Probably fewer people remember already organized in 2018 a large celebration of the centenary of independence. We have any fresh monuments left, the president. declaration of reconstruction of Saxon Palace, as well as any statutory curiosium then invented by parliamentarians of the organization Paul Kukiz.
This is the Pantheon of the Fathers of Independence, written down in the bill designed to celebrate. Politicians included the names of Józef Piłsudski, Ignacy Daszyński, Roman Dmowski, Wojciech Korfanty, Ignacy Paderewski and Vincent Witos. The catchy and easy to replicate communicative has gained large popularity, so erstwhile state institutions, local governments or educational institutions are now preparing yearly celebrations on 11 November, they frequently mention to this symbolism. possibly even the representatives of Kukiz ’15 did not know how long they would make a contribution to the rituals of Polish historical memory.
Specific ferment
In 2016, erstwhile president Andrzej Duda submitted a draft of the bill on the "National Celebrations of the Hundredth Anniversary of independency Recovery", he did not mention any fathers of independence. The preamble to the paper indicated that sovereignty became possible thanks to “the effort of many generations of Polish women and Poles”. Mr PiS Dariusz Piontkowski stressed that "the process itself should be highlighted, not just names, due to the fact that there will always be a dispute over how many names should appear".
The subject during the session in the parliament area was only raised by a beloved associate of Kukiz’15. He proposed that 5 "founders of independence" should be entered in the bill, namely Piłsudski, Witos, Korfanty, Dmowski and Paderewski. The impulse for the conclusion was the fear that the Pisa camp would only make Józef Piłsudski the face of anniversary celebrations, thus depreciating first of all the figure of pre-war leadership.
The amendment tabled by Mr Kukiz ’15 received a negative opinion from the Sejm committee, but erstwhile the draft was re-elected to plenary, Khrushche again gave a speech in defence of the concept of independency fathers. This time he so moved the audience that the Sejm accepted the amendment by 291 votes. It was supported by the PiS and the PSL, and peculiar thanks for the enlightenment of the MPs on this issue were made by Khrushche, the leader of the people's Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish.
It was only after the bill was passed that the larum rose that the Sejm erased representatives of the left from the past cards, and the list is missing primarily Ignacy Daszyński. Tomasz Panfil of the IPN, who argued that the first prime minister of independent Poland was not a policy of the “absolute extraclass” and that the tradition of his government was “a bit bloated by the past of the Polish People's Republic”.
In the end, Daszyński's name was added to the bill during his work in the Senate, although there were voices specified as that of Senator Jerzy Fedorowicz, who proposed that no fathers should be included in the document, due to the fact that "each of these people awakens a circumstantial ferment for 1 or another." akin objections were besides raised by president Margaret Sadursk's chief Chancellery.
However, the legislature left the father's pantheon in the bill, and as if the evidence were besides small elite, according to the amendment of Senator PiS Jan Żaryn, the designation of the exceptional merits of the “general of the Polish Army” and “the spirituality of various religions, especially the Catholic Church” was pressed into the document.
PiS – working, chapede, national
I cited the details of the legislative process to show that the process of selecting the independency fathers was in a chaotic way and without any substantive criteria. In the meantime, they tried to find any reasonable reason for him. For example, according to Senator Żaryn, the creation of a pantheon is an effort "to describe to any degree the full society, all Pole", and supposedly "the exchange and socialists, and chadeks, and nationalists, and wolves, and peoples gives us a sense of national unity."
This concept of national unity rapidly appealed to the PiS environment. She was a large contributor to the propaganda procedure utilized by the party, which was intended to take advantage of affirmative associations with historical names and various ideological currents. The PiS began to present itself as the legitimate heir to each of the fathers of independence.
It was adequate to perceive to Jarosław Kaczyński, according to which his organization is simply a continuation of the thoughts of both Józef Piłsudski and the folk movement. Quoting Senator Żaryn, PiS besides took over “in the most meaningful way the traditions of the national, Christian-democratic camp”, not much, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated that in the doctrine of the organization there is besides a deep presence of “an occupational socialist thought”.
The combination of all these currents could only come out of any internally contradictory mush, but the authors of the written communicative did not depreciate in any way. This allowed president Duda to say without blinking an eye that "he believes that we will build Poland together, as the fathers of independency dreamed of." As if Poland could be reconciled from Daszyński's dreams with Poland from Dmowski's dreams; a imagination of a classless society equal to citizens, liberated from the yoke of capitalism and surviving in Poland belonging to the global socialist community with Poland egoistic, ruled by self-appointed elites, persecuting minorities, dividing people due to nationality or religion.
Dmowski peculiar care
The fantasies of national unity in 1918 were, of course, to supply historical justification for the request to unite society around today's PiS actions and ideology. The Institute of National Memory was rapidly assigned to popularize the concept. The Institute went into the country with exhibitions presenting the fathers of independence, who allegedly “had been able to unite around one, superior goal”.
Over time, the ahistoric pathos grew around this subject. The president of the IPN Karol Nawrocki has pumped out that we have “a catalogue of respective of our independency fathers who give all political currents in Poland”. With the typical Censorical manner of the institute, he thus reprimanded political opponents and reminded them that the camp of power imposed explanation of past and that no 1 should question this interpretation.
The Nawrocks even went to the conclusion that the pantheon included “the figures sacred to our history.” The beatification accelerated controversy around Roman Dmowski's character. erstwhile the thought of changing the name of the roundabout in Warsaw fell, PiS rapidly prepared a bill making the leader a patron of peculiar care, requiring legal protection from the Polish society.
Thus, in 2022 another legislative monster was created, forbidding local governments to change the names of the memorials of six fathers. And I guess it never occurred to anyone that specified a law would not build the authority of a protected person, alternatively would exposure her to ridicule and contempt.
You forgot the left.
Contrary to what president Nawrocki says, the six-man pantheon does not give all political currents of Poland the first days of independence. The deficiency of any typical of the peasant movement, which in the first elections to the Sejm in 1919 supported as many as 21 percent of voters, is most striking. For comparison: only 8,5 percent voted for PSL “Piast” Witos.
So why didn't anyone even mention that a typical of this environment could be on the list? due to the fact that the tradition of the left folk movement is not remembered present by anyone, even representatives of a organization named PSL, and the names of Tomasz Noczicki or Stanisław Thugutt are almost completely forgotten.
It is no surprise that the parliament with the advantage of the right hand has chosen a list of heroes decently tilted to the right. A glance at the Polish political scene of the turn of 1918 and 1919 shows that the left centered in the working and peasant parties was then supported by about 1 3rd of the voters, and in addition, it created the first governments of independent Poland.
Meanwhile, on the list from her group was found, and with difficulty, only Ignacy Daszyński. Not much stronger right hand has 3 representatives there: Dmowski, Korfanty and Paderewski. After adding the political centre of Vincent Witos, as well as the 1 from the left, but then already non-party and drifting to Piłsudski's law, it is clear that the pantheon is marginalizing the left side of the political scene according to the intention of its originators. But that's not his biggest flaw.
The introduction of the process of regaining independency to item the extraordinary merits of a chaotically selected group of individuals obscures the complexity of this process and the complexity of the mechanisms that paved the way for the creation of a sovereign state. After all, the events of 1918 were the consequence of an exceptionally conducive interplay of external and interior conditions. On the 1 hand, Poland benefited from the First planet War, the Russian Revolution and the collapse of alleged central states, and on the another hand the creation of a self-being was made possible by the degree of national awareness and the level of improvement and organization of society. If past is to be a discipline and inspiration for future generations, we should pay peculiar attention to this last aspect.
Polish masses, not elites
At the end of the 18th century, Poland lost its independency as an ossified monarchy in its form, as a state in which power rested in the hands of well-born elites, and most of the inhabitants lived semi-slavery and were deprived of any political rights. In this feudal, state-divided society, the very notion of a nation was identified with the top nobility hierarchy.
In 1918 Poland was reborn as a democratic republic, as a free and equal state of citizens. To realise how profound changes took place during the period of partitions in the structure of society, it is adequate to look at the first government of independent Poland established in Lublin, in which peasants and workers sat alongside ministers from noble families. Both landowners and industrialists, as well as farmers and craftsmen, were present in the parliament of the reborn state. Not only the full social classes, but the full gender, have joined social and political life, for the first time women have sat in the typical body.
The emancipation of unprivileged layers lay at the foundation of the republic formed in November 1918. “Polish people! Polish man and worker!” – They proclaimed the words of the Ignacy Daszyński government manifesto – "If you want to take your place in a household of free nations, if you want to be a host on your own land, you must take power in Poland, you must build the building of the Independent and United People's Republic of Poland yourself".
Although the reality did not always keep up with the lofty lines of political declarations, and although the classes having inactive exploited their economical advantage to keep a number of manifestations of inequality, there was no uncertainty that the modern state was neither the property nor the creation of a narrow group of individuals, but a conscious creation resulting from the aspirations of broad social masses. Quoting peasant activist Tomasz Nocznicki, the lesson of 1918 is that “the will of the people, erstwhile this people in an organized gathering uncover it, becomes a law.”
“Country fathers are medieval farce”
Let us go back to present and consider what discipline can come from the primitive worship of the fathers of independence. The elite-oriented propagandists like erstwhile Senator Żarin would most likely have no objection to it leading to the fixation of the nation's image as a meek and ungrammed fat, which must be led by enlightened elites and controlled by prominent individuals.
In October 1918, speaking in the Vienna Parliament, Ignacy Daszyński stated that “the planet no longer wants to have the fathers of countries” due to the fact that “the fathers of countries are a medieval farce.” He was referring to the monarchs who were “ruled by the grace of God”, but present it is possible to paraphrase his words and conclude that specified a medieval farce has become the “holy fathers of independence”, including and in part himself, thrown carelessly into 1 of the Sejm laws.
If individual around the anniversary of regaining independency wants to build a communicative that corresponds to both historical realities and the values of a modern state, he should reject the idolatrous cult constructed for his erstwhile power and alternatively appeal to the slogans of democracy, freedom and equality so loud in November 1918, which open the way for the masses to participate in social-political activity. And it is not about moving distant from the statutory pantheon to undermine the participation of individual characters in the process of regaining independence. On the contrary, it is only to establish the appropriate proportions and to place them in the background of the processes and movements of society at the time that can give a real image of their activities.
Even those who voted to establish this curiosity pantheon realize this subconsciously. For example, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish, who was so delighted by the thought presented in the Sejm by Mr Khrush, admitted clearly during last year's celebrations on 11 November that "they were not the fathers of independence, but millions of our compatriots, those who lived, worked, moved Poland to independence."
