{"id":3416,"date":"2015-03-30T21:02:16","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T01:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/?p=3416"},"modified":"2017-05-09T14:00:04","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T18:00:04","slug":"letter-from-lithuania-adam-michnik-vilnius-and-warsaw-our-common-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/2015\/03\/30\/letter-from-lithuania-adam-michnik-vilnius-and-warsaw-our-common-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Lithuania: Adam Michnik “Vilnius and Warsaw \u2013 Our Common Cause"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"450px-Adam_Michnik_Lodz\"<\/a>The following is a speech by Adam Michnik — Polish intellectual, a 1984 New School honorary degree recipient, and editor-in-chief of\u00a0Gazeta Wyborcza\u00a0\u2013 addressing the Lithuanian Parliament in Vilnius in the context of the war in Ukraine <\/em><\/p>\n

Mrs. President, Mrs. Chair of the Parliament, Mr. Prime Minister,<\/p>\n

I am moved and embarrassed by this honor bestowed by the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania on a Pole \u2013 a Polish journalist and editor of \u201cGazeta Wyborcza.\u201d\u00a0 I treat it as a sign of recognition for my friends and colleagues who supported Lithuanian strivings for independence and democracy from the very beginning \u2013 and this includes people from the era of democratic opposition and those who later came together around \u201cGazeta.\u201d\u00a0 Polish democratic opposition always wanted a sovereign and democratic Lithuania to be a friendly neighbor of a sovereign and democratic Poland.<\/p>\n

Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz was the teacher who taught Poles to think this way.\u00a0 He was a native of the Vilnius region, a Pole and a Lithuanian, a great poet who saw himself as heir of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania \u2013 a realm of diverse nationalities, languages, religions, and cultures.<\/p>\n

While receiving the Nobel Prize in 1980, Mi\u0142osz said:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite of the Atlantic Charter, the principle that nations are objects of trade, if not chips in games of cards or dice, has been confirmed by the division of Europe into two zones.\u00a0 The absence of the three Baltic states from the United Nations is a permanent reminder of the two dictators\u2019 legacy.\u00a0 Before the war those states belonged to the League of Nations but they disappeared from the map of Europe as a result of the secret clause in the agreement of 1939.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that time, this Polish poet was perhaps the only person whose voice could reach the whole world \u2013 and it was a voice defending Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.<\/p>\n

Later in his lecture Mi\u0142osz said: \u201cIt is good to be born in a small country where Nature was on a human scale, where various languages and religions cohabited for centuries. I have in mind Lithuania, a country of myths and of poetry. (\u2026)\u00a0 Perhaps the spirits of Lithuania have never abandoned me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he also claimed: \u201cIt is a blessing if one receives from fate school and university studies in such a city as Vilno.\u00a0 A bizarre city of baroque architecture transplanted to northern forests and of history fixed in every stone, a city of forty Roman Catholic churches and of numerous synagogues. \u00a0In those days the Jews called it a Jerusalem of the North.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Like many in my generation, I internalized this image of Vilnius.\u00a0 And that is also why I am so greatly moved today.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Ladies and Gentlemen, why am I addressing you in Polish and not in Russian? \u00a0Because a Russian friend from Moscow told me an anecdote about a conversation between a Mr. Goldberg and a Mr. Rabinovich in Odessa.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell it in Russian: One of them confesses: \u201cI am afraid to speak Russian\u201d \u2013 \u201cBut why?\u201d asks the other \u2013 \u201cI fear that Putin will come to defend me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And since I do not want Putin to come to either Vilnius or Warsaw to defend Russian-speakers, I am speaking in Polish today.\u00a0 I will be glad to speak Russian in Moscow once it\u2019s free from Putin.<\/p>\n

Our wider context today is very sad.\u00a0 We just experienced the shock of the criminal terrorist attack on the editorial office of the satirical journal \u201cCharlie Hebdo.\u201d\u00a0 This is what happens when the peaceful tradition of Islam is transformed into a political ideology of murder and fanaticism.\u00a0 It is a lesson for us all \u2013 no one offends God more profoundly than he evokes God\u2019s name as he resorts to lies, hatred, and murder weapons.<\/p>\n

We are observing a different dimension of terrorism, hatred, and lies in eastern Ukraine.\u00a0 We are well familiar with the language of propaganda and Putinist procedures; it is the language of Hitler and Goebbels, the language of Stalin and prosecutor Wyszy\u0144ski.\u00a0 It is the language and procedures of lies, hatred, and aggression.\u00a0 Ukraine cannot become a realm of aggression and an object of trade.\u00a0 Ukraine has the right to independence and democracy \u2013 just like Lithuania and Poland.\u00a0 Our nations understand this very well.<\/p>\n

And this is all the more reason to keep repeating that Putin is not Russia, that Putin is great-Russian imperialism.\u00a0 We will always remember another Russia, the Russia of Herzen and Sakharov.\u00a0 In the mid-nineteenth century, Herzen said that Lithuania must be able to make decisions about its own future, and later Sakharov stubbornly demanded that the Soviet empire undertake decolonization.\u00a0 In different ways, both Poland and Lithuania were enslaved by the Soviet dictatorship.\u00a0 During that time, things that united us were stronger than those that divided us.\u00a0 We should remember our old feuds \u2013 and our entire history \u2013 and talk about it honestly.\u00a0 We cannot change the past; we can only think it through and work through it.<\/p>\n

Vilnius, the capital of sovereign and democratic Lithuania will forever remain an irremovable element of Polish historical memory. \u00a0To acknowledge as much, however, is also to renounce \u2013 forever \u2013 any inclinations toward the revision of borders.\u00a0 Since 1989, this is the position of the Polish state and Polish public opinion.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Poland and Lithuania are members of the European Union and our greatest accomplishment is the fact that on the Polish-Lithuanian border there is no border.\u00a0 Correctly understood national interest of both Poland and Lithuania demands that our elites use their thinking and imagination in ways that meet the demands of our difficult times.\u00a0 Let us remind one another that Alexandr Dugin \u2013 an ideologist of Putinist imperialism \u2013 formulated his ideas with great clarity: \u201cEthnic tensions in Polish-Lithuanian relations are a particularly valuable phenomenon; they should be exploited, and deepened whenever possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let us think for a moment: what a great gift we offer to the great-Russian \u201cBlack Hundreds\u201d when there are Polish-Lithuanian conflicts around the spelling of last names or bilingual street names in cities inhabited by many Poles \u2013 Lithuanian citizens.<\/p>\n

Jerzy Giedroyc, an eminent Pole and Lithuanian who shaped Polish political thought, was able to think in categories that were ahead of his time.\u00a0 He believed that Poland\u2019s and Lithuania\u2019s independence posed a crucially important task before the elites of both nations.\u00a0 The creation of a sound partnership between our nations is an obvious demand of our time and geopolitics.\u00a0 And this is why every Lithuanian who is a citizen of the Republic of Poland, and every Pole who is a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania, should enjoy the full range of civil rights.\u00a0 Let this be our joint contribution to the legacy of the European Union.\u00a0 Whoever impedes this \u2013 whether because he lacks imagination or gets intoxicated by ethnic chauvinism \u2013 works against the national interest of each of our countries.<\/p>\n

Tomas Venclova, a renowned Lithuanian poet and essayist, once wrote that communist totalitarianism in conquered states incited people to absolutize the nation.\u00a0 And \u2013 already back in 1977 \u2013 he warned that viewing the nation \u201cas an absolute value is a form of totalitarian consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most distinguished Poles \u2013 Adam Mickiewicz and Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz, Leszek Ko\u0142akowski and Tadeusz Konwicki, and especially Karol Wojty\u0142a, Pope John Paul II \u2013 shared this view.<\/p>\n

Venclova also added: \u201cAs a Lithuanian, I see it as my duty to focus on Lithuanian mistakes.\u00a0 This is the first and simplest rule for an intellectual who feels responsible for the fate of his own nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I am a Pole, a Polish intellectual.\u00a0 I am responsible for Polish shortcomings.\u00a0 And so I first note \u2013 and I repeat this often \u2013 that there is a guilt multiplier principle.\u00a0 There are ten times as many Poles as there are Lithuanians, and so in Polish-Lithuanian relations, every Polish fault is ten times greater.\u00a0 As I see it, Polish collective consciousness is blemished by ignorance and lack of sensitivity to wounded Lithuanian memory.\u00a0 Fortunately, things are changing for the better and I believe that changes will continue to unfold.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Tadeusz Konwicki, a great Polish writer who recently passed away, wrote about the 1863 Uprising in Lithuania, and used the fate of his protagonist, Colonel Zygmunt Mineyko, to ask: \u201cWas it worth it?\u201d He replied with the words of Romuald Traugutt, the rebellion\u2019s last leader: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it made sense to do it, but I know we had to do it.\u201d\u00a0 This compulsion accompanied Poles and Lithuanians through the long years of enslavement.\u00a0 But this compulsion is what led us to freedom.<\/p>\n

To conclude, let me raise a Georgian toast.\u00a0 There once was a shepherd with a herd of sheep.\u00a0 An eagle flew down, snatched a sheep and flew away.\u00a0 So the shepherd took his rifle and shot at the eagle. \u00a0Here\u2019s to no sheep flying up to the sky, and no shooting at eagles.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Translation note: Milosz quotes are from the Nobel Prize site: “Czeslaw Milosz – Nobel Lecture”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 17 Mar 2015. http:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/nobel_prizes\/literature\/laureates\/1980\/milosz-lecture.html<\/a> [this text, to the best of my recollection, is Milosz\u2019s own translation of the talk \u2013]<\/p>\n


\n<\/span>Adam Michnik received the Freedom Prize from the Lithuanian Parliament on January 13th<\/sup>, 2015 \u2013 in Lithuania, January 13th<\/sup><\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/span>is Freedom Defenders\u2019 Day and commemorates those killed in the Soviet attack on the Vilnius TV tower on January 13th<\/sup>, 1991.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Lithuanian Parliament established the Freedom Prize in 2011.\u00a0 It is given to individuals and organizations who have distinguished themselves in the fight for freedom and human rights, and for the sovereignty of nations in East Central Europe.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe first Freedom Prize of 2011 was awarded to Russian fighter for freedom and democracy Sergey Kovalev. Antanas Terleckas, a former Soviet dissident and leader of the Freedom League, received the prize in 2012 and the 2013 prize went to archbishop Sigitas Tamkevi\u010dius who founded the underground publication, Chronicles of the Catholic Church of Lithuania.\u201d<\/span><\/em>
\nhttp:\/\/en.delfi.lt\/central-eastern-europe\/lithuanian-polish-tensions-are-gift-to-putins-russia-michnik-says.d?id=66891374#ixzz3UqLTrQxt<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a translation of Adam Michnik\u2019s talk as published in Polish in Gazeta Wyborcza, nr 19, January 24, 2015, p. 29. Translated by Agnieszka Marczyk.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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