Włodzimierz Bolecki
‘As a writer, I was born in a labour camp,’ Gustaw Herling-Grudziński said many times. This approach remains valid today and is reflected in the writer’s path to becoming an editor at Kultura.
This approach can be summed up in one sentence: After leaving the labour camp in Yertsevo (1942), he joined General Anders’ Army, which he followed through the Middle East and Egypt, reaching Italy with the 2nd Corps, where, together with Jerzy Giedroyć, he founded the Instytut Literacki Publishing House the Literary Institute Publishing House and the monthly magazine Kultura (1947). And this is all true. However, our knowledge of history is often shaped by the ‘areas of focus’ of individual researchers, as well as the interests of readers and the media. For decades, for obvious reasons, more publications appeared on the history of emigration (including Kultura) than on General Anders’ Army, which was always treated as a stepping stone on the way to the real activities of future emigrants in Maisons-Laffitte. Very important as a political and military fact, but only an episode in the history of Polish culture and Kultura.
Szarik the dog versus Wojtek the bear
In communist Poland, and later in the Third Republic, this type of reception was accompanied by the pop culture of the time. After all, a few generations have already been educated, knowing the wartime adventures of the heroes of the series Four Tank-Men and a Dog by heart, but the name ‘2nd Corps’ means nothing to them. They have the icon of Szarik the dog on their posters and T-shirts, but they have never heard of Wojtek the bear. TVP should be ashamed of the fact that in the Third Republic of Poland, a series about Sharik fans (admittedly well made) was broadcast dozens of times, while not a single series about the Anders’ Army soldiers was ever commissioned. It is therefore not surprising that this ‘passageway’, which was the exodus from Siberia for future emigrants and the ‘trail of hope’ for soldiers of the 2nd Corps*, remains a military and organisational history of military formations in scientific research and popular imagination. In this article, I would like to bring up another topic which, although closely related to Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, one of the editors and most important authors of Kultura, also has a broader significance.
First, a few reminders. Over a year ago, I published an article here entitled ‘What can literature do?’. In it, I pointed out the significance of an extraordinary document, which could be useful in researching Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s journey from the labour camp to General Anders’ Army: the so-called 1942 Diary. Although I first mentioned its existence in my book Inny Świat Gustawa Herlinga-Grudzińskiego [A World Apart of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński], (Cracow 2007, pp. 67–70), it has not yet been included in the canon of memoirs about the 2nd Corps. No wonder, because it is an unusually written text in every respect. Not only is it a little thing that fits in the palm of your hand, but it also contains text that is not intended for printing – and not even so much the text (concise, complete) as rough, personal notes, broken and fragmentary (‘No time for notes,’ Herling writes), interspersed with squiggles that are now charmingly referred to as ‘scribbles’. On top of this, the notes are mostly difficult to read or even illegible. What’s more, The Diary (the author’s term) is only a fragment, as it has neither a beginning nor an end.
While the significance of The 1942 Diary is becoming increasingly apparent in the narrow context of research into the life and work of Herling-Grudziński (which I discuss elsewhere), the importance of this text as a source for the history of the 2nd Corps has not yet been recognised and will probably remain so until a separate book edition of this text is published.** Habent sua fata libelli.
In terms of dating the so-called first evacuation of Polish soldiers from the Soviet Union, The Diary confirms what is already known from other accounts. Herling notes the departure of a transport of soldiers from Krasnovodsk (26 March 1942) and their arrival at the Iranian port of Pahlavi (2 April). However, this is where the ‘plot’ of Herling’s military journey ends in Inny Świat [A World Apart]. Notice in Inny Świat [A World Apart] after a detailed description of the last days before the evacuation, subsequent events are treated rather briefly. In the last part of the book (‘Epilogue’), we are already in Rome (June 1945). To put it bluntly: the events Herling-Grudziński was involved in between 26 March (Krasnovodsk) and 1 April 1942 (Pahlavi), and June 1945 (Rome), i.e. his evacuation from the Soviets and almost his entire service in the 2nd Corps, have been completely omitted in Inny Świat [A World Apart]. However, this is a separate issue, which I will discuss elsewhere. These events are recorded in the draft diary entries in The 1942 Diary. However, these are not detailed chronicles – the writer’s attention is drawn to something else, seemingly insignificant for the military history of General Anders Army, namely the culture of the Middle Eastern peoples.
A photo diary from wartime exile
In a previous publication in Świat Sybiru (on 13 October 2023), I also reported on the discover of a loose collection of old and damaged photographs (4 cm x 3 cm) in the Herling Archive, depicting soldiers of the 2nd Corps during their journey through the Middle East and on to Egypt and Italy. (Several well-edited photographs from this collection have been published by the editors of Świat Sybiru here: https://swiatsybiru.pl/pl/co-moze-literatura/). For this reason, I proposed that these two separate (in terms of type, form and material) accounts of Herling-Grudziński’s journey with the 2nd Corps through the Middle East (the text of The Diary and the photographs) be treated together as a single whole. From a biographical (chronological) perspective, this decision is justified (the events captured in the photographs are a continuation of those recorded in The Diary), but it is, of course, a risky decision. There is no indication from Herling that would justify it. What is more, the collection of photographs is not only random, but consists of only a few photos taken by Herling himself; a dozen or so featuring him. The remaining several dozen photographs are those that are practically impossible to determine and which were probably given to Herling by his friends from the ‘trail of hope’.
Put together (The 1942 Diary and the photographs), this is like a collective photo diary of a group of General Anders’ soldiers, which is an invaluable source for dating the chronology and the route of the 10th Division (in which the author of A World Apart served). But that’s not all – this photo diary allows us to see General Anders’ soldiers in their everyday lives on the Arab, Jewish and Italian trail (Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Italy).***
Beyond the ‘chronicle’ qualities of The Diary and the photographs, a completely new set of issues emerges, requiring different questions to be asked and these two documents to be placed in a different context than the traditionally reconstructed evacuation of Poles from the Soviet Union and the military history of the 2nd Corps. What draws attention to dozens of photographs of unknown authorship and unknown context is not only the soldiers, but also the meticulously captured exoticism of the objects, i.e. architecture, landscapes, streets, boulevards, fragments of cities and nature, and above all women, men, children – in short, civilians going about their daily activities and, equally important, wearing their national attire. In other words, Arabs and Jews, whose culture Polish soldiers had never come across before.
From the ‘inhuman land’ to the wonders of the Orient
By all means, these photographs are primarily a story about the everyday life of soldiers (camping near Gedera, military tents in Jalawa, the Soldiers’ Club in Iraq, or soldiers undergoing training). However, the vast majority of photographs depict ‘civilian’ scenes, in other words, various aspects of local culture. For example, architecture – in the photos we can see the buildings of the University Theatre and the University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. In Baghdad, there is a monument, an arch-shaped gate. In Egypt (Cairo), there are mosques, a citadel, royal palaces. And in Giza, there is obviously the Sphinx. Perhaps the largest part of this collection consists of various landscapes – a town near Nineveh on the other side of the Tigris, opposite Mosul; a seaside boulevard in Tel Aviv, a beach and a sunset over the Mediterranean Sea. In addition, there are decorative fountains, bridges, ships on the Tigris, a street in old Jerusalem, and the Euphrates and Tigris delta. As well as sea voyages (Aden, Basra, Suez), cityscapes: streets, cafés, bazaars, boulevards, railway stations, post offices (Mosul, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Cairo, Ashar). The photos focus on portraits of people: women, men and children, as well as temples: mosques and minarets, churches, monastery buildings and many, many more – including places of Christian worship (mainly Catholic, but also Orthodox), for example, St. Anne’s Church, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Via Dolorosa, the first Station of the Cross and Pilate’s Arch, and St. Peter and St. George’s Church in Jaffa.
A major turning point in research into the history of General Anders’ army was Bartłomiej Noszczak’s remarkable book Orient zesłańców [The Orient of the Exiles]****, a true Księga wyjścia [Book of Exodus] for Polish refugees from the dark and frozen Hades of endless Siberia. Noszczak obtained access to almost all available accounts of Anders’ soldiers (military personnel and civilians), including unpublished ones that remain in archives to this day. The author not only accurately named the fascinating issue of the social history of Polish refugees in the Middle East in the title, but above all, he brilliantly categorised the most common themes, descriptions, emotions and, of course, the places which Polish pilgrims travelled through. We have not only descriptions of cities and towns in Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, but above all ‘descriptions of customs’ that soldiers suddenly came across in these countries.
It might seem that leaving the Soviet Union would result in a desire to forget as quickly as possible, to erase from memory everything that Poles experienced in this ‘inhuman land’. Meanwhile, the reality is different. Soviet Russia exists, albeit often in a hidden form, in almost all accounts of the Anders’ soldiers’ march through the Middle East. ‘I remember Russia as a dream,’ Herling writes, ‘a tiring dream that came to me in the morning and vanished without a trace at sunrise.’
A characteristic and recurring component of these relationships is a narrative figure that I call the ‘comparative triangle’. When describing what they see in Iran, Iraq or Palestine (objects, food, people’s behaviour, etc.), the authors of these memoirs immediately relate it to the reality they experienced in the Soviet Union. Soviet Russia in all these accounts functions as an extremely negative civilisational matrix, in fact, as a model of anti-civilisation. Pure evil. The third element of this triangle, less frequently mentioned, are memories of the Second Polish Republic.
It is significant that identical points of reference can be found in the memories of all those who left the Soviet Union, regardless of where they were imprisoned in the vast expanses of Soviet Russia. Reaching Pahlavi was the final escape from evil, i.e. the Soviet ‘paradise’, triggering euphoria among all those arriving in Iran. Noszczak opens his book with a collection of quotations on this subject. (The Orient of the Exiles, chapter ‘Euphoria’, pp. 31–36).
Middle Eastern illuminations
The first sensation upon arriving in the Middle East, usually spontaneous and very sensual, is a fascination that is difficult to express, arising from the diversity and richness of experiences in each of its locations. But this is not about the experiences gathered during the soldiers’ journey across the Middle East, but about the violent, immediate sensation of the diversity of this world in every place where the soldiers found themselves. They are a kind of illumination: a street, a shop, a bazaar, a square, a park, a boulevard, oranges, dates – every object, fruit, every smallest street is perceived as more diverse than the whole of Soviet Russia. Immediately after coming ashore, Herling notes:
‘2 April in Persia. Marching through the harbour. A Persian street. First impressions. Two garrisons: Soviet and English. I am genuinely touched. Only now can I see how monotonous life in the Soviet Union really is. Two and a half years in this country (two of them in prison) stripped me of the most primitive feelings of a citizen of “bourgeois Europe”. I am delighted and moved by the smallest details, from the sight of a large window covered with a curtain, with a bright electric light shining through, through the sight of shop windows filled to the brim with sweets, to the sight of tiny Persians insistently selling cigarettes.’ ‘For the first time in two years,’ Herling notes, ‘I have eaten (bread with butter and) eggs. The abundance of products in Pahlavi is incredible. Shop windows filled to the brim. On top of that, there’s a crowd of street sellers.’*****
‘Before noon on that unforgettable 1 April [1942], we set foot on the hard cobblestones of the harbour and almost immediately marched through the streets of the city towards the beach, observing a more human and free life along the way. Looking at the buildings, the people, and especially the shop windows full of goods, our eyes, hungry for this sight, could not get enough of their wealth. After the Soviet empty spaces, everything seemed strange, unnatural, and at the same time absolutely wonderful.’
(Stanisław Kowalski; Bartłomiej Noszczak put this opinion as the motto to his book.)
All such records are an expression of ecstatic admiration for the wealth of everyday life and normality of the world discovered in the most ordinary objects (food, clothes, gestures, etc.), which did not exist in the Soviet Union. And at the same time, discovering one’s own senses, which were stifled by organised poverty and Soviet violence. (The Orient of the Exiles, see the chapter ‘Tastes and flavours’, p. 160).
No less thrilling is experiencing people’s manners – their hospitality, kindness, respect for others, and warmth (‘The Persians are polite and honest,’ notes Herling). This measure of normal human relations emerges in memory as a black hole in the Soviet experience, and thus as something that did not exist, that was destroyed, annihilated and forgotten in that world.
4 April. “I talk to and watch English officers,” notes Herling, “non-commissioned officers and Indian soldiers.” They live in peace, even closeness. I like the English. They have democracy in their blood and often put us to shame by showing us how to value people.’
(Compare The Orient of the Exiles, chapters: ‘More than kindness’, ‘Interactions’, ‘A very independent people’, pp. 111–124.)
Through memory, labour camps and the ‘trail of hope’
But Herling’s Diary introduces another thing that’s particularly important for this essay – a vague feeling that the Polish situation after World War II needs a new language and a new way of talking about it. ‘Ten times dearer to my heart than the London-based Wiadomości Polskie [Polish News],’ wrote Herling, ‘will remain our Biuletyn Polski [Polish Bulletin], which you now carry from house to house at dusk in Warsaw like an invisible flame, while capricious fate has cast me so far away.’
September 1986, Maisons-Laffitte near Paris, France. The creators of the Paris-based magazine Kultura in front of the Literary Institute in Maisons-Laffitte. Standing from the left: Henryk Giedroyć, Jerzy Giedroyć, Maria Łamzaki, Agnieszka Szypulska, Leszek Czarnecki, Jacek Krawczyk; sitting: Zofia Hertz and Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. Photo Zbigniew Dłubak, the KARTA Centre collection, courtesy of Agata Niewiarowska
Time for a punchline. The journey to the Kultura programme, to its openness to the world, to its interest in different nations and countries, and above all to seeking a place for Polish experiences in the complex and diverse mosaic of contemporary world cultures, led the future editors of Kultura not only through memories of the Second Polish Republic, experiences in labour camps and the martyrdom of Poles in the Soviet Union, but also through what they saw and experienced on the ‘trail of hope’ of General Anders’ Army.
1997, Lublin, Poland. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński – writer, essayist, literary critic and journalist. Photo Wojciech Druszcz, the KARTA Centre collection.
Footnotes
* I have borrowed the term ‘the trail of hope’ from Norman Davies’ book Szlak nadziei. Armia Andersa. Marsz przez trzy kontynenty [The Trail of Hope. The Anders’ Army, an Odyssey Across Three Continents], Warsaw 2018;
** In the context of Herling-Grudziński’s biography, I include this text in the author’s Dzieła Zebrane [Collected Works]: vol. IV: Inny Świat [A World Apart], Cracow 2020; the book edition of The 1942 Diary is a work in progess;
*** Knowledge about Herling-Grudziński’s biography on the ‘trail of hope’ could be expanded by identifying even some of the people in the photographs from this collection (women and men, civilians and soldiers);
**** B. Noszczak, Orient zesłańców. Bliski Wschód w oczach Polaków ewakuowanych ze Związku Sowieckiego (1942–1945) [The Orient of the Exiles. The Middle East in the Eyes of Poles Evacuated from the Soviet Union (1942-1945)] , IPN, Warsaw 2022;
***** The authors of the memoirs are surprised by the availability of goods and the possibility to buy them – either directly from street sellers or in quite well-stocked shops. ‘This aspect of life in Iran is repeated like a mantra in the testimonies of refugees,’ (The Orient of the Exiles, p. 42);
Włodzimierz Bolecki – Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Mid-titles from the editorial team.
The scans of photographs depicting Gustaw Herling-Grudziński in the Middle East and his ‘diary’ come from W. Bolecki’s archive. The originals are available in the Gustaw Herling-Grudziński Archive in Naples, and individual reproductions from this collection were previously published in the book: W. Bolecki, Inny Świat Gustawa Herlinga-Grudzińskiego [A World Apart of Gustaw Herling Grudziński],Cracow 2007 and in Dzieła zebrane [Collected Works] by Herling-Grudziński (vols. 1–15; Cracow 2009–2021), first of all in Dodatek krytyczny [Critical Supplemetary Material] to vol. 4: Inny Świat [A World Apart], Cracow 2020.
Translated by Małgorzata Giełzakowska