or ignorance. Unfortunately, this is the perspective we use to look an our neighbours. How do Poles conceive their partners from the Visegrad Group? What stereotypes they come up simply to escape their own weaknesses.

Střední Evropa je zkusmý kulturní konstrukt, který obvykle nabízí zřetelná centra, ale již ne své okraje a hranice. Stejně tak nabízí autory, kteří tam vyloženě patří, ale neřeší, co s těmi dalšími. Central Europe is a tentative cultural construct that usually presents its obvious centres, but less so its outskirts and boundaries. Likewise, it propounds its authors that clearly belong there, but doesn’t give an answer to what to do with the rest.

András Bozóki Mi tesz egy országot kulturálisan vonzóvá? A megújulásnak három előfeltétele van: 1. a gazdasági fejlődés, 2. a külföldi hatások befogadására való képesség, és 3. a hely „művészi atmoszférája”. Ha az első feltétel nincs meg, de megvan a harmadik, a változás kulcsa a másodikban rejlik. What makes a country culturally attractive? �ere are three preconditions to the renewal: 1. economic development, 2. the ability to receive and integrate foreign influences, and 3. the “artistic atmosphere” of the place. If the first condition is missing but we have the third, the hope for a change lies in the second, i.e. the skill to receive foreign influences. �is is the field where a change in the view of cultural policy could contribute the most to success.

Zsolt Csalog Egy magyar munkásember kocsmai monológja tele a csehekről és hozzájuk képest a magyarokról kialakított sztereotípiákkal a bársonyos forradalom alkalmából. A Hiány c. folyóiratban jelent meg először. ld. még: Csalog Zsolt, Falak és falromok, Jelenkor, Pécs, 1994 �is text between of documentary and fiction, it is a monologue of a drunk Hungarian worker full of stereotypes about our neighbours and about our own history, at the occasion of the Velvet Revolution in Prague.

Przemysław Czapliński W swoim eseju autor przygląda się obecnym w polskiej literaturze figurom Niemca i Niemiec, tym samym śledzi międzysąsiedzkie relacje na przestrzeni ostatnich dwudziestu lat. In his essay the Author traces the figure of Germany and a German in the Polish literature, tracking trends of the neighbourhood problems during the last 20 years.

Lubomír Kopeček Ze dvou možných přístupů k Visegrádu: t.j. optimistickému, který ztělesňoval prezident Václav Havel, a skeptickému, ztělesněného tehdejším premiérem Václavem Klausem, převládl na české politické scéně jednoznačně přístup Klausův. Z toho důvodu nehrála visegrádská spolupráce v české zahraniční politice příliš výraznou roli. Out of the two possible approaches towards Visegrád, the optimistic one, represented by President Václav Havel, and the sceptical one, embodied by then Prime Minister Václav Klaus, the latter prevailed on the Czech political scene. For this reason, the Visegrád co-operation has never played a very important role in Czech foreign policy.

Máté Zombory Tanulmányomban az augusztus 20-i hivatalos megemlékezések vizsgálatán keresztül azt a folyamatot veszem szemügyre, amelynek során a magyar állami képviselet a keleti blokk megszűnését követően újrarajzolta a magyar nemzetet elhelyező világtérképet. A nemzeti kartográfiának nevezett térbeli gyakorlatok a területi hovatartozás magától értetődőségének előállításával olyan nemzeti otthont konstruálnak meg, amely természetisége folytán biztos, ám kizáró jellegű menedéket jelent a veszélyként reprezentált, nemzetet fenyegető jelenségekkel szemben. �rough a study of Hungary¹’s official commemorations of 20th August, I examine how, in the period following the collapse of the Soviet bloc in eastern Europe in 1989-1990, leading representatives of the Hungarian state redrew the world picture by which the Hungarian people was to be located. By setting out a self-explanatory “map” of spatial associations, the practices of national cartography constructed images of a national homeland which, by virtue of their naturalness, represented a sure (albeit exclusive) refuge against phenomena painted as threats to the nation.

František Novosád Text si kladie otázku, ako je na tom dnes slovenská spoločnosť, do akej miery bola schopná využiť možnosti, ktoré jej historický vývoj v posledných desaťročiach poskytol a ako sa vyrovnávala s prekážkami, na ktoré narážala. V diskusiách prevažujú však dve krajné pozície: krajne optimistická a krajne pesimistická. Slovenskej spoločnosti sa podarilo v 20. storočí prekonať svoje historické handicapy a stať sa plnoprávnou súčasťou spoločností EU. Spôsob ako politické elity na Slovensku riešia svoje spory však podkopáva podmienky udržateľného vývoja v nasledujúcom období. �e text is exploring the question of the state of the Slovak society, to which extent it was able to use the opportunities presented to it by the historical development of the last decades and how it faced the challenges on the path. Two extreme positions dominate the discussions: an extremely optimistic and an extremely pessimistic one. In the 20th century, the Slovak society successfully overcame its historical handicaps abd became a full-fledged member among the EU societies. �e style of resolving conflicts among the Slovak political elites however undermines the conditions for sustainable development in the future.

Marek Sečkař Anti-communism in a post-communist country Vášnivé antikomunistické postoje pomalu přestávají být projevem snahy české společnosti vyrovnat se se svou minulostí a mění se v primitivní prostředky politického boje, které spíše komplikují řešení skutečných problémů, než aby mu napomáhaly. Passionate anti-communist posture have slowly ceased to be a manifestation of Czech society’s attempts to deal with its past and are becoming a primitive tool of political struggle which rather obstructs than helps the solution of real problems.

Gábor Németh „Átvilágítás” c. írása magyarul az Ex Symposium c. folyóirat Tar Sándornak szentelt 57. számában jelent meg 2006-ban. A lusztráció minden visegrádi országot, az egész posztszovjet térséget egyaránt érintő közös problémájához szól hozzá a maga személyes és irodalmi eszközeivel. �e short prose text „Screening” is reflecting on the common lustration problem of the Visegrad countries on a very personal way. �e book of Gabor Nemeth „Jewish are you?” was also published in Slovakian „Si Žid?” (Kalligram, Bratislava, 2006)

Peter Zajac Esej V prednom skle, v zadnom zrkadle sa zaobera rozdielnym vnímaním roka1989 v kultúre vtedy a dnes. Ak sa rok 1989 vnímal v tom čase ako predel, zlom a diskontinuita s obdobím pred rokom 1989, v posledných rokoch sa kultúrnohistoricky začína na Slovensku presadzovať koncept kultúrnej kontinuity oboch období, ktorý minimalizuje moment zmeny a kultúrnej dynamiky posledných dvoch desaťročí. �e Essay „In the Front Windshield, in the Rearview Mirror” concerns itself with the difference in perception of the year 1989 in culture then and now. If 1989 was seen as a break, a discontinuity with the period before 1989 at the time, it has been increasingly seen in history and culture as a cultural continuity of both eras, minimizing the moment of change and of cultural dynamics in the last two decades.

Wojciech Przybylski Polityczne kontrowersje i nieodpowiednie metody nauczania historii doprowadziły do we współczesnej Polsce do wyparcia wspomnień z niedalekiej przeszłości, szczególnie tych związanych ze zmaganiami kluczowymi dla obecnej rzeczywistości politycznej i społecznej. Ta luka w pamięci historycznej może wypaczyć przyszłe miejsce Polski w Europie, o ile nie zostanie naprawiona przez poprawę metodologii nauki historii w szkołach średnich. In contemporary Poland, political controversies and inadequate methods of teaching history have led to the suppression of memories of the recent past, especially of the crucial struggles that led directly to the nation’s present political and social realities. �is gap in historical memory threatens to distort Poland’s future place in Europe unless it can be remedied by improving the methodology used to teach history in high school.

Our photographer I’m interested in reality. In reality, the most fascinating thing is fiction. I’m interested in sadness and big cities with small people. In a crowd, I look for emptiness. In complication, I look for simplicity. In deserted places, people interest me the most. What is this essay about? If it was possible to frame feelings this work would be about that. Is it about people? In a way it is but people are absent in the pictures. It doesn’t concern the physical presence. �ey are isolated or cut from the surrounding space. �ey seem not to belong to the places they were caught. Is the essay about city? Only If you can see it in the people’s faces. Is it about loneliness? I think it’s something more complex than just loneliness or sadness. It’s more about the agreement that was made between man and the urban space he lives. I’m not sure if the city has dominated the people or vice versa. You can never say who is the winner. Does this essay answer any question? I doubt. It’s just like a eye blink. What can you see after you close the eyes? �at’s what is all about. RAFAŁ MILACH Born in Gliwice, Poland in 1978. After graduating from Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland (2002) and the Institute for Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic (2003) Rafal moved to Warsaw where he started to work as a freelance photographer for Newsweek Poland, Polityka and Przekroj magazine. Aside of his editorial assignments Rafal has been working on personal projects such as: �e Grey (2002), Disappearing Circus (2007), Ukraine by the Back Sea (2008), Young Russia (2009). In 2007 He was selected for prestigious World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. His photos were published in Time, Newsweek, GQ, Courrier International, L’espresso, Die Zeit, Courrier Japon. His work was exposed at the Photoespana, LOOK3, Backlight or Museum for Contemporary Art MoCA Shanghai. In addition Rafal’s work has been awarded in such contests as World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International. Since 2006 Rafal is a member of Austrian based Anzenberger Agency and coofunder of Sputnik Photos collective of photographers.

www.liberteworld.com “Liberté!” �is is how we called a brand new monthly magazine. Our credo states: “Głos wolny wolność ubezpieczający” – what may be translated as “Freedom of speech guarantee freedom as such”. We have begun our journey in June 2008 and currently we are present in the internet reality as a webpage: www.liberte.pl , but we succeeded in printing two issues as well and we will continue. Professionalizing and developing our webpage, we decided to create the English version we are starting off right now: www.liberteworld.com <http://www.liberteworld.com>. We hope the reliable information that we provide in range of politics, society, culture and economics will be of some interest for you. Our aim is to reflect critically on the reality. We believe in freedom as a chief value in politics, we opt for anti-populism, elitarism and we share European point of view.

Let’s read!

Editorial board of the special issue: Samuel Abrahám (Kritika&Kontext), Magdalena M. Baran (managing editor, Res Publica Nowa), Carl Henrik Fredriksson (Eurozine), Eva Káradi (Magyar Lettre Internationale), Wojciech Przybylski (Res Publica Nowa), Marek Sečkař (HOST) Advisory board: Ireneusz Białecki, Łukasz Bluszcz, Grażyna Borkowska, Przemysław Czapliński, Justyna Czechowska, Małgorzata Dziewulska, Irena Grudzińska-Gross, Piotr Gruszczyński, Damian Kalbarczyk, Tomasz Kasprowicz, Marcin Kilanowski, Piotr Kłoczowski, Jacek Kochanowicz, Andrzej St. Kowalczyk, Sergiusz Kowalski, Marcin Król, Jarosław Kuisz, Joanna Kurczewska, Jacek Kurczewski, Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, Andrzej Leder, Tomasz Łubieński, Magdalena Malińska, Krzysztof Michalski, Łukasz Mikołajewski, Jan St. Miś, Małgorzata Mostek, Teresa Oleszczuk, Arkadiusz Peisert, Jeremi Sadowski, Bohdan Sławiński, Aleksander Smolar, Michał Sołtysiak, Piotr Sommer, Jerzy Szacki, Weronika Szczawińska, Karolina Szymaniak, Anna Wylegała, Michał Wysocki, Wojciech Zajączkowski, Marek Zaleski Advisory board: Magdalena M. Baran, Artur Celiński (deputy editor-in-chief), Katarzyna Kazimierowska (editorial assistant), Wojciech Przybylski (editor-in-chief) We are thankful to our friends and supporters: Marcin Dobrowolski, Dantua Glondys, Artur Gluziński, Agnieszka Kowalska , Andrzej Kozicki, Leszek Kurnicki – Orlen, Sebastian Lenart, Grzegorz Lewandowski, Piotr Misiło, Jacek Multanowski, Małgorzata Naimska, Agnieszka Obszańska, Szymon Ozimek, Janusz Palikot, Philippe Rusin, Katerina Spacova, Bogna Świątkowska, Katarzyna Węzowska, Marcin Wojdat, Blind Store – Warszawa, Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy, Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eurozine, Kulturaliberalna.pl, Klub Lokator, Program Wschód-Wschód, Villa Decius Association. Photo: By Rafał Milach, „Urban” Series Copy editing and proofreading: Simon Garnett (Eurozine), Shawn Gorman, Gareth Price Cover: Izabela Kaczmarek / rzeczyobrazkowe.pl Graphic design: rzeczyobrazkowe.pl Address of the editorial office: Res Publica Nowa ul. Gałczyńskiego 5, 00-362 Warszawa phone: (0048) 0 22 826 05 66, fax: (0048) 0 22 343 08 33 redakcja@res.publica.pl www.res.publica.pl Journal is published by the Henryk Krzeczkowski Res Publica Foundation, Gałczyńskiego 5, Warszawa, Poland �is special issue is distributed free of charge. Shipping cost may apply. Please order at redakcja@res.publica.pl or through the project Partners We are thankful for support. Donations should be sent to the Foundation account: PL 86 1240 6218 1111 0000 4623 5682 SWIFT: PKOPPLPW Bank Pekao S.A., ul. Grzybowska 53/57, 00-950 Warszawa, PL

Paper: Munken Print White 15 90g/m2

Print: Drukarnia Gemtext Sp. z o.o., ul. Puławska 34, 05-500 Piaseczno �is issue has been generously supported by the International Visegrad Fund. Project title “Europe – V4 – discussions. English language edition of Res Publica Nowa.”

www.visegradfund.org

www.res.publica.pl

PARTNERS

SUPPORTED BY