A Fuss Over Being Polish?

Thought you might find this article especially interesting regarding Polish identity.


Poland's in the Rockies

How I learned to stop worrying and love my identities
Written by Kinia Adamczyk
Canadian University Press Wednesday, 11 October


2006MONTREAL, QC. (CUP) - Twelve intellectually stimulating days. Eleven sleepless nights. A Newsweek senior editor, a Globe and Mail journalist, history, literature, politics, art scholars and 33 students. Friendship. And finally, some much-needed time to think about my identity as a first-generation Polish immigrant in North America.

The setting? Alberta's beautiful Rocky Mountains.We embarked on this journey to discover more about our common background at this second edition of a conference series named Poland in the Rockies. What we shared, beyond our interest in "things Polish," were questions about the complexity of identity. "I found out that I am not alone," said Eric Bednarski, a 29-year-old documentary filmmaker from Nova Scotia, "[and] that there are many other people like me out there (. . .) born-again Poles with a dual Polish-Canadian identity; educated and assimilated Poles that still have a strong connection to Poland."

We all held our breath as we got a first-hand account from Adam Szostkiewicz, a journalist and activist during the anti-communist Polish, Solidarity movement in the `80's. This former political prisoner now writes freely for Polityka, something of a Polish version of Maclean's. During Solidarity times, it wasn't unusual to get shoved into a truck and receive a good beating just for wearing the movement's pin.

Andrew Nagorski, a senior editor at Newsweek, said, "If (a program) like this had been offered at the time when I was a student, I'm sure I would have jumped at the opportunity. "

Between lectures, we sat on the grass in the shade, laughing at some of his reporting anecdotes from around the world. Nagorski gained international fame after Soviet authorities expelled him from the country in 1982 for his "enterprising reporting." He launched the Polish edition of Newsweek in 2001.

We shared laughs, but also feelings of sorrow, as we looked back at the past. Stan Oziewicz, a journalist at the Globe and Mail, told us the story of his father, a Second World War bomber pilot. After fighting under the Allies, Mieczyslaw Oziewicz felt, like hundreds of Poles, betrayed by the Yalta Agreement, under which Poland's faith was handed over to Stalin's Soviet Union.
"It was particularly painful and bitter for people like my parents," explained the journalist, "who, while Hitler's forces were storming through Poland's western frontier in September of 1939, were later rounded up from their homes in eastern Poland and sent by rail boxcars to Stalin's slave-labour camps in northern Russia and Soviet Central Asia."

Sweat was almost dripping from our foreheads as we tackled the translation assignment proposed by Bill Johnston, one of the leading translators of Polish literature in North America. We discovered the challenges he faces every day as he tries to preserve the cultural references of the works he translates whilst keeping them accessible to English readers.

"The focus on language and culture through the lens of Polish literature was a very interesting day of lectures for me, precisely because language and our definitions are so intricately tied with our identity," said Kasia Wisniewska, who recently graduated from English literature at McGill University.

The romantic in me thrived as we watched the only colour pre-war footage of Poland in the short film Land of my Mother narrated by Eve Curie, the daughter of scientist Marie Curie. Through her bright red lips and French-tainted English, Curie gracefully guided us through the still undestroyed monuments of Warsaw, Gdansk and Krakow, among others.

We watched in solemn silence as a participant of the program, Alexi Marchel, performed a dramatic reading of Inside a Gestapo Prison 1942-44: The Letters of Krystyna Wituska. This young woman, although condemned to death after being captured by the German secret police, was full of life, warmth and optimism.

"I am first a human being, and only then a Pole," wrote Wituska in one of her letters, which were translated from Polish by the author and researcher Irene Tomaszewski.

At night, we sat around campfires with the speakers, talking about the Kaczynski brothers, who are at the head of Poland now; about the Jagiellonian University's beautiful library in Krakow, which I would like to visit one day; and about the future of a country some of us haven't gone back to. Yes we sang songs and danced and laughed about our cultural idiosyncrasies.

The question of my identity is an interior battlefield I've been leading for the last 17 years. The seminar was not only an intellectual journey, but also an opportunity to accept my dual identity by discovering people who share similar experiences and interests. Who needs sleep when you're celebrating new-found peace?

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I don't understand what is the fuss with this woman? Can someone help me if I am missing something she is trying to say? Is it that she lives in Canada where that part of the globe spins faster to make one more dizzy?

Anywhere on earth [including Brazil, Australia, U.K.] you can tell immediately if you're in a Polish home -- there are many tell-tale signs. Your investigative job is made even more simple if you see K+B+M chalked above the door, palms peering out from behind a Holy picture.

Maybe there would be no fuss if she participated in a good Dozynki, sat at a faithful styled Wigilia, had fun with Zapusty, or got soaked on Dyngus Day and launched a Wianki at Sobotka? Maybe there is just not enough garlic in her Kielbasa. Maybe she needs to listen to more Maryla Rodowicz and do a couple shots of Zubrowka. Maybe her babcia fell down on the job of passing the heritage, culture, customs, history and "secret handshake."

Looking for your "head" in the Rocky Mountains is so 1960's ish. I hear that pinching pierogi is therapeutic, though. Maybe someone should tell her.