Włodzimierz Bolecki
The annihilation of the Polish State in 1795, one of the most tragic events at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, remained a secret among the Poles, buried in manuscripts, letters, diaries, memoirs, and private archives. Why were Polish writers unable to convey their experience to Western readers?
It was the Marquis de Custine who introduced Europe to the despotism of the Russian autocracy in 1843 (in his book Russia in 1839). Why had it not been Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, Słowacki, or other emigrants, considering that this was the subject of their everyday conversations, lives, and works? Did no one want to listen to them? Or perhaps no one wanted to learn about the fate of the nation through what were described as local ubi leones stories? Or maybe the Marquis de Custine had been surprised by those same things that seemed entirely ordinary to Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, and their compatriots? These and many other such questions arise when we read the works of Polish 19th-century writers.
Niemcewicz, who was Kościuszko’s adjutant at the time of the Battle of Maciejowice, and then a prisoner in the Peter and Paul Fortress – a writer of exceptional influence – did not share his experiences even with his compatriots. To them, he remains, unfortunately, only the author of Powrót Posła (The Return of the Deputy). His extensive memoirs did not go beyond chronicling anecdotes – fascinating though they might have been to the Polish reader.
The birth of Polish historicism
Ultimately, the impossibility of conveying the experience of the liquidation of the First Polish Republic – as more than just a local experience – was likely determined by Poles’ despair that the thousand-year-old Polish State had ceased to exist, perhaps forever, following the conflagration of 1795 (and then 1831). Consequently, the only patriotic action they could take was to preserve the memory of the First Polish Republic through writing about past and current events, creating collections of mementos, and curating museums of national memory – first in Puławy, and subsequently in collections scattered throughout various palaces and manors. They described current events as if they were writing a chronicle of a dying nation: ‘In Poland’, Niemcewicz wrote in 1839, ‘no child is admitted to school until he or she can speak the Muscovite language. If this system stays in place another 25 years, the spirit and memory of Poland will be destroyed forever.’
This lesson in emerging historicism (‘to restore a lost nation is no small task’ – wrote Niemcewicz), learned, no doubt, back in Puławy times (by Izabela Czartoryska and her circle), was ultimately proven right when in 1918 the fruit of the patriotic labour of many generations was finally seen.
The unwritten tale about the end
Let us consider a different perspective. What about the fourth partition of Poland in 1939? Did Polish writers manage to convey the experience of World War II to the Western World better than the 19th-century writers who left the story of the end of the First Polish Republic untold? And if not the writers, then perhaps the institutions and representatives of the Polish State?
The question is rhetorical. It is enough to be aware of the two completely different historical situations in which the Polish State found itself at the moment of its liquidation in the 18th century (the last king of Poland abdicating in St. Petersburg after joining the targowica confederation [note to the editor: do not capitalise!]) and at the moment of the analogous annihilation of the Second Polish Republic in 1939 (the Polish government in exile in London creating an Underground State, recognised by the Allies).
Over the course of a century and a half, the situation in the Polish Republic changed so much that the political circumstances of these two cataclysms seem incomparable. And Polish literature? Did its story of the liquidation of the Polish State by the combined forces of international communism (Bolshevism in the Soviet Union) and national socialism (in the Third Reich) in 1939 penetrate the consciousness of Western readers? Unfortunately, not. And there is no need to watch today’s European Parliament proceedings to understand that.
Two testimonies of a crime
There are, however, two books that became part of the international canon of knowledge about the Polish experience during World War II. The first is Sprawa mordu katyńskiego (The Katyn Wood Murders) by Józef Mackiewicz, and the second is Inny Świat (A World Apart) by Herling-Grudziński. Both recount events from the same time period. Mackiewicz writes about the Katyn massacre in the spring of 1940, and Herling writes about being sent to the Gulag in Yertsevo at exactly the same time.
The translations enjoyed a wide readership, with hundreds of reviews of Mackiewicz’s book and only slightly fewer for Herling’s book. Their scale, impact, geographical distribution, and linguistic range have not yet been researched. The effect of testimonies such as Mackiewicz’s book was, among other things, the U.S. Congress’s establishment of the so-called Madden Commission, whose task was to identify the perpetrators of the Katyn massacre (J. Mackiewicz and F. Goetel, among others, testified before the Commission). Although A World Apart did not result in the establishment of such a commission (it would have been politically impossible), it was, for over twenty years – until Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago was published – one of the most important testimonies to the existence of Soviet labour camps. The best evidence of the appreciation of Herling’s book was that in 2012, the Italian, German, and Polish Presidents were all in attendance at the unveiling of the commemorative plaque on the facade of the house where the author of A World Apart lived. This was an unprecedented event in the history of world literature.
The two books were written almost simultaneously, and both were first published in translation – Mackiewicz’s in German, Herling’s in English – and these first editions gave rise to a long list of translations into other languages across all continents. Mackiewicz’s book was published in eight foreign-language editions: three English editions, two German, and one each in Italian, Spanish and French. It was discussed in sixteen world languages on all continents, and all the most important British magazines published reviews.
Warnings of a universal danger
If Mackiewicz and Herling had limited themselves solely to writing about Soviet crimes, their books would likely have been only illustrations of the information that was a matter of public knowledge around the world at that time. However, both Mackiewicz and Herling wrote their books with the intention of demonstrating that the Soviet reality they encountered was a universal threat to all people. They treated Katyn and Yertsevo as names whose horror should resonate with everyone.
Both writers, in constructing two entirely different stories, intuitively chose the strategy of a reliable narrator. Mackiewicz employed this strategy in his first interview after returning from Katyn, titled I Saw It With My Own Eyes. He appeared in this role himself before the Madden Commission, an experience which is indirectly documented in his book The Katyn Wood Murders. Herling, in turn, based his ‘Soviet Notes’ on an autobiographical account, i.e. he based it on a protagonist identical to himself. Mackiewicz’s book aimed to explain the contexts and causes of the Katyn genocide, describe its methodology, and, most importantly, expose the manipulation used by the Soviets to conceal its true perpetrators. The writer had to grapple with the deceit of government agencies and the silence of the victims, in whose place documents, objects, photos, and witnesses were meant to speak. According to Mackiewicz, the Katyn massacre was the essence of Bolshevism, revealing its most terrifying mechanism of operation.
Herling, on the other hand, took a different approach in depicting himself and the people living in the labour camp. When describing everyday life in the camp, his goal was to portray the Gulag as an instrument for implementing communist ideology. Herling saw the Gulag as an institution of organised slave labour, where the primary objective was not the product itself (in Yertsevo, it would have been the production of wood), but the conditioning of prisoners in such a way that, after leaving the camps, they would become Soviet people – cogs in the machinery of the Communist State: dehumanised, ‘walking dead’, stripped of their identity, higher selves, and any values beyond their physiological needs.
The global success of Mackiewicz’s book sharply contrasted with the slander campaigns against the writer within emigration circles and silent treatment of his work in the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). Herling found himself in a similar situation. While A World Apart quickly became one of the most recognisable books in the world about Soviet labour camps following its initial publication in 1951, it was banned and silenced in the PRL. However, unlike Mackiewicz’s work, Herling’s book was well-received among the emigrant community. Furthermore, after 1956, the writer received strong support from the editorial team of ‘Kultura’ magazine*.
A journal in a tin binding
Mackiewicz’s book merits additional considerations that are beyond the scope of this essay. However, A World Apart, which has been required reading in schools for years and which one might expect to have been thoroughly analysed and ‘examined’ from every angle, now unexpectedly reveals to the reader new aspects, three of which I would like to point out. The first concerns the composition of the book’s final chapters, the second is related to the author’s biography, and the third pertains to the reception of A World Apart by Polish readers after 1989.
In his book’s penultimate chapter, ‘Ural 1942’, Herling-Grudziński refers to the notes he took immediately after leaving the Gulag. He mentions a ‘notebook’ once, and a ‘little diary’ three times. In 2005, I discovered the physical copy of this Little Diary, which holds great significance for A World Apart; it is also an invaluable source of information on the evacuation of General Anders’s Army from the Soviet Union in 1942 and its activities in the Middle East. The Little Diary, containing pencil-written notes from 1942—1943, essentially becomes the unwritten, penultimate chapter of A World Apart. It provides commentary on events omitted in the book, that took place between the evacuation of General Anders’s Army (‘Ural 1942’) and the conversation of two Yertsevo prisoners in a Roman hotel in the ‘Epilogue’ (1945). The Little Diary raises questions about why the events from 1943—1945 were excluded from A World Apart. If Herling was in possession of these notes when he was writing his book in 1949—1951, why did he not devote a chapter to them, continuing from ‘Ural 1942’?
The ‘non-writing’ of this chapter underscores the overarching issue in Herling’s book, which is the civilisational ‘otherness’ of the Soviet system and its impact on our understanding of humanity and its limits. By rapidly transitioning from Krasnovodsk (26 March) to Pahlevi (2 April 1942), and from Pahlevi to Rome (June 1945), the book leaves out the events Herling-Grudziński experienced between 26 March 1942 and June 1945 (the Army’s evacuation and almost his entire service in the Polish II Corps). With this omission, A World Apart seems to suggest that it is not a Gulag prisoner’s biography or chronicle of the author’s life during his time in the Soviet Union, but rather a parable about the threat posed to the free world by the rise of a communist anti-civilisation.
Middle East in the eye of a penman
The Little Diary is also a priceless source of knowledge about the activities of the Polish II Corps after their evacuation from the Soviet Union, providing us with exact dates and allowing us to verify the chronology and route of the 10th Division in which Herling-Grudziński served. The Little Diary is replete with information about General Anders’s soldiers on the Arab-Jewish route (Iran, Iraq, Palestine).
The dozen or so photographs taken during the march of General Anders’s Army, however, are also an integral element of the Little Diary. These photographs serve as visual complements to the recorded observations, sometimes acting as autonomous visual notes, as if the writer was ‘writing with a camera’ during his time in the Middle East. What is particularly interesting is that Herling never publicly acknowledged that he owned a camera or that he had taken photographs that he kept in an archive. It is unknown who took the most intriguing photographs in this collection – i.e. those depicting Gustaw Herling-Grudziński himself.
A prisoner fascinated with the East
The Little Diary and its photographs open up new avenues for research into the encounter between General Anders’s soldiers and the cultures of the Middle East that were foreign to them. Very few testimonies on this subject exist, as previous research has understandably focused on the ‘internal’ history of the Polish II Corps. However, the Little Diary entries and photos constitute evidence of the recent Gulag prisoner’s undeniable fascination with the cultures of this region. Whether this interest was fleeting or whether it left traces in the writer’s work following A World Apart requires further investigation. Herling-Grudziński’s biography could also be expanded upon by identifying the individuals captured in his photographs or those taken with him, including women and men, civilians, and soldiers. Furthermore, the themes and his approach to describing the Middle East serve as a valuable link between Herling-Grudziński’s pre-war and post-war work.
The writer’s account of the journey from Sverdlovsk to Lugovoye was reconstructed from notes other than those found in the recently discovered Little Diary. What happened to those records? Perhaps Gustaw Herling-Grudziński destroyed them, as he did many of his other draft notes and works. However, it is clear that the missing fragment from the Little Diary, which was transformed into the chapter ‘Ural 1942’, still existed when Herling was writing A World Apart, and when the first English edition of the book was published in 1951. The signed (presumably by the author) reproduction of one page of the 1942 Little Diary in that edition confirms this: ‘An excerpt from the Diary the author kept after his release from the camp’. Because the Little Diary is bound with a metal spine and clasps, one may assume that when the notes about the first three months of the journey after leaving the labour camp had served their purpose (to write the chapter ‘Ural 1942’), Herling simply removed these notes and bound the remaining ones with the metal clasps.
Why, then, did the writer not destroy the Little Diary in its entirety? Perhaps Herling intended to write something else about his journey through the Middle East, or perhaps he simply forgot about it? Regardless, the Little Diary has survived to this day and, together with the photographs it contains, provides new possibilities for understanding the writer’s life and his most famous book – A World Apart.
Where tracks are obscured and trails overgrown…
Two additional related issues are worth addressing. Before 1939, anti-Semites’ favourite pastime was exposing the Jewish roots of Polish writers. Paradoxically, this past ‘inquisitiveness’ triumphed in the last years and decades through publications in which the ‘uncovered’ issue of ‘Jewish provenance’ might suggest that Herling-Grudziński should be reprimanded for ‘inadequately’ – according to his polemicists – criticising anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland, ‘concealing’ his own family’s Jewish roots, ‘reprehensibly’ avoiding the subject of the Holocaust in his works and, on top of all that, for hiding his own… anti-Semitism (!). A. Hertz repeatedly pointed out the grim tradition of such accusations in his book Żydzi w kulturze polskiej (The Jews in Polish Culture): ‘In the years leading up to the Second [World] War, exposing the Jewish roots of political opponents was a favoured polemical method on both the right and the left, albeit for different reasons. Zuzanna Ginczanka wrote: “Into a distant past hunters rush to roam, // where tracks are obscured and trails overgrown, // in the thickets of history, with ants’ persistence they explore, // seeking to find a grandmother, a Jewish grandmother…”. Herling-Grudziński’s critics should keep in mind that the writer’s biography is part of a complex, multi-generational, and multi-cultural process of the formation of the Polish intelligentsia of Jewish origin.
A relentless and callous moralist?
The second issue concerns the message of A World Apart, which – from the first to the last scene of the book – tells a story about the degradation and annihilation of fundamental universal values. In other words, the Gulag creates a world in which the Decalogue is reversed. The book’s conclusion is simple: in a free world, there is no place for blurring the line between the Decalogue and its reversal, between a world based on universal values and any other world. The hallmark of this other world is the final denunciation, leading to the deaths of four prisoners. One would think that this message is understandable to every reader. However, in the mid-1990s, Herling’s book was accused of cruelty and shallow moralising, in short, a lack of empathy and inability to understand that everyone was a victim and should not be categorically judged. It is no coincidence that this attack on the writer occurred at a time when the Polish media vehemently challenged the concept of lustration, arguing that the victims of communism included those who came forward with denunciations and that they, too, needed to be understood. The culture of denunciation was successful at the time because lustration was not carried out, and Herling was branded a ruthless and heartless moralist. If this convoluted defence of denunciation, which was an attempt to relativise people’s behaviour during communism, were to prevail, its consequence would inevitably be the relativisation of how we perceive… shmaltsovniks** in Poland.
* a leading Polish-émigré literary-political magazine published from 1947 to 2000
** a derogatory Polish slang term which emerged during the Holocaust, used to describe someone who blackmailed Jews who were in hiding or Poles who provided assistance to Jews during the German occupation in Poland
Włodzimierz Bolecki – emeritus professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences
The subheadings are created by the editors.
The scans of the photographs come from the private archive of W. Bolecki. The originals are in Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Archive in Naples.
Translated by: Monika Lutostański