TERM OF OFFICE
Jan Jozef Szczepanski
Published by the Polish underground press
Cracow: Oficyna Literacka, 1986
DOMESTIC DISGRACE
Jacek Trznadel
Published by the Polish underground press
Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1986
For the last ten years, Poland has had two book markets: one official, one underground. Although the former is incomparably bigger, both in the number of titles and copies printed, the latter has tremendous cultural importance and moral prestige.
The difference between the two is simple and basic: Books published on the official market have to pass state censorship; the others do not. The very existence and evident success of the underground publishing houses has changed the literary atmosphere in Poland. Those who do not wish to have their texts censored now have a choice of publishing out of the reach of party-controlled officialdom. And, to limit the attractiveness of the unofficial competition--the government had to relax censorship rules to an extent previously never considered. This applies, of course, not only to fiction and poetry but also, perhaps to a greater degree, to historical and sociological scholarship.
Term of Office
The most avidly read recent underground publication in Poland is a book matter-of-factly titled Term of Office. Jan Jozef Szczepanski is a well-known writer of novels, short stories, and essays and, in the years 1980-83, was president of the Polish Writers' Union. On the face of it, one could wonder why this volume of documents and reminiscences is so popular. And why its author is so often and so viciously attacked by the official media. Szczepanski's report only deals, after all, with the problems of a professional union of writers--which, like many other self-governing organizations, was first suspended and then banned by the government after the imposition of martial law in December 1981. The answer to these questions illustrates the peculiar role of literature in Poland's national life and in its historical traditions.
One must begin by taking a few steps into the past. For 123 years after Poland was partitioned (between Russia, Prussia, and Austria) in 1795, there was no Polish state, no institutions common to the entire nation. And Polish literature--well developed by that time and flourishing at the beginning of the nineteenth century--took over the role of the nonexisting national political and cultural institutions. By a dramatic paradox, several of the great works of Polish poetry and prose were written when Polish was not spoken in public offices or even taught in schools on territory inhabited by Poles.
This almost two-hundred-year-old tradition has endowed Polish writers with public authority and, at the same time, imposed public responsibilities on them.
Battle of wills
Szczepanski's
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