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Heroism, Raison d'état, and National Communism: Red Nationalism in the Cinema of People's Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2012

MIKOŁAJ KUNICKI
MIKOŁAJ KUNICKI*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Department of History, 219 O'Shaughnessy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA; [email protected]
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Abstract

Using archival sources, film reviews, interviews, secondary sources and movies, this article examines a Polish nationalist-communist school of directors who supported the Communist Party regime in constructing a new ethos, which consisted of ethnocentric nationalism and authoritarian nation state ideology. It demonstrates how the party state tried to legitimise itself by endorsing popular culture, specifically mainstream cinema. It also argues that National Communism inevitably led to the nationalist-authoritarian fusion, which set up the conditions for a pluralist and polyphonic realm, outside, but also within the ruling camp.

Héroïsme, raison d'état, communisme national: le nationalisme rouge au cinéma de la république populaire de pologne

Cet article examine, à l'aide d'archives, de revues critiques cinématiques, de sources secondaires et des films eux-mêmes, une école polonaise nationale-communiste de réalisateurs qui offraient leur soutien au parti communiste. Celui-ci élaborait une nouvelle éthique, consistant d'un ethno-centrisme nationaliste et d'une idéologie autoritaire de l'état-nation. L'article montre les efforts faits par l'état pour se montrer légitime en endossant la culture et en particulier le cinéma populaires. Il affirme que le communisme national entraîna inévitablement une fusion entre nationalisme et autoritarisme, ce qui favorisa par la suite l'émergence d'un régime pluraliste et polyphonique, aussi bien autour qu'au cœur du cercle des dirigeants nationaux.

Heldentum, staatsräson und nationaler kommunismus: roter nationalismus im kino der volksrepublik polen

Auf der Basis von Archivquellen, Filmrezensionen, Filmen, Interviews und Sekundärliteratur möchte dieser Artikel die polnische national-kommunistische Schule von Regisseuren untersuchen, welche das Regime der kommunistischen Partei unterstützten, indem sie ein neues Ethos rekonstruierten, welches aus einer Melange von ethnozentrischem Nationalismus und autoritärer Nationalstaatsideologie bestand. Der Artikel zeigt, wie der Parteistaat sich durch den Bezug auf Populärkultur Legitimität zu verschaffen versuchte, besonders durch das Kino. Der Artikel argumentiert, dass der Nationalkommunismus unweigerlich zu einer Vermischung national-autoritärer Elemente führte, welche die Bedingungen für Pluralismus und Polyphonie innerhalb und außerhalb der Parteieliten schuf.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 235 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 On Yugoslav Partisan films, see Horton, Andrew, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Partisan Film: Cinematic Perceptions of a National Identity’, Film Criticism, 12, 2 (1987), 18–27Google Scholar; the Romanian movies mentioned are Sergiu Nicolaescu's Mihai Viteazul (1970) and Doru Nastase's Vlad Țepeș (1979); on the cinema of the GDR, see Pinkert, Anke, Film and Memory in East Germany (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; for the partial rehabilitation of the Kuomintang and the promotion of etatism, watch Yang Guangyuan's The Battle of Taierzhuang (1987) and Yimou Zhang's Hero (2002).

2 The second wave of Yugoslav Partisan films of the 1960s and 1970s followed the official condemnation of the new Yugoslav cinema, labelled by the government as the Black Wave. Historical dramas produced in Czechoslovakia during the post-1968 normalisation, such as Otakar Vavra's Second World War trilogy – Days of Betrayal (1972), Sokolovo (1975) and The Liberation of Prague (1977) – provide examples of films with nationalist-communist salutation and popular appeal that ‘replaced’ the rebellious movies of the Czechoslovak New Wave.

3 On the one hand, the Polish October of 1956 and the belated liberalisation of the system in Czechoslovakia contributed to the phenomena of the Polish School and the Czechoslovak New Wave. On the other hand, the immediate period after the construction of the Berlin Wall saw an outburst of artistic creativity among East German film-makers.

4 Haraszti, Miklós, The Velvet Prison: Artists under State Socialism, trans. Katalin, and Landesman, Stephen (New York: Basic Books, 1987)Google Scholar.

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6 Filmoteka Narodowa, Komisja Ocen Scenariuszy, A-214 poz. 300 (5 May 1964), Barwy walki.

7 On the phenomenon of the Polish School see Cotes, Paul, The Red and the White: The Cinema of People's Poland (London: Wallflower Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

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9 The Partisans were high-ranking security and military officers who served in the People's Army (AL), a communist resistance group, during the war, and afterwards languished in second-rate government positions. Their ideological platform consisted of anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, militarism and opposition to liberalism of all kinds. They contrasted themselves, the ‘home communists’, to ‘Muscovites’ and ‘Jews’. See Lesiakowski, Krzysztof, Mieczysław Moczar ‘Mietek’: Biografia polityczna (Warsaw: Rytm, 1998), 222–3Google Scholar.

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12 Wawrzyniak, ZBOWiD i pamięć drugiej wojny światowej, 275–76.

13 In his 1964 address delivered at the commemoration ceremony of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, Zenon Kliszko, Gomułka's closest collaborator, went so far as to deny that there were any divisions among former resisters. See Kliszko, Zenon, ‘Nas już nic nie dzieli’, Za Wolność i Lud, 16, 3 (1964)Google Scholar.

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15 Życie, ‘Widzenie świata’, 27 August 2000.

16 Gerhard, former member of the French resistance, conspicuously ignored René Clément's La Bataille du Rail (1945); instead, he emphasised Passendorfer's credentials through the comparison with a Hollywood super production.

17 Zaorski conveniently ignored more complex and less politically explicit films such as Andrzej Wajda's A Generation (1955) and Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Shadow (1956).

18 Filmoteka Narodowa, Komisja Kolaudacyjna, A-216 poz.39 (3 Dec. 1964), Barwy walki.

19 Klaczyński, Zbigniew, ‘Trudny optymizm’, Kino, 5 (1969), 4–7Google Scholar.

20 Zaremba, Marcin, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm (Warsaw: Trio, 2001), 372Google Scholar.

21 For the most up-to-date discussion of the Cinema of Moral Angst, also known as the Cinema of Moral Concern, consult Dabert, Dobrochna, Kino moralnego niepokoju (Poznan: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2003)Google Scholar.

22 Jazdon, Mikołaj, ‘Czarna Seria, 1955–1958’, in Polska Szkoła Dokumentu: Czarna Seria (Warsaw: Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne, 2008)Google Scholar.

23 Information obtained from the Polish Film database, available at http://www.filmpolski.pl (last accessed 21 Dec. 2011).

24 Nad Odrą is a film novella, part of Last Day— First Day (Dzień ostatni – Dzień pierwszy), a collective project devoted to the portrayal of Poland shortly after the liberation. The film was blocked by censorship until 1981.

25 Prawda, dobro i piękno. Film o Bohdanie Porębie. 2009. Directed by Ksawery Szczepanik.

26 Grzegorz Sroczyński, ‘Poręba chce zmartwychwstać’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 3 April 2008.

27 FN, KK, A-344 poz. 42 (29 May 1973), Hubal.

28 Interview quoted in ‘Wokół Hubala’, Kino, 11 (1973), 23.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., 24.

31 Ibid.

32 Ledóchowski, Aleksander, ‘Żołnierz Rzeczypospolitej’, Kino, 9 (1973), 2–9Google Scholar.

33 ‘Zamach na epokę’, Kino, 5 (1981), 24–8.

34 FN, KK, A-344 poz. 249 (23 Dec. 1980), Polonia Restituta.

35 Ibidem.

36 Ibidem.

37 Mruklik, Barbara, ‘Historia z fotoplastikonu’, Kino, 8 (1981), 12–15Google Scholar.

38 Mikurda, Kuba, ‘Przypadek Pękosińskiego Grzegorza Królikiewicza czyli ćwiczenia z historii’, in Wiśniewska, Agnieszka and Marecki, Piotr, eds, Kino Polskie 1989–2009: historia krytyczna (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2010), 47Google Scholar.

39 On Pasikowski's cinema, see Bożena Keff, ‘Psy Władysława Pasikowskiego, czyli Polska jest twardzielem’, in Wiśniewska and Marecki, Kino Polskie, 25–34.

40 Haltof, Polish National Cinema, 186–7.

41 Klich, Aleksandra, Cały ten Kutz: biografia niepokorna (Krakow: Znak, 2009), 262Google Scholar.

42 Keff, ‘Rewers Borysa Lankosza, czyli chłop, diabeł, wice-żyd’, in Wiśniewska and Marecki, Kino Polskie, 243–4.

43 Samuel, Raphael, Theatres of Memory (London and New York: Verso, 1994), 429Google Scholar.

44 Anne Applebaum, ‘A Movie That Matters’, The New York Review of Books, 18 Feb. 2008.

45 Artur Żmijewski, ‘Katyń, Katole, Świadectwo, czyli praca ideologii’, in Wiśniewska and Marecki, Kino Polskie, 212.

46 The protagonist of Wajda's memorable Ashes and Diamonds (1958), Maciek Chełmicki, had a choice between joining normal life and staying in the anti-communist underground. Tadeusz of Katyn embraces death without hesitation.

47 Żmijewski, ‘Katyń, Karole, Świadectwo’, 216.