Polish Culture in Britain: Literature and History, 1772 to the Present 3031321871, 9783031321870

Citation preview

Polish Culture in Britain Literature and History, 1772 to the Present Edited by Maggie Ann Bowers Ben Dew

Polish Culture in Britain

Maggie Ann Bowers  •  Ben Dew Editors

Polish Culture in Britain Literature and History, 1772 to the Present

Editors Maggie Ann Bowers Department of English Literature University of Portsmouth Portsmouth, UK

Ben Dew School of Humanities Coventry University Coventry, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-32187-0    ISBN 978-3-031-32188-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Leaving aside such episodes as the future king Canute’s visit to Poland in order to recruit cavalry, or the participation of English knights in the Teutonic Order’s crusades, relations between Britain and Poland were essentially commercial until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Polish ports on the Baltic Sea supplied this country with grain and raw materials, particularly those such as the timber, hemp and tar vital to shipbuilding. And it was commercial concerns that led to the earliest diplomatic exchanges between the two countries. Henry VIII took an interest in Polish affairs and in 1546 went so far as to envisage the possibility of his daughter Mary marrying King Zygmunt August. But closer ties were not established, and the foundation of the Muscovy Company in 1555 dented Poland’s dominance of the Baltic trade. Conflict between the Polish and Swedish branches of the Vasa dynasty further undermined this in the following century. At the same time, Poland’s wars with the Porte, for which she tried to raise troops in Britain, impinged on British trade with the Levant. The Reformation gave rise to networks of communication throughout Northern Europe and some of these ran through Poland, where every form of religious belief and observance was tolerated. The prime example of these religious connections is provided by Jan Łaski (known in England as John à Lasco), who after staying in Geneva with Calvin and Rotterdam with Erasmus was invited to London by Thomas Cranmer and given the post of chaplain to foreign refugee Protestants by Edward VI. The religious freedom which obtained in Poland at the time also contributed to the growth of British colonies in ports such as Elbing and v

vi 

PREFACE

Gdansk, which was visited by English players and saw probably the first performances of Shakespeare on the Continent. A notable and well-­ constituted Scots colony flourished in Lublin, and for many years the small Scots community in Zamość endowed a scholarship to send one of their sons to study at St Andrew’s. But the majority of Britons who went to Poland, most of them as mercenaries or low-skilled artisans, and settled there assimilated and cut their ties with the mother-country. The simultaneous defeat by Poland and England of twin Habsburg bids for European hegemony in 1588, the one on land, the other at sea, failed to establish a community of interest. Zygmunt III did establish cordial relations with James I (there was even talk of marriage between his son and heir Władysław and James’s granddaughter Elizabeth) but by the second quarter of the seventeenth century any potential common political interests were vitiated by increasingly polarised religious issues. Oliver Cromwell did show some interest in the Polish republican constitution, while the exiled future Charles II sought support in Poland during his exile. And although at his restoration he introduced a fashion for elements of the Polish szlachta dress, Poland’s decline in the second half of the seventeenth century and consequent inability to supply British needs through the Baltic effectively withered relations between the two states. The Scots traveller Fynes Moryson did publish his Itinerary in 1617, but there would be little else in print on the subject of Poland other than translations of French works for the next century and a half. By the beginning of the eighteenth century Poland hardly figured at all in the British imagination, and if it did, it was as the epitome of the evils of Catholicism, as represented by the “Blood-bath of Toruń” in 1724, when the city’s Protestant mayor and nine councillors were executed for failing to restrain a Protestant mob from attacking and desecrating a Jesuit college. The Hanoverian interests of the new British dynasty involved courting the rising powers of Russia and Prussia, which ruled out any considerations of furthering political relations with Poland, whose incomprehensible constitutional and political arrangements were anyway baffling to the Britons of this Age of Improvement. British perceptions of Poland only began to change in the second half of the century, when educated Poles bent on reforming the Polish constitution and modernising their country visited Britain in quest of models. The election to the Polish throne of one of them, Stanisław Augustus

 PREFACE 

vii

Poniatowski, a progressive anglophile eager to engage the sympathy if not the support of Britain, also played a part. A history and accounts of the country were published, helping to reverse the hitherto generally negative perceptions, while the First Partition of Poland in 1772 shocked many and raised questions regarding its possible impact on British strategic interests. The well-publicised reforms undertaken by the Great Sejm of 1788 appealed to British public opinion, and the passing of a new constitution on 3 May 1791 elicited an enthusiastic response in educated spheres. Like human beings, nations tend to view each other through a prism in which prejudice alternates with wishful thinking, and British perceptions of the Poles underwent a remarkable change. Comparisons between the Polish and French revolutions of 1789 and 1791 respectively suggested that the Poles were more akin to the British, while the brutal suppression of their aspirations by Russia and her Prussian and Austrian allies elicited a rush of sympathy greatly enhanced by the first stirrings of the spirit of Romanticism, which found expression in a series of literary works in English inspired by their misfortunes. Counter-intuitively, the perception of the Poles as essentially un-French gallant freedom-fighters transcended the reality that so many of them fought for Revolutionary and then Napoleonic France. Enduring sympathy for their cause was evident in British public opinion during the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815. Hostilities permitting, progressive-minded Poles continued to visit and study in Britain, leading to wide-ranging contacts and friendships. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a generally favourable opinion of the Poles prevailed in British society. The November Rising of 1830 therefore met with much sympathy among all classes, some of it expressed in action. Its failure was bewailed by poets and statesmen alike, and the Polish cause remained popular among both the aristocracy and working-class radicals, each seeing in it what they wished to see. These feelings did not survive the pan-European upheavals of 1848, in which Poles featured prominently, only to be increasingly seen as troublemakers. This, and the fact that British attention shifted from Europe to more global concerns, meant that Poland and her cause slipped from public consciousness almost entirely. While individual Poles, particularly members of the aristocracy, continued to visit Britain, and a trickle of political or economic émigrés settled here, the numbers were too small to have any significant impact. The concurrent drift of engineers, gardeners and governesses in the other direction had a far greater influence.

viii 

PREFACE

In the last decades of the nineteenth century the influx of large numbers of Jewish immigrants from eastern Poland, now part of the Russian empire, had a doubly negative effect on British perceptions of the Poles. To those with anti-Semitic views, all Poles became associated with the despised Jews. To the more progressive, tales of the pogroms that had encouraged them to leave reflected badly on the Poles as well as the Tsarist Cossacks and Black Hundreds responsible for them. Racism of a different hue also coloured British views in the last decades of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century. The prestige of German high culture and sheer ignorance led many, including historians, to adopt the views of their German counterparts. In his monumental The Making of Western Europe, published in 1912, the Oxford historian C. R. L. Fletcher made it clear he believed the Pole had “never shown any capacity for civilisation, the proper method to apply to him was […] to push him steadily back eastwards and to colonise his territory with sturdy Teutons, to leave him, if at all, only in a completely inferior position with no separate political existence.” His views were considered controversial at the time, but they did carry weight among his extensive readership.1 The view of the Poles as primitive and congenitally anti-Semitic gained traction with the pogroms that took place in the area in the aftermath of the Great War and became widely accepted in British society. Lloyd George was reported as comparing the Poles to monkeys, while John Maynard Keynes called the newly independent Poland “an economic impossibility whose only industry is Jew-baiting.”2 The country’s drift into authoritarian government in the 1930s associated it in the minds of British socialists and even liberals with Mussolini’s Italy and Franco’s Spain. Poland was anyway regarded as lying in the French sphere of interest, and did not impinge on public opinion until 1939. The German invasion of Poland provoked a surge of sympathy. The arrival of large numbers of Polish military on British soil determined to fight on against the common enemy and the crucial role played by Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain aroused admiration and gratitude. Yet while they provided an immeasurably greater contribution to the war 1  C.  R. L.  Fletcher, The Making of Western Europe, vol. I (London: John Murray, 1912), 367–8. 2  Norman Davies, Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 426.

 PREFACE 

ix

effort, Mass Observation reveals that they were never as popular as the Czechs. Old views of the Poles as troublemakers resurfaced when, from 1943 on, the problem of Katyń and their differences with Soviet Russia, whose popularity soared after Stalingrad, were seen as an obstacle to good relations between the Allies. They were also the object of vilification and even violence by socialists and communists emboldened by the glorious exploits of the Red Army. Polish airmen who had been mobbed in 1940 were now spat at in the street. Following the end of hostilities, the disbanded and resettled Polish military were resented as all immigrants tend to be. Encouraged by the unions, many among the working classes clamoured for their deportation, fearing that they would steal their jobs. Conversely, they were embraced by upper- and middle-class Britons, who kept alive the memories of wartime derring-do. Many among the lower ranks married girls local to the airfield or camp they had been stationed at or who they had met at work in the immediate aftermath of the war. There were fewer marriages at the higher social level but more romantic memories. But in neither case was there any noticeable social or cultural impact. Most Poles who had settled in the United Kingdom either assimilated, sometimes going so far as to change their names, or retrenched themselves in self-sufficient hermetic communities. In the public domain, the failure of the Allies to guarantee Poland’s independence at the end of the war left a note of embarrassment, epitomised by the non-invitation to take part in the victory parade of 1946. This often translated into self-justificatory contempt; the Polish contribution to the war effort was belittled and the existence of the London government dismissed as irrelevant. Even as the advent of the Cold War rendered pandering to the Soviets pointless, successive British governments nervously sidestepped mention of Katyń, the ultimate symbol of Poland’s betrayal by her supposed allies. Among the left-leaning commentariat, in academic circles and the media, the prevailing orthodoxy was not far off the views of Lloyd George and Keynes. At Oxford in the 1960s an undergraduate standing up against such prejudice could expect to be dismissed as being partisan, if not actually a “fascist” or a “white guard” whose arguments did not merit consideration. Such attitudes lasted through the 1970s, when it was extremely difficult to get a news editor or publisher to commission any material on a Polish subject.

x 

PREFACE

This orthodoxy was shaken by the events of 1981 in Poland, but in the case of many British intellectuals of the post-war generation the interest in and support for Solidarity was tinged with unease at the movement’s traditionalist political profile and the Madonna on Lech Wałęsa’s lapel. Greater awareness of what was taking place in Poland and its causes opened the minds of most of British society, which enthusiastically supported the re-emergence of Poland onto the world stage, thanks in large measure to journalists and commentators such as Roger Boyes, Neal Ascherson and Tim Garton Ash. Yet it was still possible, in the mid-2000s, to hear, as I did from a former teacher in his sixties, that I could not be a proper historian as I was Polish and therefore inherently biased. This did not surprise me as it was an attitude with which, even when not expressed verbally, I had been familiar for decades. In the Middle Ages, Polish society had looked primarily to Germany and Burgundy for inspiration, switching to Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and while its cultural gaze then turned to France, from the mid-eighteenth century Britain appeared to it as the gold standard as far as governance and material progress were concerned. And it has remained so, with some interruptions. The communists who took control in 1944–1945 did everything in their power to undermine this―with a measure of success, as mention of the name of Churchill still tends to elicit from anyone over the age of thirty-five the response: “the guy who sold Poland at Yalta.” Ever-broadening contact between people of both countries has dispelled much prejudice, and greater availability of honest studies based on solid research should help bring about better understanding. But what seems glaringly obvious from an overview of relations between the two nations is that sentiment counts for little when not backed up by solid political and economic considerations. London, UK

Adam Zamoyski

Bibliography Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984. Fletcher, C. R. L. The Making of Western Europe. London: John Murray, 1912.

Acknowledgements

This book has its origins in ‘Poles in Britain’, a conference held in Portsmouth, UK, in July 2019. We would like to extend our thanks to Portsmouth’s Centre for Studies in Literature for providing the financial support which enabled the event to take place. One of the highlights of the conference was a reading by the authors Wioletta Greg and Agnieszka Dale; we are very grateful to both Wioletta and Agnieszka for providing such an entertaining and thought-provoking evening. We would like to dedicate the book to Portsmouth’s Polish community who provided the initial inspiration for this project. February 2023 

Maggie Ann Bowers Ben Dew

xi

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Maggie Ann Bowers and Ben Dew Part I Before 1918  15 2 From  the Moon to Kennington Common: British Perceptions of the Poland and the Poles 1750–1850 17 Adam Zamoyski 3 Brave  and Patriotic Poles: British Politics and Polish Independence, 1830–1847 39 Milosz K. Cybowski 4 Why  Britain? The Motives and Circumstances of Polish Political Refugees’ Arrivals to the United Kingdom in the 1830s and 1840s 63 Krzysztof Marchlewicz 5 Polish  History in Britain: The Work of Napoleon Feliks Żaba, Leon Szadurski and J.F. Gomoszyński 87 Ben Dew

xiii

xiv 

Contents

6 “Poland  Has No Claim on You”: By Celia’s Arbour and British Representations of Poland in the Victorian Era113 Thomas McLean Part II After 1918 135 7 Polish  Post-World-War-II Exiles in Britain: The London Wiadomości and Its Cultural Milieu137 Dorota Kołodziejczyk 8 Migrant  Lives and the Dynamics of (Non)belonging in the Polish-British Works of A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg, and Agnieszka Dale161 Martyna Bryla 9 A  Country Constructed from Memories: Representations of Poland and Poles in Migrant Writing in the Twenty-First Century185 Joanna Kosmalska 10 Poles  Among Others: Literary Perspectives on Polish Migrants in Britain Since 2004209 Dirk Uffelmann 11 The  Good Pole in an Ailing Britain: An Imagological Approach to Polish Migration in British Literature237 Joanna Rostek Index259

Notes on Contributors

Maggie Ann Bowers  is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Portsmouth where she specialises in migrant literature, multi-ethnic and indigenous writing of the Americas and postcolonialism. She is the author of Magical Realism. Martyna  Bryla is a lecturer at the University of Málaga in Spain. Her research interests include literary imagology, particularly in relation to East-Central Europe, and the construction of selfhood and otherness in multinational contexts. Her latest research focuses on the intersections between postcommunist and postcolonial studies and representing intercultural identity in contemporary migration literature. Milosz K. Cybowski  is an independent scholar based in Poznan, Poland. He received his PhD at the University of Southampton in 2016 and his research concentrates around Polish-British relations in the nineteenth century. Ben Dew  is an Associate Professor in Cultural History at the Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, Coventry University. His research is principally concerned with the history of historical writing. Dorota Kołodziejczyk  is an associate professor at the Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland. She is Chair of Olga Tokarczuk Ex-Centre, director of the Postcolonial Studies Centre, and board member of the Postdependence Studies Centre, an inter-university research network. She has published on postcolonialism, comparative literature and xv

xvi 

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

translation studies. Her recent publications include East Central Europe Between the Colonial and the Postcolonial in the Twentieth Century (coedited with Siegfried Huigen; Palgrave, 2023). Joanna  Kosmalska works in the Department of British Literature and Culture at the University of Łódź, Poland. She has published on Polish writing in Ireland and the UK and the representation of Brexit in Polish migrant writing. Her research interests include migrant literature and culture, multiculturalism, multilingualism, transnationalism and translation. Krzysztof  Marchlewicz works at the History Department, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan. His research interests are mainly focused on the history of Polish-British relations and Polish political emigration in the nineteenth century. Thomas  McLean  is Associate Professor of English at the University of Otago. He is the author of The Other East and Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Imagining Poland and the Russian Empire (Palgrave, 2012) and co-editor with Ruth Knezevich of Jane Porter’s 1803 novel Thaddeus of Warsaw (2019). Joanna  Rostek is Junior Professor of Anglophone Literature, Culture, and Media Studies at the University of Giessen, Germany. She is the author of several articles on Polish migration and, together with Dirk Uffelmann, editor of the collection Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK (2011). Rostek’s latest monograph, titled Women’s Economic Thought in the Romantic Age: Towards a Transdisciplinary Herstory of Economic Thought (2021), won the book award of the German Association for the Study of English. Dirk Uffelmann  is Professor of East and West Slavic Literatures at Justus Liebig University Giessen and coeditor of Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie. He has authored 4 monographs (The Russian Culturosophy, 1999, and The Humiliated Christ—Metaphors and Metonymies in Russian Culture and Literature, 2010, both in German, Vladimir Sorokin’s Discourses, in English, 2020, and Polish Postcolonial Literature, in Polish, 2020). Adam Zamoyski  is a freelance British historian who specialises in Polish and European history. His principal interest lies in breaching the frontiers imposed by national historians and uncovering the connections and interactions between all the peoples of the Continent as well as its colonial outposts.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Maggie Ann Bowers and Ben Dew

On 11 July 1835, the Hampshire Advertiser provided a short report about the funeral of “Joseph Marrejouski” one of 212 Polish refugees who had arrived in Portsmouth 18 months earlier. Marrejouski, it was noted, had been “followed to his grave by all his [Polish] comrades, […] many gentlemen of the town, and the Royal Marine band.”1 A Lieutenant of the Polish army delivered the oration in his native language, while the service was conducted by the Rev. George Amos, chaplain of the cemetery and an unnamed Polish priest. After the ceremony’s conclusion “the Poles moved back to their barracks in military order.”2 The event, the writer of the report concluded, “seemed to make a deep impression on the numerous spectators.”3  Hampshire Advertiser, 11 July 1835.  Hampshire Advertiser, 11 July 1835. 3  Hampshire Advertiser, 11 July 1835. 1 2

M. A. Bowers (*) University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK e-mail: [email protected] B. Dew Coventry University, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_1

1

2 

M. A. BOWERS AND B. DEW

A year later, the Portsmouth press was preoccupied by a very different Polish story. In the summer of 1836, another of the refugees, Joseph Rozański, had been arrested on charges of assault against a local woman, Ann Newberry. The case was made even more serious by the fact that when the Constables went to the “Polish Barracks” to issue the arrest warrant, they were violently resisted by the other Poles, who seized Rozański from them on multiple occasions. This incident prompted heated discussion. One correspondent to the Hampshire Advertiser, “A PLAIN SPOKEN MAN,” noted that it was “a disgrace to this country” that while British workers were unable “to gain a livelihood by the sweat of their brow” “a set of foreigners […] can afford to get drunk nightly, and kick up rows in our street.”4 “Charity”, he observed, with reference to the government financial support the Poles had been receiving, “begins at home—let us first do justice to our brethren, and then if we have any surplus, we may assist our cousins.”5 The Advertiser’s main rival, the Hampshire Telegraph, concurred, arguing that the Polish soldiers were “a disgrace to the neighbourhood and themselves.”6 These two contrasting incidents constitute early examples of what were to become persistent themes in discussions of Britain’s Polish community. On the one hand, there is a vision of Poles as model immigrants. In this sense, they maintain just the right balance between difference and similarity. The funeral, with its Polish language elements and processing soldiers, was distinctive and interesting enough to capture the attention of the local populace. Equally, though, its general form was entirely familiar and, as a consequence, provided an opportunity for both a British military band and a British chaplain to participate. Also, significant here is the emphasis on the orderliness and discipline of the Poles. Indeed, this theme was to be further developed later in the same month when it was observed that, through their “general economy and industry,” Portsmouth’s Polish population “had been enabled to purchase entire new suits of uniform, and [now] present a very respectable appearance.”7 On the other hand, however, there is a conception of Polish immigrants as constituting a fundamental threat to British public life. At times, this threat is conceived of as

 Hampshire Advertiser, 20 August 1836.  Hampshire Advertiser, 20 August 1836. 6  Hampshire Telegraph, 12 October 1836. 7  Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 27 July 1835. 4 5

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

physical; most commonly, as is the case with the example of the Rozański incident, there is an economic element to the commentary. In such cases, however, portrayals veer between an idea of Poles as an indolent and drunken drain on already scant British resources and representations which conceive of their “economy and industry” as the primary danger. Recent work by social scientists working across a range of different disciplines has ensured that there is now an extensive body of work concerned with such ideas and, more generally, the lived experiences of Britain’s Polish population. Anne White, for example, has explored the Polish diaspora from a range of different perspectives, with particular reference to the role of the family in shaping the experiences of migrants and the integration of Poles into British communities.8Alina Rzepnikowska has written powerfully about the racism and xenophobia experienced by Poles in the UK both before and after Brexit, while Magdalena Nowicka has completed important work about Polish experiences of cultural diversity in Britain.9 There is also a wide-ranging collection of essays edited by the geographer Kathy Burrell concerning post-2004 Polish migration to the European Union and some important regional studies. 10 The previous generation of migrants—those arriving after the Second World War but before Poland’s accession to the EU—has received detailed treatment in the work of the anthropologist Keith Sword.11 While this research is of

8  Rita Felski, “Introduction,” New Literary History 43, no. 4 (2012): v. https://doi. org/10.1353/nlh.2012.0043. 9  Alina Rzepnikowska, “Racism and xenophobia experienced by Polish migrants in the UK before and after Brexit vote,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 1 (2019): 61–77. See also Alina Rzepnikowska, “Migrant experiences of conviviality in the context of Brexit: Polish migrant women in Manchester,” Central and Eastern European Migration Review 9, no. 1 (2020): 65–83. 10  Kathy Burrell, ed., Polish Migration to the UK in the “new” European Union: after 2004 (London: Routledge, 2016). Key regional accounts include Kathy Burrell’s discussions of Leicester and Bogusia Temple and Katerzyna Koterba’s discussions of Manchester. Kathy Burrell, “Homeland memories and the Polish Community in Leicester,” in The Poles in Britain, 1940–2000 (London: Routledge, 2004), 87–110; Bogusia Temple and Katarzyna Koterba, “The same but different—Researching language and culture in the lives of Polish people in England,” Forum: Qualititive Social Research 10, no. 1 (2009). http://clok.uclan. ac.uk/3562/, accessed 12 April 2022. 11  Keith Sword, with Norman Davies and Jan Ciechanowski, The Formation of the Polish Community in Britain, 1939–1950 (London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 1989); Keith Sword, Identity in flux: the Polish community in Britain (London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 1996).

4 

M. A. BOWERS AND B. DEW

considerable interest and importance, Rita Felski’s comments regarding scholarship on the European Union might also be applied to work on the Polish diaspora. As she noted in 2012: “Anyone surveying the scholarship on the present and future of Europe cannot help being struck by the sovereignty of the social sciences.” “Where,” she went on to ask “are […] the literary scholars, the philosophers, the cultural critics?”12 This collection of essays answers that question through an exploration of Polish emigration to Britain. The core aim of the work, therefore, is a straightforward one: to explore the various historical, cultural and literary legacies of Polish Britain and their significance for both the British and Polish nations. Our focus is on two principal issues. First, the volume investigates the history of Polish immigration and the ways in which Polish immigrants have conceptualised their own experiences and their encounters with Britain and the British. Second, it is concerned with how Poles and Poland have been represented by Anglophone UK writers in both fictional and non-fictional forms of discourse. Inevitably, these issues are intertwined. Polish experiences of Britain have been shaped, in part, by British ideas about Poland just as British notions of Poland have been transformed by the emergence of large and culturally active Polish communities in the UK. Studying these issues in concert enables the book, as a whole, to develop a wide-ranging and original analysis of Polish Britain. Underpinning the volume is the broad assumption that the Polish experience in Britain is of relevance to a series of wider debates about migration. As is the case with other works that are fundamentally concerned with ideas of diaspora, our discussion conceives of migrancy in terms of “adaptation and construction”—adaptation to changes, dislocations and transformations and the construction of new forms of knowledge and ways of seeing the world.13 Moreover, in dealing with these issues the chapters offer a series of new case studies to support Salman

12  Anne White, Polish Families and Migration since EU Succession (Bristol: Policy Press, 2017); Anne White and Kinga Goodwin, Invisible Poles: A Book of Interview Extracts (London: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2019); Magdalena Nowicka, “Transcultural Encounters of Diversity – towards a Research Agenda: The Case of the Polish Presence in the UK,” MMG Working Paper 10–04. https://www.mmg.mpg.de/58954/ wp-10-04, accessed 15 April 2022. 13  Mark Shackleton, “Introduction,” Diasporic Literature and Theory-Where Now?, ed. Mark Shackleton (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), ix.

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

Rushdie’s contention that diasporic narratives develop “new angles at which to enter reality” and, as such, provide us with new understandings of a range of social, political and intellectual experiences.14

Part One The volume’s first section is primarily concerned with the consequences, both immediate and more long term, of the establishment of Britain’s first large-scale Polish community during the 1830s. Refugees who arrived on British territories in these years were victims of a specific set of historical circumstances. The November Uprising of 1830 and 1831 against the Russian Empire constituted an attempt on the part of the Poles to use military force to re-establish a sovereign Polish state. Its failure led to both the expulsion by Russian and Prussian authorities of those Poles who were deemed undesirable citizens and the emigration of others who had no desire to live under Russian rule. Britain, as Krzysztof Marchlewicz demonstrates in this volume, was rarely the first-choice destination for these individuals. However, a substantial number of Poles—over 1000 between 1832 and 1840—did find their way across the English Channel to settle— sometimes briefly, sometimes more permanently—in Britain. Adam Zamoyski’s chapter establishes the context of this emigration with an account of British ideas about Poland in the years before, during and immediately after the first wave of migration. His discussion highlights the importance of two contrasting concerns. On the one hand, in the wake of the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795), there was considerable sympathy both for the Polish cause and for the various Polish travellers, emissaries and later refugees who found themselves in Britain. This benevolent attitude led to expressions of support for Poland in Parliament and the press and to an outpouring of pro-Polish literary works. On the other hand, however, there existed a series of more negative associations. Indeed, much commentary was underpinned by a conception of Poland as a backwards, far-away state that was of little direct relevance or interest to Britain. On occasions, these contrasting views were pitted against one another in British debates on Polish affairs. Perhaps more significant, however, were the general trends. As Zamoyski 14  Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991 (London: Penguin, 1992), 15. This discussion draws on Maria Rubins, ed., Redefining Russian Literary Diaspora (London: UCL Press, 2021), 6.

6 

M. A. BOWERS AND B. DEW

demonstrates, a predominantly critical view of the Commonwealth in the first part of the eighteenth century was replaced by a series of much more positive commentaries in the face of Poland’s attempts to engage first in political and social reform and later in armed struggle against the partitioning powers. By the 1840s and 1850s, however, enthusiasm had waned as Polish affairs lost their novelty and the Poles increasingly came to be associated with a socially disruptive form of revolutionary activity. The chapters that follow provide analyses of the complex ways these concerns shaped British attitudes to Poland across a variety of intellectual and cultural fields. Milosz Cybowski, for example, focuses on British political culture during the 1830s and 1840s and examines debates at Westminster concerning Polish affairs, particularly those relating to the November Uprising and the government of Kraków. His analysis demonstrates some of the ways in which ideas of Poland as a territory beyond Britain’s direct sphere of influence acted as a restraining influence on policy making. Even in the face of widespread sympathy for the various Polish causes, there remained a fundamental reluctance from both Whig and Tory governments alike to offer direct military, diplomatic and political support. Thomas McLean, meanwhile, examines the representation of Poland in nineteenth-century British literature, with a particular focus on Walter Besant and James Rice’s novel of 1878, By Celia’s Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town. The novel, as McLean demonstrates, shows a broad sympathy both for its Polish narrator, Laddy, the hunchbacked son of a veteran of the November Uprising, and the Polish exile community of Portsmouth in which he resides. However, it is also made clear that the desire of members of that community for an independent Polish state is a fundamentally unrealistic one. And ultimately, the text provides a vindication of Laddy’s decision to turn away from Polish affairs and accept his life in England and his identity as an Englishman. In a sense, therefore, By Celia’s Arbour is rooted in the same ideas as those which underpinned much of the period’s parliamentary debate (as discussed by Cybowski). Both express a broadly supportive attitude towards Britain’s Poles and an acknowledgement of the wrongs experienced by Poland. Both also, however, maintain that there were clearly defined limits to the extent to which Britain could concern itself with these problems. The chapters by Krzysztof Marchlewicz and Ben Dew focus on the activities and perspectives of the émigré Poles themselves. Marchlewicz’s primary concern is with the reasons—cultural, political and

1 INTRODUCTION 

7

economic—that Poles came to Britain in the 1830s and 1840s. In investigating this issue, however, his chapter also provides a broad account of the experiences of Britain’s Polish population as they sought to establish a new life in a foreign land. To an extent here, the emphasis is on the challenges with which these individuals were confronted. There were linguistic and cultural barriers on arrival and a series of economic difficulties which, for many, never entirely dissipated. Equally significant, however, was a series of opportunities. A number of Poles were able to build successful careers in their new places of residence and the presence of the diaspora helped produce some significant cultural works—both translations of British authors and original compositions—which did much to shape Polish ideas about British culture. Dew’s chapter examines, in a sense, the opposite process: the attempts by émigré writers to shape British conceptions of Poland. His focus is on ideas of history, and the discussion concerns the work and reception of three émigré writers and lecturers: Napoleon Feliks Żaba, Leon Szadurski, and L.F.  Gomoszyński who toured Britain and Ireland and explicitly sought to use Poland’s past to garner political and financial support for Polish causes. At one level, the endeavours of these polemicists were unsuccessful; they were never able to get the sort of political and financial backing from Britain they desired and their influence on contemporary historical debates was relatively short-lived. However, the story told is not one of abject failure; indeed, the writers in question did much to develop a positive, marketable vision of Poland as liberal, enlightened and fundamentally European.

Part Two The second part of this collection turns to the stories of exile and migration of Polish people in Britain during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This period spans the World Wars and the geo-political reorganisation of the world that resulted. Poland, during this era, holds a uniquely complex position in relation to notions of imperialism, dependence, annexation, the European Union, migration and even orientalism. In contemporary literature, the story of migration from Poland during the British membership of the European Union is most prominent. Polish people make the largest migrant population in Britain by nationality (approximately 696,000  in 2021 according to the Office for National

8 

M. A. BOWERS AND B. DEW

Statistics),15 mostly thanks to the free movement of people under the European Union. However, as these essays remind us, this is built upon a long-standing relationship and settlement of Poles in Britain. Beyond the facts and figures, Part Two of this collection aims to provide a sense of the present cultural developments, negotiations and interactions. Alongside, there is a need to assess potential critical frameworks in identifying the complexities of Polish-British cultural studies at the cross-roads of postcolonial, post-communist and post-dependency approaches.16 As revealed in this collection, the study of contemporary Polish-British culture is often considered in relation to postcolonial migration studies such as those by Stuart Hall. There are clear similarities of experiences of migrants from all ethnicities in Britain. However, the influence of the history of Poland as a European country hinders an easy association with postcolonial approaches. Marta Cobel-Tokarska has explored this issue in “Problems and contradictions in Polish postcolonial thought in relation to Central and Eastern Europe,”17 identifying that postcolonial approaches are adopted differently by both politically conservative and liberal influenced critics. Of these, the attitudes vary regarding the previous “colonial” power Russia and also differ in the levels of acknowledgement of Poland as a colonising country of its own (e.g. the region of Kresy). Nataša Kovačević notes in Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe that postcolonial and post-communism are treated as separate concepts and the second is rarely mentioned in postcolonial theory, leaving a critical gap.18 The Post-Dependence Studies Centre at the University of Warsaw attempts to find alternative approaches and terminology that allows for the articulation of the particularities of the postcolonial position of Poland as a post-dependent, post-socialist, 15  Office for National Statistics, “Population of the UK by Country of Birth and Nationality: Year Ending June 2021.” https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/ukpopulationbycountryofbirthandnationality/yearendingjune2021. 16  A note on terminology: while “migrant” is used generically, terms such as “economic migrant” brings its own connotations that are already redolent with politicised meanings and are frequently associated with movement from locations of the Global South to the North. For this reason, the authors prefer to use “migrant” and provide specific description of the actions and motivations of their characters’ migration. 17  Marta Cobel-Tokarska, “Problems and contradictions in Polish postcolonial thought in relation to Central and Eastern Europe,” Postcolonial Studies 24:1 (2021): 139–158. 18  Nataša Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019) 158.

1 INTRODUCTION 

9

post-­occupation country that is affected by migration and its peripheral position at the borders of the region of the European Union. Such work is carried out against the background of continuing debate about how to situate the “second world,” post-Eastern bloc in relation to current established internationally recognised frameworks. Where “First World” and “Third World” have been replaced by “Global North” and “Global South,” the second world is all that remains of that system of categorisation. Moreover, this is reflected in the way in which Polish migrants in Britain are regarded as neither postcolonial nor Western European. Despite its shortcomings, postcolonial discourse informs much criticism of contemporary Polish migrant literature, as seen in the following essays. Zarycki is not alone in his recognition of Poland as a semi-­peripheral state of the European Union since the country’s accession in 2004.19Kovačević concurs with this identifying the European Union as “protocolonial.”20 Moreover, Kovačević also notes the “hierarchies of belonging” that exist within the European Union, whereby a country like Poland may be seen to be peripheral to the centre of European power, may yet also see itself as more “European” than countries further East of itself.21 This, Zarycki recognises, leads to a new form of post-communist “orientalism.”22 All of these positions inform the adoption of postcolonial frameworks by pro-European Union liberals and anti-European Union conservatives, whether adopting postmodern or Marxist postcolonial approaches, those embracing international diversity or those seeking nationalist agendas.23 The following essays navigate this critical mine-field with their pioneering work that contextualises Polish/British literature. The first essay provides an examination of the distinct cultural/political focus of the London-based, post-World War Two version of the journal Wiadomos ć i. As Dorota Kołodziejczyk states in her chapter, this was a journal that had previously existed in Paris and London for the expression of Polish culture in exile. After World War Two, Kołodziejczyk postulates, the emphasis upon “exile” rather than “migration” continued although 19  Tomasz Zarycki, Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2014) 17. 20  Nataša Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe, 159. 21  Nataša Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe, 158. 22  Tomasz Zarycki, Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe, 16. 23  Tomasz Zarycki, Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe, 31.

10 

M. A. BOWERS AND B. DEW

the journal did project an anti-colonial ally-ship with the migrants of the Windrush. The ambiguities and complexities in contemporary Polish culture regarding migration, imperialism, dependence, and peripheries/centres, that are developed in Kołodziejczyk’s essay, are explored further regarding contemporary times in the remaining essays of the collection. Martyna Bryla focuses upon the trio of most notable Polish-British authors based in England: A.  M. Bakalar, Agnieszka Dale and Wioletta Greg. Bryla, in her chapter, draws these women writers together to extrapolate an understanding of the difficulty of maintaining altogether positive concepts of home and belonging for late-twentieth- and early twenty-first-­ century migrants in post-Brexit Britain. Her work draws upon the paradigm of identity studies, often associated in criticism with anglophone Postcolonial Studies. Where Bryla’s piece tells us much about migrant Britain, Joanna Kosmalska notes in her chapter the reassessment of the homeland that migrant writing can provide. Considering a variety of works in Polish and English by writers, notably Maria Budacz and A. M. Bakalar, she contextualises the assessment of current Polish life, its historical influences and the push-factors that encourage Polish migration. The revelations indicate that Poland is both peripheral to Europe yet seeing itself as a modern European state; has post-Soviet administration making it difficult to create change; is heavily influenced by its Catholicism and concept of female nationhood. The key figure of “Mother Pole” (“Matka Polka”) is discussed in Bryla, Kosmalska and Rostek’s essays. The writings of Bakalar and Greg, in particular, are recognised as central to a counter-discourse to the influence of this concept on contemporary Polish women’s lives. Like Kosmalska, Dirk Uffelmann adopts a similar framework of postcolonial critical insights from writers such as Stuart Hall in his chapter to explore works of migrant writing that, as he says, moves beyond bi-­cultural British/Polish relations, seeing Polish migrants depicted alongside that of postcolonial migrants in contested and difficult places of manual labour in Britain. Uffelmann exemplifies his work with multiple-ethnic perspectives of Polish migration in the works of writers such as Mike Phillips, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Marina Lewycka, Jan Krasnowolski and Foreignerski (Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns/Vilis Lācı ̄tis). However, he concludes that the depiction of migrant encounters of the post-communist (with its inter-regional tensions) and the varied postcolonial positions provides as many animosities as allegiances.

1 INTRODUCTION 

11

Appropriately, the final essay in this collection is a reassessment of the seminal British-Polish text Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) in relation to John Lanchester’s Capital (2012). This is carried out by Joanna Rostek where, in her chapter, she adopts a critical approach that is contemporary, specific to Eastern European migration and drawing upon postcolonial studies. With this in mind, influenced particularly by the migration theories of Stuart Hall, she questions whether, despite the negative depictions we find in Uffelmann’s chosen texts, there remains a “model migrant” image that predominates in British depictions of Polish migrants. Our hope—and, indeed, our expectation—is that this collection of essays will act as a springboard for further research on the cultural legacy of Polish immigration in Britain. We are aware, however, that the political landscape has shifted considerably over the course of the book’s genesis. Migration from Poland to the UK has slowed dramatically in the wake of the Brexit vote of 2016; while, as observed previously, Poles remain the largest migrant group in the UK, the number of Polish nationals declined by over 300,000 between 2017 and 2021.24 The UK’s departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020 means that any immediate reversal of this trend is highly unlikely. Equally significantly, the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in February 2022 has ensured that, after many years of being a country of emigration, Poland has become one of immigration; 1.5 million Ukrainians settled in Poland in 2022 and Ukrainians now make up over three percent of the Polish population.25 The speed and extent of this transformation has ensured that, as two commentators writing in December 2022 noted, “Poland has changed profoundly in the past 10  months.”26 These developments will, inevitably, create a substantial cultural footprint; we await, with interest, to see how they draw on, extend and challenge the ideas and traditions discussed in this volume.

24  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061639/polish-population-in-unitedkingdom/. 25  Félix Krawatzek and Piotr Goldstein, “Ukraine War: Poland welcomed refugees with open arms at first, but survey shows relations are becoming more strained,” The Conversation (7 December 2022). https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-poland-welcomedrefugees-with-open-arms-at-first-but-sur vey-shows-­r elations-­a re-becoming-morestrained-196080. 26  Krawatzek and Goldstein, “Ukraine War.”

12 

M. A. BOWERS AND B. DEW

Bibliography Newspapers Hampshire Advertiser Salisbury and Winchester Journal

Published Works Burrell, Kathy, ed. Polish Migration to the UK in the ‘New’ European Union: After 2004. London: Routledge, 2016. Burrell, Kathy. “Homeland Memories and the Polish Community in Leicester.” In The Poles in Britain, 1940–2000, edited by Peter D. Stachura, 87–110. London: Routledge, 2004. Cobel-Tokarska, Marta. “Problems and Contradictions in Polish Postcolonial Thought in Relation to Central and Eastern Europe.” Postcolonial Studies 24, no. 1 (2021): 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2020.1753319. Felski, Rita. “Introduction.” New Literary History 43, no. 4 (2012): v–xv. https:// doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2012.0043. Kovačević, Nataša. Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Krawatzek, Félix and Piotr Goldstein. “Ukraine War: Poland Welcomed Refugees with Open Arms at First, But Survey Shows Relations Are Becoming More Strained.” The Conversation (7 December 2022). https://theconversation. com/ukraine-­war-­poland-­welcomed-­r efugees-­with-­open-­arms-­at-­first-­but-­ survey-­shows-­relations-­are-­becoming-­more-­strained-­196080 (accessed January 15, 2023). Office for National Statistics. “Population of the UK by Country of Birth and Nationality: Year Ending June 2021.” https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/ukpopulationbycountryofbirthandnationality/yearendingjune2021 (accessed August 16, 2022). Rubins, Maria, ed. Redefining Russian Literary Diaspora. London: UCL Press, 2021. Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991. London: Penguin, 1992. Rzepnikowska, Alina. “Migrant Experiences of Conviviality in the Context of Brexit: Polish Migrant Women in Manchester.” Central and Eastern European Migration Review 9, no. 1 (2020): 65–83.

1 INTRODUCTION 

13

Rzepnikowska, Alina. “Racism and Xenophobia Experienced by Polish Migrants in the UK Before and After Brexit Vote.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 1 (2019): 61–77. Shackleton, Mark. “Introduction.” Diasporic Literature and Theory-Where Now? edited by Mark Shackleton, ix–xiv. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. Sword, Keith. Identity in Flux: The Polish Community in Britain. London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 1996. Sword, Keith, with Norman Davies and Jan Ciechanowski. The Formation of the Polish Community in Britain, 1939–1950. London: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, 1989. Temple, Bogusia and Katarzyna Koterba. “The Same But Different—Researching Language and Culture in the Lives of Polish People in England.” Forum: Qualitative Social Research 10, no. 1 (2009). http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/3562/ (accessed April 12, 2022). White, Anne and Kinga Goodwin. Invisible Poles: A Book of Interview Extracts. London: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2019. White, Anne. Polish Families and Migration since EU Succession. Bristol: Policy Press, 2017. Zarycki, Tomasz. Ideologies of Eastness in Central and Eastern Europe. London and New  York: Routledge, 2014. [Ebook] https://play.google.com/books/ reader?id=gAAkAwAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PT22.w.1.0.150_287.

PART I

Before 1918

CHAPTER 2

From the Moon to Kennington Common: British Perceptions of the Poland and the Poles 1750–1850 Adam Zamoyski

On 17 June 1793 heated exchanges took place in the House of Commons as the opposition raged about the recent partition of Poland, denouncing Russia and Prussia as “plunderers,” “robbers” and “murderers.” The conduct of the king of Prussia was branded as “the most flagrant instance of profligate perfidy that had ever disgraced the annals of mankind,” and the government was accused of being an accomplice in “spreading the gloom of tyranny over the Continent.” Speakers on the government benches deplored what had taken place but pointed out that nothing could be done about it, while Britain must look to its own interests, which were being threatened by revolutionary France, and that Poland was of too little consequence to this country to warrant intervention. Edmund Burke,

A. Zamoyski (*) London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_2

17

18 

A. ZAMOYSKI

a supporter of Poland and an admirer of her king, Stanisław Augustus, conceded that, where England was concerned, “Poland might be, in fact, considered as a country in the moon.”1 The vast expanse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a terra incognita to most Britons in the first decades of the eighteenth century, a source of raw materials, foodstuffs and livestock, but little else. There were no diplomatic contacts, as Poland was viewed as a natural ally of France and of no significance to Britain. Few Britons ventured there and those who did were perplexed by the dysfunctional political system, the expressions of religious “fanaticism,” the glaring contrast between what they saw as “oriental” and “barbaric” displays of opulence by the wealthy nobles on the one hand and the grinding poverty of their abject subjects on the other. They also noted the absence of industry and commerce, the appalling state of the roads and the lack of decent inns.2 In his Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, Adam Smith would cite Poland as the ultimate example of backwardness, describing it as the most “beggarly country” in Europe.3 While the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth could well be described as having become a failed state by the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a significant number of intelligent Poles determined to revive it, by correcting its constitution and developing it economically. This was noted by two British diplomats on missions in Central Europe, Lord Stormont and Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, both of them interested in extending their country’s influence in the region. Traditionally, educated Poles had been drawn to seek enlightenment in France, but by the middle of the eighteenth century it was Britain that attracted them, because it was, like Poland, a constitutional monarchy with a strong parliamentary tradition, because it appeared to be well ordered and because its economy was developing in a spectacular way. It provided a model for progress in every field that interested the Polish 1  The Speeches of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke in the House of Commons and in Westminster Hall, Volume IV (London, 1816), 148. 2  See Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); also: W.F.  Reddaway, “Great Britain and Poland 1762–72,” The Cambridge Historical Journal Vol. IV, No. 3 (1934): 223–262; cf. Nathaniel Wraxall, Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw and Vienna in the years 1777, 1778 and 1779, vol. II, p. 3. 3  Adam Smith, An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1776), Book I, Chapter XI, 300.

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

19

reformers. England, as Poland’s reforming, and last, king would put it, “is after all the happiest nation, or at least (in proportion to relative numbers) the nation in which there is least misery and the least oppression.”4 In 1754 the 22-year-old Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski had visited London at the culmination of a European tour that had taken in Vienna, Dresden, The Hague and Paris. This was no British-style Grand Tour. The object was political education, prompted by Hanbury-Williams. Three years later, Poniatowski’s cousin Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski arrived in London, armed with recommendations from Stormont. Both young men spoke English and made a favourable impression on the influential personages they met. Poniatowski was given the seal of approval by Lord Chesterfield, which guaranteed him access to a wide social circle, and was guided through the political scene by Charles Yorke, a future Lord Chancellor who had just begun his political career in Parliament. Czartoryski was taken in hand by Lord Mansfield, the most eminent jurist and legal reformer of the century, who directed his studies of the British constitution and English literature. Both of them attended sittings of the houses of parliament, by-elections and other political meetings, the prince also taking in sermons in Anglican churches as well as the theatre and concerts.5 These young men were the vanguard of an influential reformist movement headed by the Czartoryski family, which hoped to involve Britain in Polish affairs as a counterbalance to Prussia and Saxony as part of their plan to regenerate the Polish polity. Over the next couple of decades more Poles passed through London, sometimes touring other parts of the country, particularly the manufacturing towns. Some, like Michał Jerzy Wandalin Mniszech, who reached London in 1766, and Antoni Tyzenhaus, who followed in 1778, studied not only the political system. They visited factories and observed agricultural practices, they noted infrastructure such as roads, paving, gutters, water-supply, inns, hotels and other amenities, they took in social manners and mores, visiting country houses, attending horse-races and various entertainments, and while experiencing amenities of life in England they did not leave out crime and punishment, debauchery and its effects, visiting charitable institutions, the Foundling Hospital and Bedlam.6  Adam Zamoyski, The Last King of Poland (London: Cape, 1992), 332–333.  Zofia Libiszowska, Z ̇ycie polskie w Londynie w XVIII wieku (Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy “Pax”, 1972), 45–46. 6  Libiszowska, Z ̇ycie polskie w Londynie, 12, 47. 4 5

20 

A. ZAMOYSKI

Most of them made favourable comparisons with France, which they had visited previously, and their return to Poland had a notable impact there. Poniatowski, who was elected King in 1764 taking the name of Stanisław II Augustus, modelled his style of monarchy on what he had seen in England and brought into being practices gleaned from there. Mniszech would clean up and make efforts to pave Warsaw. Tyzenhaus would set up an industrial complex combining a number of factories. These visitors, as well as the more socially inclined ones, such as Princess Izabela Czartoryska, who moved widely in British society, helped create an awareness, and in most cases a favourable view, of Poland among those they met on their travels. In 1769, King Stanisław Augustus’ envoy Tadeusz Burzyński arrived in London, joined a year later by Franciszek Bukaty, who opened a permanent embassy in 1771 and would acquire the rank of Minister in 1780. This diplomatic link was supplemented by John Lind, an Englishman who had gone to Poland in the employ of Czartoryski and taught at the Warsaw Cadet School before returning to England in 1771. He would remain in close contact with the Polish king and act as his propagandist over the next two and a half decades. This was opportune. The Confederation of Bar, proclaimed on 29 February 1768 to oppose the king’s policies and stand up in defence of the Catholic faith, had given rise to unfavourable comment in the British press.7 Curiously enough, this rebellion, which was hailed by Rousseau and others, struck a chord with some Whigs, who detected in it an element of righteous opposition in the tradition of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and was seen as an act of healthy protest at royal oppression.8 But mostly it elicited sympathy for the king, whose attempts at reform were viewed in a positive light. Nevertheless, events taking place in Poland still seemed irrelevant to most people in England. This changed radically with the political dénouement of what had become a confusing partisan war between the rebels and Russian troops nominally supporting the king. This occurred in 1772 and took the form of a tripartite agreement between Russia, Prussia and Austria to help themselves to large chunks of Polish territory. The act shocked public  Libiszowska, Z ̇ycie polskie w Londynie, 55.  Richard Butterwick, Poland’s Last King and English Culture. Stanisław August Poniatowski 1732–1798 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 17–19; Benedict Wagner-Rundell, “Liberty, Virtue and the Chosen People: British and Polish Republicanism in the Early Eighteenth Century,” in Britain and Poland-Lithuania. Contact and Comparison from the Middle Ages to 1795, ed. Richard Unger (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 201–2. 7 8

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

21

opinion. “I began to lift up my prayers for Poland,” wrote John Lind’s friend Jeremy Bentham,9 while Horace Walpole described the three monarchs involved as “the most impudent association of robbers that ever existed” and another commentator as “pickpockets” and “cannibals.”10 More diplomatically, Britain’s Secretary of State Lord Suffolk termed the partition “a curious transaction.” Although his diplomats, Stormont in Vienna, Thomas Wroughton in Warsaw and James Harris in Berlin, urged action in concert with France, arguing that British interests were at stake (with the possibility of Prussia seizing Gdańsk) he did not act.11 Burke was profoundly disturbed, particularly by Russia’s aggression, seeing in it a first step in an enterprise that would eventually threaten Britain itself. “Poland was but a breakfast; and there are not many Polands to be found – Where will they dine?” he wondered in January 1774.12 He believed that the act had opened the road into Europe for Russia and was dismayed that none of the Continental Powers had reacted with determination. “To purchase present quiet at the price of future security is a cowardice of the most degrading nature,” he concluded.13 Two decades later he would reflect that if England had backed France in opposing the partition, it might have been prevented. But, as he admitted to himself, there had been no will and “a languor with regard to so remote an interest.”14 The interest was growing less remote. In 1773, John Lind published Letters Concerning the Present State of Poland, the first authoritative and well-presented account of that country. In 1784, the Cambridge historian William Coxe published his Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark, which provided the British public with insights into not only the state of the country but also into Polish society and the person of her king, who was presented in a very favourable light.

 Zamoyski, Last King, 199.  Norman Davies, “The Languor of so Remote an Interest. British Attitudes to Poland 1772–1832,” Oxford Slavonic Papers, New Series, XVI (1983): 80; see also David Bayne Horn, British Public Opinion and the First Partition of Poland (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1945). 11  Zamoyski, Last King, 199. 12  Edmund Burke, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, volume 2, ed. Lucy Sutherland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960–1978), 514. 13  Davis, “The Langour,” 80. 14  Paul Langford, ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, volume 8 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 351. 9

10

22 

A. ZAMOYSKI

Meanwhile, the movement for reform in Poland had gathered pace and in the course of the 1780s a younger generation of progressive “Patriots” openly challenged the king’s policy of piecemeal reform acceptable to the suspicious Catherine II of Russia, who had effectively turned Poland into her colony. There was much public debate carried on in a flurry of pamphlets and Polish society was in a state of ebullition as the new session of the parliament, the Sejm, opened on 6 October 1788. Perfidiously encouraged by the Prussian minister in Warsaw, the Patriots made speeches insulting to Russia and her ruler and voted a radical increase in the army. The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser of 22 August 1789 called this madness, pointing out, quite rightly, that neither the size of the population nor the economic potential of the country could support such armaments, and criticised the recklessness of the Poles.15 But on the whole public opinion in England approved of the events taking place in Warsaw, which were being represented in a favourable light by Bukaty at the instigation of the king, who had embraced the new spirit and hoped to be able to dominate it. Bukaty had established close contact with the principal newspapers: the independent The Times and the Courrier de Londres; the pro-government Public Advertiser; the opposition Morning Chronicle; and the St James’ Chronicle and London Gazette, which reflected the views of the court. He passed on news from Poland, suggested what should be featured and how it should be presented and distributed presents from the king and to those who took a sympathetic line, such as the editor of the Morning Chronicle James Perry, the medal Merentibus. By the spring of 1791 hardly a day passed without The Times carrying some news from Poland. It used its own sources, information passed on by Bukaty and retailed copy from the well-informed Gazette de Leyde, which circulated all over Europe. The Polish embassy, which had moved from its first rooms in Carburton Street to Poland Street and then Manchester Square, was a meeting point for the growing number of Poles visiting England. The 1780s saw re-visits by the Czartoryskis and tours by Seweryn Potocki, Jerzy Tyszkiewicz and his wife, née Poniatowska, a niece of the king, and the writer and later statesman Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz amongst others. In 1790, the king’s brother and primate of Poland Michał Poniatowski visited London, as did once again Izabela Czartoryska. The presence of such visitors did much to 15  Zofia Libiszowska, “Polska reforma w opinii angielskiej,” in Sejm Czteroletni i jego tradycje, ed. Jerzy Kowecki (Warsaw: Państ. Wydaw. Naukowe, 1991), 63.

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

23

spread awareness of and interest in Polish affairs, and these were now beginning to influence British policy. In the summer of 1788 Russia’s aggression against the Porte as well as Sweden had prompted Britain, Prussia and the United Provinces to form the Triple Alliance, aimed at restraining her. The prospect of hostilities with Russia necessitated alternative sources of supply of grain and above all the raw materials essential to the Royal Navy, namely, timber, hemp, and tar. In the past, these had been obtained mainly from Poland, but since the first partition, Prussia had imposed such draconian tariffs on goods floated down the Vistula to  Gdańsk that British merchants had begun buying these from Russia. Britain could only therefore defy Russia if the flow of Polish goods could be eased. Although she did sign a treaty of alliance with Poland in March 1790, Prussia was willing to do so only if Poland ceded Gdańsk and Toruń to her, which the Sejm would not agree to. Michał Kleofas Ogiński was sent to London to try and persuade Prime Minister William Pitt to commit to a trade treaty and an alliance with Poland which would put pressure on Prussia. He arrived in December 1790. He met with a warm reception from Charles James Fox and Edmund Burke, but, though inclined to support Poland, Pitt remained cautious. He was unsure of Prussia’s real intentions, and anti-war sentiment was gaining ground at home. Meetings were held in Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham, walls were daubed with “No War with Russia” slogans in London and letters poured in to Members of Parliament and the press.16 Pitt could not afford to commit and pulled back in April 1791 with the result that the Triple Alliance fell apart. But by then Poland had caught the attention of the educated British public. News of the act passed by the Polish Sejm on 18 April enfranchising the commercial classes met with enthusiastic approval in the British press, with The Times describing it as a “revolution,” a “new constitution” opening a fine new era in Poland’s history.17 This dawned on 3 May, when the Sejm passed a “Government Act” which was in effect a new constitution. The Times and the Courrier de Londres were the first to carry news of this “Polish Revolution” on 20 May with a good deal of excitement. There was no lack of superlatives in praise of the king and the Polish nation.  Zamoyski, Last King, 335.  Samuel Fiszman, “European and American Opinions of the Constitution of 3 May,” in Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland,” ed. Samuel Fiszman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 474–475; Libiszowska, Polska Reforma, 66. 16 17

24 

A. ZAMOYSKI

According to the May issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine, King Stanisław Augustus had brought in “a new Constitution founded on that of England as improved in America.” It was, according to The Times of 31 May, an “excellent Constitution, dictated by equity, enlightened by understanding, and founded on the imprescriptible rights of man,” on the 15 June the paper printed its full text, along with a lengthy account of the dramatic events that accompanied its passage through the Sejm. It assured its readers that the constitution would be gradually developed and improved upon and would result in the transformation of the Polish nation into one of the happiest in the world.18 The full text of the act was also reproduced in The Gentleman’s Magazine and The Scots Magazine, in both cases accompanied by colourful descriptions of the events of 3 May in Warsaw, and published by Debrett’s, attesting to extraordinarily wide-ranging public interest. The first ecstatic outbursts of enthusiasm were now followed by more considered yet universally favourable opinions,19 the most famous being Edmund Burke’s in his An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. He began by painting a picture of Poland as a state in which nothing worked, which had declined so far that it seemed impossible to bring about any kind of improvement without the employment of drastic means—things were so bad that the use of force and even bloodshed would have been justified. Yet the necessary reforms had been enacted in an entirely unexpected, wise and morally satisfactory manner. “In contemplating that change, humanity has everything to rejoice and to glory in,” he continued. “So far as it has gone, it probably is the more pure and defecated [sic] publick good which ever has been conferred on mankind.” He listed its positive elements, stressing that it had all been achieved without loss to anyone and without a drop of blood being spilt. This “great good,” he concluded, should be viewed as the first step to a state of stability and excellence epitomised by the English constitution.20 The author of an anonymous pamphlet published in London in July 1791 entitled The Political Crisis: or, a Dissertation on the Rights of Man saw the event as part of a universal process. Like Switzerland, Holland, France and America before her, Poland had been guided by wisdom and  Fiszman, “European and American Opinions,” 475.  The Gentleman’s Magazine, June 1791, 569–72; The Scotsman’s Magazine, June 1791. 20  Edmund Burke, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, etc., in The Works of Edmund Burke (London, 1828) VI: 243–4. 18 19

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

25

the principle of the rights of man and had achieved political salvation, thereby taking its place among those leading nations of the world, while the manner in which she had done this, without bloodshed, was unique in the annals of mankind. The new constitution was “a stupendous fabric of human skill and perseverance” which had turned Poland into a miraculous example for other nations, which would surely soon follow her lead. Despots were already trembling everywhere, he exulted, while another commentator, Charles Pigott, declared that “evil is on the wane.”21 When reading these paeans of praise it has to be borne in mind that societies react to events in other countries in relation to their own predicaments and aspirations. British society was sharply divided in the 1790s over a number of issues, and the events that had taken place in Warsaw appeared as grist to the mill of both sides. The year in which the Sejm had convened in Warsaw was the centenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and in the run-up to this, a movement for parliamentary reform had been gathering strength in Britain. William Pitt himself had hoped to bring the constitution up to date and get rid of the rotten boroughs. He was robustly opposed by the great landowners who controlled these and by other conservative elements, and it proved impossible to carry through the necessary reforms. This did not deter those vowed to the cause, and the fall of the Bastille in July 1789 had given them heart. The destruction of the ancien régime inspired many to dream of bringing in an increasingly radical programme of constitutional reform. Clubs and societies dedicated to the cause sprang up all over the country and people visited Paris in droves to breathe the air of freedom. The anniversary, in July 1790, was the occasion of banquets and meetings at which the French tricolour featured prominently as a symbol of renewal. In this context, the Polish revolution of 3 May 1791 suggested to British reformists that the whole of Europe might gradually emerge from the age of darkness into a new constitutional dawn. What was more, the Polish example evidenced something else, of major importance to those in favour of reform in Britain. Beginning with the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, events unfolding in Paris and throughout France had been accompanied by 21  “The Political Crisis: or, a Dissertation on the Rights of Man [July 1791],” in Political Writings of the 1790s, ed. Gregory Claeys, 8 vols (London: William Pickering, c.1995), III: 148–9; Charles Pigott, Strictures on the Political Tenets of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke (London, 1791), ibid., II: 129.

26 

A. ZAMOYSKI

violence and bloodshed. While they approved of the gist of what was happening in France, most British reformers were shocked and repelled by this. It also helped entrench opposition to any kind of reform in Britain, which, its opponents could claim, would inevitably lead to the same horrors—and possibly to the destruction of the Crown and the Anglican Church. Thus every act of violence in France weakened the hand of would­be reformers. The events of 3 May in Warsaw were therefore a godsend to them: they proved that reform could come about without violence, it could be ushered in by the king himself and could lead to the strengthening of both the throne and the established church. The peaceful nature of the Polish revolution had been endlessly stressed in the press, which frequently likened it to that of 1688. At the same time, the opportunity to criticise the French was too tempting to be missed. In a letter to Mary Berry on 8 June, Horace Walpole wrote that “Poland should make the French blush.”22 To Lady Ossory, he wrote some weeks later that: “Our own revolution and that in Poland, show that a country may be saved and a very bad government corrected, by wise and good men, without turning the rights of men into general injustice and ruin.”23 In September, writing about the new constitution in France, he affirmed that the Poles should be admired and emulated to the same extent as the French should be despised.24 “The Polish Revolution and ours were noble, wise and moderate  – wise because moderate,” he wrote, returning to the theme sometime later.25 According to the Annual Register every class in Poland, beginning with the king, who had renounced the succession to the throne in favour of the Elector of Saxony, had been prepared to make concessions in the national interest and that, curiously enough, everything had been achieved without a single human casualty.26 Yet opponents of reform seized on the events of 3 May 1791 to put the opposite case, arguing that the Poles had wisely safeguarded themselves against the kind of horrors taking place in France (and those contemplated by the British reformists) by divesting themselves of the right to elect their

22  Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, Correspondence, ed. W.S. Lewis, 48 vols (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937–83), XI: 286. 23  Walpole, Correspondence, vol. XXXIV: 120. 24  Walpole, Correspondence, vol. XXXIX: 487. 25  Walpole, Correspondence, vol. XXXIV: 159. 26  The Annual Register for 1791, Chapter VI, 112, 118, 126.

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

27

kings and strengthened royal authority by making the throne hereditary and by entrenching the church of state.27 The second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille proved more divisive, with the reformers toasting the American, French and Polish revolutions, while “Church and King” mobs burnt down the houses of prominent reformists along with those of Methodists, who were suspected of subversion. Just over two months earlier, on 3 May 1792 a group of citizens of the city of London had held a lavish banquet to celebrate the anniversary. Bukaty judged it politic to decline the invitation to attend, as such gatherings were seen in many quarters as subversive. The banquet resounded to toasts to the King of Poland and the Polish nation alongside cheers for Thomas Paine and revolutionary songs. British opinion grew progressively polarised, with many who had felt some enthusiasm for the French gradually coming round to Burke’s view that the whole process had been evil from the beginning, leaving those most dedicated to the cause of reform to follow with approval the increasingly radical and violent developments in France. But while there were some amongst the latter who questioned the adequacy of the Polish revolution, in general people of both camps expressed remarkably strong sympathy and support for the Poles. The press continued reporting the work of the Sejm, commenting on further improvements being made through additions to the original act concerning the administration, the economy, and matters such as the status of the peasants and the Jews. The anniversary was commemorated in The Times with a lengthy article comparing the French and Polish revolutions, damning the former and praising the latter.28 The news that on 19 May a group of Polish malcontents had established a Confederation at Targowica and Russian troops had invaded Poland was met in London with consternation. The press unanimously condemned the Russian aggression, expressing disgust at the behaviour of the Empress Catherine and wishing the Polish armed forces well.29 British society echoed these feelings. “No Cause in the world can, as a Cause, be 27  Claeys, Political Writings, vol. V: 37, 45, 208–9, 371; vol. VI: 59; A Vindication of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in Claeys, Political Writings, vol. VII: 113. 28  See Claeys, Political Writings, vol. VII: 207; Libiszowska, Polska Reforma, 71; Fiszman, “European and American Opinions,” 480–1. 29  Libiszowska, Polska Reforma, 71; Zofia Libiszowska, Misja polska w Londynie w latach 1769–1795 (Łódź: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1966), 115.

28 

A. ZAMOYSKI

more clear in my Eyes, or can have more of my warm wishes than that of the Poles,” wrote Edmund Burke to his son on 29 July.30 General Jan Komarzewski, who was touring Britain, reported from Edinburgh that “Having travelled through almost all the provinces of England, Scotland, Wales and the island of Anglesea, I hear only one voice from this noble people: good wishes for our King and our nation.”31 From London, Franciszek Bukaty informed the king that “The good English nation worshipped and worships with one voice our constitution and the heroism of our army, and has grown so enthusiastic that they have opened a public subscription to assist us. Lots of officers have been calling on me offering to place themselves at our service.”32 A group of merchants, bankers, industrialists, writers and others, headed by the MP William Smith, had on 26 July opened a subscription to help fund the Polish military effort. At a “Meeting of the Friends of Poland” on 2 August a fund was opened by the Lord Mayor, who paid in 100 guineas. Among the other donors on that occasion were William Wilberforce, Richard Brinsley Sheridan  and Josiah Wedgwood, each of whom also gave a hundred guineas. Banks opened accounts into which people could pay humbler donations, and similar funds were established in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow and Edinburgh.33 The French minister in London reported on 27 July that public opinion across all classes was so strongly behind the Poles that there would be no opposition were Britain to go to war against Russia.34 But it was too late. Stanisław Augustus had acceded to the Confederation of Targowica and the hostilities ceased. British public opinion could only express powerless indignation. The funds raised to help the Polish war effort were returned to the donors. Burke had not been one of them. Despite the sympathy he felt for the Poles and their cause, he did no more than appeal that Polish émigrés be offered hospitality. In his view, the most important challenge facing European civilisation was to crush the French revolution, in which he saw a political heresy intent on overthrowing every throne and altar and on  Burke, Correspondence, vol. VII: 158.  Zofia Libiszowska, Z ̇ycie polskie w Londynie w XVIII wieku (Warsaw: Instyt. wydawniczy PAX, 1972), 153–154. 32  Libiszowska, Misja, 116. 33  Libiszowska, Z ̇ycie, 156; Reforma, 71; Misja, 117. 34  Libiszowska, Reforma, 72. 30 31

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

29

destroying  European civilisation. Poland was a side issue to him and a potentially dangerous distraction. The leader of the opposition, Charles James Fox, lamented that Britain was joining the league of anti-­ revolutionary despots who were about to dismember Poland. He called for Britain to stand up to them in defence of Poland. Burke lamented the fact that instead of concentrating in the mutual effort of destroying the French revolutionary hydra, Russia and Prussia were wasting their efforts on suppressing a state which threatened no one. But in Fox’s and the Whigs’ agitation he saw an attempt to drag Britain into a Franco-Polish alliance against the despots, which would only serve to spread the disgusting doctrines of the French Jacobins.35 At the beginning of 1793 Britain went to war with France and the lost cause of Poland was superseded in the attention of the public by the necessity of winning the war. In January 1794 the Polish embassy in London was wound up. The king nominated as his, largely nominal, consul Noel Joseph Desenfans, a native of France who had crossed the Channel to teach French but devoted his attention to dealing in and collecting art. In 1790 King Stanisław Augustus’ brother, the Primate Michał Poniatowski had commissioned him to buy pictures for the projected public national gallery in Warsaw. The 380 paintings, never paid for as a result of the liquidation of the Polish state, would end up in 1814 in the newly opened Dulwich Picture Gallery. The national insurrection proclaimed by Tadeusz Kościuszko in Kraków on 24 March 1794 brought Poland to the attention of the British public once more. Although its revolutionary character did alarm many conservatives, the spectacle of a nation fighting to preserve its rights and laws could not fail to engage sympathy, and its suppression by Russia and Prussia was greeted with sorrow by many. When in 1798 Kościuszko himself arrived in London having been freed by Tsar Paul I, he was greeted as a hero and immortalised in an iconic pose by Richard Cosway. The Whig Club ostentatiously presented him with a sword of honour. It was a gesture of respect for him and the Polish patriots, but also one aimed against the increasingly repressive ministry of William Pitt, which was infringing the constitution in the name of fighting Jacobinism. The Polish revolution of 3 May had made such a profound impression on the British public that even when many Poles came to fight in the ranks 35  Burke, Correspondence, vol. VII: 158,159–60; Langford, Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, VIII: 40–1, 422–3, 429, 431.

30 

A. ZAMOYSKI

of Revolutionary and then Napoleonic France, British public opinion did not associate them with the enemy. In liberal circles at least they continued to be viewed as honourable fighters for freedom. The figure of Prince Józef Poniatowski, whose death at the battle of Leipzig in 1813 was instantly enveloped in heroic legend, became a symbol of Polish gallantry. The fact that it was caused by the incompetence of a French subaltern added, as far as British opinion was concerned, an epic element to Poland’s national tragedy: he and his countrymen had been betrayed by the faithless French. Sympathy for the Polish cause resurfaced in the run-up to the Congress of Vienna, whose potential to reorganise the international order was widely discussed. At the instigation of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the Polish statesman and adviser to Tsar Alexander I, the Whig M.P. Henry Brougham set out the case for the re-establishment of Kingdom of Poland in an anonymously published pamphlet, An Appeal to the Allies and the English Nation on Behalf of Poland, and he then reviewed it in the Edinburgh Review in January 1814, driving its points home forcefully. Czartoryski himself made influential contacts in London when he accompanied the Tsar there in that summer and engaged the sympathy of a number of people, including the Duke of Sussex, Lords Lansdowne, Grey, Grenville and Holland, Wilberforce and Romilly. The question of what should be done about Poland was raised in the House of Commons, and Czartoryski discussed with Jeremy Bentham the constitution for a putative restored kingdom of Poland.36 None of this had much effect on the outcome, since Castlereagh saw the restoration of a Polish state as an obstacle to harmony between the Great Powers, whose close cooperation he saw as the basis of Britain’s security. And however sympathetic, British opinion was not inclined to see the restoration of a greater Poland if it were to be dominated by Russia, which was the sine qua non as far as Tsar Alexander was concerned. Sympathy and a positive view of Poland and the Poles had lived on in many quarters, fed by multifarious human contacts. These had been interrupted by the war with France, but resumed during the Peace of Amiens (March 1802 to May 1803). Large numbers of Britons crossed the Channel, and although most were interested principally in Paris or in making a long-delayed Grand Tour, some did go to Poland. Poles also took 36  Marian Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity 1770–1861 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), 112ff., 117.

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

31

the opportunity to visit Britain, mostly in the spirit of enquiry or education of one sort or another. In some cases, they not only visited prominent politicians, institutions and factories, but recruited brewers, engineers and other craftsmen whom they took back to develop their estates. Such contacts multiplied after the fall of Napoleon, with tourists of one sort or another reinforced by young men coming to study at British universities (Edinburgh was a favourite) and others to study institutions such as Parliament, the law courts, the Bank of England and so on. At the same time, London’s Morning Chronicle carried a piece on 14 April 1815 reporting the proceedings of the Royal Society in Warsaw and its work on Samuel Bogumił Linde’s new dictionary. An interesting insight is provided by Krystyn Lach-Szyrma, who, following studies at the University of Wilno, travelled widely, spending three years from 1820 to 1823 reading philosophy at Edinburgh. The detailed account he made of his travels around the British Isles is revealing about the state of knowledge of Britain in Poland as well as giving a sense of how people in Britain reacted to a Polish tourist. While he visits everything from institutions of learning and bookshops to jails, factories and gas-­ works, commenting on the press, the art scene, agricultural practices, social events, balls, manners, food and just about everything else, it is clear that he is already familiar with much of what he sees and hears. And the ease with which he gains access, makes contacts and elicits information suggests that Polish travellers such as him met with remarkable cordiality.37 This is perhaps not surprising given that the sympathy generated by the actions of the Poles in bringing in their admired constitution and their continuing struggle for independent nationhood was lent a romantic aura by a steady trickle of literary confections. The first such work was Susannah Minifie’s novel The Count de Poland (1780), which was followed in 1803 by the best-selling Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter; Thomas Pike Lathy’s The Invisible Enemy or The Mines of Wielitska, a Polish legendary romance (1806); Henry Count de Kolinski. A Polish Tale (1810) by Rosalina Murray (A.J. Toynbee); Sarah Richardson’s, The Exile of Poland, or, the Vow of Celibacy (1819) and others in similar vein. Poems glorifying Kościuszko, by John Keats and Leigh Hunt, which appeared in 1817 and 1818, respectively, and Walter Savage Landor’s on Kościuszko and 37  Krystyn Lach-Szyrma, Anglia i Szkocja. Przypomnienia z podróży roku 1820–1824 odbytej (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981).

32 

A. ZAMOYSKI

Poniatowski (1824) kept alive the heroic and pathetic image of a people whom the British had come to regard with respect. This respect fitted well with the growing movement for reform in Britain in the late 1820s. In 1830 the July Revolution in France was greeted with much enthusiasm in liberal circles, and the insurrection that broke out in Warsaw on the night of 29 November could hardly fail to elicit widespread sympathy among all but the most conservative. This took various forms, according to sensibility, class and political outlook. Poets such as Tennyson and Thomas Campbell reacted with verse, liberal aristocrats and MPs voiced their support in Parliament and even the King expressed his sympathy at the opening of Parliament, while the 11-year-old future Chartist leader Ernest Jones ran away from home to join the Poles fighting for freedom. While the aristocracy and middle classes were affected by the dramatic and emotional elements of the events, radicals made a connection between the partitions of Poland and the rise in power of despotic states such as Russia, Prussia and Austria, and therefore between the Polish cause and that of liberty and reform elsewhere, including in Britain. “If the Russians are driven over the Niemen, we shall have the Ballot,” argued an article in the Westminster Review of January 1831, “if they cross the Dnieper, we shall be rid of the Corn Laws; and if the Poles can get Smolensko we too in our taxes shall get back to the ground of 1686. […] We have both fallen among thieves; and we cannot do better than carry on the contest in concert.”38 The Polish cause also had its enemies. The manufacturing interests found the Russophobia it evoked inconvenient for business. Richard Cobden voiced the opinion that the Polish ruling classes had been despotic and corrupt and that the people of Poland were in fact fortunate to have passed under Russian rule.39 When the insurrection was crushed in the autumn of 1831, thousands of Polish soldiers and patriots sought asylum in France and some 500 in Britain. They were greeted as heroes, and Parliament voted £10,000 to provide them with pensions commensurate with their rank, which helped those who wished to settle permanently. The most prominent leader of the “Great Emigration” as it became known was the insurrection’s one-time president, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski,  The Westminster Review, vol. 14, January–April 1831, 250.  The Political Writings of Richard Cobden (London: T.F. Unwin, 1903), vol. I, chapter II, Poland, Prussia, and England. 38 39

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

33

who had been condemned to death in absentia by Tsar Nicholas I. He came to London first, where he established an agency with the aim of keeping the Polish cause alive, and then moved to Paris, from where he would direct a network of émigrés dedicated to keeping the Polish cause in the public eye in various countries over the next three decades. In Britain, support for the cause was ably marshalled by the radical Whig MP Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart and the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, founded in February 1832 by Thomas Campbell, which operated out of offices in Duke Street St James. Its membership of around 300 included some of the most influential figures of the day. One of its most stalwart supporters was Charles Dickens, who attended many of its meetings, commemorations and dinners. At some cost, it must be added. The speeches made by some of the leading Polish exiles were so long and incoherent that, as he admitted in a letter to Count d’Orsay, they almost drove him to sympathise with the Tsar of Russia. Hardly any less irritating were the reactions of his English colleagues. He complained bitterly of a speech made by Stuart at a dinner held on 8 May 1846, “talking about celebrated Polish Women, and saying ‘but when I mention the hallowed name of Titchibowski – or of Lobski – or of Pastocrontik – or of Sploshock – or of Screweyzlunskifi, that wife and mother’  – and everybody professing to roar with enthusiasm at every name, as if they knew all about it!”40 The Literary Association spread awareness of what the Polish nation was being subjected to and arguments for supporting the resurrection of an independent Polish state through public lectures, pamphlets and the press. This propaganda was reinforced by the dissemination of facts likely to shock fair-minded British opinion. On 26 February 1833 the Morning Post printed the names of all the Poles whose estates had been confiscated on account of their participation in the Insurrection. In order to raise funds, the Literary Association held a ball for 3000 guests at the Guildhall on 26 November 1834, attended by the Lord Mayor and the Duchess of Devonshire. The following year, a similar ball was held at Vauxhall, under the patronage of the Duchess of Kent, with Melbourne and Palmerston in attendance. Another was organised by the Society of English Ladies for the Relief of the Polish Refugees, founded in 1835 by the Marchioness of Lansdowne. The Polish balls henceforth became annual events. They not only provided funds for indigent Poles 40  Anne Lohrli, “Dickens and the Friends of Poland,” Dickens Studies Newsletter vol. 14, No. 3 (September, 1983), 101–104.

34 

A. ZAMOYSKI

and for the activities of the Literary Association, they also kept the cause fashionable and talked-about. The high point of this kind of activity and its test came in the summer of 1844, when Tsar Nicholas I came to London on an official visit. This clashed with the pre-arranged annual ball, and the Queen’s Household approached the organisers with the suggestion that they cancel their ball or at least postpone it until the Tsar had left. Acting in their capacity as members of the ball committee, Lady Palmerston and the Duchesses of Roxburgh and Somerset refused, with the result that the Tsar had to curtail his visit and leave the country early in order to avoid insult. Recognition of Poland as a nation of interest to Britain had been aroused by the progressive yet pragmatic (and very English) behaviour of her king and political class during the last three decades of the previous century. It was also backed up by practical considerations: the Poles appeared to share certain values dear to the British and might therefore become potential partners, in trade as well as international politics. None of this was relevant by now. And sentiment without a positive motive soon descends into sentimentality. Moreover, the sentimentality with which the Polish cause had been imbued began to turn against it. The British press, particularly the Times, was beginning to take a more jaded view as natural compassion fatigue was reinforced by other considerations. With famine taking hold in Ireland, the Literary Association’s and the English Ladies’ fund-raising on behalf of Polish exiles was made to appear misplaced. And the Poles had become so associated with the various revolutionary movements all over Europe since 1815, they were coming to be seen as troublemakers. This view was strongly reinforced as revolution began to engulf European states one by one in the course of 1848, with Poles prominent on every barricade erected against tyranny. When a revolution in Berlin released from jail all the Polish revolutionaries who had been imprisoned for their part in a previous insurrection, they marched off to the Duchy of Posen, the former province of Poland annexed by Prussia in the partitions. The Prussian government promised to grant extensive autonomy to the province, but then began stepping back, provoking a full-scale uprising by the Poles of the province, accompanied by score-­ settling between the Poles and the mainly German and Jewish loyalists. The Prussian army moved in force, and the Berlin government justified its repressions by feeding lurid accounts of Polish “atrocities” to the British press, which retailed them in its pages.

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

35

On 27 May, two days before the forthcoming annual English Ladies’ Polish ball was due to take place at Almack’s, the Times upbraided Lady Palmerston and the other English ladies, for proposing to dance while the hapless German and Jewish minorities in Prussian Poland were being subjected to “unprintable” horrors. “Heroism and misfortune, the quality and the circumstance which peculiarly excite sympathy in a woman’s mind,” it opined, “are in this country too much associated with the name of Poland.”41 On the morning of the ball, the Times printed a letter from “A Friend of Poland,” which argued that there was no need to raise any money for indigent Poles, that they could all go home now and that “as long as public money is voted for Polish refugees, and charity balls given for the same purpose, there will be no want of recipients, and we are actually offering a premium to these persons to induce them to settle permanently amongst us, and to add a very unnecessary Sarmatian element to our crowded population.”42 The event went ahead nevertheless and was “fully and fashionably attended” according to the Morning Chronicle. The Morning Post reported it as “the annual error,” lamenting the support given by the aristocracy to “a restless and turbulent people, whose machinations at this moment threaten to embroil, as their cruelties already disgrace, the rest of Europe.”43 “The truth is, that the sympathy felt for Poland here in the past has disappeared,” Lord Dudley Stuart wrote to Czartoryski on 12 September.44 Fittingly perhaps, the swansong of Polish popularity in Britain was accompanied by Fryderyk Chopin, who had come to London in April 1848 to seek refuge from the upheavals taking place in Paris. He gave concerts and recitals, played before Queen Victoria and some of the grandest in the land. He also agreed to perform at the “Annual Grand Dress and Fancy Ball and Concert” organised by the Literary Association scheduled to take place at London’s Guildhall on 16 November. “Chopin played like an angel,” Princess Marcelina Czartoryska wrote to her uncle the following day, “much too well for the inhabitants of the  The Times, 27 May 1848.  The Times, 25 May 1848. 43  The Morning Post, 30 May 1848. 44  Krzysztof Marchlewicz, “Continuities and Innovations: Polish Emigration after 1849,” in Exiles from European Revolutions in mid-Victorian England, ed. Sabine Freitag (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 109. 41 42

36 

A. ZAMOYSKI

City, whose artistic education is a little problematic.”45 They could hardly wait for the dancing to begin. Although it went on into the early hours, and many declared the ball a success, it brought in only £400, less than half of the previous year’s takings. The Morning Post nevertheless lamented the fact that charity was being wasted on idle Polish refugees at a time when so many poor and unemployed Englishmen wanted bread.46 The Times, which had denounced the ball as “the annual foolery,” took much the same line.47 There would be no ball in 1849, and the last ever held, in 1850, would make even less money. While the majority of the first wave of émigrés following the insurrection November 1830 had been officers, mostly nobles, some of them, such as Stanisław Worcell, were radical republicans and even socialists. That was also true of those from the lower ranks and the later arrivals. Some of these had taken part in revolutionary actions in various parts of Europe in the course of the 1830s. They believed the insurrection of 1830 had failed because it had not been politically radical enough. They rejected Czartoryski as a reactionary and made common cause with British counterparts such as the Chartists and the Fraternal Democrats, and many joined the Working Men’s Association. Some were active in subversive activities; Poles were prominent in the revolutionary march on Newport in 1839, and a significant proportion hoped to take part in a revolution in Britain. They were to be disappointed. The Chartists, whilst still supportive of the Poles, had become isolationist in the 1840s and concerned themselves less and less with what was happening in Poland. The Fraternal Democrats continued to hold annual meetings to commemorate the Polish Insurrection, and that of 1847 was addressed by Karl Marx, but if his message was strongly pro-Polish, it was concerned more with the plight of the toiling masses than the Polish cause as represented by Czartoryski and the Literary Association. And the toiling masses of Britain were not in revolutionary mood. They planned a 150,000-strong demonstration which would deliver a charter signed by (supposedly) six million to Parliament. In the event, the marchers were not allowed anywhere near Westminster. While the Charter was delivered in a couple of hansom cabs, the disappointingly meagre mass 45  Marcelina Czartoryska to Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, 17: xi 1848, Biblioteka Czartoryskich, Kraków, rkps. Ew. XVII/841, 541–544. 46  The Morning Post, 17 November 1848. 47  The Times, 16 November 1848.

2  FROM THE MOON TO KENNINGTON COMMON: BRITISH PERCEPTIONS… 

37

meeting dissolved in the dripping rain, across the river on Kennington Common, and the hopes of its Polish supporters with it. Lady Burghersh, wife of the British ambassador in Berlin informed Queen Victoria that the revolution there had been “got up by paid emissaries, chiefly from France and Poland, assisted by the Jews of this country.” Queen Victoria apparently concurred, convinced as she was the nice Germans “must have been worked up by the French and Poles to have become so bad.”48

Bibliography Periodicals Annual Register Gentleman’s Magazine Morning Post Scotsman’s Magazine Times Westminster Review

Published Sources Burke, Edmund. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume 2, edited by Lucy Sutherland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960–1978. Burke, Edmund. An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, etc. In The Works of Edmund Burke, London, 1828. Burke, Edmund. The Speeches of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke in the House of Commons and in Westminster Hall, Volume IV. London, 1816. Butterwick, Richard. Poland’s Last King and English Culture. Stanisław August Poniatowski 1732–1798. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. Claeys, Gregory, ed. Political Writings of the 1790s, 8 Vols. London: William Pickering, 1995. Cobden, Richard. The Political Writings of Richard Cobden. London: T.F. Unwin, 1903. Davies, Norman. “The Languor of So Remote an Interest. British Attitudes to Poland 1772–1832.” Oxford Slavonic Papers, New Series, XVI (1983): 79–90.

 Adam Zamoyski, Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789–1848 (London: William Collins, 2014), 490. 48

38 

A. ZAMOYSKI

Fiszman, Samuel. “European and American Opinions of the Constitution of 3 May.” In Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland, edited by Samuel Fiszman, 453–495. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997. Horn, David Bayne. British Public Opinion and the First Partition of Poland. London: Oliver & Boyd, 1945. Kukiel, Marian. Czartoryski and European Unity 1770–1861. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955. Lach-Szyrma, Krystyn. Anglia i Szkocja. Przypomnienia z podróży roku 1820–1824 odbytej. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981. Langford, Paul, ed. The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Volume 8. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Libiszowska, Zofia. “Polska reforma w opinii angielskiej.” In Sejm Czteroletni i jego tradycje, edited by Jerzy Kowecki, 63–74. Warsaw: Państ. Wydaw. Naukowe, 1991. Libiszowska, Zofia. Z ̇ycie polskie w Londynie w XVIII wieku. Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy “Pax”, 1972. Libiszowska, Zofia, Misja polska w Londynie w latach 1769–1795. Łódź: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1966. Lohrli, Anne. “Dickens and the Friends of Poland.” Dickens Studies Newsletter 14, no. 3 (September 1983): 101–104. Pigott, Charles. Strictures on the Political Tenets of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke. London, 1791. Reddaway, William Fiddian. “Great Britain and Poland 1762–72.” The Cambridge Historical Journal IV, no. 3 (1934): 223–262. Smith, Adam. An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, 1776. Wagner-Rundell, Benedict. “Liberty, Virtue and the Chosen People: British and Polish Republicanism in the Early Eighteenth Century.” In Britain and Poland-­ Lithuania. Contact and Comparison from the Middle Ages to 1795, edited by Richard Unger. 197–214. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008. Walpole, Horace, Earl of Orford. Correspondence, edited by W.S. Lewis, 48 Vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937–1983. Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Wraxall, Nathaniel. Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw and Vienna in the Years 1777, 1778 and 1779. London, n.d. Zamoyski, Adam. Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789–1848. London: William Collins, 2014. Zamoyski, Adam. The Last King of Poland. London: Cape, 1992.

CHAPTER 3

Brave and Patriotic Poles: British Politics and Polish Independence, 1830–1847 Milosz K. Cybowski

Introduction The Polish Revolution of 1830, later known as the November Uprising, broke out on the night of 29 November 1830 in Warsaw.1 The Kingdom of Poland at that time was not an independent country, but a semi-­independent part of the Russian Empire created 15 years earlier at

1  For details regarding the November Uprising available in English see, for example, R. F. Leslie, Polish Politics and the Revolution of November 1830 (London: Athlone, Press, 1956); for details of the outbreak of the Uprising see, for example, J. Dunn, “‘The November Evening’: The Warsaw Uprising of November 1830,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 16.3 (2003), 126–35 and Milosz Cybowski, “Poland’s Forgotten Novembrists: Youth and a Failed Uprising, 1830,” Age of Revolutions: [https://ageofrevolutions.com/2016/11/14/ polands-forgotten-novembrists-youth-and-a-failed-uprising-1830, accessed on 17 December 2021].

M. K. Cybowski (*) Wierzyce, Poland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_3

39

40 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

the Congress of Vienna.2 A long list of grievances led the small group of Polish students and young officers to rebel against Russia’s oppressive system of government. The revolution, which quickly forced all Russian troops to abandon Warsaw and the territories of the Kingdom, soon turned into a full-fledged Russo-Polish war that lasted until October 1831.3 During those long months of Polish struggle for independence, the rest of Europe—politicians and public opinion alike—watched with interest the unfolding events. Neither the French, nor the British intervened in any other way than diplomatically (and even these interventions, uncoordinated and mild in tone, were only half-hearted). At the same time, Tsar Nicholas I and his diplomats kept arguing that Polish matters were an internal affair for the Russian Empire and that he would not tolerate any foreign involvement in this issue.4 Eventually, the Poles were defeated, Warsaw reconquered and order restored. However, the end of the November Uprising did not mean the end of the question of Polish independence in European politics. Thousands of Poles involved in the anti-Russian struggle chose exile rather than capitulation, and found asylum in France, Belgium, Britain and other countries. The movement, known in Polish historiography as the Great Emigration,5 included a large number of politicians and intellectuals, who continued to fight for Polish independence even in exile. It was thanks to their activities—most notably the activities of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the 2  For more details about Polish history in the nineteenth century see, for example, S. Kieniewicz and H. Wereszycki, “Poland Under Foreign Rule, 1795–1918,” in History of Poland, ed. S. Kieniewicz (Warszawa: PWN, Polish Scientific Publishers, 1979), 335–540. For more popular approach see also Patrice Dabrowski, Poland: The First Thousand Years (DeKalb: NIU Press, 2016) or Adam Zamoyski, Poland: A History (London: William Collins, 2009). 3  See Leslie, Polish Politics and the Revolution of November 1830; Br. Pawlowski, “The November Insurrection,” in The Cambridge History of Poland, eds. W.F.  Reddaway, J.H. Penson et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941), II: 295–310. 4  Lord Heytesbury to Viscount Palmerston, 21 January 1831. The National Archives (hereafter NA) Foreign Office Papers (hereafter FO) 417/2, 1. 5  The term was coined by Adam Lewak in his essay “Czasy Wielkiej Emigracji”: Adam Lewak, “Czasy Wielkiej Emigracji,” in Polska, jej dzieje i kultura od czasów najdawniejszych aż do chwili obecnej (Warszawa, 1930), III: 193–233. See also A.P. Coleman, “The Great Emigration,” in The Cambridge History of Poland, II: 311–323.

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

41

former President of the Polish National Government during the Uprising— that the question of Poland became one of the issues openly discussed in the British House of Commons in the 1830s and 1840s.6

“A Most Sanguinary Contest”: 1830–1831 The first unconfirmed news about the outbreak of the Polish Revolution began to arrive in London in December 1830 and The Times became the most enthusiastic supporter of the Polish cause. On 11 December the newspaper commented that “the occurrence of such an event, which is by no means improbable… would set the west of Europe for some time at rest from any fears of an anti-revolutionary crusade.”7 A few days later the editors announced that “whatever may be the result of the movement which has taken place in Poland, it must at least have this important effect, - to arrest the forces of Russia within her own frontiers.”8 It was not without importance that the November Uprising broke out shortly after what Clarke has called the “Whig revolution” in Britain.9 On 15 November 1830, the Tory government of the Duke of Wellington fell in a minor debate in the House of Commons.10 It was soon replaced by the Whigs under the leadership of Earl Grey. It was up to the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, to steer British diplomacy through the troubled waters of contemporary European politics.11 Palmerston, though certainly enthusiastic about the July Revolution in France and sympathetic towards the cause of Poland, was far more concerned with keeping the balance of power and peace in Europe, and his priorities did not differ too much from those of Wellington and Aberdeen.12 6  For more details about all pro-Polish debates in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, see Krzysztof Marchlewicz, “Propolski lobbing w Izbach Gmin i Lordów w latach trzydziestych i czterdziestych XIX wieku,” Przegla ̨d Historyczny, 145.1 (2005), 61–76. 7  The Times, 11 December 1830. 8  The Times, 14 December 1830. 9  John Clarke, British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy 1782–1865: The National Interest (London: Unwin Hyman 1989), 184. 10  See House of Commons Debates, 15 and 16 November 1830. Hansard, Vol. 1, cc. 525–549 and 561–564. 11  M.E.  Chamberlain, Pax Britannica? British Foreign Policy, 1789–1914 (London: Longman, 1989), 69. 12  David Brown, Palmerston: A Biography (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 147.

42 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

At the same time when The Times considered the revolution taking place in Poland as an event of European significance, the correspondence between Palmerston and British envoy to Russia, Lord Heytesbury, presented a completely different picture. For both politicians the matter of the Polish Revolution, regardless of their personal sympathies, remained an internal issue of the Russian Empire. The question of Belgian independence was of much more significance from the point of view of the European balance of power than the fate of Poland.13 As Heytesbury reported to Palmerston, “any proposal to mediate, whether from France, or from any other Power, would be received, I am convinced, with high indignation, and lead to no beneficial result.”14 It did not stop the Foreign Secretary from expressing his opinion that the stipulations of the Congress of Vienna were to be maintained in the Kingdom of Poland even after the Polish-­ Russian war.15 The Treaty of Vienna became the core argument of the Polish envoys sent by the National Government to London. Even if Palmerston regularly refused to accept the Polish envoys’ credentials (as he said to the first of them, he could meet him as a travelling Pole, but not as the representatives of the Polish Government16), he seemed ready to listen to their explanations. It did not mean, however, that he was willing to shape British foreign policy according to Polish expectations. In fact, Palmerston did not believe in the success of the Polish revolution, predicting that the Russian victory was only a matter of time.17 Even though that point of view began to change in September 1831,18 the defeat of the Uprising put an end to any chances for British diplomatic intervention in the cause of Poland. Unexpectedly, the defeat opened a completely new chapter in the history of the  British political approach to Poland. In November 1831, 13  For more details about the Belgian Revolution, see J.  S. Fishman, Diplomacy and Revolution  : The London Conference of 1830 and the Belgian Revolt (Amsterdam: CHEV, 1988). 14  Heytesbury to Palmerston, 21 January 1831. Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Poland, 1831–32. NA FO 417–2, 1. 15  Palmerston to Heytesbury, 22 March 1831. Correspondence. NA FO/417/2, 2. 16  Wielopolski to Czartoryski, 11 January 1831. Biblioteka Ksia ̨ża ̨t Czartoryskich (hereafter BKCz) 5310. 17  Palmerston to Heytesbury, 22 March 1831. Broadlands Archive (hereafter BA) PP/ GC/HE/147. Palmerston to Heytesbury, 22 March 1831. Correspondence. NA FO/417/2, 1. See also Kenneth Bourne, Palmerston: the Early Years, 1784–1841 (London: Allen Lane, 1982), 352–353. 18  Palmerston to Heytesbury, 21 September 1831. BA PP/GC/HE/152.

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

43

Palmerston, together with the rest of the Government, believed that Nicholas I “would use his victory… with the moderation and mercy congenial with the high-minded and generous sentiments which are well known to animate the mind of His Imperial Majesty.”19 The general fear was that the Tsar would use his success to change the status of the Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Empire—something that the Foreign Secretary perceived as a dangerous violation of the Treaty of Vienna of 1815.20 Similar voices were expressed in The Times.21 These early reactions to the cause of Polish independence remained almost unchanged for the following two decades. Polish exiles would continue to spread the knowledge about the situation in the Kingdom of Poland in Britain and demand the maintenance of the Treaty of Vienna. The British liberal press would continue to support the cause of Poland. At the same time, representatives of the British Government would continue to perceive the cause of Poland through the prism of the Treaty of Vienna, but refuse to make the question of Polish independence a significant element of their foreign policy. As will be illustrated below, the reluctant position of the Government did not mean that the question of Poland could not enter politics through other means namely, Parliamentary debates.

“Engraving the Name of Poland on the Walls of European Parliaments”: 1832–1834 The Polish exiles were central to the maintenance of the question of Polish independence in Britain for two main reasons. Firstly, people like Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski actively sought ways to promote the issue among the British upper classes. Czartoryski and his followers met with British politicians, corresponded for many years with ministers and provided information to the newspapers. Their actions were largely successful in informing every class of British society about the rights of Poland to independence. Secondly, the influx of Polish refugees to Britain after 1834 became an issue in itself, but eventually turned out to create a way in which both the British public and the Government could express their  Palmerston to Heytesbury, 23 November 1831. Correspondence. NA FO/417/2, 8–9.  Palmerston to Heytesbury, 23 November 1831. BA PP/GC/HE/153. 21  The Times, 7, 12 November 1831. 19 20

44 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

interest in the fate of Poland—by providing the refugees with financial support.22 For the decades to come the Polish exiles would remain a living reminder of the unresolved question of Polish independence. The key player in these post-Uprising years was the aforementioned Adam Czartoryski. He arrived in London in December 1831 and focused his early activities on discussing the Polish Question with leading British politicians. Even before the New Year he met with the Palmerston and the Prime Minister Grey, presenting them with his own interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna and the rights of the Kingdom of Poland, which should be defended by all signatories of the treaty. However, these early discussions had a mixed outcome. On the one hand, both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary seemed “to understand the validity of [his] arguments.”23 On the other hand, however, they argued that the points of the Treaty referring to Poland were rather unclear and Czartoryski’s interpretations were only one way of seeing things. As Czartoryski himself admitted in one of his earliest letters from London, he was not sure what Poles could demand from the British Government after the failure of the Uprising.24 The only success of these early months was the universal agreement on the part of British politicians not to accept Russian explanations of the Treaty of Vienna and the introduction of the Organic Statute (issued in February 1832 and replacing the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland). In consequence, the cause of Poland was left “suspended [w zawieszeniu],”25 waiting for a more favourable international situation that would lead to its resolution. The limited success of the discussions with the members of the Government, but also their acceptance of Czartoryski’s interpretations of the Treaty of Vienna, encouraged the Prince to seek a politician who could 22  For a detailed analysis of Polish emigration to Britain see particularly: Krzysztof Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach Brytyjskich 1830–1863 (Poznań: Instytut Historii, 2008). See also Milosz Cybowski, “First and last refuge: France and Britain as centres of the Polish Great Emigration,” in John Bull and the Continent, eds. W. Jasiakiewicz & J. Lipski (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2015), pp. 59–74; Milosz Cybowski, “A less eligible country for a Pole: Britain and the Polish refugees in the early Victorian period,” in International Migrations in the Victorian Era, ed. M. Ruiz (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 331–355. 23  Czartoryski to the Polish Legation, 29 December 1831. BKCz 5274. 24  Czartoryski to the Polish Legation, 25 December 1831. W. Plater (ed.), “Korrespondencye księcia Adama Czartoryskiego”, Album Muzeum Narodowego w Rapperswyll. Na setna ̨ rocznicę 1772 r. (Poznań, 1872), 139–142. 25  Czartoryski to the Polish Legation, 16 January 1832. BKCz 5274.

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

45

introduce the subject of Polish independence to the House of Commons. Although it would not be the first time when this issue would be discussed in the Parliament after the outbreak of the November Uprising,26 this time the debate was carefully prepared. Preceded by a long article published in April 1832 in the Edinburgh Review, the pro-Polish motion was presented in the House of Commons by Robert Cutlar Fergusson on 18 April 1832. The debate itself took place on the last day of the session, before the House adjourned for Easter. Moreover, as the last discussion of the day, it did not attract too much attention from MPs. Even Palmerston himself was absent and it was Lord Althorp who represented the Government. Although the debate itself seemed like a very inauspicious beginning of the issue at hand, support for the question of Poland was universal and every MP who decided to speak in this debate shared “the profound sympathy which the sufferings of the unhappy Poles must excite in the breast of every man of common humanity.”27 The common element of both Rich’s article and Fergusson’s motion was their reliance on the 1815 settlement and, in consequence, their presentation of only one Polish Question: that of the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Empire. This was the only way in which Czartoryski wanted to frame the Polish Question.28 As one of the Polish envoys to London observed, “the only thing we can do is to prepare minds, [to obtain] sympathy of foreign Governments.”29 The April debate and Rich’s article were only the first steps in that process. The following years saw a number of different parliamentary debates on the subject of Poland (two in 1832 and three in 1833), but most of them were less organised and less influential than the events of April 1832.30 In his speech in the House of Commons in June that year, Fergusson did not 26  The previous debates on the subject of Poland took place on 8 and 16 August, 7 September and 13 October 1831. See Hasard, vol. 5, cc. 930–933; vol. 6, cc. 101–110, 1216–1218; vol. 8 cc. 696–697. 27  House of Commons Debate, 18 April 1832. Hansard, Vol. 12, cc. 636–664. 28  S. Kalembka, “Koncepcje dróg do niepodległości i kształtu Polski wyzwolonej w myśli politycznej Wielkiej Emigracji,” in Rozprawy z dziejów XIX i XX Wieku przygotowane dla uczczenia pamięci Profesora Witolda Łukasiewicza, ed. S.  Kalembka (Toruń: Universytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu, 1978), 41. 29  Niemcewicz, Dziennik pobytu zagranica od dnia 21 lipca 1831 roku do 20 maja 1841 roku (Poznań, 1876), I: 279. 30  See, for example, Marchlewicz, “Propolski lobbing,” 61–76; Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, Działalnos ́ć Księcia Adama Jerzego Czartoryskiego w Wielkiej Brytanii (1831–1832) (Warszawa: Wydawn. Naukowe Semper, 1999), 45–99.

46 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

fail to refer to political issues discussed two months before. However, the main focus of the discussion was Russian atrocities and violations of the Constitution taking place in the Kingdom of Poland in the aftermath of the November Uprising. “Children had been carried away by thousands … under the colour or pretence of an Imperial Ukase, which declared, that all infants who had neither father nor mother, belonged to the state” Fergusson lamented, presenting several other examples of Russian cruelty. In this context the motion itself, which requested the Government to present copies of the Organic Statute of 26 February 1832,31 seemed almost an excuse for the whole debate. Fergusson’s motion was seconded by Viscount Sandon and supported by various Whigs (Lord Morperh, Lord Ebrington), Tories (Sir Robert Inglis, George Pigott) and radicals (O’Connell, Hume, Evans). Even Lord Palmerston himself appeared supportive and he did not refuse to produce the papers Fergusson asked for. He also reassured the House that “Great Britain possessed a full right to express a decided opinion upon the performance or the non-performance of the stipulations contained in [the Treaty of Vienna].”32 As Palmerston admitted in one of his early despatches to Lord Durham, who replaced Heytesbury at St Petersburg in 1832, the subject of Poland remained a significant issue in British-Russian relations and the previous opinions of the British Government (that had been communicated to Heytesbury) “remain[ed] unaltered.” This, however, did not change the fact that Durham was to declare “His Majesty’s desire to maintain, and, if possible, to draw closer the bonds of alliance which connect two Powers whose union must have so salutary an effect in preserving the peace of the world.”33 Sympathy for Poland and rejection of any changes that had taken place in the Kingdom after the November Uprising were not enough to change British foreign policy. Avoiding any major European conflict and maintaining the balance of power both in the West and in the East continued to determine the decisions of the British Government. The final large discussion on the subject of Poland that was held on 9 July 1833 was the most ambitious. The motion was introduced by Fergusson and it requested that “a humble address be presented to his 31  The Organic Statute introduced in the Kingdom of Poland replaced the Polish Constitution granted by Alexander I.  Jerzy Skowronek, Od konspiracji do kapitulacji (Warszawa: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1989), 1–4. 32  House of Commons Debate, 28 June 1832. Hansard, Vol. 13, cc. 1115–1152. 33  Palmerston to Durham, 3 July 1832. NA FO 417/2, 18–19.

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

47

Majesty, praying that he will be graciously pleased not to recognize, or in any way give the sanction of his Government, to the present political state and condition of Poland, the same having been brought about in violation of the Treaty of Vienna to which Great Britain was a party.” Fergusson argued that Britain not only had the political right to remain interested in the subject of Poland, but it should also feel the moral obligation to condemn Russian atrocities. As it was pointed out several times during the discussion, “the cause of Poland was the cause of liberty and humanity” and the debate only confirmed the universal pro-Polish feelings of the British MPs and the Government. There were, however, serious disagreements as to what extent the Motion and pressing for a division would be beneficial to the Poles. Palmerston argued that “no vote of that House would have the slightest effect in reversing the decision of Russia” and, at the same time, “no circumstances could arise under which the English Government could give their sanction or acquiescence to the arrangements which the emperor had made in Poland.” Lord John Russell suggested that it would be better not to press to a division “and causing it to make less impression on the government of Russia than it otherwise would.” The problem of the motion, as Lord Althorp and Sir Robert Peel pointed out in their speeches, was that it did not offer any precise resolution and the Government could not “consent to become parties to such a vote and not follow it up by some strong measure.” Despite these voices of criticism, Fergusson did not withdraw his motion and, with less than half of members of the House present, it was defeated by 177 to 95.34 There can be little doubt that all early debates were—at least to some extent—a result  of pro-Polish propaganda in Britain.35 For the Polish exiles extending that “moral influence” was the main element of pro-­ Polish activities in Britain and Europe.36 By “engraving the name of Poland on the walls of European parliaments,”37Czartoryski aimed at making the Polish Question a recognised element of European politics, even if he was fully aware that the contemporary international situation did not promise any immediate changes to the European balance of power.38 By appealing not only to political considerations, but also to moral and humane  House of Commons Debate, 9 July 1833. Hansard, Vol. 19, cc. 394–463.  Żurawski vel Grajewski, Działalnosć́ Księcia Adama Jerzego Czartoryskiego, 97–99. 36  W. Zamoyski, Jenerał Zamoyski, 1803–1868 (Poznań, 1914), III: 53. 37  Zamoyski, Jenerał Zamoyski, 26. 38  Zamoyski, Jenerał Zamoyski, 41. 34 35

48 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

sentiments, Czartoryski was able to universalise the Polish Question without associating it with any particular political party.39 Yet despite the optimism of the Polish exiles, there could be very little doubt as to the actual involvement of the British Government in the cause of the Kingdom of Poland. As will be illustrated below, these early debates established a certain pattern of pro-Polish discussions in the House of Commons which would remain mostly unchanged for the following 15 years.

“Kraków Should Be Re-established”: 1834–1847 The year 1834 brought one significant change to the way in which the Polish Question was understood. The unexpected arrival of several hundred Polish exiles in Britain and their reluctance to leave the country became a minor humanitarian issue. After months of private donations and fundraising activities led by the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, the Government finally agreed to provide the Polish refugees with temporary financial support.40 Their presence offered numerous British friends of Poland a way in which they could express pro-Polish sympathies—by gathering and distributing money for those “brave and patriotic Poles.”41 The Polish exiles were to remain a visible and long-lasting reminder of the unresolved subject of Polish independence, which reappeared in 1836 under slightly different circumstances than in the early 1830s. Occupation of Kraków and Its Aftermath: 1836–1840 The Free State of Kraków, similarly to the Kingdom of Poland, was created at the Conference of Vienna of 1815. It was “to be for ever a free, independent, and strictly neutral city, under the protection of Austria, Russia and Prussia.” More significantly, however, “the courts of Russia, Austria and Prussia engage to respect, and to cause to be always respected, the neutrality of the free town of Kraków and its territory. No armed force shall be introduced upon any pretence whatever.”42 These stipulations of  Zamoyski, Jenerał Zamoyski, 146.  Cybowski, “A less eligible country for a Pole,” 336–339. 41  House of Commons debate, 25 March 1834. Hansard, vol. 22, cc. 651–663. 42  Final Act of the Congress of Vienna. The General Treaty of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Final_Act_of_the_Congress_of_Vienna/General_ Treaty, accessed 17 December 2021]. 39 40

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

49

the Treaty of Vienna were broken in early 1836, soon after the assassination of a Russian spy by the Polish revolutionaries. In February 1836 troops under the command of Major-General von Kaufmann occupied Kraków with the aim of “complete expulsion of the revolutionary refugees, the emissaries of the Propaganda, and those seditious men who since the Polish Revolution have assembled at Kraków and upon its Territory.”43 The subject of Kraków was very quickly brought to the House of Commons and the first discussion took place on 18 March 1836, just over two  weeks after the first confirmed news of the occupation reached London.44 The Question of Kraków was introduced by Sir Stratford Canning and supported by the usual group of friends of Poland (including Lord Dudley Stuart, O’Connell and Inglis). The debate created an opportunity for the Government to express its deep sympathy towards this “important matter,” although the lack of any official communications in regard to the occupation of Kraków prevented Palmerston from going into too much detail. Prime Minister Lord John Russell warned against any “resolution strongly expressive of their indignation” and after the universal expression of sympathy presented by the Government, the Whigs and the Tories, the subject was dropped.45 Because the occupation of Kraków was a direct violation of the Treaty of Vienna, Palmerston acted more decisively than during and after the November Uprising. On 15 April 1836 he sent a note to British representatives in Vienna, Berlin and St Petersburg, protesting against the action of all three powers. Aside from the occupation itself, the Foreign Secretary seemed particularly annoyed with the fact that “up to the present time, no formal explanation has been given to the British Government by the Three occupying Powers, as to the causes which have led to the proceeding, nor as to the grounds upon which it was conceived to be justifiable.”46 Moreover, Palmerston also considered sending a British representative to Kraków. In his dispatch to Lord William Russell in Berlin he argued that 43  “The Plenipotentiaries of the 3 Courts to the Senate,” 16 February 1836. State Papers: 1835–6(London, 1837), pp. 1356–1357. See also Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ostatnie polskie miasto. Rzeczpospolita Krakowska w “dyplomacji” Hotelu Lambert wobec Wielkiej Brytanii (1831–1845) (Kraków-Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2018), 109–117. 44  The Times, 1 March 1836. Standard, 3 March 1836. Morning Post, 4 March 1836. 45  House of Commons Debate, 18 March 1836. Hansard, Vol. 32, cc. 403–426. 46  Copy of a Dispatch from Viscount Palmerston to His Majesty’s Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and to His Majesty’s Ministers at Berlin and Vienna. BA PP/BD/RU/4.

50 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

Britain had the right to defend the stipulations of the Treaty of Vienna and was “entitled to expect from the good faith and honour of Prussia, that she also will scrupulously observe the engagements which she then contracted.”47 Regardless of the Foreign Secretary’s language and determination to counter the actions of the Holy Alliance in Kraków, the unwillingness of France to cooperate with Britain in the matter prevented the Government from undertaking any action in Kraków. Not for the first time the greater political and international considerations proved decisive in determining British reactions to the subject of Poland. It appeared that without the Government’s willingness to act independently in defence of Kraków the subject would once again be forgotten, becoming yet another temporary opportunity to express some pro-Polish sympathies by various members of the House of Commons and the Government itself. Prince Adam Czartoryski’s involvement in providing British politicians and press with information about Kraków in 1836 was much more limited than in the early 1830s. At the time he was already living in Paris and relied on Lord Dudley Stuart to promote the cause of Poland in Britain. It remains unclear if any of the notes prepared by Czartoryski were delivered to anyone in London.48 The subject of sending a British envoy to Kraków attracted more of his attention, but it failed to bring any success.49 Interestingly, the matter of Kraków reappeared in 1840, this time thanks to the publication of an address of the inhabitants of Kraków to the French and British Governments.50 The debate took place on 13 July and the issue was introduced once again by Sir Stratford Canning. This time, the most significant argument was that put forward by Sir Robert Peel, the future Prime Minister, who argued that the time was come, or at any rate very fast approaching … that due observance should be given to the settlement that was made in 1815, and that Kraków should be re-established in that independence and freedom which were guaranteed to it in that year.51

 Palmerston to Lord William Russell, 28 June 1836. NA FO 881/749A.  Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ostatnie polskie miasto, 126–128. 49 ̇  Zurawski vel Grajewski, Ostatnie polskie miasto, 143–147, 153–162, 169–174. See also “On the necessity of appointing a British diplomatic agent to the senate of the Free Town of Kraków,” BA PP/GC/ZA/1. 50  See, for example, Morning Chronicle, 30 June 1840. 51  House of Commons Debate, 13 July 1840. Hansard, Vol. 55, cc. 670–695. 47 48

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

51

Despite similar voices, the debate turned out to be nothing more than yet another opportunity for the MPs to express their pro-Polish sympathies, having absolutely no impact on either British foreign policy or the situation in Kraków. The 1840 debate was part of a much larger action undertaken by Czartoryski and aimed at keeping the question of Kraków alive in the political considerations of both France and Britain.52 Similarly to the early 1830s, this event was closely coordinated between Czartoryski, Lord Dudley Stuart and Lord Palmerston, but it could not bring any significant change to British foreign policy.53 The Kraków Revolution of 1846 In 1846 Kraków, for the second time in a decade, reappeared as an international issue.54 On 18 February 1846 Polish democratic circles succeeded in organising a revolution in Kraków.55 However, by the time first news of the rebellion began to arrive in London at the beginning of March 1846, it had already been quelled by Russian, Prussian and Austrian forces. This “ten-day revolution”56 had neither the time, nor the opportunity, to make any significant impact on British politics. The subject was introduced for the first time to the House of Lords on 6 April 1846, but it received very little backing.57 The fact that British politics were at the time dominated by the Tories under Sir Robert Peel, while the foreign policy was directed by Lord Aberdeen, certainly did not help. Aberdeen’s limited interest in the subject of Galicia and Kraków expressed during the 6 April debate was not, however, the result of the lack of information about the situation abroad. Although Britain did not 52 ̇  Zurawski vel Grajewski, Ostatnie polskie miasto, 208–277. See also Comment l’affaire de Cracovie peut amener une discussion plus générale dans l’état actuel de rapprochement de la France et de l’Angleterre avec l’Autriche, BA PP/GC/CZ/13. 53 ̇  Zurawski vel Grajewski, Ostatnie polskie miasto, 271–272. 54  For more details on the international context see particularly Radosław Paweł Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji. Powstanie 1846 roku i likwidacja Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej w „dyplomacji” Hotelu Lambert wobec mocarstw europejskich (1846–1847) (Kraków-Łódź: Wydawnictwo Universytetu Łódzkiego, 2018). 55  J. Feldman, “The Polish Provinces of Austria and Prussia after 1815; the ‘Springtime of Nations,’” The Cambridge History of Poland, II: 352–355. 56  Stefan Kieniewicz, “The Free State of Kraków, 1815–1846,” The Slavonic and East European Review 26, no. 66 (1947): 69–89. 57  House of Lords Debate, 6 April 1846. Hansard, Vol. 85, cc. 574–579.

52 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

have any representative in the Free State (despite plans to introduce a consul following the 1836 occupation of Kraków), the British Government relied on the accounts and news received from its diplomats in Berlin (the Earl of Westmorland) and Vienna (the Charge d’Affaires Arthur Charles Magenis and later also consul Sir Robert Gordon). The first reports, written shortly after 18 February, arrived in London by the end of the month.58 Although both Westmorland and Magenis kept the Foreign Office well informed about the events unravelling in Kraków, Lord Aberdeen seemed completely uninterested in the subject himself. His first official despatch relating to Kraków was sent in June 1846 to Colonel Du Plat in Warsaw. The Foreign Secretary lamented the outbreak of the revolution and noted that Russia, Prussia, and Austria “possess the right… to take proper steps to secure themselves against any recurrence of the dangers from which they have so recently escaped.” As he concluded, the British Government “will suspend their judgement, and abstain from active interference on behalf of [Kraków].”59 The return of the Whigs to power in June 1846 and the replacement of Aberdeen by the well-known Lord Palmerston gave many Poles hope for some kind of British intervention on behalf of Kraków. Two new debates took place in August, first at the House of Lords (11 August), then in the House of Commons (17 August). The first debate60 served as a preparation for a more detailed discussion in the House of Commons a week later. Joseph Hume’s motion asked for the presentation of “extracts of any correspondence… relative to the appointment of a British Consular Agent at Kraków.” In his speech, Hume went back as far as 1830, regretting that “nothing had been done since the year 1830, when [Britain] lost the opportunity which then occurred of restoring to Poland her rights that she had lost… [and] that the honour of England was sullied by allowing other States to trample upon a Treaty to which she was a party.” In a careful speech, Lord Palmerston expressed his sympathy to  the Polish—“a great and a noble people”—and agreed that “it is impossible to deny that the Treaty of Vienna has been violated in the recent transactions.” While promising that “everything shall be done to ensure a due respect being 58  Westmorland to Aberdeen, 23 February 1846. Magenis to Aberdeen, 21 February 1846. Bloomfield to Aberdeen, 2 March 1846. Du Plat to Aberdeen, 10 March 1846. State Papers: 1846–7, 1042 et passim. 59  Aberdeen to Du Plat, 25 June 1846. State Papers: 1846–7, 1065–1066. 60  House of Lords Debate, 11 August 1846. Hansard, vol. 88, cc. 602–622.

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

53

paid to the provisions of the Treaty of Vienna”, Palmerston nevertheless suggested withdrawal of the motion, a suggestion duly followed by Hume.61 The Annexation of Kraków: 1846–1847 In the months following the Kraków Revolution, British politicians and publicists were convinced that Russia, Prussia and Austria would not go any further than the military occupation of Kraków and eventually the situation would return to the pre-1836 status quo. This conviction was strengthened by the rumours that “the three protective powers will shortly make overtures to the cabinets of St James’s and the Tuileries respecting the affairs of Poland in general, and Kraków in particular.”62 The news of the annexation of Kraków reached London in mid-­ November 1846 and was received by Palmerston “with deep regret and with much surprise.” As he informed Ponsonby in Vienna, the previous communications “had led Her Majesty’s Government to expect that some proposal would be made by the 3 Powers for some modification of the political condition [of Kraków]… but Her Majesty’s Government were not prepared for such a communication… and feel themselves bound to protest against the execution of the intention which has thus been announced.” But instead of strongly condemning the annexation, Palmerston concluded his protest by writing that the British Government “deeply impressed with the conviction that it is above all things important that the engagements of Treaties should at all times be faithfully observed, most earnestly hope that means may be devised for guarding the territories of the 3 Powers against the dangers adverted to in their identic communications, without any breach of the Treaty of 1815.”63 The mild language of the letter, as well as Palmerston’s unwillingness to coordinate his actions with France, made the Western protests a mere formality.64 Because of the long parliamentary recess that lasted from August 1846 until 19 January 1847, no debates on the subject of Kraków were held in  House of Commons Debate, 17 August 1846. Hansard, Vol. 88, cc. 815–838.  Examiner, 3 October 1846. See also Morning Post, 22 September 1846. 63  Palmerston to Ponsonby, 23 November 1846. State Papers: 1846–7, pp.  1082–1085. The same instructions were directed to British representatives at Berlin and St. Petersburg. 64  Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London, n.d.), 316. 61 62

54 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

the last months of 1846. Although Prince Czartoryski did not believe in the success of any pro-Polish action at the time, he nevertheless continued to work towards using the cause of Kraków as an excuse for a wider debate on the Polish Question.65 When Parliament reassembled on 19 January to hear the Speech from the Throne, the issue of Kraków (a “manifest Violation of the Treaty of Vienna”66) had a prominent place in the Government’s considerations. It took almost two months before Joseph Hume was able to present his motion in the House of Commons.67 In the months separating the annexation and the first debate on this subject, the press kept the British public well informed about the affairs of Kraków, publishing official diplomatic dispatches and translating and commenting on articles published in French newspapers.68 It was also time of active pro-Polish lobbying by Lord Dudley Stuart, who spoke with a number of MPs who later took an active part in the debate.69 In consequence, when the debate finally took place, every MP interested in foreign affairs had enough information on the subject. The Kraków debate began in the House of Commons on the evening of 4 March, when Joseph Hume spoke at length in the House of Commons about the problem of Kraków, its independence and the guarantees of the Treaty of Vienna: By these late proceedings [i.e. the annexation of Kraków], the legal sanction given by the Congress of Vienna to the settlement which it guaranteed, was gone. The partition of Poland was no longer legal. It was no longer legal, because the parties had violated the stipulations of the treaty under which it took place. All Europe was liberated from the yoke of the Treaty of Vienna… Poland had a full right to reassert her own freedom; and he knew no reason why the same rule should not prevail on the Rhine, the Po, and the Danube… the suppression of the State of Kraków destroyed every pretext of European law. There was no international law which could not be maintained in Europe. The effect of treaties was gone.70  Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji, 244–260.  House of Lords Debate, 19 January 1847. Hansard, Vol. 89, cc. 1–5. 67  He presented the intention of discussing the problem of Kraków in relation to the Russo-Dutch Loan on 19 January. The Times, 20 January 1847. 68  See, for example, Daily News, 24, 26 November, 1 December 1846; Morning Chronicle, 12 December 1846; Morning Post, 30 November, 1, 3, 4, 12 December 1846; Standard, 1 December 1846. 69 ̇  Zurawski vel Grajewski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji, 291–294, 316–320. 70  House of Commons Debate, 4 March 1847. Hansard, Vol. 90, cc. 861–895. 65 66

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

55

In short, the annexation of Kraków was an international problem and the governments of Russia, Prussia and Austria did not care for British or French protests, leading Hume to propose more decisive action against them. Not military in nature (“I do not wish for war; I am a man of peace”), but economic. His proposal stated that because of the violation of the Treaty of Vienna, Britain was no longer bound to continue the annual payment of the Russo-Dutch loan as it had been agreed in the treaty of 1832.71 The whole motion consisted of four points. The first one read that the House of Commons “views with alarm and indignation the incorporation of the free City of Kraków, and of its Territory, into the Empire of Austria.” The other three dealt directly with the Russo-­Dutch loan.72 The motion met with a  mixed reception. In seconding it, Viscount Sandon agreed with Hume that “it was impossible to deny that the general stability of Europe was shaken” by the annexation and asked for a “hearty and unanimous consent of the House to at least the first resolution.” Although Lord John Russell expressed his sympathy towards Kraków and spoke against the annexation (“the Three Powers were not justified by the Treaty of Vienna in conducting for themselves the consideration, whether the free State of Kraków should be maintained or extinguished”), he nevertheless declared himself against the whole motion on both political and legal grounds. As the Prime Minister warned, “it is not advisable that the House of Commons should affirm resolutions with respect to the conduct of those foreign Powers, unless it be intended to follow up those resolutions by some measures or actions on the part of the Executive Government.” The 4 March debate, in a similar way to many other pro-­ Polish debates of in the previous 15 years, took place late at night. Due to the lengthy speeches of Hume, Sandon and John Russell, it was agreed that the discussion be adjourned until the following week.73 The discussion was resumed on the evening of 11 March. Aside from several supportive speeches, more critical voices began to appear among the MPs. The first one belonged to Lord Dalmeny, who criticised Hume for degrading “this great question of national laws and national rights, the 71  The motion was, therefore, an attempt to present that “society of merchants” economic benefits of pro-Polish action. See Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, “Kupcy i arystokraci. Szkic do wizerunku Anglików w praise obozu monarchiczno-liberalnego Wielkiej Emigracji,” in Swoi i obcy. Studia z dziejów mys ́li Wielkiej Emigracji, eds P. Matusik & K.Marchlewicz (Poznań: IH UAM, 2004), 118–119. 72  House of Commons debate, 4 March 1847. Hansard, Vol. 90, cc. 861–895. 73  House of Commons debate, 4 March 1847. Hansard, Vol. 90, cc. 861–895.

56 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

faith of treaties, and the principles of justice, into a sordid consideration of pounds, shillings, and pence.” According to him it was not only a matter of British honour, but of British international influence not to break the engagement with Russia over the Russo-Dutch loan. The approach presented by Sir Robert Peel was more critical. Peel argued that “in the present state of Europe a strict and honourable adherence to treaties is the best foundation of peace, and the best hope of solving any difficulties that the present aspect of affairs may present.” Although the former Prime Minister rejected the motion, he nevertheless shared the universal feeling that the annexation of Kraków was a violation of the Treaty of Vienna. And despite the fact that the second day of the debate saw the presentation of more diverse opinions on the subject of Kraków, the discussion was nevertheless far from concluded and many MPs backed the idea of an adjournment.74 March 16 was the third and the last day of the debate. Because it was clear that the matter of Kraków was finally about to be resolved, and the House would be (or not) divided on Hume’s motion, many speakers pressed on Hume that division was not necessary. “All that was necessary had been done in this case, in expressing a strong opinion upon it; and almost all who had taken part in the debate had, with perfect unanimity, agreed in opinion that the Treaty of Vienna had been violated” argued Lord Vane and Lord Wharncliffe. The most significant contributions to the debate on that last day were the long-awaited speeches by Disraeli and Palmerston. In a long, passionate condemnation of Hume’s motion, the former worked hard to prove that Britain had no right to suspend the payment of the Russo-Dutch loan. Without much difficulty, Palmerston dismissed Disraeli’s arguments and concluded that “it is perfectly plain that the arrangement as to Kraków was founded upon stipulations to which Great Britain was a party; and I hold that the violation of that treaty is a violation of the arrangements to which Great Britain was one of the contracting parties.” Despite accepting the fact that the Treaty of Vienna was violated, Palmerston was against supporting the motion or even pressing for a division: “The technicalities of the House of Commons are little understood elsewhere; and if the hon. Gentleman [Hume] presses this House to a division on the previous question [the  first point of the motion], although we understand what that division means, I am sure he will see that it would be considered as a division of opinion on a question upon which hardly any division of opinion exists.” After listening to “the  House of Commons debate, 11 March 1847. Hansard, Vol. 90, cc. 1157–1225.

74

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

57

opinion of the House… so strikingly and unanimously displayed in support of the views which he had himself expressed” Hume “deemed his triumph complete.” Without pressing for a division and risking the defeat of the motion, he decided to withdraw it and the House adjourned at one o’clock in the morning.75 None of the Kraków debates which took place in the House of Commons between 1836 and 1847 proved particularly successful. The occupation and annexation of Kraków, despite being more visible violations of the Treaty of Vienna than the actions of Russia in the Kingdom of Poland after 1831, were not serious enough to influence the European balance of power. Numerous MPs used the debates to express their personal sympathies for liberty and freedom, but understood very clearly that Britain could do very little in terms of defending the rights of Kraków against the unity of Russia, Prussia and Austria. As Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski observed, for Prince Czartoryski all these debates could be considered a significant success since they kept the subject of Poland alive in the minds of British politicians and public opinion.76

Conclusion Shortly after the November Uprising, one of the Polish envoys to London commented that “today we have to wait for political events and changes in Russia, for a universal revolution [wstrza ̨s ́nienie] that would be the only hope for the restoration of Poland.”77 Until then the Polish exiles were determined to maintain British interests in the cause of Polish independence through various means. Although with time their involvement in organising pro-Polish parliamentary debates decreased, the experience of the early 1830s established a good base for further development. The final debate on the subject on the annexation of Kraków took place with very limited support from the Polish exiles. As it was illustrated above, the subject of Poland kept reappearing in British politics only in relation to external events (beginning with the November Uprising and its aftermath and ending with the annexation of Kraków). The Polish Question did not exist independently, even though, thanks to the efforts of various Polish exiles and the Literary Association  House of Commons debate, 16 March 1847. Hansard, Vol. 91, cc. 26–103.  Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji, 420. 77  Niemcewicz, Dziennik, I: 279. 75 76

58 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

of the Friends of Poland, it continued to be promoted through various publications and events. It was not enough, though, to turn it into a serious diplomatic issue. Unlike Belgium, territories of Poland lay in the sphere of influence of Russia, Prussia and Austria. Commenting the lack of British intervention in defence of Poland during and after the November Uprising, Lord Palmerston wrote that “there is no pretence for interfering in any way than by a simple offer of meditation because it is a clear case of civil war … in which the usual observance of modern times would forbid at least friendly powers from intermeddling by force.”78 Numerous MPs taking active part in pro-Polish discussions were fully aware of that fact and they used the debates to express their profound sympathy for Poland. Unable to help Poland in any other way, they considered it their moral duty to speak in defence of this country. Indeed, the idea of the moral power of the British Parliament was so strong that multiple speakers thought it was enough for the debates to happen to change the course of international politics. Even though politicians from all sides expressed their support for Polish independence, neither the Whig nor the Tory governments did anything in order to get Britain involved in the affairs of Poland. Pro-Polish mediation during the November Uprising was rejected by Russia, while plans to send a British consul to Kraków were quickly abandoned. Although the annexation of Kraków by Austria in 1846 caused much greater alarm in the Foreign Office, the response to that event could not be more effective than before. “Brave and patriotic Poles” attracted political sympathy, but their cause was too distant and too irrelevant for British interests to play any significant role in contemporary politics.

Bibliography Archives Broadlands Archive, University of Southampton, England: PP/GC/CZ/13, PP/ GC/HE/147, PP/GC/HE/152, PP/GC/ZA/1, PP/BD/RU/4. Czartoryski Library (Biblioteka Ksia ̨ża ̨t Czartoryskich), Kraków, Poland: 5310, 5274. The National Archive, Kew Gardens, England: FO 417-2, FO 881/749A.  Bourne, Palmerston, 353.

78

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

59

Newspapers Daily News Examiner Morning Chronicle Morning Post Standard The Times

Collections of Letters, Memoirs

and

Other Publications

Final Act of the Congress of Vienna. The General Treaty of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Final_Act_of_the_ Congress_of_Vienna/General_Treaty (accessed December 17, 2021). Hansard. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com (accessed December 17, 2021). Niemcewicz, J.U. Dziennik pobytu zagranica od dnia 21 lipca 1831 roku do 20 maja 1841 roku, 2 vols. Poznań, 1876. Plater, W., ed. “Korrespondencye księcia Adama Czartoryskiego.” Album Muzeum Narodowego w Rapperswyll. Na setna ̨ rocznicę 1772 r., 127–230. Poznań, 1872. The Foreign and State Papers. London, 1830–1847. Zamoyski, W. Jenerał Zamoyski, 1803–1868, III. Poznań, 1914.

Secondary Sources Bourne, Kenneth. Palmerston. The Early Years, 1784–1841. London: Allen Lane, 1982. Brown, David. Palmerston: A Biography. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. Chamberlain, M.E. Pax Britannica? British Foreign Policy, 1789–1914. London: Longman, 1989. Clarke, John. British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy 1782–1865: The National Interest. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Coleman, A.P. “The Great Emigration.” In The Cambridge History of Poland, II, edited by W.F. Reddaway et al., 311–323. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941. Cybowski, Milosz. “A Less Eligible Country for a Pole: Britain and the Polish Refugees in the Early Victorian period.” In International Migrations in the Victorian Era, edited by M. Ruiz, 331–355. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Cybowski, Milosz. “First and Last Refuge: France and Britain as Centres of the Polish Great Emigration.” In John Bull and the Continent, edited by W. Jasiakiewicz and J. Lipski, 59–74. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2015.

60 

M. K. CYBOWSKI

Cybowski, Milosz. “Poland’s Forgotten Novembrists: Youth and a Failed Uprising, 1830.” Age of Revolutions. https://ageofrevolutions.com/2016/11/14/ polands-­forgotten-­novembrists-­youth-­and-­a-­failed-­uprising-­1830 (accessed December 17, 2021). Dabrowski, P. Poland: The First Thousand Years. DeKalb: NIU Press, 2016. Dunn, J. “‘The November Evening’: The Warsaw Uprising of November 1830.” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 16, no. 3 (2003): 126–135. Feldman, J. “The Polish Provinces of Austria and Prussia After 1815; The ‘Springtime of Nations.’” In The Cambridge History of Poland, edited by W.F. Reddaway et al., 336–364. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941. Fishman, J.S. Diplomacy and Revolution: The London Conference of 1830 and the Belgian Revolt. Amsterdam: CHEV, 1988. Kalembka, S. “Koncepcje dróg do niepodległości i kształtu Polski wyzwolonej w myśli politycznej Wielkiej Emigracji.” In Rozprawy z dziejów XIX i XX Wieku przygotowane dla uczczenia pamięci Profesora Witolda Łukasiewicza, edited by S. Kalembka, 33–45. Toruń: Universytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu, 1978. Kieniewicz, Stefan. “The Free State of Cracow, 1815–1846.” Slavonic and East European Review 26, no. 66 (1947): 69–89. Kieniewicz, Sefan and Wereszycki, Henryk. “Poland Under Foreign Rule 1795–1918.” In History of Poland, edited by Stefan Kieniewicz, 335–540. Warszawa: PWN, Polish Scientific Publishers, 1979. Leslie, R.F. Polish Politics and the Revolution of November 1830. London: Athlone Press, 1956. Lewak, Adam. “Czasy Wielkiej Emigracji.” In Polska, jej dzieje i kultura od czasów najdawniejszych aż do chwili obecnej, III, 193–233. Warszawa, 1930. Marchlewicz, Krzysztof. “Propolski lobbing w Izbach Gmin i Lordów w latach trzydziestych i czterdziestych XIX wieku.” Przegla ̨d Historyczny 145, no. 1 (2005): 61–76. Marchlewicz, Krzysztof. Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach Brytyjskich 1830–1863. Poznań, 2008. Pawlowski, Br. “The November Insurrection.” In The Cambridge History of Poland, Vol. II, edited by W.F.  Reddaway et  al., 295–310. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941. Ridley, Jasper. Lord Palmerston. London, n.d. Skowronek, Jerzy. Od konspiracji do kapitulacji. Warszawa: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1989. Zamoyski, Adam. Poland: A History. London: William Collins, 2009. Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław. “Kupcy i arystokraci. Szkic do wizerunku Anglików w praise obozu monarchiczno-liberalnego Wielkiej Emigracji.” In Swoi i obcy. Studia z dziejów myslí Wielkiej Emigracji, edited by P.  Matusik, Krzysztof Marchlewicz, 118–119. Poznań: IH UAM, 2004.

3  BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC POLES: BRITISH POLITICS AND POLISH… 

61

Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław. Działalnosć́ Księcia Adama Jerzego Czartoryskiego w Wielkiej Brytanii (1831–1832). Warszawa: Wydawn. Naukowe Semper, 1999. Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław. Ostatnie polskie miasto. Rzeczpospolita Krakowska w “dyplomacji” Hotelu Lambert wobec Wielkiej Brytanii (1831–1845). Kraków-Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2018a. Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław. Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji. Powstanie 1846 roku i likwidacja Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej w „dyplomacji” Hotelu Lambert wobec mocarstw europejskich (1846–1847). Kraków-Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2018b.

CHAPTER 4

Why Britain? The Motives and Circumstances of Polish Political Refugees’ Arrivals to the United Kingdom in the 1830s and 1840s Krzysztof Marchlewicz

The so-called Great Emigration that occurred after the capitulation of the November Uprising in Poland (1830–1831) occupies a special place among the various waves of Polish emigration of the last two centuries. It consisted of about 8000 people (mostly men but also several dozen women) who left the country as a result of the 10-month war with Russia. Another few thousand refugees joined them in the following years, as they sought to protect themselves against Tsarist repression and to continue their political activities.1 However, the unique nature of this emigration was not only a product of the number of participants involved. It also resulted from their 1  Sławomir Kalembka, Wielka Emigracja 1831–1863 [The Great Emigration 1831–1863], (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2003), 54.

K. Marchlewicz (*) Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_4

63

64 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

social and professional composition. The Great Emigration included many Polish politicians, civil servants, high-ranking military personnel, cadets, university professors and students, writers, landowners and priests. They were, in a way, the elite of nineteenth-century Polish society in exile. Through leaving the Kingdom of Poland, the refugees were able not only to continue their engagement with politics, but also—as a result of their newfound freedom from administrative restrictions, nationality-based harassment and censorship—to develop extensive and long-lasting activities in the field of culture. For the next few decades, Polish emigration in Western Europe became a space for the flourishing of Polish romantic literature, philosophy and fine arts.2 The vast majority of the exiles settled in France. There were several reasons for this. As has been mentioned already, emigrants came mainly from the ranks of the Polish social elites (broadly understood) and these had been under strong French influence since the seventeenth century. The royal courts of the multiple Polish kings who had French spouses,3 as well as the international attractiveness of French culture, were not without wider consequences in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the eighteenth century, French became the second language of the Polish nobility and in pre-partition Poland, translations of the works of Jean de La Fontaine, Antoine François Prévost and Jacques-Henri Bernardin de SaintPierre were published. Plays by Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), Denis Diderot and Pierre Beaumarchais were often staged in Polish theatres. The Polish Enlightenment was strongly influenced by the writings of Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.4 All this constituted an important element in the education of Polish elites at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Emigrants from 1831 were also drawn to France by relatively fresh memories of the Polish-French alliance during the Napoleonic campaigns. Many senior officers had experience of fighting alongside the French. Moreover, it was the France of Louis Philippe d’Orléans that seemed to be the best possible ally in the future Polish fight for independence. As a result of these factors, the most well-known émigrés 2  Jerzy Zdrada, Wielka Emigracja po Powstaniu Listopadowym [The Great Emigration after the November Uprising], (Warszawa: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1987), 15 ff. 3  Władysław IV, Jan Kazimierz and Jan III Sobieski. 4  Andrzej Tomczak, Karol Górski (eds), Polska-Francja: dziesięc ́ wieków zwia ̨zków politycznych, kulturalnych i gospodarczych [Poland and France: Ten Centuries of Political, Cultural and Economic Relations], (Warszawa: Ksia ̨żka i Wiedza, 1983), 31 ff.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

65

were active in France and the leading political groups and institutions (such as the Polish National Committee, the Polish Democratic Society, Hotel Lambert, Société Historique et Littéraire Polonaise or Bibliothéque Polonaise à Paris) were established there. At the same time, it was in France that the bulk of the emigration newspapers (including Kronika Emigracji Polskiej [the Polish Emigration Chronicle], Trzeci Maj [the Third of May] and Demokrata Polski [the Polish Democrat]), pamphlets, scientific papers and other kinds of publications were printed. This was also the case for the greatest works of the Polish Romantic poets such as Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki. But the Great Emigration also had its branches in other European and non-European countries. From 1831 onwards, Polish exiles were present in Saxony, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Algeria and the United States. The second largest group (after France), however, were those in Great Britain. After 1834, several hundred Polish refugees arrived in Britain every year and it is estimated that between 1834 and 1863 around 2600 of them stayed in the United Kingdom for shorter or longer periods.5 The aim of this chapter is to explore the reasons they found themselves not in the countries of continental Western Europe with closer cultural ties to Poland, but rather on the English side of the Channel. The Great Emigration was a typical political exile; politics was crucial in the decisions of its participants to leave Poland and it was external circumstances that forced them to do so. Although after the suppression of the Uprising Tsar Nicholas I announced an amnesty, his leniency towards his Polish subjects had clearly defined limits. It excluded those who took part in the attack on the residence of the Tsar’s brother Grand Duke Constantine in Warsaw (Belvedere) in November 1830, those members of the Polish Parliament who supported the Tsar’s dethronement in January 1831, those ministers of the National Government who until September 1831 did not humble themselves before the Tsar and insurgents coming from the western provinces of Russia (Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia).6 Some individuals from these groups were sentenced to death; others lost their property and were sent to penal settlements in Siberia. Thousands of Polish soldiers were 5  Krzysztof Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach Brytyjskich (1831–1863) [The Great Emigration in the British Isles (1831–1863)], (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Historii UAM, 2008), 25–27. 6  Dziennik Praw Królestwa Polskiego [Journal of Laws of the Kingdom of Poland], 13, (1832): 272–286.

66 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

conscripted into Russian army units in the Caucasus or Central Asia for up to 25 years’ service. So, on the one hand, the emigrants simply tried to avoid the repressions which they faced as a result of their participation in the uprising. On the other hand, they considered exile in Western Europe as a continuation of their struggle against the Tsarist regime. They certainly did not want to stay permanently in France or Britain; rather they were preparing for a victorious return to Poland. As the politician and officer in the Polish insurgent army Count Władysław Zamoyski put it in a letter to his British friend Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart: “l’emigration polonaise n’est pas une expatriation mais un acte qui prolonges la lute” [underlined in the original text].7 It seemed that the best place for such activity was France, which had experienced a successful liberal revolution only several months earlier. French public opinion sympathised with the Poles in 1831 and it was from there that the strongest voices demanding the restoration of Poland were heard. Polish cavalry and infantry units, which were created alongside the French army in the years 1797–1814 and participated in many campaigns in Italy, Germany, Russia and Spain, were still well-remembered. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, erected between 1806 and 1836, featured the names of Prince Józef Poniatowski and six other Polish generals. In the years after 1830, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headed by General Horace Sébastiani, who had commanded the Polish troops during the Peninsular War. Many of the Poles’ other comrades-in-arms were also active in public life. No wonder then that among the members of the Comité Franco-Polonaise were 8 French generals and 17 members of parliament (including the influential marquess Marie Joseph de La Fayette). The Poles could count also on the support of several press editors.8 In 1831, the French government granted Polish veterans of the uprising regularly paid allowances that ensured their subsistence. Although efforts were made to keep them away from Paris, they enjoyed a great deal of freedom

7  “The Polish emigration is not just an exile but an act which extend the struggle”; Władysław Zamoyski to Dudley Stuart, Dover 12 August 1833, Harrowby Manuscript Trust, Sandon Hall (HMss), ms XXVII, 230. 8  Sławomir Kalembka, “Generał La Fayette. Przyjaciel Wielkiej Emigracji [General La Fayette. A Friend of the Great Emigration],” Echa Przeszłos ć i, 9 (2008): 116.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

67

in France, with many of them pursuing higher education and starting professional careers.9 In such circumstances, the choice of France was natural for many of the 1831 veterans. But what drove those who took refuge in Britain, a country that was much cooler towards them? Firstly, not everyone believed in France’s readiness to help the Poles or agreed that it was France that had a decisive voice in the international affairs of the period. Many Polish exiles— especially those recognising the leadership of the liberal-­conservative politician Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski—had remembered the relief with which the French authorities welcomed the suppression of the November Uprising (after the fall of Warsaw in September 1831, Sébastiani remarked in the Chambre des Députés that “L’ordre règne à Varsovie”10). They were aware that the French authorities were interested in consolidating their newly acquired power and would not risk a confrontation with Russia in the name of the Poles’ political rights. Having no illusions about the prospects of French aid, some emigrants pinned their hopes on Britain instead. Czartoryski, who was heir to one of the greatest Polish fortunes, a former friend of Tsar Alexander I, the deputy Russian Foreign Secretary in 1804–1806 and the head of Polish National Government during the November Uprising, was, throughout his life, one of the leading Polish anglophiles. His visits to Britain in 1790–1791 and in 1814 left him deeply impressed by the growing power of England and he willingly referred to British models in almost every sphere of life. An external manifestation of this was the garden in the Czartoryski’s seat in Puławy, which was modelled on an English landscape park, and included a large stud of English horses. In the Puławy Hall library English books accounted for about a quarter of the impressive collection of foreign literature, and among the Prince’s servants and guests were many Scots and Englishmen. Acting outside his immediate surroundings between 1815 and 1830, Czartoryski tried to introduce elements of the British administrative and judicial system (such as Justices of Peace) into the constitution of the autonomous Kingdom of Poland. As the Curator of the Vilnius educational district, he encouraged and subsidised the trips of Vilnius University students to England and 9  See: Barbara Konarska, Polskie drogi emigracyjne. Emigranci polscy na studiach we Francji w latach 1832–1848 [Polish emigrational paths. Polish refugees studying in France between 1832 and 1848], (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1986). 10  Zdrada, Wielka Emigracja po Powstaniu, 8.

68 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

Scotland. He also sent his own collaborators there to supplement his private library collections.11 Czartoryski had many friends in Britain—mostly among the Whig aristocracy—and after 1831 he hoped that he could persuade the British elites to make some effort to find a positive solution to the Polish question. According to Czartoryski, solving this problem was not only in accordance with the principle of justice and the law of nations, it also offered a good chance for building a more perfect equilibrium in Europe, which would be beneficial to Britain both politically and materially. That was why Prince Adam and some of his followers (his nephew, Count Władysław Zamoyski and the politician, soldier and poet Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz among them) first moved to London and tried to develop their diplomatic activities there. Their main goal was, at the very least, to obtain London’s support for the re-establishment of the autonomous Congress Kingdom of Poland (as guaranteed by the Treaty of Vienna in 1815). Prince Czartoryski’s hope, however, was for British intervention to assist with the rebuilding of an independent Polish state, with borders encompassing all Polish territories.12 I will not dwell on how realistic those hopes were. Only with time did many Poles begin to realise both the complexity and wide-ranging context of the British attitude to Central European affairs and that the rebuilding of independent Poland was not necessarily in the British interest. Britain’s nineteenth-century diplomats thought in global terms (unknown to the Poles) and in post-Napoleonic Europe they preferred a more predictable and stable system based on the concert of the five Great Powers. Reconstruction of a sovereign Polish state did not fit well within the framework of this system.13 But, to repeat: some Polish refugees came to Britain 11  Zofia Gołębiowska, W kręgu Czartoryskich. Wpływy angielskie w Puławach na przełomie XVIII i XIX wieku [In the Czartoryskis’ circle. The English influences in Puławy at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries], (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2000), 13 ff; Wojciech Lipoński, “The Influence of Britain on Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski’s Education and Political Activity,” Polish-AngloSaxon Studies 1 (1987): 33–67 and 2 (1991): 31–68. 12  Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, Działalnos ć ́ księcia Adama Jerzego Czartoryskiego w Wielkiej Brytanii (1831–1832) [Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski acitivities in Britain (1831–1832)], (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, 1999), 16 ff.; also Marian Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955). 13  Krzysztof Marchlewicz, Dystans, współczucie i „znikomy interes.” Uwarunkowania brytyjskiej polityki wobec Polski w latach 1815–1914 [Distance, compassion and “little interest.” The background of British politics towards Poland 1815–1914], (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Historii UAM, 2016), 103–112.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

69

counting on British moral, political or even military support for Poland. The encouragement given to them by a number of second-tier British politicians (such as Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart, Joseph Hume, Thomas Chisholm Anstey or David Urquhart) kept them counting on political support from “official” London. In some cases, their desire to settle in Britain should also be linked to nineteenth-century Polish anglo-mania. Although in the 1820s and 1830s the majority of Poles still looked for patterns of modernisation in France, it was not only Prince Czartoryski who considered England to be the most attractive and most developed country in the world. A distant cousin of the famous poet Zygmunt Krasiński, captain Henryk Krasiński, who after several years in exile moved from France to Britain, declared that “British institutions are superior to all others without exceptions … [and] British government is the best in the world.”14 This admiration for the British political system was quite common among educated Poles. A similar approach was adopted by the university professor and commander of the Academic Guard during the uprising, Krystyn Lach Szyrma, who fled to the United Kingdom in 1832. Szyrma had studied and travelled extensively in England and Scotland in the 1820s. After his return to Poland, he became an active promoter of English culture, publishing, among other things, a well-received memoir of his stay in Britain and an English textbook for Polish students. When the November Uprising ended in defeat, the choice of a place of refuge was obvious to him.15 English literature and theatrical life attracted Stanisław Egbert Koźmian, a young landowner, a student of the University of Warsaw and a participant in the November Uprising. He lived in England between 1833 and 1845, befriending the Attwoods, the Scholefields, the Gibsons, and starting his great work of translating Shakespeare’s works into Polish.16 Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, who visited Britain with Tadeusz Kościuszko in 1797, also spent his first years in exile after the November Uprising in the British Isles. He always repeated that he felt most comfortable in Britain and 14  Henryk Krasiński, The Cossacks of the Ukraine: comprising Biographical Notices of the most celebrated Cossack Chiefs or Attamans (London: Partridge and Oakey, 1848), X. 15  Krystyn Lach Szyrma, Anglia i Szkocya. Przypomnienia z podróży roku 1820–1824 odbytey [England and Scotland. Memoirs of travels between 1820 and 1824], (Warszawa: Drukarnia A. Gałęzowskiego, 1828); idem, Ksia ̨żka wypisów angielskich ze słownikiem [Book of English texts with a vocabulary], (Warszawa: Drukarnia A. Gałęzowskiego, 1827). 16   Stefan Kieniewicz, “Koźmian Stanisław Egbert (1811–1885),” Polski Słownik Biograficzny, 40 (1970): 59–61.

70 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

when for financial reasons he had finally to leave London for Paris, he often expressed his longing for England.17 Although the veteran of the Hungarian Uprising (1848–1849) Zygmunt Miłkowski (who later wrote under the pen-name Teodor Tomasz Jeż) had other motives too, he mentioned that he chose Great Britain being sure that he would be able to “raise his own civilization value” in the best possible way there.18 In the case of Szyrma, as well as of several other immigrants (the officer and teacher Jan Bartkowski and the prolific journalist Walerian Krasiński among them), an additional reason why they had preferred Britain to France, Belgium or Italy could have been the fact that they were Polish Protestants. There were few Protestants in the ranks of the Great Emigration, but their social acclimatisation in the United Kingdom was significantly easier than that of the majority of Catholic refugees. The latter sometimes experienced a still vivid English aversion and distrust of Catholicism.19 Both Bartkowski and Szyrma (who in 1837 lost his first wife) married English women, and, in 1846, Szyrma became naturalised. You did not have to be a Protestant to get married or acquire citizenship in nineteenth-century Britain, but surely Protestant newcomers felt less cultural alienation. Another question is whether the Polish asylum seekers coming to Britain were motivated by material or financial reasons? The answer is yes, but to a limited extent. As I mentioned earlier, the veterans of the November Uprising who settled in France had been receiving regular government relief.20 Besides, for Poles who knew the French language, it was not difficult to get employment there. This meant that Britain, where the cost of living was considerably higher than on the Continent, became an attractive destination only for those with the aspirations and skills to obtain 17  Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Z ̇ywot J.U.  Niemcewicza [The Life of J.U.  Niemcewicz], (Berlin—Poznań: B. Behr, 1860), 240–246. 18  Zygmunt Miłkowski (Teodor Tomasz Jeż), Od kolebki przez życie. Wspomnienia [From the cradle through life. Memoirs], ed. Adam Lewak, (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1936), vol. 1: 394. 19  When in the 1840s the idea arose to celebrate catholic services for Poles at the seat of the London Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, its vice-president refused to agree, fearing anger of Protestant members of the Association; see Dudley Stuart to Adam Czartoryski, London 27–28 January 1840, Princes Czartoryskis’ Library in Cracow (BCK), ms 5517 III, 303–304. 20   Anna Kasznik, “Polityka finansowa Monarchii Lipcowej wobec emigracji polskiej [Financial politics of the July Monarchy towards the Polish emigration],” Studia Historyczne no. 4 (1973): 495–521.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

71

more lucrative posts. In the 1830s, the former Chief of the Polish Army Staff during the November Uprising, general Wojciech Chrzanowski, visited London twice. He received British denisation with the support of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell and he was consulted by the authorities as an expert on Russian and Turkish military matters. In 1836 and 1838, Chrzanowski was even sent by the British government to Turkey with a mission to reorganise the Turkish army.21 The employment of Chrzanowski was unique, but in less exposed positions others were also successful. A former law student and lieutenant in the 1831 uprising, Leon Ulrich, was hired as a teacher of languages in a private school in Tottenham. Lieutenant Ludwik Lemański became a manager for London Zinc Mills, a company co-owned by his brother-in-­ law the well-known Polish-based businessman, Piotr Steinkeller. Jan Gajewski, an emigrant from the 1840s who became an engineer in France, found a job at a locomotive works in Manchester (where he died in a steam boiler explosion in 1858). Maybe not to make a career, but also for professional purposes, the Catholic priests Grzegorz Stasiewicz, Stanisław Poncjan Brzeziński, Wincenty Kraiński, Hieronim Kajsiewicz and Stanisław Emeryk Podolski came to Britain. In the 1850s, Podolski was the Catholic chaplain of Pentonville prison.22 Were it not for the fact that he was not formally a political émigré, Frédéric Chopin could also be included in this category. In 1837 and 1848, the Polish composer, whose career was closely connected to the Great Emigration, came from France to Britain to make some extra money through giving private lessons and concerts.23 As usually happens, there were also less edifying examples. Some Polish veterans of the 1831 war, who benefited from public or private relief funds in France or Belgium, moved to Britain only to apply for additional allowances. From 1834 onwards, as a result of Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart’s motion in the House of Commons, the British government supported 21  Henryk Graniewski, “The Mission of General Chrzanowski to Turkey (1836–1840),” Antemurale, 12 (1968): 130–174, 181–184; Chrzanowski’s denisation petition, The National Archives, Kew (NA), ms HO/1/12/54. 22  Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach, 21, 39; cf. Jerzy Kuzicki, “Duchowni i duszpasterstwo polskiej emigracji w krajach Europy Zachodniej w I połowie XIX wieku. Przegla ̨d problematyki badawczej [Priests and pastoral care over the Polish emigration in the Western Europe in the first half of the 19th century. An overview of the topic],” UR Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences no 2 (2019): 18–19. 23  Zbigniew Jabłoński, “Chopin w Anglii [Chopin in England],” Ruch Muzyczny no. 7 (1960): 10–12.

72 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

Polish refugees by paying them modest benefits. These ranged from 13 pounds and 13 shillings to 39 pounds per annum, depending on an individual’s military rank or position during the November Uprising.24 The payment was made every 4 weeks, but it was also possible to receive annual relief as a one-off payment. The condition for the latter was leaving Britain and the renunciation of any future government support. This procedure was called commutation and the authorities willingly allowed it to limit overall spending on refugees. With this in mind, some emigrants from the Continent went to London with the intention of extorting the benefit. As Jan Bartkowski recalled: “I am sorry to add, that the Government’s subsidium attracted from France a few of our greedy compatriots, who for no other reason but only to take some fresh air and catch a few pounds intended for other unfortunate brothers, came to London and after receiving the allowance soon returned to France.”25 This practice was curtailed in 1838. Having made the last additions to the list of the Polish beneficiaries, Lord Melbourne’s government decided that newcomers could no longer be enrolled on the official list. At the same time, the authorities took over the distribution of the allowances from the hands of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland (LAFP). The LAFP had been founded in February 1832 by a group of British polonophiles shortly after the fall of the November Uprising. Its first president was the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell and it had several members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords in its ranks. Initially, it intended to focus on popularising knowledge about Poland and its culture in Great Britain. This goal was to be achieved through a library of works about Poland established by the Association in London and open to all, as well as the establishment of a monthly magazine, Polonia or Monthly Reports on Polish Affairs, which published articles on the history of and current situation in Poland, short biographies of distinguished Poles and, on occasions, poetry inspired by Polish themes. The magazine, however, collapsed after the publication of only five issues, and the LAFP 24  Mieczysław Paszkiewicz, “Lista emigrantów polskich otrzymuja ̨cych zasiłki od rza ̨du brytyjskiego w latach 1834–1899 [The List of Polish refugees obtaining allowances from the British Government between 1834 and 1899],” Materiały do Biografii, Genealogii i Heraldyki Polskiej 2 (1964): 60–61. 25  Jan Bartkowski, Wspomnienia z Powstania 1831 roku i pierwszych lat emigracji [Memoirs from the 1831 Uprising and the first years of emigration], ed. Eugeniusz Sawrymowicz (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1967), 250.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

73

was increasingly involved in charity work on behalf of the Polish refugees.26 The Association had paid government benefits to the Poles since 1834, but, according to the officials, it was constantly expanding the list of beneficiaries and tended to interpret all doubts in favour of its Polish charges. Therefore, the government decided to deprive the Association of the right to distribute benefits and appointed its own payer controlled by the Lords of the Treasury. To make sure that the influx of benefit-hunters would cease, the LAFP informed the Poles about these changes with appeals published in the émigré and French press.27 Not all of them were discouraged and in the following years there were still individuals in search of an easy income or charitable support travelling to Britain. In 1842, Ignacy Jackowski wrote from London to his friend in Paris: “For God’s sake, persuade all colleagues in France not to make any plans in connection with England and not to come here, because they only cause trouble for us and themselves.”28 In all the cases discussed so far, my concern has been with individuals who chose to move to the United Kingdom. There was also, however, a much more numerous category of refugees who found themselves in Britain against their will or who chose Britain only after their first choice of destination proved impossible. The liberal politics of nineteenth-­century Britain made it the last resort for those who for political reasons could not stay anywhere else.29 This was the case with the 212 Polish passengers on the Prussian ship Marianne who landed in Portsmouth in February 1834. Deported to America after three years of internment in Prussia, they would definitely have preferred to sail to Belgium or France, instead of the United States. However, after changes in French asylum policy related to internal political tensions in the early 1830s, the July Monarchy’s border was closed to them. Their only option to stay in Europe was to disembark 26  Polonia, or Monthly Reports on Polish Affairs, no. 1–5 (August–December), 1832; Jan Pomorski, “Geneza, program i struktura organizacyjna Towarzystwa Literackiego Przyjaciół Polski [The genesis, program and structure of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland],” Przegla ̨d Humanistyczny no. 1 (1978): 157–182. 27  See i.a. Kronika Emigracji Polskiej, 30 September 1838, 286–287. 28  Ignacy Jackowski to Leonard Niedźwiecki, London 25 April 1842, Polish Academy of Sciences Library in Kórnik, Poland (BK), ms 2405, 215. 29  Andreas Fahrmeir, Citizens and Aliens. Foreigners and the Law in Britain and the German States, 1789–1870 (New York–Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), 100–139.

74 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

somewhere in Britain. Taking advantage of the fact that the Prussian crew had to repair a storm-damaged ship in Portsea, they settled in the area and, in doing so, founded Portsmouth’s now long-standing Polish community.30 A few months later, over 100 new Polish refugees arrived in London. They also got there in a rather complicated way. Since 1831 they had been staying in France, together with the majority of the post-uprising Polish diaspora. In 1833, they set off to help the unsuccessful coup of young German liberals in Frankfurt am Main. The whole affair ended in pitiful disaster before the Polish officers had even arrived, thereby leading them to take refuge in Switzerland. After only a few months, they were expelled from that country following their participation in an abortive attempt to overthrow the Savoy government in cooperation with Giuseppe Mazzini’s carbonari. Their revolutionary adventures ensured that they were now treated as personae non gratae by the French authorities and were denied the right to stay in France. Their only option was to accept transit to Britain, which they did in the spring and summer of 1834. In the 1850s, a similar mechanism was applied to the Polish veterans of the anti-­ Habsburg Hungarian Uprising. They could no longer stay in the Ottoman Empire—which was under strong pressure exerted by the Russians and Austrians—and could proceed only to America or Britain. As a result, in June 1850, 101 Poles disembarked in Southampton. In March 1851, 250 of their companions left their ship in Liverpool.31 Not all of these refugees remained in Great Britain permanently and several dozen of them soon set off for the other side of the Atlantic. Some were waiting for an opportunity to go back to the Continent. This particular road was closed to representatives of one more category of Polish asylum seekers arriving in Britain. They were the emigrants trying to avoid legal prosecution or those who had been formally expelled for breaking the law in other western European countries. Expulsions were not always related to criminal offences. We have already mentioned the “Swiss-men,” as they were called by their compatriots, who participated in the aborted 30  Geneza Ludu Polskiego w Anglii. Materiały źródłowe [The genesis of the Polish People Communes in England], ed. Peter Brock (London: B. Świderski, 1962), 18 ff; Ben Dew, Polish Portsmouth. Polskie Portsmouth, Polish transl. Ewa Maria Kaźmierczak (Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth, 2018), 1–20. 31  Sprawa młodej emigracyi polskiej po wypadkach 1848, w latach 1850–1851 do Anglii przybyłej [The case of new Polish emigration which after the events of 1848 came to England between 1850 and 1851], (London: A. Rypiński, 1852), 7–8.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

75

Frankfurt and Turin coups. They did not commit any crimes but were stigmatised as politically dangerous. In 1834, after the publication of an anti-government article in the Belgian paper, La Voix du Peuple, Stanisław Worcell and Aleksander Pułaski were expelled to London from Brussels. In 1836, several members of the so-called Confederation of the Polish Nation came to Britain after the French government, pressured by the Russian Embassy, issued them an order to leave Paris. Thirteen years later, the leaders of the Polish Democratical Society faced a similar fate, being ordered to leave France for England.32 However, the anxiety of the Polish community in Britain was caused by something else. From the mid-1830s, immigrants accused of various crimes against persons or property committed in Belgium, France and German states started coming to Britain. Lieutenant Hipolit Pasierbski took refuge in London after his unsuccessful attempt on the life of General Józef Bem, with whom he disagreed on political matters. Jan Wasilewski and Jan Roszewski fled there in order to avoid responsibility for theft and forgery, respectively. Leopold Potocki was accused of assault, Szymon Laskowski was prosecuted for violating the public order and General Jan Nepomucen Umiński ran away from his increasingly impatient Parisian creditors.33 It was the presence of such individuals who caused the largest organisation of Poles in Britain, the so-called Committee of the Whole Polish Emigration in London (Komitet Ogółu Emigracji Polskiej w Londynie), to wonder how best to prevent “the great influx of people from France and Belgium, among whom there is an increasing number of those eager to avoid imprisonment, who enlarge the gang of scum tarnishing the good name of the Poles.”34 It also happened that the Poles staying in England helped their compatriots to find shelter there. In January 1844, ten Polish sailors forcibly conscripted into the Russian Navy escaped from the ship “Irtish” anchored temporarily in Portsmouth. They were encouraged to do so by the ex-­ insurgents living there, who then helped them to get to London  Kalembka, Wielka Emigracja, 313; Zdrada, Wielka Emigracja po Powstaniu, 43.  Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Pamiętniki. Dziennik pobytu za granica ̨ od dnia 21 lipca 1831 r. do 20 maja 1841 r. [Memoirs. A Journal of the stay abroad since 21 July 1831, till 20 May 1841], (Poznań: J.K. Żupański, 1876), vol. 2: 395, 426; Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach, 20–21. 34  Raport Komitetu Ogółu Emigracji Polskiej w Londynie [Report of the Committee of the Whole Polish Emigration in London], 1 November 1840–3 October 1841, Polish Library in Paris (BPP), ms 589, 147. 32 33

76 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

unnoticed under the protection of the LAFP.35 A similar attempt, made in autumn 1853 by Poles serving on the Russian ships “Aurora” and “Navarin,” was unsuccessful. The fugitives fell into the hands of the British police in Guildford, who handed them over to their Russian superiors. Despite talks held at the Royal Navy headquarters in Portsmouth by the LAFP activists and lawyers, and growing tensions in British-Russian relations (or perhaps because of them), deserters remained on the Russian ships.36 In some cases, Polish arrivals to Britain were driven by a desire to join or to be closer to a relative. Stanisław Egbert Koźmian, who had been residing in Britain since 1835, was joined in 1838 by his younger brother Jan, who until that time had lived in exile in France. Their cousin Adam Koźmian also lived in London. After a stay of several months, Jan Koźmian returned to France. These were not, however, the only siblings among the Poles in England. In the 1830s and 1840s, the brothers Józef and Aleksander Dybowski, Edward and Franciszek Kirkor, Karol and Leopold Muller, Roch and Nikodem Rupniewski, Franciszek and Seweryn Stawiarski, and Feliks and Adam Żaba were staying in different parts of the United Kingdom—to mention only few.37 We can also point to a rare example of migration which brought together an entire two-generation family. In October 1833, after long efforts to obtain Russian passports, Krystyn Lach Szyrma’s wife, Józefa, and his two young daughters were able to come to London. They were not formally political émigrés, but— as a friend of hers wrote after her death—Józefa Szyrmowa left Warsaw because she was “unable to bear the sight of triumphant Muscovities and the separation from her husband, and feared that the authorities could take her children away.”38 35  Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, “Ucieczka Polaków z rosyjskiego okrętu ‘Irtysz’ w brytyjskim porcie Portsmouth w roku 1844 [An escape of the Poles from the Russian ship ‘Irtish’ in Portsmouth in 1844],” Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Historica, 69 (2000): 59–71. 36  Seweryn Stawiarski, Aurora i Navaryn, statki wojenne rosyjskie w Portsmouth [Aurora and Navarin: the Russian ships in Portsmouth], (London: 38 Regent Square, Gray’s Inn Road, 1854), 3–47. 37  Biographical data in: Robert Bielecki, Słownik biograficzny oficerów powstania listopadowego [Biographical Dictionary of the officers of the November Uprising], (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 1995–1998), vol. 1–3. 38  K.T.H. [Klementyna Hoffmanowa], “Józefa Szyrmowa,” Kronika Emigracji Polskiej, 14 March 1837, 9.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

77

Very often the reasons for Polish refugees arriving and staying in Britain were complex and resulted from various circumstances. The closest aide of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Count Władysław Zamoyski, who regularly visited London to meet British politicians and to prepare pro-Polish motions in Parliament, accompanied Prince Adam on a propaganda trip around Scotland in 1835. Interrupted by long stays in the residences of the Scottish aristocracy, the trip was also supposed to help Zamoyski recover from the long and dangerous illness he had suffered a few months earlier. After it was finished, he wrote to his mother: “Our healths are very good; I wonder how it will be when I try to work more and I will hunt less.”39 In 1836, General Józef Dwernicki came to London. A little earlier, the French authorities, alarmed by his republican activity, had ordered him to leave Paris. Dwernicki was allowed to stay elsewhere in France, but he treated his departure as a kind of political demonstration and a good opportunity to get out of sight of his creditors.40 Business, politics and concern for health brought to Britain another Polish General, Józef Bem, a hero of the Battle of Ostrołęka (1831). In 1842, he promoted his method for memorisation by organising demonstration exams in London by his pupils at the Cadogan Literary and Scientific Institution, an organisation founded by another refugee, Feliks Żaba.41 Five years later, Bem investigated the possibility of purchasing weapons in Britain for a planned uprising in Poland and underwent surgery to remove an old bullet from his leg.42 General Bem’s long treatment was financed by the members of the LAFP, who were also involved in the organisation of Chopin’s tournées in Britain in 1848. Finally, a number of refugees arrived in Britain rather by chance than design. Two participants of the 1831 Uprising in Lithuania, lieutenants Chłapowski and Zieliński, who had been interned by the Prussians in Memel, were assisted in their escape by the crew of an English merchant 39  Władysław Zamoyski to Zofia Zamoyska, Liverpool 1 January 1836, Jenerał Zamoyski 1803–1868 (Poznań: Biblioteka Kórnicka, 1914), vol. 3: 360. 40  Urszula Wencel-Kalembkowa, Działalnos ć ́ gen. Józefa Dwernickiego na emigracji w latach 1832–1848, [General Józef Dwernicki’s activities in the exile between 1832 and 1848], (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978), 66, 82–83. 41  A Public Examination of the Pupils instructed in the Polish Mnemonic Method improved by General Bem (London: K. Wyszyński, 1842). 42  Dudley Stuart, Address of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland to the Poles. Odezwa do Polaków, (London: E. Detkens, 1850), 26–27; Eligiusz Kozłowski, Generał Józef Bem (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo MON, 1958), 199, 211–212.

78 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

ship who called at a local port. Both Poles sailed to Hull on board this ship in the autumn of 1831. In 1837, an unknown Pole reached London. Having escaped to Persia from a penal colony in Russia, he met British diplomats there, who helped him to get to England via Turkey.43 Jan Bartkowski, who I referred to earlier, recorded in his memoirs the story of the illiterate private Jan Koza. In 1832, Koza came to Bourges in France with a group of other Polish officers and soldiers. Commanded to serve in the French Foreign Legion, he refused and decided to return to Poland on foot. He did not know any language except Polish, but set off through Switzerland, where he got involved in political riots. After some time, he continued his journey, describing it to Bartkowski in the following words: “Unable to understand anyone, I walked on, thinking that I would come to Poland at last. Finally, I went to the seaside, where I was put on a ship and brought to England.”44 It is possible that there was an element of confabulation in his account and Jan Koza might have been one of the individuals deported from Belgium or France for some legal violation, to which he preferred not to admit. But on the other hand—one can believe him—seeing in his adventures one more possible scenario of a refugee’s arrival in England. A number of the Polish ex-insurgents who settled on the Continent came to England for a limited time to visit former comrades-in-arms or simply for tourism. Aleksander Jełowicki, a member of the pre-war Polish parliament and an editor in Paris, made such a journey in 1835, leaving deeply impressed by the scale and pace of England’s economic development: “I realized the beauty and, what’s more, the wealth and civilization of England only on my return to France. And it seemed to me now that the latter remained at least a hundred years behind England in terms of prosperity and culture”—he wrote to a friend.45 But in conclusion it must be stressed that out of 2600 Polish political emigrants who reached Britain between 1831 and 1863, only a minority had voluntarily chosen this country as their refuge. Although their British hosts could be surprised by this fact, for historical, religious, educational and cultural reasons England seemed much less attractive to Poles than the other liberal countries of 43  Niemcewicz, Pamiętniki. Dziennik pobytu, vol. 1: 78; Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach, 17, 29. 44  Bartkowski, Wspomnienia, 254. 45  Aleksander Jełowicki, Listy do Ksaweryny. Listy do Ksaweryny Chodkiewiczowej z lat 1832–1839 [Letters to Ksaweryna. Letters to Ksaweryna Chodkiewiczowa from the years 1832–1839], ed. Franciszek German, (Warszawa: PAX, 1964), 204–205.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

79

western Europe. There was a small group of Polish Anglophiles who consciously decided to settle in Britain, but the vast majority of the Polish refugees who sought asylum in the British Isles were just unable to settle in France, Belgium, Saxony or Switzerland. Some were hindered by political reasons, others made themselves undesirable to local authorities through having broken the law. Relatively few of them could demonstrate any prior knowledge of Britain. Even those who considered themselves well-acquainted with British history and culture, or thought they knew the English language pretty well, sometimes quickly found out that their accent and pronunciation made it impossible to communicate fluently with the natives. Czartoryski, Zamoyski or Szyrma did not have any problem with that, but Erazm Rykaczewski, a poet and journalist, who in 1828 had published his translation of Walter Scott’s Kenilworth in Warsaw, noted that during the first days of his stay in Scotland he communicated “as a mute, only in writing.”46 Serious difficulties in adapting to British society resulted in the fact that many of the Polish newcomers quickly left Britain and the size of the Polish political diaspora there was variable (usually well below a thousand persons in any given year). Table 4.1, based on the data collected and published by the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, shows that in some years more Polish political refugees departed from Britain than arrived in it. After a dynamic increase in the years 1832–1837, which resulted in the Polish population approaching 700, the Polish diaspora in the United Kingdom decreased substantially over the next decade. Only the European turmoils of 1848–1849 caused the wave of refugees to rise again, and in 1853, there were 806 Polish political exiles in Great Britain. Then they started to decline, and economic migrants (mainly of Jewish origin) began to dominate among the newcomers from Poland. The most popular destinations for those refugees who were leaving the United Kingdom remained France and Belgium, and for those who were lucky enough to obtain permission to do so, Prussian and Austrian Poland. In the initial, liberal phase of Frederick William IV’s reign (1840–1848) many Poles settled in Posen, and after the transformations in the Habsburg Empire in the 1860s emigrants began to return to Polish Galicia. The rest usually went to the United States and the British colonies (particularly

46  Cf. Ignacy Polkowski, “Erazm Edward Rykaczewski,” Tygodnik Ilustrowany no. 296 (1873): 97.

80 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

Table 4.1  Polish political exiles entering and departing from Britain between 1832 and 1857 Year

Entering

Departing

Year

Entering

Departing

1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843

30 22 545 76 162 115 54 44 29 18 14 11

19 2 123 72 28 27 47 93 51 33 21 18

1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855

47 14 15 15 14 116 262 464 163 107 70 88

34 21 28 22 45 62 197 204 169 59 65 127

Source: Karol Szulczewski, O Towarzystwie Literackiem Przyjaciół Polski w Anglii. Odezwa do Rodaków [On Literary Association of the Friends of Poland in England. An Appeal to the Countrymen], (Paryż: Księgarnia Polska, 1857), 38 (annex no 6)

Australia).47 The Russian amnesty after the Crimean War (1856) allowed a small group of refugees to return to the Congress Kingdom of Poland and former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In rare cases, exiles went back to Poland under false identities, which sometimes ended in imprisonment or another expulsion. The reasons for leaving Britain were mostly the same— nostalgia, a desire to return to the bosom of the family, the high cost of living, the climate and the English aversion to foreigners, which was sometimes felt by the Poles. Those emigrants who stayed in Britain experienced varying lives. Some of them suffered greatly from poverty and were dependent on British aid until their deaths. Others started working, which was not always psychologically easy for the descendants of noble families. Many appreciated over time, as Dominik Sypniewski put it, “the innumerable benefits conferred by Englishmen on the Poles” and praised “[England’s] admirable laws, her high moral feelings, her simple and sublime faith.”48 The most 47  Lech Paszkowski, Poles in Australia and Oceania 1790–1840 (Sydney: Australian National University Press, 1987). 48  Dominik Sypniewski, Impressions of England; or Observations of an Exile, on the Principles and Prosperity of the British Nation, and the misfortunes of his own Country (London: W.H. Compton, 1843): 7–9.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

81

resourceful achieved moderate professional success, got married and became naturalised. Around 60 veterans of the November Uprising applied for naturalisation in the United Kingdom between 1831 and 1872. Among them were Dionizy Wielobycki, a successful physician practising in Edinburgh; Karol Węgierski, an artist who completed a portrait of the Duke of Sussex; Napoleon Płoszczyński, a drawing teacher at University College London; Franciszek Stawiarski, a civil engineer and land surveyor from Southsea; Ksawery Paszkowicz, the master of a grammar school at Newland; Wincenty Kuczyński, a clerk in the State Paper Office; Józef Michalski, a London cigar merchant; and also Jan Giełgud, a major in Lithuania during the uprising and the great-grandfather of Sir John Gielgud.49 It is interesting to note that at least a third of those naturalised eventually died outside the British Isles.50 Such was the case of the lawyer Ignacy Jackowski, who in his naturalisation petition (1854) declared that he wanted to put himself to “Public Service in this country,” but after obtaining Alexander II’s post-Crimean amnesty of 1856 returned to Poland.51 This also can be seen as another confirmation of the thesis that for the majority of Polish exiles who found themselves in Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, the United Kingdom was only a temporary refuge. Their stay in Britain was not part of an optimal life plan but just a prolonged wait for a change in the circumstances that forced them to leave their country. For understandable reasons, the presence and activities of several hundred Polish political refugees could not have enormous significance for nineteenth-century British society and culture as a whole. However, it did effectively influence the formation of the early Victorian stereotype of the Pole, which was dominant for at least two decades. According to L.R. Lewitter, this stereotype positioned Poles as the heroic victims of “a barbarous and bear-like executioner”52 and it was present both in the 49  Wielobycki, Węgierski, Płoszczyński, Stawiarski, Paszkowicz, Kuczyński, Michalski, and Giełgud’s naturalisation petitions, NA, ms HO/1/37/1304, ms HO/1/23/447, ms HO/1/101/3593, ms HO/1/35/128, ms HO/1/74/2294, ms HO/1/28/880, ms HO/1/31/996, ms HO/1/46/1478. 50  Krzysztof Marchlewicz, “Naturalizations of Polish Veterans of the November Uprising in Victorian Britain: Context, Conditions, Reasons,” Polish-AngloSaxon Studies 14 (2014): 65. 51  I. Jackowski’s naturalisation petition, NA, ms HO/1/57/1867. 52  Lucjan Ryszard Lewitter, “The Polish Cause as Seen in Great Britain, 1830–1863,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 28 (1995): 47.

82 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

British press and in literary works (e.g. those of Thomas Campbell, William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Julia Pardoe and Thomas Gordon Hake’s poetry).53 The close and long-lasting contact of some refugees with Britain also affected Polish culture. An excellent example of this was the work of the translators Stanisław Egbert Koźmian and Leon Ulrich, who co-­ authored (with Józef Paszkowski) the first Polish edition of Shakespeare’s complete dramatic works in 1875–1877. After returning to Poland, Koźmian published also a two-volume work containing reflections on the history and the present state of Polish-English relations, as well as sketches on English institutions and literature.54 Erazm Rykaczewski’s exile in Britain also resulted in a Polish-English and English-Polish dictionary published in Berlin in 1849–1851. So, although some undertakings— such as the monthly Rozmaitości Szkockie [Scottish Variety] founded in Glasgow by Felicjan Abdon Wolski to familiarise the Polish readers with literature, philosophy and industry of the United Kingdom—turned out to be failures,55 it is not an exaggeration to conclude that the Great Emigration played an important role in the Polish reception of British civilisation and cultural heritage.

Bibliography Archival Sources Harrowby Manuscript Trust, Sandon Hall (HMss), ms XXVII. National Archives, London (NA), mss HO/1/12/54, HO/1/37/1304, HO/1/23/447, HO/1/101/3593, HO/1/35/128, HO/1/74/2294, HO/1/28/880, HO/1/31/996, HO/1/46/1478, HO/1/57/1867. Polish Academy of Sciences Library, Kórnik (BK), ms 2405. Polish Library, Paris (BPP), ms 589. Princes Czartoryskis’ Library, Cracow (BCK), ms 5517 III.

Primary Sources Bartkowski, Jan. Wspomnienia z Powstania 1831 roku i pierwszych lat emigracji. Ed. Eugeniusz Sawrymowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1967. 53  See: Marta Gibińska, “The Patriot’s Virtue and the Poet’s Song: Polish Themes in English Poetry of the Nineteenth Century,” Polish-AngloSaxon Studies 3/4 (1992): 30–35. 54  Stanisław Egbert Koźmian, Anglia i Polska (Poznań: J.K. Żupański, 1862), 1–2. 55  Wolski published only three issues of his magazine. See Rozmaitos ć i Szkockie, no. 1–3 (January–March), 1843.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

83

Czartoryski, Adam Jerzy. Żywot J.U. Niemcewicza. Berlin—Poznań: B. Behr, 1860. Dziennik Praw Królestwa Polskiego, 1832. Geneza Ludu Polskiego w Anglii. Materiały z ŕ ódłowe, edited by Peter Brock. London: B. Świderski, 1962. Jełowicki, Aleksander. Listy do Ksaweryny. Listy do Ksaweryny Chodkiewiczowej z lat 1832-1839, edited by Franciszek German. Warszawa: PAX, 1964. Jenerał Zamoyski 1803-1868. Poznań: Biblioteka Kórnicka, 1914: 3. Koźmian, Stanisław Egbert. Anglia i Polska. Poznań: J.K. Żupański, 1862. Krasiński, Henryk. The Cossacks of the Ukraine: Comprising Biographical Notices of the Most Celebrated Cossack Chiefs or Attamans. London: Partridge and Oakey, 1848. Kronika Emigracji Polskiej, (1837), (1838). Miłkowski, Zygmunt (Jeż Teodor Tomasz). Od kolebki przez życie. Wspomnienia, edited by Adam Lewak. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1936. Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn. Pamiętniki. Dziennik pobytu za granica ̨ od dnia 21 lipca 1831 r. do 20 maja 1841 r. Poznań: J.K. Żupański, 1876. Polonia, or Monthly Reports on Polish Affairs, no. 1–5 (August–December). London: George Eccles, 1832. A Public Examination of the Pupils Instructed in the Polish Mnemonic Method Improved by General Bem. London: K. Wyszyński, 1842. Rozmaitości Szkockie, no. 1–3 (January–March). Glasgow: Bell and Bain, 1843. Sprawa młodej emigracyi polskiej po wypadkach 1848, w latach 1850-1851 do Anglii przybyłej. London: A. Rypiński, 1852. Stawiarski, Seweryn. Aurora i Navaryn, statki wojenne rosyjskie w Portsmouth. London: 38 Regent Square, Gray’s Inn Road, 1854. Stuart, Dudley Coutts. Address of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland to the Poles. Odezwa do Polaków. London: E. Detkens, 1850. Sypniewski, Dominik. Impressions of England; or Observations of an Exile, on the Principles and Prosperity of the British Nation, and the Misfortunes of his own Country. London: W.H. Compton, 1843. Szulczewski, Karol. O Towarzystwie Literackiem Przyjaciół Polski w Anglii. Odezwa do Rodaków. Paryż: Księgarnia Polska, 1857. Szyrma, Krystyn Lach, Anglia i Szkocya. Przypomnienia z podróży roku 1820-1824 odbytey. Warszawa: Drukarnia A. Gałęzowskiego, 1828. Szyrma, Krystyn Lach. Ksia ̨żka wypisów angielskich ze słownikiem. Warszawa: Drukarnia A. Gałęzowskiego, 1827.

Secondary Sources Bielecki, Robert. Słownik biograficzny oficerów powstania listopadowego. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 1995–1998: vol. 1–3. Dew, Ben. Polish Portsmouth. Polskie Portsmouth. Polish translation by Ewa Maria Kaźmierczak. Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth, 2018.

84 

K. MARCHLEWICZ

Fahrmeir, Andreas. Citizens and Aliens. Foreigners and the Law in Britain and the German States, 1789–1870. New York—Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000. Gibińska, Marta. “The Patriot’s Virtue and the Poet’s Song: Polish Themes in English Poetry of the Nineteenth Century.” Polish-AngloSaxon Studies 3/4 (1992): 21–42. Gołębiowska, Zofia. W kręgu Czartoryskich. Wpływy angielskie w Puławach na przełomie XVIII i XIX wieku. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2000. Graniewski, Henryk. “The Mission of General Chrzanowski to Turkey (1836–1840).” Antemurale 12 (1968): 115–264. Jabłoński, Zbigniew. “Chopin w Anglii.” Ruch Muzyczny 7 (1960): 10–12. Jerzy, Zdrada. Wielka Emigracja po Powstaniu Listopadowym. Warszawa: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1987. Kalembka, Sławomir. “Generał La Fayette. Przyjaciel Wielkiej Emigracji.” Echa Przeszłości, 9 (2008): 113–120. Kalembka, Sławomir. Wielka Emigracja 1831–1863. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2003. Kasznik, Anna. “Polityka finansowa Monarchii Lipcowej wobec emigracji polskiej.” Studia Historyczne 4 (1973): 495–521. Kieniewicz, Stefan. “Koźmian Stanisław Egbert (1811–1885).” Polski Słownik Biograficzny 40 (1970): 59–61. Konarska, Barbara. Polskie drogi emigracyjne. Emigranci polscy na studiach we Francji w latach 1832–1848. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1986. Kozłowski, Eligiusz. Generał Józef Bem. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo MON, 1958. Kukiel, Marian. Czartoryski and European Unity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955. Kuzicki, Jerzy. “Duchowni i duszpasterstwo polskiej emigracji w krajach Europy Zachodniej w I połowie XIX wieku. Przegla ̨d problematyki badawczej.” UR Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 2 (2019): 43–71. Lewitter, Lucjan Ryszard. “The Polish Cause as Seen in Great Britain, 1830–1863.” Oxford Slavonic Papers 28 (1995): 35–61. Lipoński, Wojciech. “The Influence of Britain on Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski’s Education and Political Activity.” Polish-Anglo Saxon Studies 1 (1987): 33–67 and 2 (1991): 31–68. Marchlewicz, Krzysztof. Dystans, współczucie i „znikomy interes.” Uwarunkowania brytyjskiej polityki wobec Polski w latach 1815-1914. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Historii UAM, 2016. Marchlewicz, Krzysztof. “Naturalizations of Polish Veterans of the November Uprising in Victorian Britain: Context, Conditions, Reasons.” Polish-Anglo Saxon Studies 14 (2014): 55–69. Marchlewicz, Krzysztof. Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach Brytyjskich (1831–1863). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Historii UAM, 2008.

4  WHY BRITAIN? THE MOTIVES AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF POLISH… 

85

Paszkiewicz, Mieczysław. “Lista emigrantów polskich otrzymuja ̨cych zasiłki od rza ̨du brytyjskiego w latach 1834-1899.” Materiały do Biografii, Genealogii i Heraldyki Polskiej 2 (1964): 59–109. Paszkowski, Lech. Poles in Australia and Oceania 1790-1840. Sydney: Australian National University Press, 1987. Polkowski, Ignacy. “Erazm Edward Rykaczewski.” Tygodnik Ilustrowany 296 (1873): 97. Pomorski, Jan. “Geneza, program i struktura organizacyjna Towarzystwa Literackiego. Przyjaciół Polski.” Przegla ̨d Humanistyczny 1 (1978): 157–182. Tomczak, Andrzej and Karol Górski, eds. Polska-Francja: dziesięć wieków zwia ̨zków politycznych, kulturalnych i gospodarczych. Warszawa: Ksia ̨żka i Wiedza, 1983. Wencel-Kalembkowa, Urszula. Działalność gen. Józefa Dwernickiego na emigracji w latach 1832-1848. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978. Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław. Działalność księcia Adama Jerzego Czartoryskiego w Wielkiej Brytanii (1831-1832). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, 1999. Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław. “Ucieczka Polaków z rosyjskiego okrętu ‘Irtysz’ w brytyjskim porcie Portsmouth w roku 1844.” Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Historica 69 (2000): 59–71.

CHAPTER 5

Polish History in Britain: The Work of Napoleon Feliks Zaba, Leon Szadurski and J.F. Gomoszyński Ben Dew

During the mid-1830s, substantial numbers of Polish refugees began to arrive and settle in Britain. Central to the political activities of this group and their various sympathisers was a programme to promote the study of Polish history. To this end, a number of the emigrants, foremost among them Napoleon Feliks Zaba, Leon Szadurski and J.F.  Gomoszyński, toured Britain giving lectures on the history and culture of their homeland and selling published versions of their presentations. A perceptive article in the Caledonian Mercury in November 1833 neatly summarised the three core purposes of this activity. First, the writer argued, their work constituted an attempt “to keep alive a generous sympathy with a suffering but heroic people.”1 In this sense, the political aim of the material was a straightforward one: to use historical narratives to provide a justification 1

 Caledonian Mercury, 16 November 1833.

B. Dew (*) Coventry University, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_5

87

88 

B. DEW

for Polish national independence. Such a goal necessarily involved presenting the Poles as engaged in a noble attempt to “shake off the galling yoke of despotism” imposed by the partitioning powers, Russia foremost amongst them.2 Second, their accounts sought to demonstrate the wider political and moral implications of the Polish cause; consequently, they were “calculated to deepen the indignation which all freemen must feel at oppression” and to show that rather than being a local issue in a distant land, the plight of Poland was of European and, in some sense, universal significance.3 Finally, there was a more material aspect to the activities. History provided a respectable means through which the more educated of the Polish refugees—all of whom had arrived in Britain with scant financial resources—could earn a living. The chapter that follows provides the first detailed exploration of the activities of these émigré polemicists.4 Key to the work they completed, it will be demonstrated, was a series of ideas regarding “western” and “eastern” Europe. The historian Larry Wolff has argued that conceptions of Europe as a continent divided into culturally distinctive “eastern” and “western” blocs have their origin in the writings of the British and French Enlightenments. It was, therefore: western Europe that invented Eastern Europe as its complementary other half […]. It was also western Europe, that cultivated and appropriated to itself the new notion of “civilization”, an eighteenth-century neologism, and civilization discovered its complement, within the same continent, in shadowed lands of backwardness, even barbarism.5  Caledonian Mercury, 16 November 1833.  Caledonian Mercury, 16 November 1833. 4  It should be noted that the work of these writers constitutes one trend in writing about Poland from this period. In the years following the November uprising, a series of British writers also wrote histories of Poland: Samuel Astley Dunham, The History of Poland (London 1831); James Fletcher, The History of Poland (London, 1831); M. Ross, A History of Poland (Newcastle, 1835). Alongside the polemical work discussed in this chapter there were also some more “serious” historical accounts from Polish writers, most notably the work of Walerian Krasiński: Historical Sketch of the rise, progress and decline of the Reformation in Poland (London, 1838–40); Poland: its history, constitution, literature, manners, customs (London, 1855). There is some useful material on the writers under consideration in Krzysztof Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja na Wyspach Brytyjskich (1831–1863) (Poznań: Instytut Historii UAM, 2008). See also, Wielka Emigracja, 145–148 for a discussion of Krasiński. 5  Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 4. 2 3

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

89

In forwarding such claims, Wolff’s key historiographical move, as he freely acknowledged, was to apply the framework that Edward Said had utilised for the Asiatic east to its European counterpart.6 Just as the occident and the orient emerged as mirror images of one another defined by “opposition and adjacency” so did “Western” and “Eastern” Europe.7 This argument is, as numerous commentators have noted, not without its problems; eighteenth-century writers were at least as interested in the differences between states like Poland and Russia as they were in the similarities and they very seldom referred explicitly to “eastern Europe.”8 What I want to demonstrate in this chapter, however, is that a version of this distinction between “east” and “west” did underpin British attitudes to Poland in the years of the partitions. British discourse frequently compared the affluent, modern, commercial states of the west and the poor, backwards feudal ones of the east that continued to rely, it was claimed, on an inefficient and exploitative form of slave labour. Polish historical polemicists responded to such claims, not by denying the existence of this boundary, but rather by redrawing it and shifting it to the east. In general terms, this involved emphasising the links—cultural, political and religious—that existed between Poland and the western powers, Britain foremost amongst them, while insisting on the absolute difference between Poland and Russia. Part one of this chapter introduces Zaba, Gomoszyński and Szadurski and outlines the British intellectual context in which they worked; part two looks at their core political and historiographical ideas. The conclusion briefly explores the impact of these polemicists’ work on later writing.

 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979).  Wolff, Inventing, 5. 8  For critiques of Wolff, see: Michael Confino, “Re-Inventing the Enlightenment: Western Images of Eastern Realities in the Eighteenth Century,” Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 36: 3/4 (1994): 505–522 (510); Ezequiel Adamovsky, “EuroOrientalism and the Making of the Concept of Eastern Europe in France, 1810–1880,” The Journal of Modern History 77: 3 (2005): 591–628 (596); Csaba Dupcsik, “Postcolonial Studies and the Inventing of Eastern Europe,” East Central Europe 26: 1 (1999), 1–14; For a useful summary of the debate between Wolff and Confino, see: Guido Franzinetti, “The Idea and the Reality of Eastern Europe in the Eighteenth Century,” History of European Ideas 34 (2008), 361–368. 6 7

90 

B. DEW

1 The key figure in developing a programme of lectures on Polish history for British audiences was Napoleon Feliks Zaba. A poet and prolific writer on history and literature, Zaba was born in Krasław (now in southern Latvia) in 1803.9 After the November Uprising, he migrated initially to Paris and then, following involvement in an unsuccessful plot to restore the French Emperor Napoleon II, to Britain where he settled in Edinburgh.10 His first publications in English were The Polish Exile (1832), a short collection of poetry, and an 1833 periodical of the same name concerned with Poland’s history, geography and literature.11 In 1833, Zaba began touring widely across Britain and Ireland presenting  lectures on Polish history at an impressive range of music halls, mechanics institutes, court houses, schools and assembly rooms.12 The basic formula he developed involved a sequence of two or three lectures (depending on local interest), organised chronologically and delivered during the course of a week. Over time, Zaba expanded the range of topics that he covered; by 1835, he was offering a separate course of lectures on Polish literature and in 1839, he developed a presentation on the role of women. History, however, remained at the heart of his activities. He produced two works explicitly concerned with 9  On Zaba, see: Małgorzata Sobol-Kiełbania, “Księgozbiór rodziny Zabów ze Zbylitowskiej Góry w zbiorach Miejskiej Biblioteki Publicznej im. Juliusza Słowackiego w Tarnowie [Books from the Zaba of Zbylitowska Góra family library in the collections of the Juliusz Słowacki Municipal Public Library in Tarnów],” Z Badań nad Księgozbiorami Historycznymi 9 (2015): 255–272 (255–256). 10  While in Paris, he published the poem Polak w więzieniu w Paryzu [A Pole in Prison in Paris] (Paris, 1833). 11  The Polish Exile, being an historical, statistical, political and literary account of Poland, eds. N.F. Zaba and P. Zaleski (Edinburgh, 1833). Zaba was the author of a short collection of poetry published the previous year with a similar name: N.F. Zaba, Polish Exile, tr. H. Montriou (London, 1832). 12  The cost of attendance varied from place to place, seemingly in response to the means and expectations of local audiences. In Edinburgh and Cheltenham, tickets were priced at 2s 6d, in Leeds they were 6d, while in Keighley, west Yorkshire, they were available gratis. Zaba’s presence at cultural venues meant that the lectures were presented as educational in focus, rather than explicitly political. Indeed, in most locations his talks formed part of a regular programme of “improving” presentations on geography, history, and science. At Keighley Mechanics’ Institute, West Yorkshire, for example, Zaba’s 1835 presentation was preceded by lectures “On Motion” and “On Bonaparte” and followed by a presentation “On America” (Leeds Times, 12 December 1835). See also: Sheffield Independent, 14 December 1839, which provides a full list of the topics discussed by lecturers (including Zaba).

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

91

Poland’s past—Two Lectures on the History of Poland (1834), a version of his oral presentation, and The Principal Features of the History and Literature of Poland (1856)—and spoke  and wrote about a mnemonic system designed to help with the memorisation of historical information.13 Although from the early 1840s Zaba was working in London as the director of the Cadogan Literary and Scientific Institution he continued to lecture, embarking on an extensive tour in 185414 and delivering a presentation entitled ‘Poland as she was and is’ in the months following the January Uprising of 1863.15 Zaba’s model for lectures and accompanying publications was also utilised by two other writers in Britain: Józef Gomoszyński and Leon Szadurski. Gomoszyński was born in Lithuania in around 1813.16 As a 17-year-old, he fought in the November Uprising and was captured by Prussian forces. After being compelled to emigrate, he eventually arrived in London in 1836 and went on to work as a teacher of languages in a variety of locations including Greenock, Leeds and Carlisle. During this time, he maintained a strong interest in history; he was a member of the Polish Historical Associations of London and Paris, and enjoyed a brief career in 1841–1842 lecturing at venues in the north of England on Polish history. A version of his presentation was published in 1843 as A Course of Three Lectures on the History of Poland.17 Gomoszyński died in 1845, but his life was later commemorated both through an impressive monument at the Necropolis in Glasgow and a moving account of his final days published in the journal the New Quarterly Review. Szadurski enjoyed a more colourful if rather less respectable career. A former lieutenant in the Polish army, on arrival in Britain he initially  N.F. Zaba’s Method (London, 1875).  Places visited included Liverpool, Worcester, Reading, Oxford, Chester, Manchester, York, Sheffield and Birmingham. 15  For the 1863 presentation, see: Freeman’s Journal, 22 May 1863. By 1868, Zaba was lecturing in the United States (see: “Letter from New York”, Evening Bulletin, 28 October 1868). He also travelled in Brazil, Australia and New Zealand and was employed as a university professor in Buenos Aires. He returned to Poland in 1881 and died in 1885. See: Stanisław Zieliński, Mały Słownik Pionierów Polskich Kolonjalnych i Morskich (Warsaw: Nakładem Instytutu Wydawniczego Ligi Morskiej i Kolonjalnej, 1933), 640–641. 16  On Gomoszyński, see: https://www.glasgownecropolis.org/profiles/joseph-f-gomoszynski/; “The Last Days of a Polish Exile,” The New Quarterly Review: Or, Home, Foreign and Colonial Journal 9:1 (April, 1847): 109–113. 17  J.F.  Gomoszyński, A Course of Three Lectures on the History of Poland (London: Longman, 1843). 13 14

92 

B. DEW

worked as a fencing, gymnastics and dancing instructor in Leeds.18 During the 1840s, however, he switched his attention to lecturing and spent two years delivering presentations on the history of his native country to audiences principally in the West Country and English midlands.19 In 1841, he toured Ireland and delivered a presentation concerning “the necessity of female education,” and while there, he also appears to have worked with a “Monsieur Chylinksi” (also known as the “Fire King” and “Polish Salamander”) on a stage performance marketed as a “Chemico-Physical and Gymnastic Representation in Four Characters.”20 1842 saw the publication of Szadurski’s An Epitome of Polish History, a work based on his historical lectures. For the rest of his career he alternated between running dancing and gymnastic establishments, including the Polka room in Derby and a gymnasium in Newcastle, and delivering lectures on gymnastics.21 He also continued to write, publishing Heaven Upon Earth in 1848, a work which deals as one reviewer noted with “political and social economy, the architecture and appearance of several of our large towns [...], the state of Europe, the necessity of the restoration of Poland […] and propounds schemes for the demolition and re-erection of towns containing only 60,000 inhabitants.”22 It was, as such, “a singular compound.”23 The presentations the three speakers delivered were, albeit with some notable exceptions, well-supported and well-received.24 In Oxford in 1854, around 600 people attended Zaba’s talk, while 180 turned out for Szadurski’s Exeter lecture.25 The large room of the Commercial Buildings in Leeds was said to be “excessively crowded” for Zaba. A broad range of  Leeds Mercury, 22 December 1838.  For his own reflections on this experience, see: Leon  Szadurski, An  Epitome of Polish History (Glasgow, 1842), 14–15. 20  K.  Bielański, Pamiętnik (Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw) 12,994, k. 17c cited by Marchlewicz, Wielka Emigracja, 194. For details of the performance, see: Freeman’s Journal, 8 March 1841; Freeman’s Journal, 7 May 1841. 21  Derby Mercury, 26 February 1845; Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury, 30 December 1848. 22  Leicestershire Mercury, 11 November 1848. See: Szadurski, Heaven Upon Earth, by a Polish Exile (Edinburgh, 1848). The account drew on a series of lectures Szadurski had given in 1847 and included deeply critical accounts of a number of English cities, particularly Leicester. See: Leicester Chronicle, 10 July 1847. 23  Leicestershire Mercury, 11 November 1848. 24  The less well-attended sessions were generally viewed as a source of civic embarrassment for the town in question. See, for example, Bradford Observer, 10 February 1842. 25  Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 8 July 1854; Szadurski, Epitome, 15. 18 19

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

93

individuals purchased tickets for the events. Zaba’s talk at Rochdale in 1835 was reported as being “well attended by all classes of society,” while the audience when he spoke at the anniversary of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland in 1839, included both a Chartist baker and an army colonel.26 Elsewhere, he was graced by more august company. There were repeated mentions in contemporary reports of the “respectable” nature of the audiences at Polish events, and in St. James’s London in April 1848 Zaba’s listeners included two duchesses, two countesses, a marchioness, a Lord and the Bishop of St. David’s.27 Also noteworthy was the popularity of the lectures with women. Zaba, seemingly with success, marketed his presentations at a female audience, using newspaper advertisements to call on “the ladies” to attend.28 Szadurski, meanwhile, estimated that two thirds of his audiences were women, and in thanks for their support, dedicated his pamphlet on Polish history to “the Ladies of England whose tender sympathy has always been awake to the fate of Poland.”29 Audience reaction to the lectures, from both men and women alike, was enthusiastic. Presentations were often punctuated by loud applause and, on occasions, more direct outpourings of feeling. In Rochdale, for example, the audience appeared “much interested and excited,” while in Barnsley Zaba’s presentation is said to have “drawn tears from the eyes of many of his auditors.”30 A similar response was observed in Keighley, West Yorkshire, while in Northampton Szadurski’s lecture inspired a lengthy and impassioned work of poetry.31 Indeed, it is noticeable that all reports on the lectures, even those of less well-attended events, emphasise the deep emotional response of attendees and their sympathy with the Polish cause. The appeal of the talks arose in part, as numerous reports emphasised, from the demeanour and performance of the speakers. The Belfast Newsletter, for example, presented Zaba as a Byronic hero, noting that though his features were “those of a young and handsome man”, they “bear the impress of study and reflection [and] indicate the conscious 26  Leeds Times, 5 December 1835; The Era, 1 December 1839; The Charter, 1 December 1839. 27  Standard, 5 June 1848. 28  For example: Aberdeen Journal, 5 February 1834, Szadurski, Epitome, 15. 29  Szadurski, Epitome, n.p. 30  Leeds Times, 5 December 1835 (Rochdale); 7 November 1835 (Barnsley). 31  Leeds Times 28 November 1835; Northampton Mercury, 21 November 1840. The poem is attributed to an Ellen A.O.

94 

B. DEW

dignity of a powerful mind, and a firm character, encountering affliction in a good cause, feeling its privations, but rising above them.”32 The Leeds Times, meanwhile, claimed that Zaba’s “bold oratory was perhaps rendered more attractive by a slight foreign accent, and his method of treating his subjects, gave them an intensity of interest which is rarely produced by any public speaker off the stage.”33 Gomoszyński’s delivery, meanwhile, was said to be highly impassioned and an article on his Bradford lectures of 1842 noted that by the end of his talk “he was so much affected that he could scarce proceed.”34 Equally significant was the “romantic” appeal of the subject matter. The Polish uprising of 1830 and 1831, as has been discussed in the chapters by Adam Zamoyski and Milosz Cybowski, had generated substantial levels of public interest and wide-scale support.35 This helped to ensure that the first waves of Polish refugees who arrived in Britain were warmly welcomed and received sympathy and financial help from the local populace. Lectures on Poland responded, therefore, to an already-present interest in the country’s affairs and provided the public with the opportunity to learn about and express their support for what was widely perceived as a worthy cause. Running alongside these ideas about Poland, however, were a series of more negative associations rooted in Enlightenment ideas about history and modernity.36 Key to historical writing from the mid-eighteenth century onwards was the notion that an epochal change had taken place in Europe in the latter part of the mediaeval period. As a range of British writers explained—foremost among them the doyens of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Adam Smith and William Robertson—this period had been marked by the demise of the continent’s feudal institutions, and the violence and gross inequality they maintained. The driving force of these changes had been commerce. New types of trade allowed wealth and with it power to pass from the nobility to the trading classes. As a result, this group, supported by their monarchs, were able to introduce more stable forms of government which brought prosperity and  Belfast Newsletter, 23 January 1835.  Leeds Times, 28 November 1835. 34  Bradford Observer, 10 February 1842. 35  See Chaps. 2 and 3. 36  For eighteenth-century “western” views of Poland, see: Stanisław Kot, Rzeczpospolita Polska w literaturze politycznej Zachodu (Kraków: Nakładem Krakowskiej spółki wydawniczej, 1919), 176–240; Norman Davies, “‘The Languor of So Remote an Interest’: British Attitudes to Poland, 1772–1832,” Oxford Slavonic Papers XVI (1983): 79–90 (81–2). 32 33

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

95

improvements in manners and the arts. An important consequence of these developments was a fundamental shift in labour practices. Whereas feudalism had relied on the cruel and inefficient system of serfdom—generally referred to in British accounts as vassalage or slavery—commercial society emerged from the emancipation of the labour force. There was, therefore, a fundamental link between feudalism, slavery, poverty and barbarism on the one hand, and commerce, emancipated labour, wealth, and civilisation on the other. This narrative did much to shape British attitudes to countries like Poland and Russia. These nations, it was assumed, still remained fundamentally feudal in character and, as such, had more in common with the Western Europe of the twelfth century than any modern polity. Poland, some commentators noted, had begun a process of commercial development in the fourteenth century, but these reforms had been undone by its increasingly powerful nobility.37 As a consequence, the state had sunk first into stagnation and then into decline. Russia, meanwhile, had only begun to embrace commerce under Peter I, and it remained both reliant on non-­ free types of labour and grossly under-developed in economic terms. While all commentators were acutely aware of the religious and, perhaps even more importantly, political differences between Poland and Russia, it was assumed they shared the same fundamental socio-economic system and general level of social development. Thus, John Williams writing in 1779 claimed he felt compelled to make the same observation upon Poland respecting slavery that he had “already done upon Russia”: That this kingdom will still continue in a state of poverty and ignorance of the fine arts and manufactures till the whole system of their government is changed, and till the bulk of the people are suffered to enjoy the natural rights of mankind, and to think and act like human beings.38

These ideas of a “hard” border between east and west were particularly damaging to the Polish cause. One of the key moves in pro-Polish rhetoric was to represent Poland as the captured slave of Russia; partition, as such, 37   See, for example: Joseph Marshall, Travels through Holland, Flanders, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland in the Years 1768, 1769 and 1770, 3 vols (London, 1772); John Williams, The Rise, Progress and Present State of the Northern Governments, 2 vols (London, 1777); William Coxe, Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark, 2 vols (London, 1784). 38  Williams, Northern Governments, 2: 650–1.

96 

B. DEW

had rendered the country “prostrate, and in chains, at the foot of the ruthless [Russian] tyrant.”39 Such a conception, however, was threatened by commentaries which drew attention to Poland’s own role in slavery. For example, at London, in the meeting that marked the sixth anniversary of the 1830 Polish uprising, a series of speeches on the tyranny of Russia and the “patriotism and valour” of the Polish nation were interrupted by a Mr. Beaumont who, “amongst other observations” noted that the leaders of the revolution “had no intention of giving freedom to the great body of the people.”40 A heated debate followed as the pro-Polish contingent, Zaba among them, sought to counter Beaumont’s accusations. Even more offensive for Poles were the arguments developed by the politician Richard Cobden. In his 1836 pamphlet Of Russia, Cobden rejected both the claim that Russia posed a threat to European security, and the notion that the states it had been criticised for interfering in, foremost among them Turkey and Poland, were worthy of British support.41 To this end, after drawing attention to the “deluded sympathy” which the British public had shown towards Poland, Cobden noted that: previously to the dismemberment, the term nation [in Poland] implied only the nobles – that, down to the partition of their territory, about nineteen out of every twenty of the inhabitants were slaves, possessing no rights, civil or political – that about one in every twenty was a nobleman – and that this body of nobles formed the very worst aristocracy of ancient or modern times.42

He continued with a direct attack on Polish propagandists observing that he could not: approve of the lectures upon Polish history and literature, which have been delivered in many parts of the kingdom, by some of these refugees. They convey erroneous pictures of the former condition of that country; glossing

 Sheffield Independent, 22 August 1835.  Standard, 30 November 1836. Zaba (to loud applause) argued that the revolutionists aim was “to give every Pole, of every class and description, the most perfect freedom.” 41  Richard Cobden, On Russia, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1836). Cobden was responding to a series of arguments developed by David Urquhart, the secretary to the British Embassy in Constantinople. 42  Cobden, On Russia, 16. 39 40

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

97

over the conduct of the nobles, and suppressing all mention of the miserable state of the serfs.43

Given the Commonwealth’s record on slavery, Cobden concluded, it was difficult to sympathise with calls for military action against Russia to re-establish a Polish state. Reforms introduced by the Russian administration had ensured that since partition “the peasant that tills the soil no longer ranks on a level with the oxen that draw his plough; he can neither be murdered nor maimed at the caprice of an insolent owner, but is as safe in life and limb under the present laws of Poland, as are the labourers of Sussex or Kent.”44 While, therefore, Cobden conceived of Russia as the least civilised polity in Christian Europe, it was, he argued more advanced than its Polish dependencies and had brought considerable economic and social improvements to them. This state of affairs ensured the task for the Polish polemicists was a multifaceted one. As noted above, in addition to supporting themselves, their primary aim was to secure backing from British audiences, and by extension, Britain’s government. For this to be effective, however, a secondary goal needed to be realised, namely that, as one newspaper report noted, “of dispelling some of those prejudices which […] still subsist in this country [Britain] with regard to her [Poland].”45

2 Such concerns ensured that an analysis of European slavery was key to the work of Zaba, Szadurski and Gomoszyński. In dealing with this issue, they sought to undermine ideas of a straightforward opposition between a backward, slave-owning, feudal Poland and a modern, free and commercial west. Two approaches were employed to achieve this goal. The first, utilised by Szadurski and Zaba, had its origins in the work of the Polish historian Joachim Lelewel, and involved a rejection of the idea of Poland as a land of feudal, aristocratic slaveholders.46 Szadurski’s version of this  Cobden, On Russia, 20.  Cobden, On Russia, 18. 45  Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 14 October 1836. See also: Daily News, 17 June 1854; Standard, 5 June 1848. 46  For useful English language discussions of Lelewel, see: Joan S. Skurnowicz, Romantic Nationalism and Liberalism: Joachim Lelewel and the Polish national idea (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Jerzy Jedlicki, A Suburb of Europe: Nineteenth-Century Polish Approaches to Western Civilization (Budapest and New  York: Central European University Press, 1999), first published in Polish in 1988, 33–34. 43 44

98 

B. DEW

argument was the more straightforward; he denied that there had ever been any slavery in Poland and claimed that those slaves who had arrived on Polish territory were set “at liberty, with a grant of a piece of land, so great was the aversion of the Poles to this species of traffic.”47 Zaba, in contrast, acknowledged that a form of slavery had existed in Poland, but maintained that “western” attempts to conceptualise the Commonwealth as a feudal state were responsible for a series of misapprehensions about its practices. In his Lectures, for example, the work that most likely attracted Cobden’s ire, he maintained that Polish slaves, in contradistinction to those elsewhere, were “attached to the soil, not to the person.”48 This ensured that the slave “bore no hatred to the proprietors of that fertile soil, on the bosom of which he [the slave] bestowed his labour, to earn a subsistence for himself and his family.”49 Zaba later reworked this line of argument in his 1856 account, Principal Features, a volume written partially in response to Cobden. The origins of Poland’s class system, he argued here, arose from the division of labour. Some people were required to “till the land,” others to defend it from potential attacks; it was this latter group who became the equestrian order and, later, the nobility.50 However, this was no rigid caste system. “Every individual”, Zaba emphasised, “even in the humblest walk of life, had the same chance of becoming a member of the order if he distinguished himself by bravery, zeal, and devotedness in the public service, either in war or peace.”51 Moreover, the equestrian order itself was based on the principle of equality of right and privileges between its individual members. Whereas, therefore, in Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain, the feudal system of vassalage had served to reduce “the whole society to one agglomeration of abject slavery” under a small group of “powerful barons” in Poland this had not been possible.52 The idea of equality among the nobility stopped the more affluent and powerful magnates achieving political domination, while the movement of individuals from the agricultural to the military class  Szadurski, Epitome, 118.  N.F. Zaba, Two Lectures on the History of Poland. (Edinburgh, 1834), 7.  49  Zaba, Lectures, 7. 50  N.F.  Zaba, The  Principal Features  of the History and Literature of Poland (London, 1856), 12. 51  Zaba, Principal Features, 12. 52  Zaba, Principal Features, 14. 47 48

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

99

­ revented the emergence of restrictive and divisive class barriers. To an p extent, such an approach emphasised the distinctiveness of Poland’s institutions. However, Zaba’s desire was not to present Polish traditions as completely unique, but rather to counter conventional British assumptions about the Commonwealth’s relationship with the west. The emergence of a “spirit of liberty” in the western states, he argued, had been a product of a rise in the power of the commercial classes and a consequent diminution in the influence of the feudal barons. In Poland, however, the spirit of liberty was already entrenched into the political and social system with the “numerous body of the equestrian order” supporting commerce and acting as a kind of middle class.53 Similarly, the power of that order in relation to the monarchy meant not that Poland was primitive and backwards, but rather that it had happened upon a system of “constitutional monarchy” long before other states.54 Poland may have had a distinctive political and social character, but its institutions were fundamentally “western” and modern in character. Gomoszyński’s analysis took a different approach to these issues in the sense that he accepted the idea that Poland had for much of its history been a nation dominated by a feudal slave-owning aristocracy. During its “early period,” he maintained that the Polish state had “good and free institutions” and made “slow and gradual progress in the path of social amelioration.”55 However, this process of development was arrested by the growing power of the Polish nobility. Whereas in western nations there had been a balance between monarchical and aristocratic power, in Poland the nobility had gained the ascendency and instigated a series of pernicious reforms. Foremost among these were the liberum veto, the infamous measure which required that all laws in the Polish parliament be passed unanimously, and practices introduced in the late sixteenth century which allowed any Prince in Christendom to stand in monarchical elections. These measures ensured that over the course of the seventeenth century the Commonwealth became increasingly anarchic and, because of the elective system, increasingly implicated in the disturbances of other governments. It was also this foreign influence, Gomoszyński argued, which altered the Commonwealth’s social infrastructure. In Poland’s early history, its peasants had been protected; however, as foreign nations,  Zaba, Principle Features, 17.  Zaba, Principle Features, 24. 55  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 5. 53 54

100 

B. DEW

Prussia and Russia foremost among them, “interfered too much in the internal affairs of the country” that protection declined.56 The situation in Poland reached its nadir with the election of the Russian-backed monarch, Stanisław Poniatowski. However, while at one level Poniatowski’s reign was to prove fatal to Polish government, it also sparked a series of Polish (rather than foreign) reform movements. These culminated in the constitution of 1791 the fourth article of which Gomoszyński provided a full translation. This section’s key contention was that any individual “as soon as he sets his foot on the territory of the Republic, becomes free, and at liberty to exercise his industry wherever and in whatever manner he pleases.”57 It was an emphasis on this reform that allowed Gomoszyński to conceptualise Poland’s demise as a nation state as a kind of martyrdom for its support of modern social reform. The constitution, it was asserted, had introduced good government and ought “no less to be praised as a noble monument of the legislation of the 18th century.”58 Consequently, the Russian invasion which followed the establishment of the constitution was an outright attack on Poland’s enlightened government; Polish misfortunes “arose solely from her desire to redress her social grievances, and to better the condition of her people.”59 There are then significant contrasts between Gomoszyński’s account and those of Zaba and Szadurski. The former focused on the redemption the Polish Commonwealth achieved through processes of enlightened western-style reform in the later eighteenth century. The latter assumed that enlightened principles had underpinned the Polish Commonwealth for much of its existence. It should be emphasised, however, that these are differences in emphasis rather than principle. Gomoszyński, for example, was far from dismissive of the achievements of Poland’s early kings. Zaba, meanwhile, offered fulsome praise for the 3rd of May constitution, although he conceived of it less as a genuine innovation and more an embodiment of traditional Polish political values. At the same time, the accounts are united by their rejection of Cobden’s claim that Poland was fundamentally a medieval-style feudal polity; indeed, what emerges from their analyses is a vision of the Commonwealth as enlightened, liberal and civilised.  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 64.  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 37–38. 58  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 38. Praise for the constitution from leading British politicians, Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox among them, was used to support this line of argument. 59  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 47. 56 57

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

101

These ideas about the Commonwealth’s political history were supplemented by commentary on its ecclesiastical history. This was, potentially at least, a more problematic area. In much British writing of the eighteenth century, Poland had been portrayed as a hot-bed of Catholic intolerance and extremism with particular attention being paid in the British press to the “massacre” of Protestants at Toruń (Thorn) in 1724.60 While the anti-Catholic angle was utilised a good deal less in post-partition work, writers still needed to find a way to “sell” Poland’s Catholic history to a predominantly Protestant British readership. Two key approaches were taken to this issue. First, commentators, Szadurski foremost among them, sought to emphasise that Polish Catholicism was different from and, in part, opposed to “western” forms of the Church. His account emphasised, therefore, the use of the Polish language in church ceremonies, the independence of Poland from the Papacy and its frequent resistance to Papal decrees. Poland had, it was implied, a national church which had more in common with modern Anglicanism than “Papistry.” Second, all writers drew attention to the history of religious toleration in Poland and conceived of this as further evidence of the fundamentally “civilized” and “enlightened” nature of the Commonwealth. This was a country, it was argued, which had avoided the internecine conflict of the Reformation, had granted liberty of conscience to Protestants, and offered shelter and protection to the Jews. The material on Poland’s relationship with its Jews is particularly interesting here. Some accounts, for example Gomoszyński’s, saw it as a source of national pride that Poland had worked to maintain Jewish culture. Indeed, particular attention is drawn to Poland’s role in preserving Jewish national costume.61  Szadurski, however, turns these arguments in a rather different direction. His History of Poland offers explicit praise to Christian Poles for taking in a group [the Jews] who were “persecuted, despised [and] detested.”62 However, he shows no sympathy for the unenlightened Jews themselves; this was a people, it was argued, who “wear the same costume they did in Jerusalem” and have “an ­indifference for all kinds of useful knowledge, and [an] extraordinary aversion to cleanliness and comfort.”63 The meritorious nature of Polish 60  e.g. Charles Owen, An Alarm to Protestant Prince and People, Who are all struck at in the Popish cruelties at Thorn (1725); Anonymous, A Faithful and Exact Narrative of the Horrid Tragedy lately acted at Thorn (London, 1725). 61  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 10. 62  Szadurski, Epitome, 40. 63  Szadurski, Epitome, 41.

102 

B. DEW

toleration, therefore, is seen as arising from the capacity of Poles, in the face of extreme provocation, to follow the precepts of the Gospel by “leaving [...] punishment to HIM whom it pleased to afflict them.”64 To an extent, these ideas of Polish toleration were compared with and defined against the actions of western nations. For Gomoszyński, for example, to understand, how “enlightened” the Poland of the Renaissance was “we need only compare her liberal spirit with the conduct of other countries.”65 When all the rest of Europe: was deluged with the blood of contending sectaries; when the Lutherans were perishing in Germany; and while the blood of Protestants was furiously shed in Italy, France and England; Catholic Poland, without proscribing her ancient religion, opened an asylum to the persecuted of all religions, and allowed every man to worship God in his own way.66

A similar approach is taken by Szadurski to Poland’s treatment of the Jews. Polish toleration, as he conceives of it, was particularly noteworthy because it had come at a time when Jewish populations had experienced “persecutions and inhuman cruelties” from “every [other] kingdom in Europe.”67 However, while Polish attitudes may have been different from and superior to those of the rest of Europe for much of its history, the ultimate effect of these approaches was to give it an affinity with modern Britain. As Zaba argued, in sixteenth-century Poland, “whosoever stood in need of an asylum, driven abroad by cruel persecutions  – every one, without distinction as to the difference of opinion, met with the same hospitality and protection. In our days a similar practice is the pride and boast of Great Britain.”68 The presence of Polish writers in British lecture halls constituted, in itself of course, further evidence of Britain’s status as an asylum. This conception of Poland as civilized and enlightened was of central importance to two further aspects of the polemics: their accounts of Russia and their emotional appeal to a British audience. When dealing with the former issue, writers sought to present Poland and Russia as absolute opposites: the boundary between them was that between a land of liberty  Szadurski, Epitome, 40.  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 10. 66  Gomoszyński, Lectures, 10. 67  Szadurski, Epitome, 40. 68  Zaba, Principal Features, 35–36. 64 65

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

103

and a land of tyranny and slavery. To an extent the abstract way in which this relationship was imagined ensured that the Poles, as Brian Porter has argued, “defined their enemy as tyranny rather than as Russia—or, if the enemy was Russia, it was so because the tsarist regime had come to embody tyranny in the world, just as the Poles represented freedom.”69 This implied, hypothetically at least, that the Russian state might be capable of undergoing a process of transformation. Indeed, Zaba speculated that had Poland been able to maintain its influence over Russia in the early years of the seventeenth century: Russia’s “Mongul spirit […] would have undergone a modification, or rather, a complete transformation, by contact with liberal Polish ideas.”70 At the same time, in his account of the November Uprising, Zaba emphasised that the Poles of this epoch were “not actuated by hatred, or by the prejudices which separate nations: they wished even to see Russia delivered from despotism.”71 The implication, therefore, was that a distinction existed between Russia’s pernicious political system and the rulers who oversaw it on the one hand, and the Russian people on the other: the former needed to be opposed, the latter helped. Elsewhere, however, Russia’s tyranny was seen as more deeply rooted in its makeup. Szadurski, for example, drawing on Montesquieu’s association between extreme climates and despotism and more temperate environments and free governments, emphasised the fundamental geographical distinction between Poland and Russia. The Dvina and the Dnieper, he argued, served as markers “dividing the land of corn from the land of snow, the land of the free from the land of serfs.”72 The implication, therefore, was not only that slavery was in some sense natural to Russia, but that any attempts to impose non-free labour on Poland or to violate the border between the two nations were fundamentally unnatural. Additional weight was given to the border through a conception of it as a boundary between European civilization and Asian barbarism. Thus, Zaba talks of the Muscovite Empire as rooted in the spirit of “Genghis Khan or Tamerlane.”73 Szadurski, meanwhile, refers to “the barbarous hordes of Tartars, Mongols, Turks, and Muscovites, who, like another race of Vandals, threatened central Europe so often with their overflow, and the annihilation of all that 69  Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in NineteenthCentury Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 22. 70  Zaba, Principal Features, 61. 71  Zaba, Lectures, 112. 72  Szadurski, Epitome. 19. 73  Zaba, Principal Features, 22.

104 

B. DEW

was enlightening in literature, elevating in science, and ennobling and inspiring in Christian religion.”74 The intellectual origins of these comments lie in the Renaissance idea of Poland as an antemurale Christianitatis, a bulwark of Christianity.75 However, the implication here, as is common in much post-Enlightenment Polish writing, is that the key opposition is not that between Catholic and Pagan, but between “civilized man (European) [and] barbarian (inhabitant of a different continent).”76 Maintaining this idea of Poland as, in the words of Gomoszyński, “the barrier of Europe against the hordes of Asia”, necessarily involved undermining the association between the Commonwealth, feudalism, slavery and barbarism that had been key to much enlightenment-era commentary. A vision of Poland as an enlightened, civilized and slave-free upholder of liberty also contributed to the lectures’  emotional impact on their British audiences. Underpinning Polish-British interactions was a process of what might be called mutual national self-image re-enforcement. Thus, as well as celebrating their own country’s attachment to liberty, Polish authors provided lavish praise for their host nation. Szadurski, not a writer given to understatement, offered a paean to “Britain! mighty Britain!  – object of the high jealousy of enslaved nations,  - seat of learning and genius, - island of the beautiful, - bright star of European liberty and wisdom,  - darling clime of the brave and free.”77 Gomoszyński, in rather more measured tones, conceived of England as a nation where “a hundred millions of people are peaceably ruled by equity and virtue.”78 Zaba, meanwhile, at a dinner commemorating the eighth anniversary of the November Uprising, noted, “in the present state of things there are two countries we look to as the only nurses of the moral energies of man  – England [and] Poland.”79 British commentators responded in kind, eulogising Poland while, at the same time, conceiving of sympathy for it as a  Szadurski, Epitome, 22.  Janusz Tazbir, “From Antemurale to Przedmurze, the History of the Term”, Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 61: 2 (2017): 67–87. See also: Janusz Tazbir, “The Bulwark myth,” Acta Poloniae Historica 91 (2005): 73–97; Wiktor Weintraub, “Renaissance Poland and ‘Antemurale Christianitis,’” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3 (1979): 920–930. 76  Janusz Tazbir, “From Antemurale,” 84. 77  Szadurski, Epitome, 10. 78  Gomoszyńki, Lectures, 92. 79  The Times 30 November 1838. It is noteworthy that Zaba adopted a different line of argument when speaking to an Irish audience observing that “there was no country on the face of the earth which resembled Poland so much as Ireland,” Morning Post 7 February 1837. 74 75

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

105

vindication of English/British values. Numerous examples might be cited here,80 but a particularly explicit one came in an article publicising Zaba’s lectures in Cheltenham in September 1836. The piece began by praising the November Uprising as an endeavour involving: “a band of devoted men, few but fearless, and preferring death or expatriation to chains and despotism [who] struck a daring blow in defence of national right.” Attendance at Zaba’s lectures, the writer continued, constituted a chance to “hear the story of this fine people […], told by one of themselves, who has also suffered and bled in the cause of freedom.” As a consequence, they “cannot but be of thrilling interest to Englishmen, ‘who know the worth of British liberty’ and who can feel for their brethren engaged in other lands in upholding their rights as freemen.”81 Such rhetoric, it perhaps hardly needs adding, relied on a specific conception of both England/ Britain and Poland, as  defenders of liberty and opponents of despotism and slavery. Similar ideas also underpinned the more sentimental aspects of the rhetoric employed in the lectures. Key to the presentations were depictions of the “desolation and cruelty” that Poland had suffered, particularly at the hands of Russia.82 A seemingly verbatim account of Zaba’s presentation in Aberdeen, for example, relayed the story of Madame Rosycka who, on being informed that her children, by order of an “ukase” from Nicholas I, were to be transported to Russia took drastic action. Turning to the soldiers who had come to seize the children, and had been unmoved by her previous “tears and cries” and “prayers and entreaties,” she exclaimed: Be it so: permit me only to embrace them for the last time, and to give them some token of remembrance, which, when removed from me, will bring their unhappy mother to their recollection.” At these words, she went into another apartment and immediately returning, in a state of great agitation, she caught both her children in her arms, and pressed them to her bosom. But appalling was the scene that followed. An agonizing shriek revealed the dreadful fact, that the despairing mother had pierced both their young hearts with a dagger, and afterwards, plunged it into her own. Raising herself, with a smile of triumph, “Go” she exclaimed, “to your unfeeling mas80  For Zaba, see, for example, Manchester Times, 28 November 1835; Leeds Times, 20 February 1836. For Szadurski, see: Leicestershire Mercury, 23 January 1843. 81  Cheltenham Chronicle, 1 September 1836. The quoted section comes from Ambrose Philips’ patriotic play The Briton from 1722. 82  Manchester Times, 5 December 1832.

106 

B. DEW

ter – tell him what you have witnessed. I die, indeed, criminal in the eye of the law, but natural affection will pronounce my pardon.83

Elsewhere the same basic ideas about Russia and Poland were rendered in more abstract terms. Thus, Zaba  asked his audience  to: “Behold then [...], my unhappy country, for more than two years lying defenceless, and abandoned to the tender mercies of the emperor Nicholas, presenting a melancholy exhibition of the most deplorable scenes of his insatiable revenge. Behold Poland fettered in chains, clothed in mourning and drowned in tears […].”84 Key to both of these images was an association of Poland with weakness, suffering and innocence; Madame Rosycka was just as defenceless in the face of Russian soldiers as the nation itself before the Russian Tsar. At the same time, however, what distinguished Poland from Russia and, in a sense ennobled it, was its capacity for feeling. The “tears,” “great agitation,” and “agonizing shriek” of Madame Rosycka emblematised a nation that was itself “drowned in tears”; this contrasted sharply with the “unfeeling” implacability of both the soldiers and the Tsar himself. Through “crying along” with the lectures, meanwhile, British audiences were rejecting the Russians’ physical aggression and emotional passivity, and aligning their own emotional responses with those of the Poles.

Conclusion The efforts of the Polish historical polemicists, in their own terms at least, ended in failure. Despite the hundreds of presentations they delivered and the thousands of miles they travelled, Zaba, Gomoszyński and Szadurski never came close to achieving the kind of political and military support for Polish independence for which they campaigned. If anything, their endeavours provided a very concrete demonstration of the problems of a sentimentalised form of political rhetoric, namely the difficulty of transforming an emotional response—for example, the impassioned clapping and supportive tears of British audience members—into any kind of political praxis. Indeed, while some attendees reacted, at least initially, to the lectures with calls for action, many were, from the outset, more circumspect. A review in the Leicestershire Mercury of a presentation by Szadurski,  Aberdeen Journal, 5 February 1834.  Manchester Times, 5 December 1832; Zaba, Lectures, 123.

83 84

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

107

for example, conceived of “the manifestly strong interest with which his audience listened […] as a proof that the hearts of Englishmen respond to the appeals for sympathy by the insulted and victimised Pole.” However, the writer concluded on a note of caution: “sympathy, all-­unavailing, is, we fear, all that the wandering and outcast children of Poland must expect from the natives of any of the countries where they have taken refuge.”85 Despite a fundamental difference in attitude and tone, the article, therefore, endorsed the core contention of pro-Russian writers like Cobden that Poland’s fate was not something that should, in political terms, concern Britain. The influence of Polish lectures and publications on British discourse, meanwhile, was limited. Later British accounts tended to utilise French-­ language material or to rely on more general accounts by British historians. It is noteworthy, for example, that the footnotes to F.E. Whitton’s 1917 History of Poland only reference British and French sources.86 To an extent, this was a result of the general character of much of the anglophone historical writing that emerged from the Polish diaspora.87 This was frequently an emotional form of writing that was explicitly engaged with contemporary political issues; it had very little in common with more scholarly endeavours, particularly the “scientific” form of history pioneered by Leopold von Ranke. And while part of the attraction of the initial lectures was the chance to see in the flesh individuals who had engaged in actual historical events, that appeal waned over time. Whitton, for example, noted that his own avoidance of Polish works was a deliberate move. Polish political literature had been “soured by the memories of the undoubtedly brutal treatment meted out after 1831 and 1863” and, as a result, “the opinion of a non-Pole is […] likely to be more impartial.”88 There is also a sense that, even for more explicitly polemical later writers, the terms of the debate had moved on. The writers of the latter part of the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century, anxious to show that Poland was still worthy of nationhood so long after the partitions, came to emphasise what Maude Ashurst Biggs referred to as the “one and  Leicestershire Mercury, 23 January 1841.  F.E.  Whitton, A History of Poland from the earliest times to the present day (London: Constable and Company, 1917). The chief writers he refers to are F.H. Skrine, Lord Eversley, Sir Archibald Alison and Henri Grappin. 87  There were, of course, noteworthy exceptions, particularly the work of Krasiński (see Note 4). 88  Whitton, History of Poland, 261. 85 86

108 

B. DEW

indivisible national feeling” that united the Polish people.89 Over time, this idea increasingly came to be conceived of in explicitly racial terms. Thus, A.S. Rappoport’s Short History of Poland from 1915 argued that, “a political commonwealth may be destroyed, a country conquered, a nation exiled, but a race and the racial spirit can never die.”90 Defences of Polish nationality, as such, became less rooted in ideas of Poland as a “western”/ British style nation and more focused on identifying what was unique and distinctive about the Polish people. At one level, these ideas constituted a significant shift in the discourse and a move towards a narrower definition of Polishness. Ashurst Biggs, for example, associated Polish “national feeling” with a group “speaking the same language [and] bound together by the same traditions” thereby implying that minority groups—German speakers, Jews and, potentially, Protestants and the Orthodox, were not part of the Polish nation.91 What is perhaps most notable, however, is that such modes of argument did not so much replace the strategies employed by previous generations of Polish polemicists as supplement them. Conceptions of Poland as enlightened, civilized and liberal, therefore, remained key to later accounts albeit that these ideas were now increasingly tied to Polish identity. As Rappoport observed: Poland, it must be admitted by all, has always been in the vanguard of liberalism and progress, and those Poles who now propagate intolerance, selfishness, and persecution against equally oppressed races are unfaithful to the true and traditional spirit of the ancient chivalrous and generous Poland, which was rightly styled the “Knight among the nations.”92

Such formulations helped to ensure that there were a number of points of continuity between the writing of the 1830s and 1840s, and that of later generations of historically minded commentators. In order to support the notion of Poland as an enlightened state, there remained a perceived need to, in some sense, account for Polish slavery. As had been the case previously, this generally involved demonstrating that slavery had not been a part of ancient forms of Polish government and/or delineating the 89  Maude Ashurst Biggs, The  Forgotten Nation (London: Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, 1886), 2. 90  A.S. Rappoport, A Short History of Poland from ancient times to the insurrection of 1864 (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1915), xi. 91  Ashurst Biggs, Forgotten Nation, 2. 92  Rappoport, Short History, 178.

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

109

achievements of Poland’s enlightened nobles in reforming the serf system. At the same time, while insistent on the distinctive qualities of Polish nationhood writers sympathetic to the Polish cause continued to stress that, in the words of Ashurst Biggs, Poles constituted a “distinct collective group of the European family.”93 Given such a state of affairs, the achievements  of Zaba, Szadurski and Gomoszyński are perhaps best understood not in historiographic or explicitly political terms. Rather they functioned as translators, both in the linguistic and in a more general cultural sense, creating and adapting for a British audience a positive, European vision of Poland.

Bibliography Periodicals Aberdeen Journal Belfast Newsletter Bradford Observer Caledonian Mercury Cambridge Chronicle and Journal Cheltenham Chronicle Daily News Derby Mercury Evening Bulletin Jackson’s Oxford Journal Leeds Mercury Leeds Times Leicester Chronicle Leicestershire Mercury Manchester Times Morning Post Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury Northampton Mercury Sheffield Independent Standard The Charter The Era The Times  Ashurst Biggs, Forgotten Nation, 2.

93

110 

B. DEW

Published Works Adamovsky, Ezequiel. “Euro-Orientalism and the Making of the Concept of Eastern Europe in France, 1810-1880.” The Journal of Modern History 77, no. 3 (2005): 591–628. Anonymous. A Faithful and Exact Narrative of the Horrid Tragedy lately acted at Thorn. London, 1725. Anonymous. “The Last Days of a Polish Exile.” The New Quarterly Review: Or, Home, Foreign and Colonial Journal 9, no. 1 (1847): 109–111. Ashurst Biggs, Maude. The Forgotten Nation. London: Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, 1886. Cobden, Richard. On Russia, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: William Tait, 1836. Confino, Michael. “Re-Inventing the Enlightenment: Western Images of Eastern Realities in the Eighteenth Century.” Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadiennes des Slavistes 36, no. 3/4 (1994): 505–522. Coxe, William. Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark, 2 Vols. London, 1784. Davies, Norman. “‘The Languor of So Remote an Interest’: British Attitudes to Poland, 1772–1832.” Oxford Slavonic Papers XVI (1983): 79–90. Dunham, Samuel Astley. The History of Poland. London: Longman, 1831. Dupcsik, Csaba. “Postcolonial Studies and the Inventing of Eastern Europe.” East Central Europe 26, no. 1 (1999): 1–14. Fletcher, James. The History of Poland. London, 1831. Franzinetti, Guido. “The Idea and the Reality of Eastern Europe in the Eighteenth Century.” History of European Ideas 34 (2008): 361–368. Gomoszyński, J.F. A Course of Three Lectures on the History of Poland. London: Longman, 1843. Jedlicki, Jerzy. A Suburb of Europe: Nineteenth-Century Polish Approaches to Western Civilization. Budapest and New  York: Central European University Press, 1999, first published in Polish in 1988. Kot, Stanisław. Rzeczpospolita Polska w literaturze politycznej Zachodu. Kraków: Nakładem Krawskiej spółki wydawicznej, 1919. Krasiński, Walerian. Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress and Decline of the Reformation in Poland. London: Murray, 1838–1840. Krasiński, Walerian. Poland: Its History, Constitution, Literature, Manners, Customs. London, 1855. Marshall, Joseph. Travels Through Holland, Flanders, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland in the Years 1768, 1769 and 1770, 3 vols. London, 1772. Owen, Charles. An Alarm to Protestant Prince and People, Who are all struck at in the Popish cruelties at Thorn. 1725.

5  POLISH HISTORY IN BRITAIN: THE WORK OF NAPOLEON FELIKS ŻABA… 

111

Porter, Brian. When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Rappoport, A.S. A Short History of Poland from Ancient Times to the Insurrection of 1864. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1915. Ross, M. The History of Poland. Newcastle: Pattison and Ross, 1835. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979. Skurnowicz, Joan S. Romantic Nationalism and Liberalism: Joachim Lelewel and the Polish National Idea. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. Sobol-Kiełbania, Małgorzata. “Księgozbiór rodziny Zabów ze Zbylitowskiej Góry w zbiorach Miejskiej Biblioteki Publicznej im. Juliusza Słowackiego w Tarnowie [Books from the Zaba of Zbylitowska Góra family library in the collections of the Juliusz Słowacki Municipal Public Library in Tarnów].” Z Badań nad Księgozbiorami Historycznymi 9 (2015): 255–272. Szadurski, Leon. An Epitome of Polish History. Glasgow, 1842. Szadurski, Leon. Heaven Upon Earth, by a Polish Exile. Edinburgh, 1848. Tazbir, Janusz. “From Antemurale to Przedmurze, the History of the Term.” Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 61, no. 2 (2017): 67–87. Tazbir, Janusz. “The Bulwark Myth.” Acta Poloniae Historica 91 (2005): 73–97. Weintraub, Wiktor. “Renaissance Poland and ‘Antemurale Christianitatis.’” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3 (1979): 920–930. Whitton, F.E. A History of Poland from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: Constable and Company, 1917. Williams, John. The Rise, Progress and Present State of the Northern Governments, 2 Vols. London, 1777. Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. Zaba, Napoleon Feliks, Two Lectures on the History of Poland. Edinburgh, 1834. Zaba, Napoleon Feliks, The Principal Features of the History and Literature of Poland. London, 1856. Zieliński, Stanisław. Mały Słownik Pionierów Polskich Kolonjalnych i Morskich. Warsaw: Nakładem Instytutu Wydawniczego Ligi Morskiej i Kolonjalnej, 1933. Zaba, Napoleon Feliks and P. Zaleski, eds. The Polish Exile, Being an Historical, Statistical, Political and Literary Account of Poland. Edinburgh, 1833. Zaba, Napoleon Feliks. N.F. Zaba’s Method. London, 1875. Zaba, Napoleon Feliks. Polak w więzieniu w Paryzu [A Pole in Prison in Paris]. Paris, 1833. Zaba, Napoleon Feliks. Polish Exile. Translated by H. Montriou. London, 1832

CHAPTER 6

“Poland Has No Claim on You”: By Celia’s Arbour and British Representations of Poland in the Victorian Era Thomas McLean

About one-third of the way through Walter Besant and James Rice’s 1878 novel By Celia’s Arbour, the narrator Ladislas Pulaski is confronted by his aged guardian Wassielewski, who tells Ladislas of a planned uprising in Poland, assuring him that “you shall take your part.” Ladislas, who has spent his life since infancy in Portsmouth, England, is thrown into confusion by the pronouncement. “I had almost forgotten that I was a Pole, and the reminder came upon me with a disagreeable shock. It was like being told of some responsibility you would willingly let sleep—some duty you

T. McLean (*) University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_6

113

114 

T. MCLEAN

would devolve upon others.”1 For Ladislas, the weight of responsibilities to a distant birthplace is a source of pain and lethargy rather than pride and motivation. This is a considerable shift from the representation of the Pole in earlier British literature. Polish characters appeared in nineteenth-century British fiction and poetry with some regularity, from Thaddeus Sobieski, the virtuous protagonist of Jane Porter’s immensely popular 1803 novel Thaddeus of Warsaw, to the most famous Anglo-Polish figure in Victorian literature, Will Ladislaw. But no figure in British literature seems so uncomfortable with his Polish inheritance as Ladislas Pulaski. At the same time, no novel since Thaddeus of Warsaw attempts to explore so thoroughly the challenges faced by a Polish exile in Britain. Little has been written about By Celia’s Arbour, a work that extends and complicates the genealogy of Anglo-Polish characters in nineteenth-­ century literature. If Middlemarch finally offers an optimistic perspective on immigrant assimilation into English culture, By Celia’s Arbour presents a more ambivalent view. Set in the 1850s, its narrator is the orphaned, hunchbacked son of a famous Polish freedom fighter. While Pulaski’s opinions and writing style mark him as English, his physical appearance, the notoriety of his father, his own reputation as a penniless nobleman, and the friendship and support of the Polish exile community all signal his difference. By Celia’s Arbour brings together three significant moments in European history: the failed 1830–1831 Polish uprising, which led to the establishment of a Polish community in Portsmouth; the 1854–1856 Crimean War, which briefly gave hope for the return of a sovereign Polish state; and the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, during which British opinion wavered between outrage at the treatment of Bulgarian Christians by Ottoman soldiers, and fear that Russia would take advantage of that outrage to invade the Balkans and thus increase its own empire. While the novel’s references to contemporary events in the Balkans are easily overlooked, By Celia’s Arbour seems to use the apparent fate of Poland, and its repeatedly failed uprisings, as a warning to other nations in search of independence. In Thaddeus Sobieski, as well as Will Ladislaw, the Polish hero united masculine with feminine attributes, courage with emotion. In By Celia’s 1  Walter Besant and James Rice, By Celia’s Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town (London: Chatto & Windus, 1893), 124.

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

115

Arbour, both elements are still present, but they are divided unevenly between Laddy and his best friend Leonard—who is English. In a sense, Laddy is presented as less than a man: in his physical appearance, in his profession as a music teacher to young women, and in his passive position as narrator of others’ bravery. Leonard, meanwhile, serves in the British army and plays the manly, gallant hero. By Celia’s Arbour is also significant for its presentation of the Polish exile community in Portsmouth, who view the Crimean War and its possible impact on their homeland from a distance. While these men are, like Laddy, represented in a sympathetic light, their desire for an independent state seems only a dream. Near the end, Leonard encourages Laddy to embrace his Englishness, telling him, “Poland has no claim upon you … Stay at home and make the name of Pulaski glorious in art.”2 I open this essay with an overview of British representations of Poland in the nineteenth century. I then turn to Besant and Rice’s novel and the key historical contexts for understanding the work. While there is a growing body of scholarship on Walter Besant, scholars have thus far overlooked By Celia’s Arbour, perhaps because its continental contexts—the Polish exile community, the Crimean War, and the Russo-Turkish War— are only occasionally the focus of British literary scholarship. By Celia’s Arbour reminds us that they were all topics of interest to the Victorian reader. Finally, I consider how Ladislas Pulaski fits into a long literary line of Polish figures in Britain. Jane Porter’s hero was both an artist and a soldier; Will Ladislaw remained a rebel through his political opinions. In By Celia’s Arbour, the Anglo-Polish protagonist enjoys a modestly successful musical career, but he has abandoned all hopes for Poland.

From Admiring to Ambivalent: The Pole in Nineteenth-Century British Literature Two figures—one historical, the other fictional—shaped nineteenth-­ century British representations of the Polish exile.3 Tadeusz Kościuszko, the military leader who had earlier fought against Britain in the American War of Independence, received widespread, sympathetic coverage in  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 337.  This section draws on Thomas McLean, The Other East and Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Imagining Poland and the Russian Empire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 2 3

116 

T. MCLEAN

British papers during the 1794 insurrection which today bears his name. After his defeat, Kościuszko was imprisoned in a Russian jail, and in 1795, Poland was partitioned by Austria, Prussia, and Russia and disappeared from the map of Europe. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the most famous of the many writers who responded to Poland’s defeat. In his 1794 sonnet “To Kosciusko,” Coleridge recorded the “loud and fearful shriek” supposedly heard when Kościuszko fell in battle.4 In 1797, Kościuszko was released from prison and visited London and Bristol on his way to the United States. Still suffering from his war wounds, the Polish general received distinguished visitors in his London hotel. A small portrait by Benjamin West and at least two engravings from the era show the debilitated Kościuszko lying on a sofa.5 Two years after the visit, the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell built on Coleridge’s imagery to create the best-­ known poetic description of Poland’s defeat: “Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, / And Freedom shriek’d—as Kosciusko fell.”6 These various renderings of honourable defeat shaped the British image of Kościuszko and of his dismembered nation. Kościuszko and the Polish cause might have faded from British attention but for Jane Porter’s 1803 novel Thaddeus of Warsaw. One of the great bestsellers of the era, Porter’s novel went through numerous editions and remained in print into the early twentieth century. The eponymous hero, Thaddeus Sobieski, is a fictional descendant of King John Sobieski who fights beside Kościuszko but finally flees Poland for Britain, where he discovers his British father. While he remains committed to his fallen homeland, he also begins a new life with a British wife. Sobieski’s name became a byword for the tender yet manly hero in British nineteenth-­ century literature.7 After the defeat of Napoleon, there were rumours in the British press that Kościuszko would return from exile to lead his homeland. But the Congress of Vienna left Poland off the map of a reconstituted Europe. John Keats, Leigh Hunt, and Lord Byron all wrote poetry honouring the hero, who died in Swiss exile in 1817. Another burst of pro-Poland 4  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Sonnet VII,” The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Derwent and Sara Coleridge (London: Moxon, 1863), 44. 5  Reproduced in McLean, The Other East, [vi], 55, 56. 6  Thomas Campbell, “The Pleasure of Hope,” The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell (London: Moxon, 1843), 15. 7  Thomas McLean, “Introduction,” in Thaddeus of Warsaw, ed. Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), xii–xiii.

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

117

sentiment occurred in Britain after the 1830–1831 uprising. Thomas Campbell helped create the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland as well as a short-lived journal, Polonia, and Jane Porter’s novel appeared in Colburn and Bentley’s Standard Novels series, affirming its place as an esteemed text of its time. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, it was difficult to find any writer who was unsympathetic to the Polish cause or who did not admire Kościuszko. However, after the failure of the 1830–1831 uprising, this began to change. The brave and honourable figure, a sort of cross between Tadeusz Kościuszko and Thaddeus Sobieski, continued to appear. For instance, Michael Balfe’s successful 1843 opera The Bohemian Girl features a rebellious Polish hero named Thaddeus who clearly owes a debt to his historical and fictional predecessors. Thaddeus’s aria “When the Fair Land of Poland” remained a British and Irish favourite throughout the century.8 But more writers began to question the efforts Britons made on behalf of a nation that no longer existed. Furthermore, Polish exile organizations began to forge links with other national groups, especially Hungarians and Italians. The specificity of Poland’s claims to sympathy became muddied in the public imagination, as they were combined and confused with the claims of other nations. In George Eliot’s 1876 novel Daniel Deronda, the musician Julius Klesmer is criticized for “being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged him to make a profession of his music.”9 In Alfred  Tennyson’s 1855 dramatic monologue Maud, the troubled narrator declares, “Shall I weep if a Poland fall? Shall I shriek if a Hungary fail?”10 The “shriek” of defeated Poland had been a trope of pro-Polish writings since Coleridge and Campbell; the fact that here the word is shifted to Hungary suggests the slipperiness of such signifiers by the middle of the nineteenth century. Even Jane Porter’s gallant protagonist was, according to Margaret Oliphant, looking “a little like a waxwork hero. … Count Thaddeus Sobieski has never any questioning with himself as modern heroes use—he never has any doubt how to act in an emergency. … We have, alas! no such

8  Róisín Healy, Poland in the Irish Nationalist Imagination, 1772–1922 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 205, 229. 9  George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, ed. Terence Cave (New York: Penguin, 1995), 241. 10  Alfred Tennyson, Maud, and Other Poems (London: Edward Moxon, 1855), 19.

118 

T. MCLEAN

heroes nowadays. The race has died out.”11 The Eastern European counts of mid-Victorian literature—minor rogues like Count Koratinsky in Charles Lever’s 1854 The Dodd Family Abroad or major villains like Count Pateroff in Anthony Trollope’s 1867 The Claverings—are figures of ridicule or menace, boasting of their lineage and military prowess, or hoping to seduce wealthy British widows. These uglier stereotypes arguably culminate in the most famous Eastern European count of the nineteenth century, Dracula. There remained real sympathy for the plight of the Poles in later Victorian literary circles. As noted above, Will Ladislaw from George Eliot’s 1871–1872 Middlemarch is surely the best known and most discussed Polish figure in Victorian literature. Eliot’s novel is set in the early 1830s: the era of the first Reform Bill, but also of the Polish-Russian War of 1830–31. Will’s genealogical connection to Poland is limited: unlike most of his fictional predecessors, he is the grandson of a Pole on his father’s side. Despite this rather distant association, Middlemarchers label him “a quill-driving alien” and “a Polish emissary.”12 In his Romantic outlook and sympathy for the underdog, Ladislaw stands as a literary descendant of Thaddeus Sobieski specifically and of the positive portrayal of the Pole in British Romanticism more generally. But the opinions of the Middlemarch community, which identifies him as a dangerous outsider with radical ideas, mirror the ambivalent British opinions of Poland that developed in the four decades after the novel’s actual setting.13 This cursory overview of the Pole in the nineteenth-century literary imagination shows that, by the time Besant and Rice began their novel, there was already a rich body of literature in place, running from influential writers of the past like Coleridge and Byron to leading contemporaries like Trollope and Eliot. Indeed, sales of Middlemarch remained solid throughout the 1870s14; Besant and Rice were perhaps encouraged by its success to give their own novel a Polish angle. By Celia’s Arbour builds on these past representations, but by drawing on the unique history of 11  Margaret Oliphant, The Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century, 3 vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1882), 2.273–274. 12  George Eliot, Middlemarch, ed. Rosemary Ashton (New York: Penguin, 1994), 379, 462. 13  McLean, The Other East, 154–169. 14  John Sutherland, Victorian Novelists and Publishers (London: The University of London, Athlone Press, 1976), 202.

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

119

Portsmouth, and by creating an Anglo-Polish narrator, the authors also move the genealogy in new directions. Like Middlemarch, it celebrates its Polish character’s family inheritance; but far more overtly than Eliot’s novel, By Celia’s Arbour suggests that British figures of Polish descent need to let go of that past.

Narrative Structure in By Celia’s Arbour By Celia’s Arbour was first published in 26 instalments in the illustrated London weekly The Graphic between 1 September 1877 and 23 March 1878.15 Its authors, Walter Besant and James Rice, had established themselves among the most popular novelists of the 1870s, and theirs was surely one of the best-known authorial collaborations. It was the sixth of nine novels and three story collections that the two would produce before Rice’s untimely death in 1882. The exact terms of the collaboration remain unclear. Most evidence suggests that Rice attended to financial matters, Besant did most of the actual writing, and the two men bounced ideas off each other as each story progressed.16 By Celia’s Arbour probably owes more to Besant’s imagination, since Portsmouth, where Besant grew up, plays such an important role in the work. Indeed, Besant fills almost half of the opening chapter of his Autobiography with extended passages from By Celia’s Arbour in place of more personal recollections of his Portsmouth childhood.17 Rudyard Kipling would later confirm the accuracy of Besant’s descriptions when he declared that he grew up “next to a Portsmouth unchanged in most particulars since Trafalgar—the Portsmouth of Sir Walter Besant’s By Celia’s Arbour.”18 The novel was published by Sampson Low in three volumes in February 1878, even before the final instalments appeared in The Graphic. Reviews were mostly positive, and the work became one of Besant and Rice’s more successful publications, selling some 50,000 copies over 15  The novel appeared over 30 weeks, but 4 issues (2 and 16 February and 2 and 16 March 1878) did not include instalments. 16  Richard Storer, “‘Another like me’: The Literary Partnership of Walter Besant and James Rice,” in The Business of Literature and the Pleasures of Reform, ed. Kevin Morrison (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), 43–45. 17  Walter Besant, Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1902), 8–12, 19–31. 18  Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings, ed. Thomas Pinney (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 5.

120 

T. MCLEAN

30  years.19 It also inspired at least one contemporary painting: William Frederick Yeames’s Peace and War, which entered the collections of the Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 1886. By Celia’s Arbour takes its title from Thomas Moore’s translation of a short poem by Girolamo Angeriano (1470–1535), “Ad Corollas.” By Celia’s arbour all the night. Hang, humid wreath, the lover’s vow; And haply, at the morning light, My love shall twine thee round her brow. Then, if upon her bosom bright. Some drops of dew shall fall from thee, Tell her, they are not drops of night, But tears of sorrow shed by me!20

Moore had included the loose translation in a footnote to his 1800 volume Odes of Anacreon, but the work took on a life of its own as a song lyric. William Horsley composed a popular glee in 1807, which remained known at the time of the novel’s appearance. The narrator makes a passing reference to the glee in an early chapter: “The harmonies of the old four-­ part song lie in my heart associated with those early days.”21 The poem’s melancholy invocation of vows and disappointed love seem appropriate to Besant and Rice’s novel. In its opening pages, three young friends gather “in the north-west corner of the Queen’s Bastion,” a part of Portsmouth’s once-extensive fortifications.22 “We called the place Celia’s Arbour,” explains Ladislas Pulaski, after the glee, and in honour of their beloved friend Celia Tyrrell.23 It is 21 June 1853, and Leonard Copleston is leaving Ladislas and Celia for London, in hopes of making a living and finding glory. Both young men are orphans. Leonard promises 19  Simon Eliot, “‘His Generation Read His Stories’: Aspects of Sir Walter Besant’s Publishing History and its Context, with Particular Reference to the Firms of Chatto & Windus and A.P. Watt.” PhD diss. (University College London, 1990), 312–313. 20  Thomas Moore, Odes of Anacreon, Translated into English Verse, with Notes (London: John Stockdale, 1800), 80–81. 21  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 47. Felix Mendelssohn’s lieder “Der Blumenkranz” is based on a German translation of Moore’s words. 22  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 7. Besant notes in his Autobiography, “One of the bastions was our especial delight. It was the last on the side of the harbour … few children found their way to it. They called it the Queen’s Bastion” (8). 23  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 47.

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

121

to meet them in the same spot in 5 years’ time. He also confides to Ladislas that, upon his return, he hopes to marry Celia, though she is the daughter of one of Portsmouth’s leading citizens. He asks Laddy to “look sharp” after her in his absence: “She is your great charge. I give her into your keeping.”24 Leonard never considers that Laddy might also have romantic feelings for Celia. At the end of that first chapter, Leonard departs both Portsmouth and the narrative, only to return 5 years later, just past the novel’s midpoint. While Leonard is away, the narrator introduces readers to 1850s Portsmouth and all the key characters, but most significantly himself. Ladislas is Polish by birth but has no memories of his native land. He arrived in Portsmouth in the late 1830s as a small child, brought from Poland by a loyal steward of his parents, Count Roman and Lady Claudia Pulaski, both of whom had died in Poland. Though the only child of noble and patriotic parents, Laddy is penniless because the Russians have confiscated the wealth and property he should have inherited. Laddy is also marked by physical difference. “I am a hunchback,” he states in the opening paragraphs. “An accident in infancy rounded my shoulders and arched my back, giving me a projection which causes my coats to hang loosely where other men’s fit tight, forcing my neck forward so that my head bends back where other people’s heads are held straight upon their necks.”25 Interestingly, Laddy describes this physical difference before mentioning the other characteristics that distinguish him—his foreign birth, his ethnicity, and his poverty—or even his name: “besides being a hunchback, I was an exile, a Pole, the son of a Polish rebel, and therefore penniless. My name is Ladislas Pulaski.”26 Laddy and Leonard are both in love with Celia. But Laddy never sees himself as a potential suitor, not only because of his poverty and disability, but also because his handsome and admired friend is determined to win her over. Ladislas, as the only son of a count, is permitted to use that title. But Leonard, Laddy writes, “was a prince born. … Everything that he did was princely … he was my hero as well as my leader and protector.”27

 Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 14.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 8. 26  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 8. 27  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 41. 24 25

122 

T. MCLEAN

“I am going to make myself a gentleman,” Leonard promises Ladislas, and after five years he succeeds all his friends’ expectations.28 This relationship dynamic—the weak, disabled man who narrates the story of his stronger friend’s success—was surprisingly common in the Victorian era. In her insightful study The Measure of Manliness, Karen Bourrier describes the emergence of Victorian narratives in which the remarkable exploits of a heroic male protagonist are set off by the presence of a disabled character. She identifies “a formal innovation” in these novels: “the focalization or narration of the novel through the perspective of a weak or disabled man.”29 Building on earlier work by Martha Stoddard Holmes, Bourrier argues that “[w]eak or disabled characters were cast in this role as narrator figures because of the emotional depth that was increasingly presumed to accompany the experience of physical disability … the disabled character was now seen as a man who could both elicit emotions from others and feel for others, having suffered so much himself.”30 Significantly, many of Bourrier’s key examples—novels by Charles Kingsley and Charlotte Yonge—appeared in the 1850s, during the years of the Crimean War: that is, the setting of By Celia’s Arbour. Besant and Rice perhaps tip their authorial hats to another important predecessor, Dinah Craik’s John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), by naming one of By Celia’s Arbour’s supporting characters John Pontifex.31 Bourrier notes an ethnic division in these two male figures: “the strong man is a fair Saxon type,” while “the weak or disabled man (whose illness might range from a vague sort of invalidism to a highly visible orthopedic disability) is often a Celtic type who is darker than his companion.”32 Ladislas is not Celtic—he is arguably “othered” to a greater extent by his Polish heritage—but, as I have argued elsewhere, there was a long line of works linking Poland’s oppression with that of Scotland and Ireland.33 And, of course, there is a hint of Celtic othering in his nickname: Laddy.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 41.  Karen Bourrier, The Measure of Manliness: Disability and Masculinity in the MidVictorian Novel (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2015), 2. 30  Bourrier, Measure of Manliness, 3–4. 31  An early reviewer recognised By Celia’s Arbour’s narrative structure, noting that “the authors of this excellent novel are as determined as the rest of their colleagues to put down the notion, that the mens sana must needs dwell in corpore sano.” “Sofa Criticism,” Truth 3, no. 61 (28 February 1878): 283. 32  Bourrier, The Measure of Manliness, 7. 33  McLean, The Other East, 123–124; see also Healy. 28 29

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

123

Laddy’s misshapen form also serves as a metaphor for his partitioned homeland. The injury that leads to Laddy’s disability occurs in Poland; he eventually learns that it is a tragic consequence of the 1830–1831 Polish-­ Russian War. This physical disability links him back to the images mentioned earlier of Tadeusz Kościuszko that became familiar in Britain at the start of the nineteenth century: images, described by Leigh Hunt, of “a man reduced almost to helplessness, and reclining on a couch with that pale and painful countenance, through which the eagerness of his noble character still looked out.”34 Laddy becomes a double source of readerly sympathy: both for his physical form and for his oppressed homeland.

Portsmouth’s Polish Community If Besant and Rice build their novel on a narrative structure that was well known by the 1870s and employ a set of tropes regularly associated with Poland, there are some elements of their novel that are less familiar. Laddy may be the only narrator of Polish descent in a major Victorian novel. Furthermore, the novel’s Portsmouth setting allows the authors to include the city’s historic Polish community as part of the story. Though Leonard and Celia—along with the kindly retired naval man, simply called “the Captain,” who adopts Leonard and Laddy—are Laddy’s closest companions, he explains that his earliest caregivers were the community of Poles who had settled in Portsmouth in the 1830s. “[T]hey had a great barrack all to themselves,” writes Laddy. “They were desperately poor, all of them living mostly on bread and frugal cabbage-soup. … They went hungry that I might eat and thrive.”35 This depiction might sound fanciful, but Besant and Rice were in fact drawing on historical events. Some 200 Polish soldiers settled in Portsmouth in 1834, forming Britain’s first Polish community. Survivors of the 1830–1831 uprising, they had been imprisoned in Prussia but were finally granted freedom in exchange for permanently leaving their homeland. They arrived on the Marianne, a ship bound for the United States but forced to stop in Portsmouth to shelter from stormy weather. Through support from local citizens, the British government, and the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, these former soldiers settled in

 [Leigh Hunt], “The Examiner,” The Examiner 340 (3 July 1814): 428.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 26.

34 35

124 

T. MCLEAN

Portsmouth, living first at a customs warehouse and later at a barrack in Portsea.36 The fictional infant Ladislas Pulaski is brought to this historical community by his parents’ trusted steward, Wassielewski, and the community cares for the child: “there was nothing they were not ready to do for me, because I was the child of Roman Pulaski and Claudia his wife.”37 The importance of name and lineage is another trope of the Polish exile that Besant and Rice borrow from earlier literary works, most obviously Thaddeus of Warsaw, where the eponymous hero is a descendant of King John Sobieski. Casimir Pulaski, known in Poland for his participation in the Bar Confederation and in the United States for his service in the War of Independence, is probably the most famous figure with the Pulaski surname.38 But details from the life of Laddy’s father—specifically his being forced to walk to Siberian exile for his support of the 1830–1831 uprising—were probably inspired by the life of another Pole, Prince Roman Sanguszko (1800–1881), whose similar sufferings were reported in British sources.39 The full story of Laddy’s parents is only told later, but even in these early chapters it becomes clear that the Portsmouth Poles, and especially Wassielewski, have great expectations for young Ladislas. Readers might wonder why Wassielewski brings his distinguished charge to Portsmouth rather than to Paris, which was the European centre for Polish exiles in the 1830s. However, the descriptions of the community’s generous support

36  Józef Gula, The Roman Catholic Church in the History of the Polish Exiled Community in Great Britain (London: University of London School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1993), 1–10; see also Britannicus [pseud.], The Case of the Poles now at Portsmouth. A Letter Addressed to the Editor of The Times (London: Ridgway and Sons, 1834). 37  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 26. 38  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s oft-reprinted 1825 poem “Pulaski’s Banner” helped extend the fame of Pulaski. English composer Maria Lindsay published a duet based on Longfellow’s poem in 1855. There was also, in the Portsmouth Polish community, a Catholic priest, Father Aleksander Pulaski, whose “name had been linked with well-known political radicals.” Gula, Roman Catholic Church, 7. 39  Ludwik Krzyżanowski, “Joseph Conrad’s ‘Prince Roman’: Fact and Fiction,” The Polish Review 1, no. 4 (1956): 38–41. The reviewer for Truth does not name Sanguszko but declares “The main facts of his parents’ martyrdom, related to Ladislas Pulaski by old Wassielewski[,] are absolutely true” (“Sofa Criticism,” 283).

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

125

of young Laddy ring true for a group that has been noted for its proto-­ socialism and its enthusiasm for Polish independence.40 The Portsmouth Polish community shapes Laddy and, somewhat surprisingly, Leonard. Laddy’s fondness for music begins with Wassielewski, who earns extra money by playing his fiddle at parties and parades for returning sailors: “Somehow this rugged old soldier taught me to feel music, and the rapture of producing music, before my fingers could handle notes or my hands could hold a bow.”41 Laddy develops into a talented musician, and eventually makes a living by teaching music lessons. He even gives up studying law to do so. Wassielewski approves, “on the ground that it would do for the short time I should want to work for money.”42 For Leonard, the Polish community offers other skills that, as we later learn, aid him in his own career. According to Laddy, “many of the poor fellows” in the Polish community were “full of accomplishments and knowledge; so that, for the last year of his home life, Leonard was almost wholly in the Polish Barracks. … And while I was welcome among them for my name’s sake, Leonard was welcome for his own sake. They taught him, besides French, mathematics and drawing, how to speak Russian, how to ride, with the aid of borrowed steeds, how to fence, and what was the meaning of fortification.”43 For Victorian readers, this list of artistic, linguistic, and military skills gleaned by Laddy and Leonard from the Polish exiles sums up the talents of the fictional Pole. Thaddeus Sobieski is a military hero who survives in Britain by selling landscape sketches and teaching foreign languages. Will Ladislaw, who studies art in Rome, tells Dorothea that his grandfather was a “Polish refugee” and “a bright fellow—could speak many languages— musical—got his bread by teaching all sorts of things” and that his father “inherited the musical talents” of his grandfather.44 Prominent historical figures also seemed to confirm the typical Polish skillset. By the 1870s, Frederic Chopin’s compositions were widely known and respected (though

40  Peter Brock, “Polish Democrats and English Radicals 1832–1862: A Chapter in the History of Anglo-Polish Relations,” The Journal of Modern History 25, no. 2 (1953): 142–43. 41  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 29. 42  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 60. 43  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 41. 44  Eliot, Middlemarch, 365.

126 

T. MCLEAN

still controversial) in Britain and Ireland.45 And, while the study of fortifications makes sense in the strategic setting of Portsmouth, some readers would have known that Kościuszko was widely admired for the fortifications he designed at West Point, New  York, and elsewhere during the American War of Independence. One might expect that the Polish exiles would teach all these skills to the son of their celebrated late count, rather than share them between Laddy and the English orphan Leonard. In fact, the two male protagonists of By Celia’s Arbour symbolize an uneven bifurcation of the Polish hero in British literature—one that leaves the English orphan with all the most active and admirable characteristics and the Polish orphan with the passive and sympathetic qualities. Leonard uses his skills to rise in the military world; Laddy uses his to compose and teach music and to record the histories of those around him.

Crimean and Indian Contexts The years of Leonard’s absence overlap with two major military confrontations: the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. Later we discover that Leonard has served with distinction in both campaigns. But the campaigns are initially described from Laddy’s home front perspective in the first half of the novel. Not surprisingly, the Crimean War is Laddy’s particular interest, because of its potential impact on the fate of Poland. “In the year 1854 began the Russian war. To me … the first signs of the impending struggle came from the Polish Barrack. … In this quiet retreat they were plotting and conspiring.”46 There was indeed a hope among Polish exiles that an attack, in support of the Ottoman Empire, might be made by Polish forces. Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the aged leader of the Polish government in exile, and his nephew and diplomatic assistant Władysław Zamoyski, travelled from their base at the Hôtel Lambert in Paris to meet with the leaders of Britain, France, and Turkey in an attempt to establish a Polish legion to fight the Russians, in exchange for Polish sovereignty after the war.47 However, as Laddy puts it, “[i]t was a delusive hope … Prussia 45  Derek Carew, “Victorian Attitudes to Chopin,” in The Cambridge Companion to Chopin, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 228–229. 46  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 67. 47  Marian Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity 1700–1861 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), 277–305.

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

127

and Austria, participes criminis, could not look on in silence while the Russian part of the divided land freed itself and set a bad example to their own Poles.”48 There were also diplomatic concerns that, by calling for a Polish state, the allies might draw Prussia or Austria into the war on the side of Russia. Laddy’s personal response to the war is divided. “I was eighteen at the close of the ‘long, long canker of Peace,’ as Tennyson called it … why should holy Peace be called cankerous?”49 Laddy disparagingly quotes from the closing lines of Tennyson’s 1855 Maud, where the narrator declares his intention to fight in the Crimean War: For the long, long canker of peace is over and done And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.50

Laddy repeats the “canker of peace” phrase three times as he reflects on the war and its impact on Portsmouth.51 One reviewer saw this repetition as a sign of hurried publication.52 If so, Besant never corrected the passages for later editions. Laddy clearly follows those early critics who disliked Maud in part because they took the narrator’s warmongering as a reflection of Tennyson’s own opinions.53 Yet Laddy has more in common with Tennyson’s narrator than he would like to admit: both fall under the spell of mid-century Russophobia and its hatred for the “giant liar,” Tsar Nicholas.54 Reflecting on the Crimean War from 1877, Laddy argues that “[t]he fight was just and the victory righteous. We pay the penalty now of not having carried the war to its legitimate end. We should have restored Poland, driven Russia back to

 Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 68.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 72. 50  Tennyson, Maud, 99–100. 51  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 72, 81, 90. 52  “In two chapters (ten and twelve) the expression, ‘long, long, canker of Peace,’ occurs no less than three times, and is referred each time to Tennyson, with the most exasperating air, as though it were a brand-new idea.” Rev. of By Celia’s Arbour, Canadian Review 13, no. 6 (1878): 683. 53  Edgar F. Shannon, “The Critical Reception of Tennyson’s ‘Maud,’” PMLA 68, no. 3 (1953): 408. Tennyson revised the lines for the second edition. 54  Tennyson, Maud, 99. 48 49

128 

T. MCLEAN

the Caucasus and the Caspian … Will the chance ever come again?”55 His comments about the Indian Mutiny are briefer and less belligerent—he admits that “it was a full and even a cruel measure of revenge that the British soldiers took,” though he also wonders “whether the Indian Mutiny, like the late Bulgarian Insurrections, was got up by Russian agents.”56 This muddled response to war—not inappropriate, given the confusing realities of the two campaigns—might also reflect the ambivalent situation of Portsmouth, so reliant as it was on the war economy. This ambivalence is most evident in Laddy’s description of his friend, the local journalist Ferdinand Brambler, whose career stands as a synecdoche for the whole of Portsmouth during the war years. Ferdinand’s guileless brother Augustus shuttles between occupations, never making enough money to feed his sizeable family. Therefore, writes Laddy, “it was by the frequency of the occasions on which [Ferdinand’s] powers were called for that the prosperity of the Bramblers depended.”57 Ferdinand’s opportunities to write proliferate during the war era and, as a result “[f]rom 1853 to 1857 the family flourished and grew fat.”58 However, after the Crimean War ends and the Mutiny is put down, “[t]hings became flat; the people who had not already made fortunes out of the war saw with sorrow that their opportunity was past. … It was bad for all who had to earn their bread … and it was especially bad for poor Ferdinand Brambler.”59 In the short term, Laddy and the Captain come to the rescue and make sure that the Brambler children have enough to eat. But military journalism finally gets the better of Ferdinand: he dies “from a cold caught while in the excess of his zeal noting the incidents of a review during a hailstorm.”60

The Balkans and the Russo-Turkish War The importance of these two historical moments—the 1830s Polish-­ Russian War that helped create a Polish community in Portsmouth and the 1850s campaigns in the Crimea and India—is evident to any reader of By Celia’s Arbour. But a third historical context is less obvious. As  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 82.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 90. 57  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 89. 58  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 90. 59  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 91. 60  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 374. 55 56

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

129

instalments of the novel were appearing in The Graphic, a new war was underway between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. “For the greater part of the nineteenth century,” writes Katarina Gephardt, “Britain had defended the integrity of the Ottoman Empire as a buffer against Russia and to protect the route to India.”61 When an 1876 Bulgarian uprising— the event Laddy blames on Russian spies—was brutally crushed by the Ottomans, the former Prime Minister William Gladstone responded with a pamphlet, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East (1876), in which he described Ottoman atrocities against Bulgarian Christians and urged Britain to join other European powers in support of an independent Bulgaria. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had little desire to intervene, but Russia, fired by the pan-Slavic imperative to defend its perceived ethnic and cultural relations, declared war on the Ottoman Empire in April 1877. As the Russians advanced, British public sympathy for the Bulgarians turned to concern that Alexander II’s real goal was the capture of Constantinople. Readers of The Graphic were well aware of events during the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War, as the paper had reporters travelling with both sides and thus printed weekly reports on the battles. Almost every issue included several striking engraved images drawn from the battlefront. In the pages of By Celia’s Arbour, numerous passages flicker with double meanings. Reflecting on the many childhood fistfights between Leonard and his nemesis Moses, Laddy writes, “I fancy that whenever Leonard and Moses came within a few yards of each other they as naturally rushed into battle as a Russian and a Turk.”62 In one of the novel’s most memorable passages, the Captain takes Laddy and Celia to see the retired ships of Portsmouth. They reach the Asia, on which the Captain served during the 1827 Battle of Navarino, a decisive confrontation in the Greek War of Independence where British, French, and Russian forces defeated the Ottoman armada. In the succeeding Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, Russia built on Navarino and gained control of the eastern coast of the Black Sea. “They say now it was a mistake, and that we only played the Russians’ game. No chance of doing that again.”63 The Captain’s final sentence makes sense in 1858, a few years after the Crimean War, but in 61  Katarina Gephardt, The Idea of Europe in British Travel Narratives, 1789–1914 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 143–144. 62  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 24. 63  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 161.

130 

T. MCLEAN

November 1877 (the time of the instalment), some readers must have felt that history was repeating itself. Later, Leonard assures Laddy, “We are no longer in the days of the terrible Nicholas,” the tsar who quelled the Polish uprising of 1830–31. “Alexander has begun a new era for Russia, which Wassielewski and his friends cannot understand.”64 While it was true that Alexander II enacted the Emancipation Reform of 1861, which abolished serfdom in Russia, he also suppressed another Polish insurrection, in 1863–64. More significantly, his actions in 1877 and 1878 made many Britons believe that he was simply following his predecessors in expanding the Russian Empire further into Europe. Indeed, when Laddy remonstrates that “[w]e pay the penalty now of not having carried the war to its legitimate end,” it is clear that he refers to Russia’s advances into the Balkans—an advance made visible every week in the pages of The Graphic.65 Reviewers were quick to note the novel’s occasional references to contemporary events. Truth declared that “scenes, drawn from the history of the Russian Bulgaria [i.e., Poland], supply a dark background to the drama.”66 The Spectator stated, “We could have wished that there had been less of the war-whoop in it [the novel]. It seems to us ‘hideously inopportune’ just now to tell harrowing tales of Polish insurrections. It would be an ill-deed to crush the possible hopes of the Eastern Christians, out of sympathy with the irremediable sorrows of Poland.”67 What was the impact of drawing so strongly on present events? It might have encouraged readers to note the way history seems to repeat itself, and it probably confirmed their Russophobic opinions. It certainly gave no hope of a new and finally successful uprising in Poland.

Laddy’s Polishness Laddy’s narration repeatedly emphasizes his wish to be a Briton, not a Pole. “I was certainly more English than Polish. I could not speak my father’s language. I belonged to the English Church. … it was like the loss of half my identity to be reminded that I was not a Briton at all, but a Pole,

 Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 319–320.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 82. 66  “Sofa Criticism,” 283. 67  Rev. of By Celia’s Arbour, The Spectator 2593 (9 March 1878): 319. 64 65

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

131

the son of a long line of Poles, with a duty owed to my country.”68 As the passage suggests, it is other characters who draw attention to Laddy’s Polishness. One school advertises the musical services of the “young, unfortunate, and talented Polish nobleman, Count Ladislas Pulaski.”69 Herr Räumer, a German resident in Portsmouth and the novel’s villain, lectures Laddy on his Polishness. But most of all it is Wassielewski, who continuously reminds Laddy not only of his Polish roots but even more so of his responsibility to sacrifice himself for Poland. “You are a Pole,” he tells Laddy, “You owe yourself to your country.”70 A critic for the Saturday Review found this element of the narrative “weak and unlikely; for even Wassielewski must have felt that the grandest historical name would not go very far … when borne by a delicate and deformed lad who could do nothing more manly than make music when he was unhappy, and conquer an unwise love like a virtuous woman.”71 Through Leonard’s intervention, Wassielewski and his revolutionary associates finally accept that Laddy will never lead a Polish insurrection and that he will spend the rest of his life as a music instructor in England. On one level there is something refreshing and admirable about a Victorian novel that sees its foreign-born narrator as an Englishman. The residents of Laddy’s Portsmouth are far more accepting of a neighbour with a continental background than, say, the residents of Will Ladislaw’s Middlemarch. In other ways, however, Laddy’s fate is even more ambivalent than Will’s. Will becomes a notable public figure; Laddy passes up his chance to study law and seems to look upon his limited success as a composer and music teacher with only a melancholy satisfaction. Will marries the woman he loves and has a family; Laddy remains unmarried and alone. Even the daughter of Augustus Brambler, who acts as Laddy’s musical companion and assistant, marries someone else, shutting off any readerly hope for Laddy.72 At the novel’s close, Laddy is in his early forties, and almost all his closest companions have either died (Wassielewski, the Captain) or left Portsmouth (Celia and Leonard). Laddy even suggests that the Polish community has abandoned Portsmouth. By Celia’s Arbour is quite  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 148–149.  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 62. 70  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 68. 71  Rev. of By Celia’s Arbour, The Saturday Review 45, no. 1169 (23 March 1878): 379. 72  Besant and Rice, By Celia’s Arbour, 374. 68 69

132 

T. MCLEAN

possibly the first notable novel published in Britain that features a Polish exile as narrator. And yet, at the very moment that an Anglo-Polish character is given the ability to narrate a story, the concluding chapter suggests that By Celia’s Arbour is a proleptic elegy, not only for a Portsmouth that no longer exists, but also for the Polish exile. The history of Polish immigrants to Britain tells a different story. While it is true that many Poles who came to Portsmouth in 1834 moved to other British centres or abroad, some remained, married British women, and began new lives. They were joined by later exiles who came to Britain after the 1863–1864 uprising and again in the 1940s. There remains today a strong Polish presence in Portsmouth, a presence celebrated in the Polish Memorial in Kingston Cemetery, unveiled in 2004, honouring the 213 Poles who founded Britain’s first Polish community. Walter Besant and James Rice may have seen By Celia’s Arbour as the concluding chapter in the story of Polish Portsmouth; in fact, it is a valuable document in an ongoing, living history.

Bibliography Besant, Walter. Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1902. Besant, Walter and James Rice. By Celia’s Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893. Bourrier, Karen. The Measure of Manliness: Disability and Masculinity in the Mid-­ Victorian Novel. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2015. Britannicus. The Case of the Poles Now at Portsmouth. A Letter Addressed to the Editor of The Times. London: Ridgway and Sons, 1834. Brock, Peter. “Polish Democrats and English Radicals 1832–1862: A Chapter in the History of Anglo-Polish Relations.” The Journal of Modern History 25, no. 2 (1953): 139–156. Campbell, Thomas. The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell. London: Moxon, 1843. Carew, Derek. “Victorian Attitudes to Chopin.” In The Cambridge Companion to Chopin, edited by Jim Samson, 222–245, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge. London: Moxon, 1863. Disher, Maurice Willson. Victorian Song: From Dive to Drawing Room. London: Phoenix House, 1955. Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. Edited by Terence Cave. New York: Penguin, 1995. Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Edited by Rosemary Ashton. New  York: Penguin, 1994.

6  “POLAND HAS NO CLAIM ON YOU”: BY CELIA’S ARBOUR… 

133

Eliot, Simon. “His Generation Read His Stories”: Aspects of Sir Walter Besant’s Publishing History and its Context, with Particular Reference to the Firms of Chatto & Windus and A.P.  Watt. Doctoral thesis, University College London, 1990. Gephardt, Katarina. The Idea of Europe in British Travel Narratives, 1789–1914. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Gula, Józef. The Roman Catholic Church in the History of the Polish Exiled Community in Great Britain. London: University of London School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1993. Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbour: The University of Michigan Press, 2004. [Hunt, Leigh]. “The Examiner.” The Examiner 340 (3 July 1814): 428–429. Kipling, Rudyard. Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings. Edited by Thomas Pinney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Krzyżanowski, Ludwik. “Joseph Conrad’s ‘Prince Roman’: Fact and Fiction.” The Polish Review 1, no. 4 (1956): 22–62. Kukiel, Marian. Czartoryski and European Unity 1700–1861. Princeton University Press, 1955. McLean, Thomas. The Other East and Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Imagining Poland and the Russian Empire. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. McLean, Thomas. “Introduction.” Thaddeus of Warsaw. Edited by Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich, [viii]–xxiii. Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Moore, Thomas. Odes of Anacreon, Translated into English Verse, with Notes. London: John Stockdale, 1800. Oliphant, Margaret. The Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 3 vols. London: Macmillan and Co., 1882. Rev. of By Celia’s Arbour. The Spectator 2593 (9 March 1878a): 319. Rev. of By Celia’s Arbour. The Saturday Review 45, no. 1169 (23 March 1878b): 379–380. Rev. of By Celia’s Arbour. The Canadian Review 13, no. 6 (June 1878c): 682–683. Shannon, Edgar F. “The Critical Reception of Tennyson’s ‘Maud.’” PMLA 68, no. 3 (1953): 397–417. “Sofa Criticism.” Truth 3, no. 61 (28 February 1878): 283. Storer, Richard. “‘Another Like Me’: The Literary Partnership of Walter Besant and James Rice.” In The Business of Literature and the Pleasures of Reform, edited by Kevin Morrison, 39–54. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019. Sutherland, John. Victorian Novelists and Publishers. London: The University of London, Athlone Press, 1976. Tennyson, Alfred. Maud, and Other Poems. London: Edward Moxon, 1855.

PART II

After 1918

CHAPTER 7

Polish Post-World-War-II Exiles in Britain: The London Wiadomoscí and Its Cultural Milieu Dorota Kołodziejczyk

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the exilic character of the post-­ war Polish emigres in Britain as represented by a weekly published in Polish, the London Wiadomosci, ́ in the years 1946–1981. My special interest is to investigate what was unique in the intellectual circle of seasoned editors who, on the one hand, set for themselves the goal of preserving links among exile and home cultural and literary lives, but, on the other hand, refused to recognize the post-war cultural developments in Poland as viable venues for artistic expression for a long time after the war, and decried writers who published in Poland under communism for legitimizing the regime or producing licensed literature. On the basis of the Wiadomosci, ́ I seek to explore the category of the “exilic” identity of this migration group and read its geopolitics comparatively through some

D. Kołodziejczyk (*) Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_7

137

138 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

postcolonial studies categories of migrant writing. The London Wiadomoscí is an exemplary case for studying an exiled community, marginalized by the Cold War geopolitics and forced to assume the position of a guardian of quaint national memory archives and sentiments. The Wiadomoscí started as a forum open to all those who considered writing a viable form of continued struggle for the cause of independence. It did not represent a singular political option, but a broad liberal-democratic spectrum with a shared anti-communist stance. It was launched right after Winston Churchill’s coinage of the Iron Curtain metaphor for the new division in Europe and the world, when it had become obvious to the many Polish citizens in Britain that return to Poland would be difficult or impossible. Britain gave refuge during World War II to the Polish government-in-­ exile and included the Polish armed forces under its command. In 1945, after the end of World War II, the Polish settlement in Britain was enlarged by the servicemen from the so-called General Anders’ Army (or, the Polish Second Corps), seeking refuge in Britain, as in Poland not only had the borders shifted, but the political system as well. The return for those who had fought under the Allies in the west became dangerous, and for many there was no place to return, as their homes would have been in the USSR. The Polish post-war settlement in Britain was the first largest settlement of one national/ethnic group. In the immediate post-war years, the estimated number of Poles in the UK was 250,000.1 The legislation enabling their settlement in Britain was passed in 1947 as the Polish Resettlement Act by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1947 to demobilize the war veterans and to help them and their families, as well as other citizens of Poland who had found refuge in Britain during World War II.2 In fact, it was the first mass immigration law implemented in Britain, to be followed next year by the British Nationality Act expanding the definition of UK nationality to include the colonies and opened the door to the Windrush generation immigration (later to be curbed by the new immigration control laws). In 1951, and it was already after the

1  Peter D.  Stachura, “Towards and Beyond Yalta,” in The Poles in Britain, 1940–2004. From Betrayal to Assimilation, ed. Peter D.  Stachura (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2004), 5–16, 12. 2  See the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, UK Public General Acts, 1947 c. 19 10 and 11 Geo 6, 27th March 1947. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/10-11/19.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

139

post-war massive returns to the country,3 the number of Poles who had settled in Britain was 162,000, and in the early 1960s, it stayed at the level of 140–150,000.4 With 30–35,000 Polish settlers in London, with their own government-in-exile (even though derecognized internationally in 1945), heritage and community centres, churches, schools, and businesses, this was the largest immigrant group in London well into the 1960s. Polish post-war settlers in Britain for a long time did not want to see themselves as “immigrants” but, resolutely, “exiles,” whose return to their home country had been made risky or impossible by the new world order, and the settlement in Britain disappointing because of the shift of popular attitudes towards the Poles from enthusiastic to negative.5 They set up a range of cultural and intellectual outlets to sustain the Polish community life on emigration. Press was crucial in integrating the dispersed Polish community during the war—apparently, Brendan Bracken, the wartime minister said about Poles: “If you were to plant two Poles in the middle of a desert, they would certainly start a newspaper.”6 In 1961, the number of Polish press titles in Britain amounted to 33, which is a small number in comparison to 200 in the years 1939–49.7 The London-based Wiadomoscí was a journal with the determinate mission to sustain the sense of contact with the home country for the Polish exiles in Britain and the sense of continued involvement in national matters despite distance, measured both in space and in geopolitics. The Wiadomoscí was first published on April 1st, 1946. The editors laid out the journal’s mission in the first issue:

3  Jerzy Zubrzycki estimates that out of 250,000 Polish servicemen under British command, 105 were repatriated to Poland right after the war, 30,000 to other countries, while the remaining 114,000 servicemen and 62,000 civilians (families and dps) was the bulk number of Polish settlers in Britain; 114,000 of which were encouraged to emigrate to other Commonwealth countries and the USA. In 1961 census Polish-born settlers in the UK numbered 136,000 and in 1971 108,000. (Jerzy Zubrzycki, “Polish Emigration to British Commonwealth Countries: A Demographic Survey,” The International Migration Review 13, no. 4 (Winter 1979): 649–672, 655. 4  Sheila Patterson, “The Polish Exile Community in Britain,” The Polish Review 6, no. 3 (Summer 1961): 69–97. 5  Stachura, “Towards and Beyond Yalta,” 12; Michelle Winslow, “Oral History and Polish Emigres in Britain,” in Stachura, Poles in Britain, 72; Adam Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in World War II (London: John Murray, 1995; e-book edition Sharpe Books 2019). 6  Patterson, “The Polish Exile Community,” 90. 7  Patterson, “The Polish Exile Community,” 90.

140 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

Our journal is open to writers of all political camps, just like us dedicated to the cause of the freedom of thought and word. We are keen, to the best of our intentions, to ensure the freedom of expression to those who fight with their pen for the free, whole and independent Poland.8

Wiadomoscí was established by Mieczysław Grydzewski and Antoni Borman as a continuation of the pre-war Wiadomoscí literackie (1924–1939) and of Wiadomoscí Polskie, Polityczne i Literackie, a weekly published first in Paris, then in London, in 1940–1944. All three titles were linked by the editor-in-chief, Mieczysław Grydzewski. The idea that the new exile weekly continued the ethos and the left-liberal profile of the pre-war journal in which top Polish writers and intellectuals published, gave the London Wiadomoscí a symbolic gravity—it showed a continuation over a historical chasm that had ripped the country and its inhabitants displaced by the war. The continuation with the wartime Wiadomoscí Polskie, Polityczne i Literackie, closed by the British authorities in 1944 for fear that the adamantly anti-Soviet weekly could hamper the alliance with the USSR, underlined the pro-independence ethos of the new Wiadomosci. ́ Michał Chmielowiec and Stefania Kossowska were consecutive editors-in-­ chief. After almost four decades, the journal was closed in 1981, on account of the failure of intergenerational transmission that resulted in diminishing numbers of subscribers and funding resources.9 This was regrettable because what had started in August 1980 with the Solidarity trade union in Poland and continued in all spheres of social life as a steadfast claim of agency and freedom of expression and civic rights (with considerable help from émigré publishing houses books banned in Poland and opening new dissident political and cultural journals shipped to Poland as a so-called second-circulation publishing system), was in fact the decade of geopolitical change that resulted in the dissolution of communist regimes in Europe. The 1980s would have been a great decade to be covered by the politically pluralist and culturally sophisticated Wiadomosci. ́ The archive of the journal was deposited by the last editor-in-chief, Stefania  Wiadomości 1, no. 1 (1) (1946): 1.  The Wiadomości editors, Tymon Terlecki and Stefania Kossowska, published appeals for increased funding of the journal in August, 1980 (35 i. 33 (1794), 3–4). Kossowska confirmed the journal’s dire financial and generational situation interviewed by Edward Dusza the same year. See: Stefania Kossowska, Edward Dusza. “O ‘Wiadomościach’. Rozmowa Edwarda Duszy,” Gwiazda Polarna, 11.10.1980, reprinted in: Archiwum Emigracji: studia, szkice, dokumenty 1–2 (7–8), 2006. 282–286, 284–285. 8 9

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

141

Kossowska, in the Archiwum Emigracji (the Emigration Archive) at the University of Toruń in Poland in the 1990s. Poles, being the first mass-immigration community in post-war Britain, became a testing ground for the future immigration laws and politics, implemented to accommodate the country to the forthcoming migration from the Commonwealth countries starting with the Windrush generation of 1948. Apparently less visible and not subject to racialism (even though they were not spared from national stereotyping and the fear that they would “steal jobs”)10 this community shared with the migrants from the decolonizing British empire some crucial features—they were structurally marginalized, they developed their own political, cultural, and social life within the minoritarian space carved out for themselves, their cultural contributions likewise tended to be compartmentalized as a national or ethnic niche, and, on and off, but especially at the beginning 10  Stachura wrote in “Towards and Beyond Yalta” about anti-Polish attitudes in trade unions and, at the popular level, in Scotland especially and the House of Commons discussion of that problem in the context of labour shortages in agriculture and resistance against Polish resettlement. The discussion of the sitting in June 1946 should be quoted at some length: “The hon. Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden) spoke about the increasing need for a labour pool, a mobile pool of labour to go from place to place as required. This has found mention in the Balfour Report upon hill sheep farming. it has occurred to me, and I have no doubt that it has occurred to the Minister, that we might make use of some of the Polish troops. There are 100,000 of them in the Second Polish Corps, and 60,000 of them are already in this country. The men who are coming from Italy will go into the Resettlement Corps. They make good farmers I know, because I have watched some of them at work. They are just the kind of men we want to help us, and they can do the job without putting one Scotsman out of work. §Mr. Hoy According to the figures which have been given this week, 5000 Poles will be coming to Scotland. There is great resentment in Scotland about any coming at all, and, in view of that, is the hon. Member now advocating that Scotland should have a larger proportion than 5000? §Mr. Thornton-Kemsley I very much regret that the hon. Member should talk about resentment in Scotland. I know what he means. I was in Scotland, doing a humble job on the staff, when we thought that we were to be invaded any day. The Polish soldiers were standing by, from dawn to dusk, ready to defend our Scottish shores against the invasion which we expected at any time. I consider that that is an interjection which the hon. Member ought not to have made. We are desperately short of agricultural labour, and yet here are these men who are precluded almost from going to their 2234 homes, wanting work to do. I am suggesting that they might well be used to help us forward with our agricultural problem in Scotland. (Commons Sitting of 6 June 1946 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1946/jun/06/ agriculture-and-transport-scotland-1#column_2233).

142 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

of their settlement, they were considered a burden to the British welfare system and job market. One more important feature shared with the Windrush generation immigration to Britain is—Polish soldiers and Commonwealth countries servicemen were sometimes fighting side by side at the same war theatres and, after the end of World War II, they were similarly overlooked or even forgotten in their share of glory. After the war, they sought recognition at least expecting to be considered useful to the United Kingdom, a country ravaged by war. However, both immigrant groups shared a similar experience of alienation and sense of rejection amongst the British. At least, such was the affective account in these veteran groups. Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz, conservative politician and prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile in 1954–55, contributing to the Wiadomoscí some prescient and cutting-edge political analyses, underlined the endemic racist imperialism of the English in his book Londyniszcze, published after his return to Poland in 1956. As it turned out, he was recruited by the Polish secret service11 and his declaration of the “Anglophobe” might have been motivated also by the need to make some concessions to the communist regime on return. But some of the following comments on decolonizing processes and British imperialism are interesting for their attempt to link imperialism with endemic racism and violence, in contrast to some other commentators from Wiadomoscí who would support decolonization but, at the same time, consider the British Empire a space of equality and opportunity for all: The British Empire collapsed, however, more rapidly and more radically than could be foreseen. India reckons more with the politics of China or Russia than with some suggestions from London; Pakistan follows the politics of Asian Solidarity, and, if it breaks out sometimes from this system, this is because it’s connected with the US.  South Africa is ruled by anti-English Boers; in Black Africa one should expect soon some general revolt […] For England, the ideal is that its trade partner is economically powerless […] An Englishman is a nationalist and racist, an Englishman has an inborn contempt for the foreigner and a stupendous sense of his racial superiority. […] In Europe, English racism never manifested itself in crimes of the Hitler kind, 11  About the infiltration of the émigré circles by secret services, see: Sławomir Cenckiewicz, “Polski Londyn na celowniku służb,” Nowe Państwo no. 3 (2006): 59–64; and specifically about the Wiadomos ́ci editors: Paweł Libera, “Antoni Borman i Michał Chmielowiec: o ‘Wiadomościach’ w oczach SB cia ̨g dalszy,” Archiwum Emigracji. Studia-Szkice-Dokumenty 12–13 (1–2) (2010): 305–313.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

143

but the Polish society does not know the history of overseas colonization and does not really realize how peoples of a different skin colour were dealt with. There were whole nations, whole tribes, which “perished upon the contact with civilization,” as we can read in geography manuals. At a closer examination of the matter, it turns out that these peoples were simply murdered.12

In the same book whose purpose is to challenge the unfounded love for England common in Poland, Cat-Mackiewicz paints a picture that is both sombre and satirical, observing peculiarties of the British life that, according to him, testify to the key features of Englishness, these being sadism and arrogance (closely linked to aristocracy). This is evidenced even by the opening hours of the British Museum library and its readers hailing from the margins of society: freaks, including very few English, and, otherwise, Poles, Hindus, and Blacks.13Cat-Mackiewicz represents the Polish post-­ war settlers in Britain as an intentionally marginalized and unrecognized social group. They occupy the narrow and invisible space of unqualified labour, while trying to live on the grandiose myths of national heroism amounting to messianism: After the war, favourable attitudes towards us melted into thin air. […] There was no chance of a qualified work for a Pole. Towards Poles, the English feel both repulsion and contempt. And there we have London night industry, some dishwashing places, bakeries, places where biscuits are put into boxes, filled up with the Polish elderly ranking high in our government hierarchy of the past. These people work like true “Stakhanoviches” in comparison with the English worker. […] Anyway, our constant bragging and self-promotion that without our Somosierra there would be no Napoleon, that without our Monte Cassino there would be no victory over Hitler, makes the English extremely discouraged about us and is one of the reasons why they disregard us deeply.14

All in all, the centrality of the London Wiadomoscí to the Polish exiles in Britain and its peripherality to the British cultural and intellectual life, right when it had been developing as a multicultural society, provide an interesting vantage point from which we can explore the changing role, 12  Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz, Londyniszcze. (Kraków: Universitas, 2013; Warszawa: Czytelnik 1957), 21–22. Transl. by Dorota Kołodziejczyk. All translations from Polish, if not otherwise specified, are by DK. 13  Cat-Mackiewicz, Londyniszcze, 84. 14  Cat-Mackiewicz, Londyniszcze, 10.

144 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

position, and salience of migration to the national core and to the hosting nation. What is the least tangible, but would be very interesting, is whether various immigration intellectual circles, naturally oriented towards the home countries and the host nation, were aware of each other in a broader sense of collaborative spaces. As is the case with the Wiadomosci, ́ while the decolonization process was not discussed in the weekly as a separate topic of significance, the ardent anti-colonial and decolonial awareness often surfaced in political comments and in discussions of the nature of the Soviet domination in Eastern and Central Europe behind the Iron Curtain and its expansion. British and French imperialism was most often an adjacent topic emerging in the weekly in discussions of the Soviet rivalry with the USA or China over the influence on the decolonizing countries. The debate on the imperialist nature of Soviet politics towards its satellite states and allies, which started in the 1990s and early 2000s under the influence of postcolonial studies in Eastern and Central European post-communist countries, had a predecessor. The London Wiadomoscí took the imperialist nature of the Soviet expansion and governance for granted and wrote about in a matter-of-fact tone since its first issue in 1946. In what follows, I am going to outline the political and social context for opening the Wiadomoscí in London after World War II, and, further, survey the key areas of interest for the journal through the almost four decades of its life,15 in order to examine how the editors defined themselves as “exiles,” and the weekly’s profile and mission as exilic, in contrast to diasporic or migrant. It is some kind of historical irony and terminological recklessness that they have been often referred to as “émigrés” or “Polonia,” a brand-name for the Polish communities abroad. Wiadomoscí from the beginning until the end sustained the conviction that exiles were significantly different from diaspora or immigration. After the outbreak of World War II and the failure of the September campaign in Poland, now occupied jointly by Germany and the USSR, the Polish government went in exile in France, and the Polish Armed Forces joined the Battle of France. After the fall of France in 1940, Britain gave refuge to the Polish government-in-exile. The Polish Armed Forces in the West were subsequently recreated in the UK and contributed significantly to the Battle of Britain. When Hitler broke the pacts with Stalin and 15  In the last issue of the weekly, all three Wiadomości stages: pre-war, war-time and post-­ war were added to yield the total of the journal’s life as 58 years. See: Jan Kott, “Do ostatniej Redaktorki ‘Wiadomości’,” Wiadomości 36, i. 3 (1816) (1981): 1.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

145

started Operation Barbarossa, the Sikorski-Mayski agreement releasing Polish soldiers and civilians kept prisoners in the USSR opened the possibility to form the Polish army. Commonly referred to as the General Anders’ Army, and officially as the Polish Second Corps, the new formation was evacuated from the USSR via Uzbekistan and Persia to the Middle East (Palestine). It fought in key campaigns of the theatre of war: the North African campaign, the Italian campaign, and the Western European campaign. World War II ended for the Polish exiles in Britain— the servicemen and staff of the Polish Armed Forces in the West and the Polish government-in-exile—with a disorienting ambivalence: the so-far legal Polish government-in-exile stopped being recognized as such by the Allies (France in June, 1945, the USA and the UK in July, 1945), and the Polish Armed Forces in the West were officially disbanded in 1947. Many of the servicemen and personnel, as well as the officials of the  Polish government-­in-exile remained in the UK, as they would face persecution, trials, and death sentences in Poland under the communist regime.16 The undetermined status of the Polish exiles was confirmed during the London Victory Parade in 1946. The invited representatives of the communist government in Poland did not turn up, as it would not be advisable for them to reinforce the glory of the western Allies; the Polish veterans of the RAF were invited, but they refused to attend without the Polish Army and the Navy. Historian Adam Zamoyski claims that the equivocal invitation on the part of the British government of the Polish veterans to the Victory Parade was dictated by the fear of irking Stalin.17 Already in May 1945, the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (PISM) was set up in London to archive the Polish war effort in the country and in exile, and to research, archive and publish on topics and problems banned in communist Poland. A non-governmental trust run since 1945, the PISM has remained the most important Polish heritage centre in the UK.  The Polish Resettlement Corps functioned from 1946 to 1949 to help transition the Polish war veterans to the civilian life in Britain and in 1947, the Polish Resettlement Act was passed in the wake of adverse 16  In spring 1945, the Soviet authorities lured the representatives of the underground political wings in Poland, including the Government Delegate—the official agency of the Polish Government-in-exile, at a pretext to seek a broader support for the Soviet-installed government in Poland. Subsequently, the leaders of the underground state were arrested, transferred to Moscow, and sentenced in the so-called Trial of the Sixteen (Proces szesnastu) in June 1945 to prison (with four defendants acquitted). 17  Zamoyski, The Forgotten Few, n.p.

146 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

attitudes from the trade unions and Labour. The largest Polish settlement was in London, creating a complete world of its own: churches, restaurants, businesses, community centres and associations, including veteran organizations, art galleries, schools and homes for the seniors and persons with disabilities. The Polish University Abroad, London, was set up in 1949 and still offers courses for postgraduate professionals and senior citizens. The Polish section of the BBC was run from 1939 up to 2005, broadcasting both with the mind of Poles in Poland and for the Polish minority in the UK. A large number of publishing houses testifies to one of the key premises of the Polish exiles intellectual policy “to fight communism with books.”18 The number of Polish press titles coming out in Britain, London predominantly, was impressive—some of the pre-war titles, relaunched on emigration, would be published for decades after the war, like the most popular and still daily Dziennik Polski, and a range of periodicals, some of which would close only after the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989.19 While the new generations of Poles born in Britain were inevitably melting into British society, the war exiles continued to cultivate for decades the Polish space they managed to carve out for themselves in London. The London Wiadomoscí co-founder and editor, Stefania Kossowska, writing in the Big Ben column, observed once that the Polish exiles community in London had more cultural events than the largest Polish diaspora city, Chicago.20 The exilic character of the post-war Polish settlement in the UK is best illustrated by the fact that the Polish government-­in-exile, even though it had ceased to be recognized internationally, continued to operate in Britain until it acknowledged the 1990 presidential elections in Poland as the first fully democratic elections since the war. It even retained some diplomatic gravity—the last president of the Republic of Poland in exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, officially passed on power to Lech Wałęsa in December 1990. Mieczysław Grydzewski, the editor-in-chief of Wiadomosci, ́ launched the journal when it was still not quite certain where the weekly would be published—the Polish exiles were dispersed mostly in Italy, France, and 18  Ewa Winnicka, Londyńczycy, (Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne, 2012, e-book edition Publio), n.p. 19  For a detailed bibliographical survey of titles that came out since the end of the war until the 1980s, see Rafał Habielski, “Prasa polska w Wielkiej Brytanii 1945–1970: przegla ̨d informacyjno-­bibliograficzny,” Kwartalnik Historii Prasy Polskiej 24, no. 3 (1985–86): 53–67. Dziennik Polski, a daily published in Polish, has been coming out since 1940. 20  Stefania Kossowska (Big Ben), “W Londynie,” Wiadomości 25, no. 50 (1289) (1970): 5.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

147

Britain. He was prompted by Antoni Borman, the Wiadomoscí later editor and co-founder, to start the journal with another Polish exile, at that time still in Italy, Jerzy Giedroyć. Grydzewski decided on running his own title from Britain rather than to pool resources with Giedroyć, and Giedroyć, upon refusal by Grydzewski to reprint Wiadomoscí in Paris, set up his own title, Kultura. The journal was published by Instytut Literacki, set up during the war as a branch of the Polish Second Corps, and moved to Paris after the war. Kultura, published by the Instytut Literacki in Paris, and the London Wiadomosci, ́ were two titles whose difference was not so much in their respective political and ideological loyalties (both represented a broad liberal-democratic profile), but in the vision of the form and role of émigré involvement in the home country. While Kultura managed to actively assist many new developments in literary life in Poland and maintained a major intellectual impact on Polish culture, Wiadomoscí remained a less influential, although much respected, factor in cultural life in Poland. It maintained a stridently sceptical assessment of the changes in the communist bloc after Stalin’s death and the thaw starting in 1956. Wiadomoscí sustained keen interest in the Polish post-war culture—it acknowledged the new writers of promise from Poland, reviewed new literature and cultural developments in the country, and even launched a literary award for the best émigré book in 1958. Even though dedicated to the national cultural and political cause, Wiadomoscí remained an émigré journal whose main role was to integrate and sustain Polish cultural life in Britain and to keep up to date with the Polish émigré cultural and literary life globally. The analyses of the political situation in Poland were accurate and informed by level-headed realism. However, the exile orientation of the journal was both an asset and a liability. The space given to Polish writers—both old and new exiles, the indelible commitment to tracing the geopolitical chances for the weakening of communism to the advantage of Poland, as well as broad surveys of international cultural and literary trends and phenomena betrayed the ingeniously cosmopolitan cultural sensibility of the Wiadomoscí editors and contributors. Nevertheless, the delay of some urgent comments or analyses concerning events in Poland could be often observed, as could be the lack of any concessions that some developments in communist Poland were positive, like women’s mass employment and the access for women to medical, engineering, and other professions still dominated by men in the West. Although the journal does not make an impression of sustaining some Romantic messianic

148 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

romanticism so characteristic of the exile heritage in Polish culture, writer Witold Gombrowicz had a strongly negative view of the Wiadomoscí based precisely on the perception of the émigré circles as isolated in their own mixture of messianic metaphysics and quaint memories: “Wiadomoscí is a chapel, a museum, an association of mutual adoration, a catalogue, an album of decaying memorabilia, a cemetery […] an anecdote, a yarn, revision, snobbism and columnism.”21 Gombrowicz’s was a harsh assessment, and only partly, if at all, deserved, if erudition and dedication to sometimes extremely detailed biographical or historical studies of the Polish past and heritage represented by the Wiadomoscí were synonymous with antiquarianism. Indeed, it is a bit bemusing that in 1980, when the Solidarity trade union was triumphing in the country and opposition culture thrived, an entire issue of Wiadomoscí was devoted to the study of William the Conqueror. The only come-back or sense of continuity with the past the contributors to the journal could afford was to their memories, and the only agency that was left for the émigré circles was in writing: collecting, archiving, commemorating, re-­ creating, commenting, and altogether, asserting sustainability of the exiled ethos. The London Wiadomoscí set out to keep this memory alive by way of publishing writers from the so-called eastern borderlands (“kresy”), or about them, and cover political and cultural topics relating to the territories lost to the USSR after the Yalta and Potsdam, tabooed in Poland after the power shift in 1945. The weekly created also a large archive of war memory culture—a collective and individual history of the Polish war effort in documentary and fictional formats, and accrued rich resource of historical, biographical and art studies of the Polish heritage. It was especially important right at the outset, for documentary and affective reasons, considering that the wartime Wiadomoscí had been closed by the British government. The atmosphere was also not favourable for the exiled war veterans formerly in the British forces, and the communist regime in Poland virtually blocked access to the knowledge and memory of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Keeping the memory alive and sustaining the unyielding rejection of the political order based on the Yalta division of the world was to give the exiles a sense of historical and moral right. The London Wiadomoscí was founded on the imperative that the post-Yalta world order was to be rejected. This went in line with the 21  Witold Gombrowicz, Dziennik 1957–1961 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1986): 184–185.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

149

overall feeling and attitude of the exiles and defined the weekly’s ethos nearly four decades of its existence. In the opening issue 1, 1946, Zygmunt Nowakowski, the editor-in-­ chief of the wartime Wiadomoscí Polskie, Polityczne i Literackie, wrote in a tone of the opening editorial: Polishness is a set of obligations […] We are not returning to Poland, because it is neither free, nor independent, nor whole…. The refusal to return is an act of will, a positive act. The refusal is an act of love, a defence of the true Poland against derailing it from the route taken nine centuries ago.22

Indeed, the discussions of whether to return to the country in this early post-war time occupied quite a lot of space in Wiadomosci—when ́ famous poet Julian Tuwim returned to Poland from war exile in New York, the critique from Mieczysław Grydzewski was acute. Julian Tuwim, being the new regime’s poet-celebrity of state significance, became an example of how the new communist power lured poets and writers with the promises of importance and access to readers. The opening issue, ringing the tone of exilic pathos, explicitly pointed out that the new power regime installed in Poland was coterminous with the annexation of the state by the USSR. Tymon Terlecki, one of the Wiadomoscí chief contributors, laid out a clear exilic mission for the Polish post-war émigrés, underlying that this was an emigration comprised of all social classes and political sympathies. As such, it was a genuine democratic representation of the nation. Terlecki claimed the neccesity to develop a truly “ideational” ethos, which would be, invariably, an ethos of the struggle for independence in a quite literal sense, in accordance with the exiles’ position that the post-Yalta order was illegitimate: The current situation of Poland is the realization of the deep-set postulate of the Russian state – the postulate to annexe the whole Polish territory. […] Today Poland is, as a whole, under one partition [notice the use of historical terms from national history]. Another handicap: Poland has today an apparent, façade own statehood. […] Polish embassies will be the ones which will denounce us and chastise for our actions … And these deserters, the renegades of emigration, opportunistic zealots are today the most embarrassing, morally repulsive, and in practice the most dangerous manifestation of this statehood licensed from outside. […] The political emigration is the rival of  Zygmunt Nowakowski, “A to Polska właśnie,” Wiadomości 1, no. 1 (1946): 1.

22

150 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

the fake statehood. […] From the exile of privilege, as it used to be the case in 1939, at least to an extent, it has to transform into an exile of idea. The process will be completed only when the matter of armed force will mature.23

The illegitimacy of the communist power in Poland is discussed in another article by Stefania Zahorska, who detects the obvious plan of staging a democratic election in 1946 in Poland from the tactics of the Soviet language politics and social engineering. What today we would call branding and public image politics, Zahorska, in her perspicacious study of Soviet self-promotion and public relations strategies, analysed as the combination of “tactics and dictionary,” in other words, of language and power. And this vigilance to semantics and the practice of what we could call today discourse analysis is one of the main challenges and obligations for the émigré writer/journalist: The Soviet programmatic verbal construction and the construction of facts-­ evidence is planned perfectly, prudently and attractively. The Russians … were able not only to draw all necessary conclusions from the Tsarist imperialist policy, but also surpass it beyond measure, expand its reach, invent new methods of action. They used the revolution as a manual of tactics and a dictionary. […] The battlefield will be covered with the debris of words. But not all of them are dead. They are imbued with human hope, feelings, eternal truths. They will need to be de-lied, purified, enkindled with substance. Brought back to life after a horrible abuse.24

Wiadomoscí was one of the first voices after World War II to identify communism as totalitarianism. Studies of what was to be branded “newspeak” in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), like Zahorska’s, were common in Wiadomosci. ́ The harshest critique was coming from the socialist circles—the difference between socialism and communism is articulated as early as 1947 in the journal, right when the communist regime launched the process of incorporating the Polish Socialist Party, a licensed party that took over the name of the pre-war Polish Socialist Party, on exile after 1945. The main concern of Polish socialists in exile was the increasing self-identification of the left in democratic countries with communism as 23  Tymon Terlecki, “Polska emigracja wczoraj i dziś,” [Polish emigration then and now], Wiadomości 1, no. 1 (1946): 1. 24  Stefania Zahorska, “Magia słów [The magic of words],” Wiadomości 1, no. 1 (1) (1946): 1.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

151

represented by the USSR or the unwillingness of the left to acknowledge the genocidal and totalitarian foundations of Soviet communism. In exilic left circles it was of key importance to make a difference between socialism and communism, the latter, often disguising itself as socialism in the Soviet satellite states, being an impostor. Wiadomoscí noted: “The world socialism is going through a crisis […] Beside the traditional class opponent – capitalism  – a new opponent has emerged  – the communist totalism.” The article ends with the conclusion reinforcing the exile ethos: ““In exile, the Polish government has to reject this “new reality” and all international deals that started it. It has to represent the law and will of the Polish nation to recover the whole, independent, and free Poland.”25 The question of how tenacious communism was going to be was one of the most frequently recurring topics. In the first decade, until the thaw and liberation revolts in Hungary and Poland in 1956, the staying power of communism was analysed mainly within the horizon of hope that the West would actively support any pro-democratic movements in the Soviet-­ dominated countries. After 1956, the hope for such involvement of the West that would undo the post-Yalta world order was on the wane. Unlike other émigré journals, including the Paris Kultura, Wiadomoscí showed restrain in believing that the Thaw would bring about any real change. The brutal pacification of the Hungarian revolution and the Polish October protests in 1956 proved them right. However, the Thaw did bring some change and while Kultura gave it much more credit, Wiadomoscí sustained its scepticism that the change would be anything more than a façade. The Wiadomoscí political columnist under the pen name Puszka Pandory commented in an article with a cheeky title “The Thaw and the Flood” [Odwilż i powódź] that the Polish “revolution” would bring nothing more than a relatively bigger but still limited autonomy in deciding about home politics and affairs, but not much beyond that and decidedly not in foreign affairs in which Moscow had the full and sole agency. The conclusion was that the Thaw had nothing in common with independence and democracy.26Maria Danilewiczowa in a column with a telling title “Under Western Eyes” [“W oczach Zachodu”] noted that the West counted on a slow dissipation of communism and it did not have plans for any direct involvement. However, she did put some hopes in the post-Stalinist Thaw, observing that it at least had lessened the direct  Adam Pragier, “Polityka na księzẏ cu,” Wiadomości 2, no. 36, no. 37 (75/76) (1947): 1.  Adam Pragier (Puszka), “Puszka Pandory,” Wiadomości, 11, no. 47 (555) (1956): 3.

25 26

152 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

colonial grip of the USSR on satellite states, and concluded with showing a similarity between liberation struggle in Hungary and Poland to anti-­ colonial struggle happening at that time: “In Poland and in Hungary patriotism victoriously opposes communism; in Northern Africa – France; in Suez – the powerful users of the Canal.”27 However, such an anti-colonial stance, while in general followed by the journal, sometimes did fall prey to the Cold War geopolitics. Not only did the Wiadomoscí see the Soviet domination as structurally and historically imperialist, but also it observed decolonizing processes with especial attention to how they were becoming the Cold War arena. The Wiadomoscí columnists saw the adherence to communism in many decolonizing countries as part and parcel of the Cold War rivalry, and the tightening ties of the newly independent states as the sad surrendering of democracy to a hegemonic power. As early as in the first issue, in spring 1946, commentator Zbigniew Grabowski, analysing possible developments of the British-­ Soviet and the US-Soviet relations after the collapse of the “Big Three” mirage alliance in his article “Changes” [“Przemiany”], indirectly relates Churchill’s famous speech on the “Iron Curtain” as a belated alarm, considering his politics of concessions towards Russia (which the author compares to Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Third Reich). Noting Britain’s decreasing imperial power, the author observes that the Soviet politics against Britain concerns first and foremost the empire: “At the moment, the main attack of the Russian politics is directed especially against the empire. Russia knows very well that it has a huge chance of winning nationalist attitudes in Asia for itself.” Grabowski clearly does not see independence ambitions “in the empire,” as he calls it, worth dwelling on— these are understandable, perhaps even commendable, nationalist attitudes that, still, will be used by the bigger players, the USSR and China. He eulogizes the British Empire as, “the largest area of organized human liberty in the world, capable of further development.”28 In 1956, a columnist traces the developing friendship between India and the USSR, analysing the background of the enthusiastic reception of Khrushchev in Nehru’s India: “All those who call that the eruption of India’s enthusiasm on Bulganin’s and Khrushchev’s visit a collective madness are wrong; the volcano of praise revealed the true feelings of the Indian masses. The 27  Maria Danilewiczowa, “W oczach Zachodu [Under Western Eyes],” Wiadomości, 11, no. 47 (555) (1956): 4. 28  Zbigniew Grabowski, “Przemiany,” Wiadomości, 1, no. 1 (1946): 2.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

153

pro-­ Soviet Indian government only channeled and organized these feelings.”29Grydzewski, the columnist of “Dziwy i dziwadła” [the bizarre] finds the article he reads in the Indian press of the day, in which the Soviet crimes are defined as “child’s play” [dziecinne igraszki] when compared to the Western empires’ crimes against Asians and Africans, grossly ill-informed. The possibility of objective, measurable comparison aside, the difficulty to admit that democratic western countries had a history of imperialist crime is quite visible in this case. Grydzewski sums up his survey of press comments of the Indian-Soviet friendship as somewhat inconsistent with the Nehru and Gandhi non-violence ethos: One of Gandhi’s main theses was the condemnation of violence. A condemnation, obviously, purely theoretical, because when Gandhi was the leader of India, the Hindu nationalists used bloody methods of fight against the English power. Gandhi’s successor, prime minister Nehru, uses every opportunity to condemn violence, however, it does not stop him from binding his country to superpowers founded on the cruelest violence, the Soviet Russia and communist China.30

The overall anti-colonial sentiment in the journal was nevertheless subordinated to the Soviet drive to spread communism as anti-imperialism in newly decolonized countries. As such, it served mostly to express the disappointed interests of the Polish exiles. In the journal, decolonization was both inscribed in the historical logic and subject to the bipolar dynamic of world politics. The Wiadomoscí contributors matched universalism of the decolonial spirit of the time with pragmatism of their anti-communist position. The devil was always in the details—and the most important detail for the Wiadomoscí was the hypocrisy of world communism. Maria Danilewiczowa, under the pen-name Szperacz, noted in her column “W oczach Zachodu” [“Under Western Eyes”] in 1958, when Andre Malraux returned as minister of culture with the de Gaulle government that year, and the French communists labelled him a “fascist,” that this “fascist” had not only been fascinated with Soviet communism before the war, but also publicly protested when the authorities confiscated a book by Henri Allega in which he provided details of using torture against the Algerian insurrectionists. The protest was also signed by du Garde, Mauriac, and Sartre.31  Mieczysław Grydzewski, “Dziwy i dziwadła,” Wiadomości 11, no. 18 (523) (1956): 4.  Grydzewski, “Dziwy i dziwadła,” 4. 31  Danilewiczowa, “W oczach Zachodu,” 4.

29

30

154 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

The Wiadomoscí editor-in-chief, Grydzewski, especially fond of collecting trivia for his curiosity cabinet in words, found a case of racism gone not only rampant but also absurd—the translation of the Song of Songs into Afrikaans in South Africa: “According to the legislation [of race segregation] the Holy Scripture has been revised […] the agreed on version of the 5th verse of the Song of Songs goes as follows: ‘I am black but comely, o ye daughters of Jerusalem’ into ‘I am comely and tanned brown by the sun!’ The black face of the Mother of God in Jasna Góra would probably also have to be censored by the racial Afrikaans purists.”32 What is missing in this fairly rich repository of references to the decolonizing processes is any reference to the art or literature from the Commonwealth countries and by the immigrants from these countries to Britain. It testifies to a characteristic isolationism of the community of the Polish exiles in Britain and their quaint perspective which allowed them to notice new artistic and literary developments of the western world but made them somehow impervious to the new developments next door, one might say. In this, they represented a typical sensibility of the peripheries—their cosmopolitanism was West-oriented, their universalism was inscribed in the western hegemony. They would be able to find the Polish imprints in world literature or art with minutest details, but they were not interested in lateral connections beyond an occasional look into other exiles’ cultural milieus, like Russian émigré journals or émigré authors from other communist countries. This peripheral cosmopolitanism was perhaps part and parcel of the exile ethos. The need to overcome the sense of increasing marginalization was manifest in the journal already in the first years of its functioning, but the cosmopolitan outlook on literature of this erudite intellectual circle only confirmed its sense of peripherality and isolation. The task to determine the role of exile/émigré literature, taken up in Wiadomoscí many times, usually involved the whole journal community together with the readers, and sometimes developed into an inter-journal dialogue and polemic, obviously, between the London Wiadomoscí and the Paris Kultura. In 1951, one of the Wiadomoscí key commentators, Tymon Terlecki, wrote in an essay “Literature on emigration” [“Literatura na emigracji”] a scathing critique of émigré literature, noting its opportunism and absenteeism:

 Michał Grydzewski, “Dziwy i dziwadła,” Wiadomości 13, no. 11 (624), (1958): 6.

32

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

155

Emigration literature has not understood the sense of emigration, it has not reached out with its imagination and feeling to its pathos, destiny, historical necessity – that’s the diagnosis […] émigré literature has not put faith in its own reason of existence. Not believing in it, it has not been able to impress it on anyone. […] It’s difficult to see any reason in the opportunism of émigré literature. Free from external pressures, it succumbed to something that is called in the Country “internal emigration.” […] Literature on emigration lacks fidelity to the time, place and the sense of shared destiny with the Country. The sentimental, anarchistic position of Polish émigré literature is an inadvertent betrayal of the Country.33

Juliusz Mieroszewski—writing as “Londyńczyk” to Kultura—in response reinforced Terlecki’s sombre assessment. He wrote in his “Literature of the besieged city” [“Literatura oblęzo ̇ nego miasta”]: We are an exilic sect which has built for itself on the alien land a chapel […] We persevere in the ritualistic purity of the faith. Our current leaders are not the “engaged” historical leaders who would be able to connect our cause and politics with the dynamics of current trends to rebuild Europe and the world. These are only the priest who guard the purity of the law of the faith and pass judgments on the orthodox purity of the exegesis. […] this is the climate which makes the basis of our émigré literature. The cardinal sin of that literature is its inability to rebel. Any conformism is futile and non-­ productive. Human culture from Socrates to Bertrand Russel is a product of guerrillas, fighters and non-conformists. Conformism turns literature and journalism into propaganda. Émigré literature has accepted the imposed moratorium on critique and revisionism. It has accepted a rule that leads nowhere: ‘it’s not yet time’. It is not yet time for a programme, for the revision of the past, not yet time for the control of the repository of our social and political slogans. It’s not yet time for anything which is not a defence and apology for the ‘status-quo’. Émigré literature does not indicate, lead, does not cause ferment”.34

Both authors in both journals note the inevitable inbreeding and self-­ marginalization of the émigré literature, and especially its inability to criticize the émigré community. Both diagnoses focused on the virtually existential indolence of émigré literature to carry out its mission of, implicitly but vocally, changing the stagnation of émigré sense of agency,  Tymon Terlecki, “Literatura na emigracji,” Wiadomości 6, no. 47 (295) (1951): 1.  Juliusz Mieroszewski, “Literatura oblęzo ̇ nego miasta,” Kultura 01, no. 51 (1952): 3–8.

33 34

156 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

influence and merit by coming up with a breakthrough work—as long as literature is not critique, it does not stand up to its role. The crisis had been imminent since early Thaw years, when the Wiadomoscí sustained their stance that literature written in the country would always be concessional. Józef Mackiewicz, writer and brother of politician Stanisław Cat-­ Mackiewicz, wrote in 1958  in response to the Wiadomoscí survey on whether there is one or two Polish literatures that the logic of the communist regime sentences the literature written in the country to legitimizing the regime. Thus, it cannot be classified as “Polish”: This question is constructed in a way that arbitrarily classified the literature written in the country as “Polish.” I do not share this widely accepted opinion and that is why I cannot answer this question directly. […] For me, a communist is not Russian, or Polish, or French, but a communist. […] So, communist literature, as an instrument for disseminating this hostile idea, something like a plague, is naturally a negative phenomenon. For a Pole, in turn, the notion “Polish” is naturally a positive one. So, these two concepts should exclude each other rather than be connected.35

Both journals found the way out of what they saw as stagnation and lack of agency in émigré literature by opening their space for writers from post-war emigration. This sort of consecrating strategy to welcome the new exiles by awarding their best literary production was an important move to promote émigré literature and to help it gain the status of authority. For the literary and readerly, the London Wiadomoscí launched an award for émigré writing (literature and prose) in 1958 which it granted until 1990, after the journal had been closed. It opened its columns to new waves of émigré writers. Henryk Grynberg, a Jewish writer who did not return to Poland in 1967 from his theatre group tour in the United States due to an increasing antisemitic onslaught of the authorities on him for his ground-breaking book Z ̇ydowska wojna (The Jewish War, 1965), made a statement in Wiadomoscí that his emigration was enforced by the snowballing systemic antisemitism and nationalism of the communist regime. He concluded: “I understood that I would not be allowed to 35  Józef Mackiewicz, “Pisarze emigracyjni a literatura krajowa. Ankieta Wiadomości,” Wiadomości 13, no. 26 (639) (1958): 1. See also other responses to the survey in the same article, e.g. Ludwik Kruszelnicki naming the literature written in the country a “stump”; however, Zbigniew Grabowski would see any divisions determined by political contexts contingent and temporary.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

157

evoke sympathy for the Jews. Evoking sympathy for a human being is, in my opinion, the only goal of real literature. […] I knew I would not be able to remain a writer in Poland.”36 The 1980s was to be a decade of a major breakthrough which the Wiadomoscí would have had a chance to see as the completion of its exilic mission. The failure to secure the transgenerational continuity of the journal, with all that it would imply—funding resources and new editorial policies—was indeed regrettable. The 1980s was, after all, also a decade of new emigration from Poland precipitated by the introduction of martial law in December 1981. For the host culture, Britain, the Polish intellectual circles made up of post-war exiles were barely perceived. Clearly, some translational, comparative dynamic would have been in place to acknowledge the interesting contiguities between various émigré groups and their cultural milieus. The grounds for comparison are quite solid, because comparative migrations come down to comparative displacements: like postcolonial migrations to the metropolis, the Polish post-war exiles in Britain represented a migration from the periphery to core modernity; it sustained with “home” remote control connections; like other émigré groups, its identity was in the state of constant mobilization; after settling down in Britain, this group experienced ebbs and flows of estrangement and belonging (the “Big Ben” columnist, Stefania Kossowska, wrote once that if someone asked a Pole in Britain if they went abroad for holidays, they would answer “I am abroad”—and it was well into the 1960s); like much of  today’s immigrants to Europe, the Polish post-war émigrés in Britain had been in fact refugees before they gained the right to settle down in Britain; even their passage to the new country may have included subaltern spaces such as refugee or transit camps.37 But, unlike migrant or émigré literature, the exilic ethos upheld by the Polish post-war exiles in Britain generated a discourse of a shared national metaphysics, founding literature on the “authority of the collective national experience.”38

36  Henryk Grynberg, “Przygody z cenzura ̨,” [Adventures with censorship], Wiadomości 23, no. 14 (1149) (1968): 2. 37  Jochen Lingelbach. On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa During and After World War II. (Berghahn Books, 2020). 38  Mieczysław Da ̨browski, Tekst międzykulturowy. O przemianach literatury emigracyjnej.

158 

D. KOŁODZIEJCZYK

Bibliography Cat-Mackiewicz, Stanisław. Londyniszcze. Kraków: Universitas, 2013; Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1957. Cenckiewicz, Sławomir. “Polski Londyn na celowniku służb.” Nowe Państwo no. 3 (2006): 59–64. Da ̨browski, Mieczysław. Tekst międzykulturowy. O przemianach literatury emigracyjnej. Warszawa: Elipsa, 2016. Danilewiczowa, Maria. “W oczach Zachodu.” Wiadomos ́ci, 13, no. 26 (639), (1958). Danilewiczowa, Maria. “W oczach Zachodu,” Wiadomos ́ci, 11, no. 47 (555), (1956). Gombrowicz, Witold. Dziennik 1957–1961. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1986. Grabowski, Zbigniew. “Przemiany.” Wiadomos ́ci 1, no. 1 (1946). Grydzewski, Michał. “Dziwy i dziwadła.” Wiadomos ́ci 13, no. 11 (624), (1958). Grydzewski, Mieczysław. “Dziwy i dziwadła.” Wiadomos ́ci 11, no. 18 (523), (1956). Grynberg, Henryk. “Przygody z cenzura ̨ [Adventures with censorship].” Wiadomos ́ci 23, no. 14 (1149) (1968). Habielski, Rafał. “Prasa posca w Wielkiej Brytanii 1945-1970: przegla ̨d informacyjno-­bibliograficzny.” Kwartalnik Historii Prasy Polskiej 24, no. 3 (1985–1986): 53–67. Kossowska, Stefania and Edward Dusza. “O ‘Wiadomościach’. Rozmowa Edwarda Duszy.” Gwiazda Polarna 11.10.1980, reprinted in Archiwum Emigracji: studia, szkice, dokumenty 1–2, no. 7–8 (2006a): 282–286. Kossowska, Stefania. “W Londynie.” Wiadomos ́ci 25, no. 50 (1289) (1970). Kossowska, Stefania and Edward Dusza. “O ‘Wiadomościach’. Rozmowa Edwarda Duszy.” Gwiazda Polarna, 11.10.1980, reprinted in: Archiwum Emigracji: studia, szkice, dokumenty 1–2, no. 7–8, (2006b): 282–286, 284–285. Kott, Jan. “Do ostatniej Redaktorki ‘Wiadomości.’” Wiadomos ́ci 36, i. 3 (1816) (1981). Lingelbach, Jochen. On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa During and After World War II. New  York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2020. Mackiewicz, Józef. “Pisarze emigracyjni a literatura krajowa. Ankieta Wiadomos ́ci.” Wiadomos ́ci, 13, no. 26 (639) (1958). Mieroszewski, Juliusz. “Literatura oblęzo ̇ nego miasta.” Kultura, (1952/ 01/51): 3–8. Nowakowski, Zygmunt. “A to Polska własnie.” Wiadomos ́ci 1, no. 1 (1946). Patterson, Sheila. “The Polish Exile Community in Britain.” The Polish Review 6, no. 3 (Summer 1961): 69–97.

7  POLISH POST-WORLD-WAR-II EXILES IN BRITAIN: THE LONDON… 

159

Polish Resettlement Act 1947. UK Public General Acts, 1947 c. 19 10 and 11 Geo 6, March 27, 1947. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/10-­11/19 Pragier, Adam. “Polityka na księzẏ cu.” Wiadomos ́ci 2, no. 36/37 (75/76) (1947). Pragier, Adam. (Puszka). “Puszka Pandory.” Wiadomos ́ci 11, no. 47 (555) (1956). Stachura, Peter D. “Towards and Beyond Yalta.” In The Poles in Britain, 1940–2004. From Betrayal to Assimilation, edited by Peter D. Stachura, 5–16. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2004a. Stachura, Peter D., ed. The Poles in Britain, 1940–2004. From Betrayal to Assimilation. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2004b. Terlecki, Tymon. “Literatura na emigracji.” Wiadomos ́ci 6, no. 47 (295) (1951). Terlecki, Tymon. “Polska emigracja wczoraj i dzis.” Wiadomos ́ci 1, no. 1 (1946). Winnicka, Ewa. Londyńczycy. Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne, e-book edition Publio, 2012. Zahorska, Stefania. “Magia słów.” Wiadomos ́ci 1, no. 1 (1) (1946). Zamoyski, Adam. The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in World War II. London: John Murray, 1995; e-book edition Sharpe Books 2019. Zubrzycki, Jerzy. “Polish Emigration to British Commonwealth Countries: A Demographic Survey.” The International Migration Review 13, no. 4 (Winter 1979): 649–672.

CHAPTER 8

Migrant Lives and the Dynamics of (Non)belonging in the Polish-British Works of A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg, and Agnieszka Dale Martyna Bryla

European interconnectedness, manifested in the open-border travel area and aided by technological advances, has contributed to redefining the ways in which migrants maintain affiliations with their home countries. In Europe, crisscrossed by a tight web of low-cost flights, the privilege of moving from the host country to the country of origin in a matter of a few hours helps to make the experience of migration easier than it might have been several decades ago. Similarly, a visit to an ethnic grocery store, a reminder of the European common market and a witness to migrant entrepreneurship, may alleviate homesickness by satisfying a longing for the pre-migration life, as traditional food becomes “comfort food,” a tangible, consumable connection to home. Even though Brexit has complicated an

M. Bryla (*) Department of English, French and German, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_8

161

162 

M. BRYLA

already complex landscape of European integration, maintaining ties to home within Europe has never been easier. That being said, contemporary migration literature written in Europe, which is the object of inquiry here, demonstrates that the apparent ease with which migrants may now straddle two points of reference—the homeland and the host country—does not necessarily mitigate the complexity inscribed into the experience of relocation, which involves redefining the notions of “home” and “belonging.” As Nichola Wood and Louise Waite observe in their editorial to the special issue of Emotion, Space and Society, “belonging” tends to be contextualised within the questions of nationality, ethnicity, and religion, yet as valid as these contexts are, belonging must also be tackled as an “emotional affiliation,” for “[s]eldom are questions asked that explore what belonging feels like; how it ‘works’ as an emotional attachment and the significance of the emotionality of belonging.”1 The latter acquires a special importance in the context of migration, which necessitates ongoing reconfigurations of the self and thus one’s place in the world and among people. Such changes in turn catalyse changes in emotional life: migration as a process of continuous renegotiation of givens results in emotions being equally volatile.2 Accordingly, belonging as an emotional affiliation needs to be approached as dynamic and multidimensional: a process, rather than a state, of relating to oneself and others in a globalised space where traditional “entities of belonging” have been increasingly losing their monopolistic grip on their members.3 Therefore, I propose to frame my discussion around what I choose to term “the ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging,” where the bracketed prefix “non” is a reminder that migrant attachments and affiliations are hardly unidirectional and fixed, but tend to fluctuate depending on the migrant’s individual condition and the socio-cultural context against which it unfolds. In this chapter, I will analyse the ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging in the works of three Polish authors domiciled in Great Britain:

1  Nichola Wood and Louise Waite, “Editorial: Scales of Belonging,” Emotion, Space and Society 4 (2011): 201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2011.06.005. 2  Paolo Boccagni and Loretta Baldassar, “Emotions on the Move: Mapping the Emergent Field of Emotion and Migration,” Emotion Space and Society 16 (2015): 74. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009. 3  Zygmunt Bauman, “Migration and Identities in the Globalized World,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 37:4 (2011): 434. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453710396809.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

163

A.M.  Bakalar, Wioletta Greg (Grzegorzewska),4 and Agnieszka Dale. Although each author tackles the dynamics of (non)belonging from a different perspective, consistent with their respective literary genres of choice and the thematic concerns of their works, their texts engage with the themes engendered by contemporary migration: the dualities of migrant life, the redefinition of the notion of home, the multifaceted nature of migrant belonging, and the question of integration within the host country, among others. Since each author has channelled her experience of being a Pole in the UK into her writing, their works also provide insight into the dynamics of (non)belonging in the specific Polish-British context as seen from a female migrant perspective, while at the same time reaching beyond national dichotomies (particularly in the case of Greg and Dale) to narrate the ambivalence of living in liquid modernity. Unlike the majority of Polish post-accession writers, these authors either write in English (Bakalar and Dale) or had their works translated into English and other European languages (Greg), which makes their writing accessible to a potentially broader reading public than writing in their mother tongue could likely procure. Moreover, the authors’ respective language choices are in tune with the concerns that animate their work. Thus, writing in English has allowed Bakalar to distance herself from Polishness,5 and Greg’s adherence to Polish bespeaks the country’s centrality in her work, whereas Dale’s use of English foregrounds the cross-cultural quality of her prose. In a certain sense, the structure of this chapter reflects the position which the national and cultural categories of Polishness and Britishness occupy in the works of the three writers. Thus, first I discuss A.M. Bakalar’s fiction, which revolves around the question of (non)belonging as contextualised within national and religious categories. Then, I discuss Greg’s poetry and prose from the perspective of a productive duality which is characteristic of her oeuvre, but which has been reinforced by the experience of migration. Finally, I read Dale’s short stories as an exercise in post-­ national imagination which, while still rooted in the Polish-British context,

4  Wioletta Greg is the British pen name of Wioletta Grzegorzewska. All her translated works published in the UK feature the surname “Greg.” 5  Magda Raczyńska, “A.M. Bakalar - Profesjonalna kłamczucha,” Wysokie Obcasy, July 3, 2012. https://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/7,53662,12041345,a-m-bakalar-­ profesjonalna-klamczucha.html?disableRedirects=true.

164 

M. BRYLA

emphasises human relationality and commonality of experience over national, ethnic, and cultural differences. Before I turn to each author, a few words regarding terminology are due. So far, I have consistently used the term migration and its derivatives when referring to the literature produced by Bakalar, Greg, and Dale. Arguably, the terms “migration” and “migrant” seem to be better suited to the nature and the subject matter of such literature than “emigration” and “émigré.” Although the difference between the two lies in but a single letter, several scholars have identified the nuances distinguishing migration from emigration and a migrant from an émigré, in addition to pointing out differences between migrant literature and migration literature. According to Anna Nasiłowska, “[i]t is emigration that has a hard, specific meaning, while migration is a fluid and variable state.”6Nasiłowska seems to be alluding to the notion of “émigré,” a French-derived term which connotes exile for political reasons, usually of a permanent character. The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 has largely eliminated politically driven exile. Furthermore, Polish migration patterns have evolved in the course of time, with the post-accession migration being characterized by “more complex, transitory patterns in terms of temporary settlement and shifting migration status” than the post-World War II movements.7 The multifaceted nature of the Polish post-accession influx to the UK, involving migration for economic, family, or educational reasons, as well as temporary and permanent relocation, has thus rendered the terms “émigré” and “emigration literature” rather inaccurate, calling for more neutral and capacious categories. Although the terms “migrant” and “migration” seem to comply with the above requirement, Urszula Chowaniec rightly points out that it is not so much the act of migrating from one place to another as “the particular existential dimension of being separated from one’s own language and culture, the experience of dislocation present during the creation of the text, and inscribed as such into the text” that is the substance of literature of migration.8 In a similar vein, Søren Frank proposes a terminological shift from migrant literature to migration literature as “a move away from 6  Anna Nasiłowska, “Introduction: Emigration and Migration,” Migrant Literature. Special issue of Teksty Drugie 1 (2018): 6. 7  Elżbieta M. Goździak, “Polish Migration after the Fall of the Iron Curtain,” International Migration 52:1 (2014): 1. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12146. 8  Urszula Chowaniec, Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Polish Women’s Writing (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 9.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

165

authorial biography as the decisive parameter, emphasizing instead intratextual features such as content and form as well as extratextual forces such as social processes.”9 In this light, the literature produced by Bakalar, Greg, and Dale inscribes itself into contemporary migration literature in that it attests to mobility and interconnectedness, but also displacement and separation inherent in the twenty-first-century migrant experience, while at the same time being rooted in the Polish-British diasporic context, which has assumed shape in the aftermath of 2004, but which inevitably harks back to a long-standing Polish presence in the UK. In straddling Poland and the UK in their works, Bakalar, Dale, and Greg “mobilize two or more cultural vocabularies” in the service of literature that accommodates the experience of living in a world shaped by “the cultural innovations that migration engenders.”10

A.M. Bakalar and Polish-British Entanglements A.M. Bakalar is the pen name of Joanna Zgadzaj, a Polish author based in London, who settled in the UK in the aftermath of the EU’s 2004 enlargement. Although Bakalar has denied having modelled the protagonist of her debut novel Madame Mephisto on herself,11 the 30-year-old Magda must have inherited some of her ambivalence towards Poland from her creator. As Bakalar admits in one of the interviews promoting the novel, as much as she loves her Polish family and friends and appreciates Polish literature and culture, she has no warm feelings for Polish mentality understood as a restrictive blend of Catholicism, nationalism, and patriarchy.12 In her debut work, Bakalar builds on this ambivalence by creating a character who defies the stereotype of a Polish economic migrant—the very symbol of the unprecedented Polish influx to the UK—while at the same time drawing on national clichés regarding Poland and the Polish community in the UK. 9  Søren Frank, Migration and Literature: Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan Kjærstad (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 3. 10  Rebecca L. Walkowitz, “The Location of Literature. The Transnational Book and the Migrant Writer,” Contemporary Literature 47, no. 4 (2006): 530; Leslie A.  Adelson, The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 5. 11  Karolin Zagrodna, “Madame skandalistka?” Cooltura. Polish Weekly Magazine, June 15, 2012. https://www.cooltura24.co.uk/wiadomosci/23974,madame-skandalistka. 12  Raczyńska, “A.M. Bakalar,” n.p.

166 

M. BRYLA

To differentiate the protagonist of Madame Mephisto from a typical economic migrant, Bakalar turns Magda into a “drug queen,” the owner of a secret cross-national cannabis business with an extensive network of Polish-British connections, who takes up a series of administrative cover­up jobs in the UK to conceal her illegal doings. Magda’s double life has a bearing on her already quite conflicted personality, which splits into a ruthless and unpredictable alter ego: the eponymous Madame Mephisto. Although Magda’s underworld business brings her considerable financial success, economic betterment is hardly the original push-factor for her decision to leave Poland. Echoing Bakalar’s own experience, Magda trades Warsaw for London for ideological and personal reasons. Madame Mephisto defies the dynamics of émigré fiction where the motherland tends to be the object of nostalgia and longing. In the novel, Poland operates as a synonym for parochialism, bigotry, and cultural homogeneity, whose national-Catholic ethos oppresses and alienates the protagonist. The feeling of exclusion which Magda experiences as a citizen under the rule of the far-right Law and Justice party is matched by a sense of alienation at home ruled by Magda’s domineering, staunchly Catholic mother. Indeed, Bakalar conflates Magda’s oppressive motherland with her equally oppressive mother as both are signified by the figure of Matka Polka (Mother Pole), a long-standing cultural paradigm which in Madame Mephisto is boiled down to the stereotype of constrictive, patriarchal femininity.13 How does the UK play into this dynamic of non-belonging? In comparison to Poland’s oppressive homogeneity and standardised, gender-­ based social roles, London, with its vibrant cultural diversity, promises to be the place where Magda can free herself from Polish constraints and finally be herself. However, it turns out that British society is governed by its own restrictions and unwritten social norms. Although as an attractive “white other” with a good command of English, Magda blends into the British ethnic landscape and lands a series of corporate jobs, she never settles in any of them as she fails to adapt to the British corporate culture which conceals hypocrisy behind a veneer of political correctness. She also finds it hard to establish any meaningful relationships in Britain, limiting herself to casual sexual encounters with the men that she considers useful to her business. 13  For more information on the meaning of Matka Polka in the novel, see: Martyna Bryla, “Weeding out the Roots? Migrant Identity in A.  M. Bakalar’s Polish-British Fiction,” Complutense Journal of English Studies 28 (2020): 1-10.  https://doi.org/10.5209/ cjes.61109.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

167

Whereas it is clear to the reader that part of the problem is the character’s antagonistic personality, Magda attributes her inability to fit in partly to her Eastern European origins. As I have argued elsewhere,14 Magda displays what could be termed a postdependent mindset driven by a desire to dissociate herself from her status as a new European from a backward post-communist nation and, at the same time, a persistent reliance on this very status as a way to justify her initial inability to “circulate among the Westerners.”15 As she rebels against being perceived through the prism of nationality, she nevertheless blames the British other for not comprehending the complexity of her situation, including “the daily hardships of emerging from communist rule.”16 Consequently, Magda is trapped between conflicting narratives, which contributes to a sense of alienation and displacement: I was too British for the Poles, and too Polish for the British. … Who are you really, they kept asking me, here and there. I was whoever they wanted me to be, a kaleidoscopic image with multiple colour combinations, a creature who was accustomed to the environment, until my own self adapted so that I was not there anymore.17

Bakalar’s portrayal of Magda as somebody who has lost herself somewhere between the home and the host country corroborates Urszula Chowaniec’s observation that migration implies dislocation, which becomes inscribed into the text. Importantly, in the case of Magda, migration does not so much engender as exacerbate an already existing disjunction within the protagonist. Narratively, this disjunction manifests itself in the protagonist’s split personality as well as the irreconcilability of the homeland and the host country, which results in her feeling like a stranger in both Poland and Britain. Textually, the disjunction is manifested in the shift from the first-person to the third-person narration which signals Magda’s morphing into Madame Mephisto. Migrant dislocation thus becomes synonymous with feeling alienated not just from others but also from oneself. One of the ways in which migrants may reconnect with their pre-­ migration self and alleviate the sense of alienation is through diasporic  Bryla, “Weeding out the Roots?”: 7.  A.M. Bakalar, Madame Mephisto (London: Stork Press, 2012), 4. 16  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 10. 17  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 165–166. 14 15

168 

M. BRYLA

communities in the host country.18 Ideally, such diasporic communities bridge the homeland and the host country, expanding the limits of national or ethnic identity by making cultural in-betweenness productive and enriching. However, “the diasporic experience does not necessarily produce transgressive and hybrid forms of identity simply because the subjects cross national and territorial borders.”19 Moreover, if diasporic consciousness dwells on the idealised notion of the homeland as the principal point of reference, which has been lost as a result of migration, the host country is relegated to a secondary position and no hybridity can be achieved.20 Indeed, it is insularism and parochialism, rather than productive hybridity, that characterise Bakalar’s depiction of the Polish community in London. As a diasporic extension of Poland, London Polonia is a mirror image of the diseased country, a condensed stereotype of Polish bigotry, patriarchy, and small-mindedness. In the novel, the community is signified by the figure of a migrant whose ambitions are purely economic and who therefore prefers to remain in an all-Polish enclave, where the Polish language is spoken and Polish food consumed, rather than integrate into British society. Given her aversion to national categories, Magda shuns London Polonia, refusing to cling to superficial tokens of Polishness for the sake of recreating the home which she finds so unhomely in the first place. However, since she is unable to feel at home in Britain either, she remains trapped in a state of permanent dislocation which manifests in her increasingly uncontrollable alter ego hurting herself and those around her. Although Bakalar’s novel fails to account for a more positive diasporic experience and other ways of nurturing cross-cultural connections than a ritualised reinforcement of national identity,21 the author’s journalistic 18  The post-2004 wave of Polish migrants has necessarily redefined the UK Polonia, the Polish community which took shape in the post-World War II period: in order to recreate a sense of home in exile, Poles established local Polish clubs. According to Polish-British author Joanna Czechowska, whose father came to the UK during the war, such clubs “would be like a little home from home, a little Poland where they lived,” offering or overseeing a variety of activities for adults and children, including Polish religious services; Joanna Kosmalska, “Goodbye Polsko, Hello Anglio. Joanna Czechowska Speaks with Joanna Kosmalska,” Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture 4 (2014): 249. 19  Gema Ortega, “Where Is Home? Diaspora and Hybridity in Contemporary Dialogue,” Moderna Språk 114 (2020): 47. 20  Ortega, “Where is Home?” 45. 21  Including Bakalar’s own successful integration and her involvement in promoting Polish and East-Central European literature and culture in the UK through her editorial work and support for fellow writers like Greg and Dale.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

169

pieces display a broader and more nuanced view of the UK Polonia. In her article for The Guardian, Bakalar concedes that Polish migration to the UK has been evolving and diversifying, with economic motivation ceasing to be the only push-factor for Poles coming to the UK, which has resulted in “a large number of Poles [being] interested in becoming active members of British society and building a bridge between the two cultures.”22 Notwithstanding this more balanced appraisal of the Polish diaspora in the UK, Bakalar’s second novel, Children of Our Age (2018), proves that when it comes to fiction she remains more interested in the Polish migrant experience gone awry. More ambitious in scope than her debut work, Children of Our Age traces the intertwined lives of several members of the economic-driven Polish community in London. The bulk of the novel explores the underbelly of Polish migration to the UK: a human trafficking network masterminded by a psychopathic character named Karol and enforced by his partners in crime, the Kulesza brothers, Damian and his mentally unstable sibling Igor. The men woo gullible Poles in difficult life circumstances with the promise of a well-paid job in the UK. Once the prey take the bait, they are transported to the UK, installed in rudimentary lodgings and forced to work like slaves without a day off while Karol claims their benefits. The novel portrays economic migration as survival of the fittest where individual profit justifies ruthlessness and brutality towards others. In focusing on the exploitation of the Polish migrants, Bakalar partakes in one of the main thematic concerns of Polish migration literature created after 2004: the travails and tribulations of Poles forced to do menial, often humiliating jobs in order to stay afloat in the UK.  In other words, in Children of Our Age, Bakalar zooms in on the very migrant experience that the protagonist of Madame Mephisto was so keen to distance herself from. However, rather than merely chronicle migrant exploitation, Children of Our Age develops Madame Mephisto ’s underlying thesis that migration only exacerbates existing problems, as it explores the nature vs. nurture dynamics in the oppressors’ and victims’ motivations and life choices. Migrant circumstances do not make the protagonists of Bakalar’s novel. Instead, migration reveals patterns which had been established long

22  A.M. Bakalar, “Polish People are Britain’s Invisible Minority,” The Guardian, December 18, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/18/polish-peoplebritain-invisible-minority.

170 

M. BRYLA

before, often as a result of the characters’ upbringing and pre-migration formative experiences. Although Poland is no longer the main culprit, the characters’ Polishness remains a shaping force in their UK lives. It is exploited by Karol and his partners who rely on their and their prey’s shared nationality for bringing them to the UK as cheap labour force. For Angelika, the Matka Polka (Mother Pole) of the novel, Polishness, manifested in the adherence to the mother tongue, Catholic faith, traditional family values, and Polish food, is an adhesive that is supposed to keep her family together away from home. The same Polishness, however, alienates her teenage daughter Karolina who does not identify with the Poland-centred diasporic consciousness her mother wishes to inculcate. Like Madame Mephisto, Children of Our Age problematises the notions of home and belonging understood in national terms. In the dog-eat-dog reality of economic migration, the characters’ shared Polishness is not a bulwark against exploitation and exclusion. At the same time, when migrant lives revolve around staying afloat, there is little room left for getting to know and integrating in the host country. As a result, migrant workers suffer from a double exclusion: pushed out of their homeland which had not been able to guarantee them a stable existence, they remain on the margins of the host society. This in turn has a bearing on their feelings towards their homeland and the UK, which oscillate between proximity and distance, attachment and hostility. Bakalar’s output so far attests to the writer’s interest in the ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging which migration engenders. Moreover, the writer’s own relationship to Poland is marked by ambivalence. In spite of distancing herself from her homeland and its extension abroad, Bakalar keeps coming back to Poland and Polishness for inspiration and literary material.

Wioletta Greg and the Productive Duality of Migrant Experience Wioletta Greg, a Polish-born author who migrated to the UK in 2006, once called herself a “flesh and blood” Polish poet who not only writes in Polish, but also thinks and dreams in it.23 Polish is thus the medium 23  Joanna Kosmalska, “Czuję się pisarka ̨ polska ̨ z krwi i kości. Rozmowa z Wioletta ̨ Grzegorzewska ̨,” Arterie 2 (2014): 155.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

171

through which Greg refracts her impressions and experiences to produce works in which her memories of Poland and glimpses of her life in the UK align into a kaleidoscopic whole. Although Polish has remained the poet’s means of artistic expression abroad, her decision to migrate has exerted a powerful and positive influence upon her work, whereas the exposure to the foreign language and the contrast between English and her mother tongue has proven inspiring.24 Moreover, it was only when Greg had left Poland that she realised how important her family history was to her. This realisation lies at the heart of Greg’s critically acclaimed work, Swallowing Mercury (2017), which narrates her coming-of-age in the Polish countryside in a prose that seems “woven out of poetry.”25 While Greg’s adherence to Polish has helped her remain attuned to the memory of her life in Poland, migration has put a distance between herself and her homeland. In other words, Poland still occupies the centre of the poet’s kaleidoscope but the experience of dislocation has necessarily shifted the existing balance, providing a new alignment of elements. Greg’s 2014 poetry collection, Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance, translated from Polish by Marek Kazmierski, attests to this amalgamated perspective as it combines poems anchored in the author’s rural girlhood (which, in hindsight, pave the way for Swallowing Mercury) with pieces reflecting her migrant experience. When Greg had first moved to Ryde, an English seaside town on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight, she took lodgings in a building occupied by a number of fellow migrants from Poland. And although she herself had not come to the UK for strictly economic reasons, she quickly got a taste of that particular migrant experience. In “Lullaby,” she juxtaposes the everyday hardship of migrant labour with a sweet longing for the homeland, which becomes elevated to the status of a dreamland where anything is possible: Sleep! A Breezer trickle runs along the floor. Tobacco folding into the shape of fern leaves. Your dreams will be done. You will go home.  Kosmalska, “Czuję się.”  Iwona Gralewicz-Wolny, “‘Tysia ̨c wierszy.’ O poezji Wioletty Grzegorzewskiej tropem Guguł (ba ̨dź odwrotnie).” Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literacka 33 (2018): 124 (my translation). https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2018.33.6. Swallowing Mercury was originally published in Polish as Guguły (2014). The translated version was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017. 24

25

172 

M. BRYLA

Sleep! You’ll stop drinking, abandon the farm where stalks cut your hard-working hands and tea time is blessed respite.26

The dream of homecoming alleviates the harsh reality of migration as much as the small daily pleasures which brighten up the migrant’s day: watching Polish television, smoking cigarettes, and taking a warm shower. Removed from their pre-migration context, everyday rituals and objects acquire an almost symbolic or even magical dimension for an exhausted, homesick addressee of the poem. Thus, in Greg’s dreamy vision, tobacco transforms into a magical fern flower which, according to Polish folk tales, will grant infinite wealth and happiness to anyone who can find it, whereas the sound of the alarm clock at five in the morning heralds the pleasures of mushroom-picking instead of yet another tedious day of work. The dreamy nostalgia of “Lullaby” contrasts sharply with the rawness of the poet’s own experience of doing menial, uninspiring work. In the diary-like “Notes from an Island,” Greg refers to her unskilled job in a fast-food restaurant as “another lesson in humility”27, which reminds her of a similar job she used to do when she studied Polish Philology in Częstochowa. Ironically, migration brings back that student experience except that in Poland Greg would explore the intricacies of her mother tongue while working a part-time job, whereas in the UK she is forced to face the basics of English. Forever a poet, even when she writes in prose, Greg makes a striking comparison between assimilating the new language and chewing, swallowing, and digesting scraps of fried meat: a dreary though necessary process which she as a migrant must undergo to get by. Indeed, in Greg’s poems, migrant experience is inextricably linked with entering a different linguistic reality, which is where the ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging play out. In “Readers,” the poetic I’s inability to speak and read English as fluently and precisely as she would wish is a source of frustration (“When I speak, a beach becomes a bitch, keys a kiss, a sheet shit”)28, but also an inspiration to draw a parallel between herself and her illiterate grandmother whose education was interrupted by disease and war. Ironically, migration renders Greg, an expert in words, 26  Wioletta Greg, Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance, tr. by Marek Kazmierski (Todmorden: Arc Publications, 2014), 67. 27  Greg, Finite Formulae, 106. 28  Greg, Finite Formulae, 79.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

173

“illiterate” in the foreign language, thwarting communication and self-­ expression, often to a mordantly comic effect: “Not that long ago, when I was trying to say I can’t do a thing, I would call myself a cunt.”29 Unlike Polish, which is a natural extension of the poet’s world and the medium for her creative expression, English must be chewed, swallowed, and digested for sustenance. And while the poet seems to accept the utilitarian value English has for her, her frustration at her inability to inhabit it the way she does Polish is palpable when she exclaims that she “will never get to dance in this tongue!”30 This striking image of dancing in a language is thus commensurate not only with linguistic prowess but also with a sense of being sufficiently comfortable and settled in a language to embody it. In this sense, (non)belonging seems to have a linguistic dimension: while living in another language opens up new perspectives, it also triggers a sense of unhomeliness. Simultaneously, the experience of straddling two linguistic realities (“In the depths of my native tongue and the gestation of a foreign tongue”)31 is symptomatic of a productive in-betweenness which Greg inhabits as a Polish migrant in the UK, and which, as a poet, she transforms into a fertile ground from which poetry grows. Accordingly, Greg’s migration works often weave together the here and there; her family history and her memories of her girlhood in rural Poland together with her grown-up woman experience in the UK. Thus, when she says “I am dual”32 she seems to be referring not only to the migrant’s experience of inhabiting two worlds at once, but also to being pregnant with her daughter. The poet’s duality is thus as much a product of her migration as of her pregnancy, both being part of her singular experience as a poet, a migrant, and a woman. Part of this experience is cultural and linguistic diversity, which the poet appreciates and incorporates into her poetic universe. Anna Kałuża recognises a collector’s sensibility and a “cross-cultural consciousness”33 in Greg’s work, and I find this appraisal to be accurate. Rather than setting her Polishness against other cultures, Greg is attuned to relationality  Greg, Finite Formulae, 79.  Greg, Finite Formulae, 95. 31  Greg, Finite Formulae, 90. 32  Greg, Finite Formulae, 87 (my translation). The original phrase, “Jestem podwójna,” has been rendered by Kazmierski as “Feeling halved.” However, I find the translation “I am dual” to be closer to the original. 33  Anna Kałuża, “Polska poezja na Wyspach: podczas wieczorów panuje tu nostalgia,” Teksty Drugie 3 (2016), 199 (my translation). https://doi.org/10.18318/td.2016.3.11. 29 30

174 

M. BRYLA

within difference. Thus, the poem “Complex Times” juxtaposes two seemingly contrasting experiences of motherhood—that of a teenage mother of the African Sukuma tribe and a Polish mother who has just brought her baby from hospital—only to recognise a similar level of superstitious protectiveness in both young women, and reveal that their daughters are now friends celebrating their thirty-fourth birthdays on the Isle of Wight. In other words, in Greg’s work, the experience of migration is a common denominator for otherwise disparate human stories and circumstances, bringing into focus the affinities which they nevertheless share. Faithful to the pronouncement “I am dual,” Greg’s migration work layers spatial and temporal dimensions, fusing seeming opposites—Poland and the UK; poetry and prose; menial work and poetry writing—into a kaleidoscopic account of the poet’s experience of being a migrant, whose very (dis)location “[o]n an autonomous island, in a unified Europe, right on the edge of everything” mimics the ambivalence of her position.34 Nowhere is this ambivalence more palpable than in Greg’s latest, biographical work, Wilcza Rzeka (2021), which has not yet been translated into English. Unlike her other prosaic works written in the UK, Swallowing Mercury and Accommodations (2019),35 this one is set entirely in Greg’s adopted homeland, the UK. Wilcza Rzeka chronicles her tribulations as a dispossessed migrant and a single mother who liberates herself from an abusive relationship only to be tied down again by a series of trying circumstances, including the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which culminate in her being forced to stay in a women’s shelter with her teenage daughter. As Greg’s intimate prose unveils the circumstances and decisions which have brought her to this place, the reader is challenged to grapple with the full reality of the poet’s adult experience whose glimpses they got from her previous works but which, so far, has never been rendered so openly. While Greg is still capable of softening the rough edges of her migrant story with her poetic sensibility, as when she finds solace in a solitary hornbeam growing outside the squalid tenement house she shares with other East-Central Europeans, the novel exposes the whole spectrum of loneliness and destitution bred by the unfortunate union of migration and poverty. At the same time, Greg’s frank text, not unlike Bakalar’s works, reveals migration to be a catalyst for unresolved issues and traumas which,  Greg, Finite Formulae, 90.  The book was originally published as Stancje (2017).

34 35

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

175

like a piece of heavy luggage, a migrant drags over from the homeland to the host country. In Greg’s case, these traumas include an abusive, co-­ dependent relationship with her alcoholic husband from which she had not been able to extricate herself for years and which has rendered her financially insolvent and emotionally and mentally fragile to the point of attempting suicide. And although the bittersweet experience of in-­ betweenness—being at once a published author longlisted for the Booker Prize and an impoverished Polish migrant forced to do shifts at McDonald’s—might have proven inspiring for Greg the poet, it has also put an unbearable strain on Greg the single mother trying to stay afloat in a reality made even more foreign by the alienating experience of poverty. Arguably, until Wilcza Rzeka the ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging in Greg’s work had less to do with national and ideological allegiances, which are so prominent in A. M Bakalar’s work, than with emotional and affective affiliations which collapse the home/host dichotomy. Greg’s traumatic experiences narrated in her latest novel throw into relief the precariousness of the migrant condition, whose generative in-betweenness can easily transform into unbearable instability and volatility under unfavourable economic circumstances. As the novel revolves around the narrator and her daughter’s lack of a place of their own, one is forced to reconsider the notion of home, and particularly the idealised equation between home and heart, to reflect instead on the disturbing correlation between female migration and precariousness in contemporary Europe.

Agnieszka Dale and Relationality Beyond Difference Agnieszka Dale’s migrant sensibility goes deeper than her relocation to the UK. From the back cover of her debut short story collection, Fox Season and Other Short Stories (2017), we learn that Dale is “a Polish-born, London-based author conceived in Chile.” As a child, Dale spent three years in Colombia where she picked up Spanish and where she attended a French school. On coming back to Poland, she had her first taste of the side effects of migrant dislocation: no one else apart from her family spoke Spanish and to her fellow classmates she was “‘an American girl from Paris.’ An alien with no distinct nationality. Not Polish. A foreigner. An oddball.”36 36  Agnieszka Dale and A.M. Bakalar “Where’s Your Accent From? Britain’s White Others,” (2018). https://unbound.com/boundless/2018/08/31/wheres-your-accent-from-britainswhite-others/.

176 

M. BRYLA

It is possible that this early taste of what it is like to be different might have inoculated Dale against prejudice. Speaking in the wake of Brexit, she admitted that she appreciates the creative possibilities of being both a writer and a Polish migrant at this momentous time.37 This productive duality of being “both an observer and a participant”38 characterises Dale’s debut collection which has been written in English and whose “psychological territory is bridge-building.”39 Arguably, Dale’s short stories comply with the label “migration fiction” in less obvious ways than the works by A.M. Bakalar and Wioletta Greg: Poland is neither the towering presence it is in Bakalar’s fiction, nor the sharp-edged dreamland of Greg’s work. Rather than grant it a narrative centrality or juxtapose it with the UK and its cultural diversity, Dale incorporates Poland and Polishness into her fantastical patchwork universe of real and imaginary spaces of Europe and beyond populated by a variety of characters, including speaking animals. That being said, many of Dale’s short stories are imbued with migrant sensibility either because they feature characters inhabiting spaces other than their homeland, or because they are set in an interconnected, globalised reality with its challenges and pitfalls. Although in her stories Dale takes us to the UK, Poland, Italy, and the US, among others, these locations are the backdrop against which Dale explores human experience, including motherhood, loss, and trauma, rather than tokens of cultural difference. As the narrator of her short story “Belgian Passion” puts it, “I didn’t believe in nationality, flags, or borders. I didn’t have any faith in languages and their separateness—they all grew from one another like potatoes, which could be cultivated in any soil.”40 Accordingly, in a futuristic short story, “Hello Poland,” Dale conjures a post-national world in which nationalities, flags, and borders have been replaced with regions, whereas languages have become regional varieties within a new global order known as User Experience. Dale plays with the meaning of the eponymous “Poland,” which turns out to be the name of the protagonist’s long-estranged daughter “kidnapped at a border  Dale and Bakalar, “Where’s Your Accent From?”  Dale and Bakalar, “Where’s Your Accent From?” 39  John Munch, “#RivetingReviews: John Munch reviews Fox Season by Agnieszka Dale,” European Literature Network, March 24, 2017.  https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/ rivetingreviews-john-munch-reviews-fox-season-by-agnieszka-dale/. 40  Agnieszka Dale, Fox Season and Other Stories (London: Jantar Publishing, 2017), 63. 37 38

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

177

crossing.”41 Simultaneously, the reader is led to suspect that Poland is also the man’s long-estranged homeland which he lost when he migrated, and which makes little sense now that national allegiances no longer apply. In this new global system geared towards efficacy and comfort, anything that comes in the way of a perfect user experience, such as history and trauma, is regarded as a threat. Therefore, even though the protagonist is one of the few people who still remember the pre-User Experience times, he is hardly interested in what has happened to Poland since then, because he fears that her story may be too painful to handle. What he longs for is to see Poland beautiful and grown up but essentially unchanged “like when she was a little girl.”42 In this sense, his equivocal attitude towards Poland manifested in a combination of nostalgia and detachment bespeaks migrant ambivalence towards the homeland, which, by virtue of the spatial and emotional distance that migration places between the migrant and their country of origin, is at once close and remote, vivid yet unreal, as if frozen in time. Whereas “Hello Poland” conjures a world without borders, “A Happy Nation” imagines post-Brexit UK as an isolated and alienated entity. Based on the author’s dual experience of being both the observer and the object of the pre-Brexit frenzy, the story features a generic Polish migrant, Krystyna Kowalska, who is the only Pole left in the UK. Narrated in the form of a monologue which Krystyna directs at the police officer who has come to expel her from Britain at gunpoint, the story is Dale’s bittersweet commentary on the hypocrisy of imposing borders in a country whose very essence is hybridity. In a poignant punchline, the police officer turns out to be a Brit of Polish origins, the only difference between himself and Krystyna being his status as a “white British” as opposed to her designation as a “white other.” In addition to pointing out the absurdity of such divisions, Dale reflects on the question of otherness and why some foreigners are perceived as more of a threat than others. The answer seems to lie in the sense of national superiority which conceals “Britain’s unresolved social and historical ills.”43 Krystyna is perceived as a threat because, in her subversive mimicry, she has managed to assimilate so well that it is impossible to tell that she was not born in Britain. As a white other, an impostor who has  Dale, Fox Season, 39.  Dale, Fox Season, 44. 43  Vedrana Veličković, “‘Eastern Europeans’ and BrexLit,” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 56:5 (2020), 657. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2020.1816692. 41 42

178 

M. BRYLA

managed to surpass authentic white Brits, she has become hard to control and therefore disruptive to the nationalistic and “hegemonic version of whiteness”44 which underlies the Brexit narrative of exclusion and isolationism. Although in the end Krystyna decides to leave the UK, she refuses to subscribe to the dominant discourse of hostility by professing appreciation for her host country instead: “I like it here. I am still happy, and there is nothing you can do to upset me.”45 Krystyna’s happy-go-lucky enthusiasm, which may seem naive in the face of her imminent expulsion, is thus a form of resistance against Brexit’s divisiveness. Brexit looms large over another story, “Legoland,” published in the collection of texts celebrating the figure and legacy of Joseph Conrad. In accordance with the aims of the collection, the writers involved in this project are inspired by Conradian perceptiveness and prescience to explore contemporary globalised realities.46 Like “A Happy Nation,” “Legoland” conjures a post-Brexit UK dominated by the white British. This uniform society resembles a Legoland—a square-edged replica of the real thing built out of perfectly symmetrical and identical Lego blocks, complete with its own Queen, a faithful Lego rendition of Elizabeth II. The only person that stands out in the Lego UK is a Polish migrant, Inga, whose trajectory is strikingly similar to Dale’s. Faced with a death threat from a Lego assassin working for the imperial Lego court, Inga pleads to be taken to the Lego Queen whom she then tries to convince that she is worthy and integrated enough in British society to be spared, even if her skin colour is not a perfect Lego white and her accent and ways bespeak foreignness. This ingenious story is Dale’s commentary on how the Brexit rhetoric of cultural homogeneity excludes and marginalises those who do not fit in the Brexit conception of the nation, but who nevertheless contribute to this nation’s well-being. As Inga points out, she wants to continue living her meaningful and well-integrated life alongside her British-born children as she has done ever since the UK opened its borders to Poland. Her smart and well-mannered speech is thus a powerful migrant manifesto which resists Brexit’s divisiveness with an appeal to belonging as a

 Veličković, “Eastern Europeans,” 658.  Dale, Fox Season, 67. 46  Robert Hampson, “Foreword,” in Conradology: A Celebration of the Work of Joseph Conrad, ed. Becky Harrison and Magda Raczyńska (Manchester: Comma Press, Kindle, 2017), 9. 44 45

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

179

multifaceted emotional affiliation to a place and its people rather than a question of birthplace. In Dale’s stories, the antidote to such divisiveness lies in inter-human relationality and commonality of experience, which tend to be mightier than arbitrarily imposed divisions among people. Dale’s characters—as disturbed and confused as they often are—find it in themselves to help those who are even more vulnerable than they are by virtue of their nationality or ethnicity. Thus, in her alternative-history tales, “The Christmas Pig” and “We All Marry Our Mothers,” Jews and the French persecuted in a war-torn America are offered food and a place to stay. Interestingly, relationality in Dale’s fiction is not limited to humans but also embraces other beings, such as foxes with which the female characters of “Daddy Fox” and the eponymous “Fox Season” feel a special affinity. This sense of being emotionally affiliated to others despite what tends to be construed as difference permeates the shortest piece in the collection, entitled “What We Should Feel Now.” Although no mention of Brexit is made, the piece reads like a companion or a coda to “A Happy Nation.” In a manner reminiscent of Krystyna Kowalska, the generic Polish migrant, the narrator of this story looks for affinities with her neighbours over differences between them, stressing the sameness of their experience: “children, jobs, and many other obligations.”47 In an attempt to resist the discourse of difference, she assures her British friends and neighbours that she does not feel resentment towards them even as they remain ambivalent about her. Just like Krystyna Kowalska, the narrator resists divisiveness with love, which, as challenging as it may be in these contentious times, ultimately bespeaks the narrator’s hope that a less divided future is in store: “We’ll grow new apples together. One day. We’ll grow them on pear trees, on flowers, on grass …. For everybody to share and admire, and then we’ll all eat together. Our apples. Apples that do not rot.”48 While conflict, prejudice, and discrimination are an integral part of the quirky, disturbing universe of Fox Season, the collection also foregrounds the interconnectedness of human experience in the globally networked reality which, Brexit or other divisive movements notwithstanding, cannot be obliterated. In her emphasis on relationality, Dale detaches the notions of home and belonging from their usual, restrictive categories of nation, ethnicity, and ideology, as her characters search for them in relationships  Dale, Fox Season, 74.  Dale, Fox Season, 75.

47 48

180 

M. BRYLA

and emotional alliances, rather than in specific places. Simultaneously, Dale’s creative shape-shifting—the ease with which she inhabits different perspectives in her fiction—only serves to reinforce the impression that she feels at home in fiction which, while being nourished by diversity, goes beyond difference.

Conclusions At the beginning of this chapter, I have proposed to expand the notions of home and belonging in the context of migration beyond the categories which usually circumscribe them, such as national and ethnic allegiances, and see them also as emotional attachments to places and people,49 which are changeable and tend towards ambivalence. As the migrant condition, which is intertwined with a sense of spatial and emotional dislocation, collapses many of the givens of the pre-migration life, it also generates new alignments which, if recognised and appreciated, may help the migrant to make sense of the world around them and their place in it. The migration literature produced by Bakalar, Greg, and Dale exploits the productive potential of the ambivalence inscribed in the migrant condition to offer compelling insights into contemporary migrant experience which, while anchored in the Polish-British context, are meaningful enough to resonate with broader anxieties of straddling more than one point of reference on a daily basis. By virtue of being migrants themselves, these authors display an intimate understanding of what it is like to be a Polish woman in the UK, and their texts draw from this knowledge to portray migration from a female perspective, including the experience of motherhood, the exploration of female sexuality, the sense of alienation and loneliness, as well as emotional and bodily trauma that comes from abuse. Polishness and Britishness, understood in national, cultural, and linguistic terms, figure differently in these texts. Thus, A.M.  Bakalar approaches migration as a lens for exploring the oppressiveness of deep-­ rooted national allegiances and cultural paradigms and revising the notion of “home” in the idea of homeland. In Madame Mephisto, Poland and Britain cannot be reconciled as the protagonist’s hostility towards her homeland combined with her unwillingness to adjust to the host society produce a generalised sense of non-belonging. Moreover, shared 49  Nichola Wood and Louise Waite, “Editorial: Scales of Belonging,” Emotion, Space and Society 4 (2011): 201-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2011.06.005.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

181

nationality is no safeguard against migrant alienation, especially since diasporic communities are exposed as relying on the reenactment of national identity through superficial cultural markers, instead of fostering cultural hybridity capable of accommodating the dualities of migrant life. Wioletta Greg, on the other hand, does not dwell on national and cultural dichotomies. Instead, her poetry and poetic prose feed upon the productive duality of the migrant condition. In many of her migration texts, Greg juxtaposes distinct cultural and linguistic realities of Poland and the UK only to recognise parallels between the two. Simultaneously, the experience of dislocation awards a new perspective on the homeland, sharpening the poet’s memory and fuelling her imagination. However, for all the creative potential that the migrant perspective holds for Greg, the poet does not shy away from exposing a dark facet of the migrant condition which she herself experienced: a heightened sense of alienation and gendered vulnerability fomented by an ill-fated combination of displacement and dispossession. In Agnieszka Dale’s fiction, the categories of Polishness and Britishness are important inasmuch as they serve to illustrate the dynamics of negotiating one’s emotional attachments against socially constructed notions of home, belonging, and otherness in transnational settings. Although Dale draws from her cultural heritage and her experience of being a Pole in the UK, her stories ultimately attest to the interconnectedness of human experience which transgresses national boundaries and cultural differences. In Dale’s Brexit-inspired stories, the UK’s decision to leave the European Union is the quintessence of an artificially imposed divisiveness, which goes against natural human relationality and commonality of experience that cut deeper than a socially constructed difference. When read individually, each writer offers an original and nuanced understanding of the ambivalence embedded in the migrant condition and its implications for the questions which migration poses: what constitutes home and what it means to belong when the traditional points of reference fail to sustain one’s identity. When read together, these authors provide valuable insights into the vicissitudes and complexities of the migrant experience, particularly in its female incarnation, in the post-2004 UK, which has recently been further complicated by the divisive rhetoric and politics of Brexit. Finally, the works by Bakalar, Greg, and Dale convey the essence of migration literature, which does not limit itself to merely narrating the migrant experience, but casts it as one of the central human experiences in the contemporary interconnected world.

182 

M. BRYLA

Bibliography Adelson, Leslie A. The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Bakalar, A.M. Madame Mephisto. London: Stork Press, 2012. Bakalar, A.M. “Polish People are Britain’s Invisible Minority.” The Guardian. December 18, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/ dec/18/polish-­people-­britain-­invisible-­minority. Bakalar, A.M. Children of Our Age. London: Jantar Publishing, 2018. Bauman, Zygmunt. “Migration and Identities in the Globalized World.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 37, no. 4 (2011): 425–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0191453710396809. Boccagni, Paolo and Loretta Baldassar. “Emotions on the Move: Mapping the Emergent Field of Emotion and Migration.” Emotion Space and Society 16 (2015): 73–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009. Bryla, Martyna. “Weeding Out the Roots? Migrant Identity in A.  M. Bakalar’s Polish-British Fiction.” Complutense Journal of English Studies 28 (2020): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.5209/cjes.61109. Chowaniec, Urszula. Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Polish Women’s Writing. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. Dale, Agnieszka. Fox Season and Other Stories. London: Jantar Publishing, 2017. Dale, Agnieszka. “Legoland.” In Conradology: A Celebration of the Work of Joseph Conrad, edited by Becky Harrison and Magda Raczyńska, 107-115. Manchester: Comma Press, Kindle, 2017. Dale, Agnieszka and A.M. Bakalar. “Where’s Your Accent From? Britain’s White Others.” 2018. https://unbound.com/boundless/2018/08/31/wheres-­your-­ accent-­from-­britains-­white-­others/. Frank, Søren. Migration and Literature: Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan Kjærstad. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Gralewicz-Wolny, Iwona. 2018. “‘Tysiąc wierszy.’ O poezji Wioletty Grzegorzewskiej tropem Guguł (bądź odwrotnie).” Poznańskie. Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literacka 33 (2018): 115–125. https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2018.33.6. Greg, Wioletta. Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance. Translated by Marek Kazmierski. Todmorden: Arc Publications, 2014. Greg, Wioletta. Swallowing Mercury. Translated by Eliza Marciniak. London: Portobello Books, 2017. Greg, Wioletta. Accommodations. Translated by Jennifer Croft. Oakland, CA: Transit Books, Kindle, 2019. Grzegorzewska, Wioletta. Wilcza Rzeka. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo W.A.B., 2021. Goździak, Elżbieta M. “Polish Migration after the Fall of the Iron Curtain.” International Migration 52, no. 1 (2014): 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1111/ imig.12146.

8  MIGRANT LIVES AND THE DYNAMICS OF (NON)BELONGING… 

183

Hampson, Robert. Foreword. In Conradology: A Celebration of the Work of Joseph Conrad, edited by Becky Harrison and Magda Raczyńska, 5-9. Manchester: Comma Press, Kindle, 2017. Kałuża, Anna. “Polska poezja na Wyspach: podczas wieczorów panuje tu nostalgia.” Teksty Drugie 3 (2016): 187–204. https://doi.org/10.18318/td. 2016.3.11. Kosmalska, Joanna. “Czuję się pisarka ̨ polska ̨ z krwi i kości. Rozmowa z Wioletta ̨ Grzegorzewska ̨,” Arterie 2 (2014): 151–156. Kosmalska, Joanna. “Goodbye Polsko, Hello Anglio. Joanna Czechowska Speaks with Joanna Kosmalska.” Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture 4 (2014): 248–253. Munch, John. “#RivetingReviews: John Munch reviews Fox Season by Agnieszka Dale.” European Literature Network, March 24, 2017.https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-­john-­munch-­reviews-­fox-­season-­by-­agnieszka-­ dale/. Nasiłowska, Anna. “Introduction: Emigration and Migration.” Migrant Literature. Special issue of Teksty Drugie 1 (2018): 5–8. Ortega, Gema. “Where Is Home? Diaspora and Hybridity in Contemporary Dialogue.” Moderna Språk 114 (2020): 43–60. Raczyńska, Magda. “A.M. Bakalar - Profesjonalna kłamczucha.” Wysokie Obcasy, July 3, 2012. https://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-­obcasy/7,53662,1204 1345,a-­m-­bakalar-­profesjonalna-­klamczucha.html?disableRedirects=true. Veličković, Vedrana. “‘Eastern Europeans’ and BrexLit.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 56, no. 5 (2020): 648–661, https://doi.org/10.1080/1744985 5.2020.1816692. Walkowitz, Rebecca L. “The Location of Literature. The Transnational Book and the Migrant Writer.” Contemporary Literature 47, no. 4 (2006): 527–545. Wood, Nichola and Louise Waite. “Editorial: Scales of belonging.” Emotion, Space and Society 4 (2011): 201–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2011. 06.005. Zagrodna, Karolina. Madame skandalistka? Cooltura. Polish Weekly Magazine June 15, 2012. https://www.cooltura24.co.uk/artykul/6811,madame-­skandalistka.

CHAPTER 9

A Country Constructed from Memories: Representations of Poland and Poles in Migrant Writing in the Twenty-First Century Joanna Kosmalska

“If you want to learn something about Poles, you shouldn’t go to Warsaw or Cracow, but to Victoria Station in London”, notes Łukasz Suskiewicz in his novel Egri Bikaver. According to him: “There’s no better place to study contemporary sociology”.1 By this he means to suggest that a keen observer, at Victoria Station, can scrutinise Polish people from different walks of life

This chapter is part of the project Theatrical Heritage of Polish Migrants (NdS/538415/2021/2022), which is conducted at the University of Łódź, Poland. 1

 Łukasz Suskiewicz, Egri Bikaver (Szczecin-Bezrzecze: Forma, 2009), 93.

J. Kosmalska (*) Department of British Literature and Culture, Institute of English Studies, University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_9

185

186 

J. KOSMALSKA

and every corner of Poland, all in one place at one time. In much the same way as Germans and Russians have contributed to the construction of Poles’ self-image over the centuries, now the English and Irish serve for migrant writers as a foil to set off Polish features. This leads to the feasible, even if slightly far-fetched, interpretation that one of the most accurate portrayals of Poland and Poles at the turn of the twenty-first century can be found in the books of Polish migrants. Inspired by Suskiewicz’s astute observation, the chapter explores how Polish migrant writers construct representations2 of their homeland and its citizens and how a life of migration influences these depictions. The authors’ subtle delineations give us a perceptive insight into the complex relationship, attitudes and opinions of Polish migrants towards their home country and fellow compatriots. Their literary socio-representations are like a decryption grid that provides an insightful view to the reasons behind certain beliefs, decisions and behaviours of Polish people. In their books, Polish migrant writers create images of Poland from their reminiscences. As a result, their depictions are displaced both in time and space: the authors describe their native land drawing upon their memories from both the recent and remote past, and they do this while being physically away from the place. Although undeniably sincere, their

2  In this chapter, a “representation” is used in its wide sense as a term to describe a written depiction of an idea, object, person or event and how this depiction produces and conveys meaning through language. Drawing upon the theories of Stuart Hall, “language” is also defined here in a very broad manner as a signifying system that can take various forms (Stuart Hall, “The Work of Representation”, in: Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: SAGE Publications & Open University, 1997), 19). Such an inclusive interpretation of “language” feeds into Hall’s definition of representation, which goes as follows: “Representation is the production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language” (Hall, “The Work of Representation”, 17). Another theory that is useful in this chapter is the Theory of Social Representations. Formulated by Serge Moscovici in the 1960s, it has since been expanded by the findings of other scholars. One of them is Birgitta Höijer who defines “social representations” as a network of ideas, images and metaphors that involve emotions, attitudes and judgements. Rather than logical and coherent thought patterns, they comprise thought fragments and a variety of, sometimes contradictory, ideas. Social representations illuminate collective cognitions, common sense and thought systems of a group of people or society (Birgitta Höijer, “Social Representations Theory: A New Theory for Media Research”, Nordicom Review 32, no. 2 (2011), 3–16. Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg & DeGruyter, https://doi.org/10.1515/ nor-2017-0109, 5–6). They are embedded in communicative practices, such as media debates or, as in the case of this chapter, literary texts.

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

187

representations are selective, much in the same way as people’s memories are selective, both at the time of remembering and retrieval.3 Again and again, the migrants’ recollections of a life lived back in their native land are accompanied by intense feelings of powerlessness, pain, desperation, frustration and anger. The natural ability of the human brain to recall emotionally charged situations more vividly than other events may partly explain why the depictions of homeland in migrant narratives tend to be bleak in the extreme. Another explanation for the gloomy portrayal of Poland may have roots in psychological rationale: the characters evoke painful rather than cheerful memories of their native land in order to protect themselves from homesickness. The recollections of what annoyed migrants in their homeland shield them to some extent from nostalgia. But even if their reminiscences are distorted and emotional, they provide a surprisingly consistent image of Poland.

The Land of Limited Opportunities and High Aspirations Many characters are haunted by the memories of financial struggles they faced in their home country day in and day out. They reminisce about grindingly low wages, high taxation, the lack of employment opportunities and burgeoning debts that prompted them to search for a better future abroad. One of these characters is Monika, a high-achieving primary school teacher and a PhD student, depicted in Dionisios Sturis’ Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz [Wherever You Cast Me]. Although she and her husband, a 3  The Theory of Cultural Memory offers a powerful interpretative medium through which to study literary representations in the writings of Polish migrants. Developed by Aleida and Jan Assamann in the 1980s, the concept of Cultural Memory is based on the conclusion that social memory is not transmitted biologically but is passed on via external symbols (Aleida Assamann, “Canon and Archive” in The Invention of Cultural Memory, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 97). In this regard, culture provides people with a framework of concepts, images, ideas, meanings and values within which they construct their own biographies, histories and identities. For all these reasons, Assamann describes culture metaphorically as the suitcase that people take along on their journey through history. They repack this suitcase at different stations, or in a more literal sense, at various moments of high intensity, for example when the realities change or when they encounter other cultures (Aleida Assamann, “Cultural Memory” as part of NITMES – Network in Transnational Memory Studies, Utrecht: Humanities Universiteit Utrecht, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjwo7_A%2D%2Dsg&list=PLeBDdx1RvpDQgORu4-­ 0se2X2dgZG7mnjn&index=1&t=15s (2017), 1–10).

188 

J. KOSMALSKA

network administrator, were young, educated, ambitious, hard-working, frugal and had full-time jobs in Poland, they could not afford a modern level of consumer comfort. Monika lived in a state of perpetual anxiety and frustration about their inability to pay the bills for the Internet and insurance, pay off the bank loan or buy better-quality food for their young daughter. This strengthened in her the conviction, shared by a surprising range of other migrants, that she must be dumb, inept, somehow flawed. She kept asking herself sorrowfully: What did I do wrong?4 In response to the same question, the narrator in Jacek Ozaist’s Wyspa obiecana [The Promised Isle] recalls his unflagging belief, nurtured by his mother, that education was a passport to success in adult life. Armed with an MA degree and two foreign languages, he entered the Polish job market full of high hopes: first he toiled away in a corporation, then held a post in public administration, and finally decided to open his own business. No sooner had he settled into the new role of company owner than high taxes led him to bankruptcy. However bravely he tried to stay afloat, he did not succeed. His perilous situation perfectly exemplifies the problems of many Poles who, despite their best efforts, were unable to achieve self-sufficiency and contentment in their native land. These narratives thus depict characters moving abroad, mostly not because they were starving in Poland, but because they despised the monotony of their dreary, impoverished, nerve-racking existence. In other words, the opportunities available in the fledgling capitalistic Poland were not commensurate with the aspirations of young Poles.

Reliving the Past? The harsh realities in Poland of the 1990s and early 2000s were, in large part, the legacy of the country’s turbulent history. World War II, the Nazi occupation and the Soviet invasion plunged the country into dire poverty and immense chaos. Over decades, Poles had to lead a “normal” life in abnormal conditions, dealing with constant degradation and violence at the hands of their occupiers. They have learnt the techniques of circumventing imposed rules and encoding hidden messages into their language. The necessity of prevaricating for the sake of survival led many Polish people to develop a mentality characterised by secrecy and distrust of strangers, 4  Dionisios Sturis, Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz. Wyspa Man i Polacy. Historia Spla ̨tania (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo W.A.B, 2015), 215.

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

189

the instinct of always reading a hidden agenda into other people’s words and actions, and a genuine affection for patent sincerity. A prime exponent of these features is Magda’s mother in A.M. Bakalar’s Madame Mephisto. In response to Magda’s stories about her polite and friendly English workmates, the mother immediately warns her daughter that “[t]hey are hiding something. […] Nobody smiles unless they want something from you”.5 When the Solidarity movement led to the collapse of Communism in the 1980s, it channelled all its energy towards eradicating the old system. The result was that the new political leaders did not have enough time to map out the future of the country. Without ever fully realising it, the freshly elected politicians tend to create a bureaucracy that bears remarkable resemblance to that used by the Communist regime which they had grown up under, genuinely despised and fought tirelessly to bring down. Polish migrants become acutely aware of this when they encounter the British administration system. In Wyspa obiecana [The Promised Isle], the narrator, Jack, whose business went bankrupt in Poland, achieves great success in England. Marvelling at the ease with which one can set up and run a company in the UK, he denounces Polish realities: Here, if you have an idea and skills, you can put them into practice without much worry. In our country, you need to take a few loans or inherit money because you start every business by having an overdraft to cover the social insurance, rent, taxes and other fees. In England, you have three months to register your company since you have issued your first invoice, you pay two pounds per week for insurance and you can run your business from the flat you rent.6

The characters complain that the convoluted and expensive bureaucracy-­ sapped enterprise in Poland prompted many employers, who felt exploited by the system, to in turn exploit their employees. Some owners did it for the survival of their companies, others for quick profit. As Dariusz Leszczyński observes in his article on the post-1989 economic transformation in Poland, the environment was conducive to exploitative practices. On the one hand, the public at large remained willing to make sacrifices to turn the country into a democracy. On the other, it was a time of rapid transition from centrally steered to a market economy, which resulted in 5 6

 A. M. Bakalar, Madame Mephisto (London: Stork Press, 2012), 9.  Jacek Ozaist, Wyspa obiecana (Kraków – Łobez: Bogdan Zdanowicz, 2015), 62.

190 

J. KOSMALSKA

price inflation leading to a decline in sales and production, and finally high unemployment.7 The consequence was a continuing frustration among workers at the instability of employment, poor working conditions with little or no social security, and low wages. Apart from the lamentable financial situation of workers, a further complaint repeated by migrant authors is of a poor workplace culture in Polish companies. Gregory Spis sees it as a legacy of nepotism that prevailed in the old regime. In Pamiętnik tłumacza [The Translator’s Diary], he describes how the executive posts were often filled by individuals who lacked expertise, skills and experience. To mask their intellectual deficiencies, they managed the company with nerve-wracking crudeness: they employed emotional blackmail, bullied people into working overtime for no extra pay, abused them verbally, stole their ideas and presented them as their own. Keenly aware of how the unequal treatment of employees could foster envy and divisions, they gave special favours to sycophants. In the words of Spis’ narrator, it was “a customary, reliable, communist despotism that has had a long, nearly a hundred-year-old family tradition”.8 By creating an atmosphere of repression, menace, deference and hostility, Polish managers fostered internal divisions in the company. This allowed them to suppress any attempts at rebellion by workers. In Wot. 4, Maria Budacz suggests that a similar obstructionist tactic has proven of great service in Polish politics. The majority of politicians behave as if they were running an endless government campaign: not only do they continue to shower society with promises but they also use propaganda techniques to discredit their rivals by continually bringing to light all sorts of political, financial and personal scandals. In this way they bring out divisions in society. But what makes this—otherwise very common—spectacle of a political life potent is its insistence on confronting the difficult history of Poland, the source of many wounds. The author complains that “Daily news exhausts us: arguments, financial scandals, investigating committees, special sessions, secret files, followed by more reports, secret files, investigating committees, special sessions and financial scandals”.9 For Budacz, this is a vivid reminder of the ways in which the Communist regime operated, with its well-developed system of secret personal files that contained 7  Dariusz Leszczyński, “Przeobrażenia gospodarcze w Polsce w latach 1989–2016”, Refleksje 12 (2015): 33, https://doi.org/10.14746/r.2015.2 8  Gregory Spis, Pamiętnik tłumacza (London: Meridian Publishing, 2018), 58. 9  Maria Budacz, Wot. 4 (Warszawa: Papierowy Motyl, 2012), 69.

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

191

evidence used to incriminate opponents. She scoffs that: “Poland is like one big file, everybody has dirt on everybody else, one must reckon with this or that person and get on well with yet another person, all this due to the file”.10 The older generations—who have lived through World War II and/or the Communist regime—see the quest for historical justice as essential to re-establish order and healthy relations in society. Like the narrator’s mother in Budacz’s Wot.4, they question the integrity of those Poles who had compromised with the oppressors in return for well-paid jobs and more comfortable lives. The widespread belief is that these opportunists should no longer enjoy a privileged position in national life.11 After all, some of them assisted in the oppression of their fellow countrymen who fought for Poland’s independence. Yet the problem of Polish history is more complex still: this judgement overlooks different groups of people, for example those who worked for the Communist system but then became part of the Solidarity movement. For the oppressed, this continual attempt to untangle the intricacies of the Polish past is a way of reworking the trauma they have experienced, of structuring the chaos that has surrounded them for years, of constructing the “world of normality”. On the contrary, many members of the younger, post-Communist generations feel exhausted by what seems to them an obsession with the past that overwhelms the present and hinders progress. In A.M. Bakalar’s Madame Mephisto, the narrator observes that “Poles have a talent for lamenting, endlessly dissecting the events of the past”.12 Her indictment is that the extensive focus on suffering rooted in history evokes melancholic emotions that nurture narrow ethnicity. This, in turn, poses a danger of making the society hermetic, intolerant, impervious to “the others”.

To Be a Pole Is to Be a Catholic The works of historians, such as Philip W. Barker, Norman Davies, Józef Marecki, Paweł Milcarek, Rafał Łatka, Wojciech Sadłoń or Sabrina P. Ramet to name but a few, attest to the fact that there has always been a close link between religion and nationalism in Poland. This link can be traced as far back as the tenth century when Mieszko I, Duke of Poland  Budacz, Wot. 4, 69.  Budacz, Wot. 4, 69. 12  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 5. 10 11

192 

J. KOSMALSKA

from the Piast dynasty, pursued a mutually beneficial alliance with Boleslav I, Duke of Bohemia (the Czech lands). The agreement was sealed with a marriage between the Duke of Poland and the Duke of Bohemia’s daughter, Doubravka, providing that he agreed to convert to Christianity. Therefore, as a matter of expediency, Mieszko I received baptism in 966. What is important, however, is that he requested to be baptised by Jordan, a missionary bishop subordinate directly to the Pope. In this way the Polish ruler remained independent from the Holy Roman Empire, which included both the Czech and German lands, and inaugurated a long-­ lasting and direct relationship between the Vatican and the Polish state.13 With time, Catholicism became equated with nationhood and cultural tradition. In 100 Kijów w mrowisko [Stirring up 100 Hornets’ Nests], Jacek Wa ̨sowicz suggests that Pope John Paul II is still more remembered for his role in overthrowing Communism than for his teachings.14 The writer warns against the equation of religion with tradition. The same warning is reiterated throughout A.M. Bakalar’s Madame Mephisto. The novel’s narrator Magda accuses Poles of having a lot of religion but not enough faith. She argues that the devotion of many people seems to be a set of customs they follow to sustain a sense of connection with their local community. Magda becomes so irate and disillusioned with the Catholic Church, whose leaders claim a position of moral authority but do not reflect it in their own actions, that she decides to undertake apostasy.15 When she makes the announcement, her mother is left in such shock and denial that her sister, Alicja, uses blackmail to make the narrator give up her decision. The three female characters in Madame Mephisto define the Catholic Church in very different ways. For the mother, Catholicism embodies the most ancient and exalted values of traditional Polish life. She perceives the Church in terms of a noble ideal rather than an institution or people. Therefore, she is able to turn a blind eye to anything that does not rise to this ideal. Alicja’s faith seems to be rather a matter of social decorum. She 13  Philip W Barker, “Poland” in Religious Nationalism in Modern Europe: If God be for Us (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 75–112, 78–79; Sabrina P Ramet, “Introduction” in The Catholic Church in Polish History: From 966 to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 2; Paweł Milcarek, “Kamienie milowe dziejów chrześcijaństwa” in 1050 lat chrzes ć ijaństwa w Polsce (Warszawa: Główny Urza ̨d Statystyczny i Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego SAC, 2016), 9–56, 10–12. 14  Jacek Wa ̨sowicz, 100 Kijów w mrowisko (Warszawa: Grupa M-D-M, 2013), 23–24. 15  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 194.

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

193

experiences Catholicism as a set of rituals that keep her connected to people around her. Religion forms a protective shell that provides stability in her life. Magda, in turn, sees the Church as a fossilised ecclesiastical structure created by autocratic, conservative, often ignoble priests.16 The different narratives developed around the Church by the mother, Alicja and Magda reveal that Catholicism in Poland is a complicated blend of various, often contradicting, beliefs, opinions and challenges. But these distinct discourses of the female characters have at least one thing in common: a conviction that religion is in large part about society. In this respect, the novel seems to be filled with echoes of Émile Durkheim’s theory on religion as “something eminently social”.17 Durkheim argued that religion offers three important things: social cohesion, meaning and purpose in life, and social control. First, it binds people together and is a source of solidarity and identification for individuals within a society (social cohesion). Second, it offers a meaning for life and strength during life’s transitions and tragedies (meaning and purpose). Third, it reinforces morals and social norms, provides authority figures and promotes behaviour consistency (social control). When people gather and celebrate sacred events together, they foster social bonds and maintain the stability of their society.18 Echoes of Durkheim’s emphasis on the social dimension of religion may also be heard in the work of Wioletta Greg. Her 2017 novella Swallowing Mercury, which is set in the autobiographically inspired village of Hektary during the 1970s and 1980s, demonstrates the tremendous influence of the Catholic faith on rural communities in Poland. Catholicism is all-pervasive in Hektary: it is embedded in the landscape (roadside shrines, churches), the calendar (parish fairs, Sunday Mass, May devotions, Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poland) and in the everyday practices of the characters (the narrator’s grandmother recites a litany when she cooks, the mother clutches a blessed medallion in her hand during storms, people dress up for Sunday Mass, etc.). Greg observes astutely that the immense power of Catholicism in rural areas of Poland lies in its idiosyncratic nature. It is a strange mix of the official Catholic teachings, acts of popular  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 194.  Émile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain, Project Gutenberg Project, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41360/41360-h/41360-h. htm (2012), 10. 18  Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 226. 16 17

194 

J. KOSMALSKA

piety, folk beliefs, superstitions, common knowledge, local traditions, rituals of the family life, and personal habits. Perhaps one of the most telling instances of this combination is the “storm rite” performed by Wiola’s mother. When she hears thunder, she crosses herself, takes the laundry down, closes the windows and doors, pulls plugs out of sockets, hides metal objects and covers the washing machine with a blanket. Once she is done with the practicalities, she calls over her daughter Wiola to make sure the girl has not killed a spider. But this is only an excuse to tell Wiola how Joseph and Mary avoid the killing of baby Jesus commissioned by Herod.19 When the Holy Family shelters in a cave, the spider which lives there weaves a thick web at the entrance to protect baby Jesus from Herod’s soldiers. This urban legend explains not only the reason why spiders are considered sacred creatures but also the roots of the popular Polish superstition that killing a spider brings on a storm—a sign of God’s wrath. With astonishing adroitness, Wiola’s mother works religious gestures and symbols, the official gospels, urban legends, superstitions and pragmatic actions into her ritual in such a way that they become indistinguishable parts of one semi-religious rite. She blends the elements of Catholicism, common knowledge, Polish culture and history, producing, in effect, her personal religion. The religion that satisfies her needs. Although in a very different context, the same social benefits of religion are sought by Polish people living in the UK. Their narratives often portray the Catholic Church as an institution that has successfully developed a network of ethnic parishes in the UK. Led by Polish priests, the parishes have become centres of assistance and the nucleus of Polish culture for newcomers. They are places where Polish people not only find spiritual and material help in times of need but meet their fellow compatriots and socialise. One such parish is depicted in Justyna Nowak’s Opowieśc ́ emigracyjna [The Emigration Tale]. The novel’s protagonist, Klara, attends Polish Mass in a London church. After the service, the friendly and very supportive Polish priest invites all parishioners for free drinks and snacks to the Haven Pub, which is adjacent to the church. It is built in a country cottage style to give the place a warm, welcoming, homely feeling. On a wall, there hangs a noticeboard covered with all sorts of announcements, which range from mass times and rehearsal schedule of the Polish choir to the addresses of job centres, state offices, Polish shops, and ads for 19  Wioletta Greg (aka Wioletta Grzegorzewska), Swallowing Mercury, trans. Eliza Marciniak (London: Portobello Books, 2017), 58–59.

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

195

free-of-­charge English classes.20 Implicit in Klara’s description of the place is the recognition that the Polish priest attempts to create an ersatz home for migrants. He assumes the roles of a guardian of Catholic faith and Polish culture, translator of foreign realities, and experienced guide through the unknown country. By performing all these tasks, the priest and, by extension, the Catholic Church try to anticipate the migrants’ needs and expectations. And they seem to be doing a good job if one takes into account the reasons why migrants attend church. In Ireneusz Gębski’s novel W cieniu Sheratona [In the Shadow of the Sheraton], the narrator notes that: “Some people come for spiritual nourishment, others want to meet their fellow compatriots, have a conversation in Polish and exchange information. Yet others come to show off their new cars which they park right outside the church doors”.21 By no means exhaustive, Gębski’s list is extended further by Maria Budacz, Justyna Nowak or Dionisios Sturis. The writers concordantly come to the conclusion that the toils of migration compel many newcomers to seek out a Catholic community abroad. For one thing, it addresses their psychological issues, such as a feeling of loneliness, uncertainty and anxiety or the need for acknowledgement of their achievements. It also offers material benefits, such as assistance in finding a job or free-­ of-­charge English classes. Last, but not least, the Catholic Church as an international and mainstream institution gives migrants a sense of belonging to the local community in the host country. This is why some migrant characters, like the Świa ̨tek family in Dionisios Sturis’ Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz [Wherever You Cast Me], attend English rather than Polish Mass. It makes them feel part of the Douglas community on the Isle of Man. What migrants discover when they join a congregation in a foreign country is that the Catholic Church is less homogenous than they had thought. As Monika Świa ̨tek in Sturis’ Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz [Wherever You Cast Me] makes her own comparisons between the Catholic Church in Britain and in Poland, the latter appears to be more conservative, pompous, rigid, brassbound. She praises the British priest for keeping out of politics and letting the children play during the Mass. This is very different than what she remembers from the church in Poland.22 Interestingly, in  Justyna Nowak, Opowies ć ́ emigracyjna (Gdynia: Novae Res, 2010), 89–91.  Ireneusz Gębski, W cieniu Sheratona (Warszawa: Warszawska Firma Wydawnicza, 2012), 91. 22  Sturis, Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz. Wyspa Man i Polacy, 219. 20 21

196 

J. KOSMALSKA

mainly Catholic Poland, where faith seems to be inherent in political, public and literary discourses, few people care to discuss the spirituality of religion. Most debates focus on the historical and social impact of Catholicism. What this creates is the impression that the Catholic Church has more impact on the nation than individuals. No doubt, it has left a strong imprint on Polish history and culture.

Interrogating the Traditional View of Women Part of this historical, cultural and religious heritage is the lofty ideal of Mother Pole,23 which women are expected to live up to, and some, indeed, try to avidly. As Anna Titkow notes in Pożegnanie z Matka ̨ Polką? [A Farewell to Mother Pole?], the traditional rhetoric concerning this myth moves beyond the notion of mother to the idea of woman.24 In a later ́ chapter of the book, Klaudyna Swistow demonstrates how this ideal is connected to the cult of the Virgin Mary, who provides the model for females in the Catholic Church.25 The traits attributed to the Mother of God, such as submissiveness, leniency, protectiveness, sacrifice and non-­sexuality, have been imputed to Polish women. Beneath these features lurked the social implication that all women sought fulfilment of their nurturing impulses in marriage and motherhood. Such portraiture defined the female always in relation to men and reinforced the gender stereotypes for centuries. According to Anna Titkow, the Mother Pole myth has roots that go back to the seventeenth century. At that time, the ethos of Polish nobility promoted a “gentle patriarchy”, in which an ideal noblewoman was chaste, obedient to her family and able to run a household. However, when the fathers, husbands and brothers went away to fulfil their war or public  The Polish term “Matka Polka” is rendered into English as “Mother Pole”, using the translation suggested by Krystyna Slany. In her chapter on “Family relations and gender equality in the context of migration”, she briefly describes the impact of the Mother Pole model on Polish women. See Krystyna Slany, “Family relations and gender equality in the context of migration” in The Impact of Migration on Poland, ed. Anne White, Izabela Grabowska, Paweł Kaczmarczyk and Krystyna Slany (London: UCL Press, 2018), 108–130, 116. 24  Anna Titkow, “Figura Matki Polki. Próba demitologizacji” in Pożegnanie z Matka ̨ Polka ̨? ed. Renata E.  Hryciuk and Elżbieta Korolczuk (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012), 27–48, 31. 25  Klaudyna Świstow, “Rodzicielstwo wirtualne. Duchowa adopcja jako nowa forma rodzicielstwa” in Pożegnanie z Matka ̨ Polka ̨? ed. Renata E. Hryciuk and Elżbieta Korolczuk (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012), pp. 309–330, 309. 23

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

197

duties, the mothers, wives and daughters watched the estates and ran the businesses. Many women enjoyed some degree of power and reverence in such families.26 The Partitions of Poland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries placed more emphasis on bearing and rearing children, which was important for sustaining the autonomous Polish national identity. Women were responsible for passing on the native language, culture and religion to younger generations and educating their sons to become patriotic fighters. Their social duties were outlined by Adam Mickiewicz, a Polish Romantic bard, in his 1830 poem “Do Matki Polki” (“To Mother Pole”). In the poem, the female protagonist is instructed to bring up her son in such a way that he becomes a plotter and willing martyr to the national cause. Mickiewicz explicitly links Mother Pole to the Mother of God with the implication that they both raise a son who will die for a greater good. This use of religious symbolism emphasises the importance of sacrifice: Mother Pole is expected to sacrifice herself and her family for the sake of country and nation. Anna Titkow believes this was the time when the “Mother Pole” began to function in society as a term for “superwoman”.27 In the nineteenth century, the number of female workers rose substantially: the difficult economic situation in Poland forced women, especially from lower social strata, to take up any employment available. Although their contribution to the family budget was significant and it was not uncommon for the wife to be the only breadwinner, the head of the Polish household was still always the man. Anna Titkow laments that, in consequence, this unfair treatment endowed the Mother Pole myth with a stronger patriarchal colour.28 World War I did not alter the model in any significant way. But when World War II began in 1939, women took an active part in it. Not only did they take on traditional roles such as nurses, cooks and dispatch-­ carriers, but they also directly took part in fighting against the Nazi army. The risks they took were very often the same as those taken by men. This reconfiguration of gender roles allowed women to claim authority and heroism, which were not available to them before. The arrival of the Red Army in 1944 proved as traumatic to some Polish people as the atrocities they experienced during the Nazi occupation. Dariusz Kaliński in Czerwona zaraza. Jak naprawdę wygla ̨dało wyzwolenie  Titkow, “Figura Matki Polki. Próba demitologizacji”, 29.  Titkow, “Figura Matki Polki. Próba demitologizacji”, 31. 28  Titkow, “Figura Matki Polki. Próba demitologizacji”, 30–31. 26 27

198 

J. KOSMALSKA

Polski [The Red Plague: How Did the Liberation of Poland Really Look Like?] and Stanisław M.  Jankowski in Dawaj czasy! Czyli wyzwolenie po sowiecku [Give Me Your Watch! Liberation the Soviet Way] quote horrifying testimonies from victims that describe how Polish females, age 3 to 73, were subjected to hours-long rapes and beatings from the Soviet soldiers who marched through Poland to Berlin. The war was a brutal example of the paradox in which gender hierarchy was both undermined and strengthened. But it also set the consistent patterns of female personality in Poland in the form of an extremely strong and self-sufficient woman. Trying to rebuild and industrialise Poland after the enormous destruction inflicted by the Nazis and the Soviets, the Communist government installed in Warsaw by the USSR promoted the gender equality which was advocated by the Stalinist system. Women were encouraged to enter jobs in industry on an equal footing with men and husbands were encouraged to help with household chores, such as cleaning or cooking. But despite the efforts of the Stalinist system to implement equality of the sexes, the ingrained division of society into male producers and female reproducers was still very strong in Poland. In Women, Communism, and Industralization in Postwar Poland, Malgorzata Fidelis argues that initially the Polish Communist government supported the official Stalinist line that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities but, over time, many state policies and public images relegated women from public life to domestic spheres. The return to pre-war conservative traditions was significantly assisted by the Catholic Church: in calling for a revival of the old ideal of Mother Pole, the Catholic activists made a point of the need to rebuild the nation after the war. In the 1970s, women’s maternal qualities were emphasised in general public discourse and the gender segregation of jobs became more pronounced, with male employers often refusing to hire women in industries traditionally dominated by men. The result was that women were doubly discriminated against in the Polish People’s Republic: they often worked full-time in low-skilled, low-paid jobs and were fully responsible for parental and domestic duties. The female ideal in Communist times was expected to reconcile the roles of an industrial worker and a household manager. It was often said that women had two jobs: one at work and one at home. Since the fall of Communism in 1989, the Mother Pole exemplar has been functioning as a frame of reference within which new female ideals take shape. A modern variation of the Communist model seems to be a beautiful, forever young, high-achieving super-mother. Agnieszka

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

199

Imbierowicz observes that at the root of this hyper-resourceful figure lies Polish history, traditions and mentality combined with Western pop culture, consumerism, individualism and ideology of “intensive mothering”.29, 30 The products of popular culture, such as commercials, films or books, create pressures on women that are founded on contradiction. On the one hand, they are encouraged to be self-sufficient, self-fulfilled, sleek and successful, while on the other, they are expected to prioritise family over their career and devote a great deal of time, energy and money to meeting their children’s emotional and intellectual needs. A.M. Bakalar offers an ironic description of this exalted role model in the opening pages of Madame Mephisto: Polish women make good housewives; two-course dinner is always ready on time, the house is scrubbed clean, the children are taken care of, and at night we transform into sexually insatiable goddesses. Making a career is the last of our worries, because it is the family, husband and children who always come first. Simply put, a Polish woman is one of the best deals on the matrimonial market.31

No matter how extensive the critique of the Mother Pole myth mounted by female characters in migrant fiction, a large number of male protagonists display scant awareness that this role model also proves pernicious to men. 29  On the nature of “intensive mothering”, see D.  Lynn O’Brien Hallstein’s article “Conceiving Intensive Mothering” (D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 8, No. 1–2 (2016): 96–108. She cites the term coined by Sharon Hays in her 1996 book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood to describe how American society perceives the “ideal mother”. Hays argues that the concept of intensive mothering is based on three ingrained assumptions. First, the primary, central caregivers of children continue to be women. Second, the mother is expected to devote huge amounts of time, energy and financial resources to provide her children with an upbringing that is child-centred, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing and labour-intensive. Third, professional work and motherhood are kept separate in distinct zones, and therefore mothering has no market value. The result is that women are condemned to the role of thoughtful, self-sacrificing, ideal mothers, with limited agency in public and professional life. 30  Agnieszka Imbierowicz, “The Polish Mother on the defensive? The transformation of the myth and its impact on the motherhood of Polish women”, Journal of Education Culture and Society 1 (2012): 140–153, https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20121-140-153, 151. 31  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 7. On the Mother Pole myth in Bakalar’s Madame Mephisto see Martyna Bryla, “Weeding Out the Roots? The Construction of Polish Migrant Identity in A.M.Bakalar’s Polish-British Fiction”,  Complutense Journal of English Studies 28 (2020): 1–10.

200 

J. KOSMALSKA

In Single, Piotr Kępski emphasises this issue by introducing Filip Romer’s family, from which the writer removes the mother, Maria Romer (who goes missing mysteriously), and examines the consequences of her absence. The mother’s disappearance makes Filip realise that his father keeps referring to his wife as “mum”.32 But the protagonist quickly remarks that it inadvertently reflects the psychological dynamic of his parents’ relationship: both he and his father were, in fact, Maria’s pampered children. They gleefully entrusted all domestic affairs to her. She organised their lives in terms of time and space, and yet somehow managed to cultivate the illusion that her husband was the head of family. Filip comes to the conclusion that, as a result, his father has remained an eternal child, a frivolous loafer whose life, bereft of household chores and planning, has a large capacity for enjoyment.33 The day Maria disappears, her husband’s helplessness is exposed unsparingly: the simplest tasks, such as doing the laundry, take him forever to perform. He is a defeated person without his wife, like “an admiral without a navy”,34 a grotesque elderly man who, as if he were a little boy, learns how to be independent. One of the implications behind such ironic portraiture of Filip’s father is that he is a victim of the sacrificial Mother Pole myth. Kępski caustically observes that: “Militant males, who enjoy privileged position in society, greater power, authority and physical strength; who earn more and elbow their way to a successful career; they – without their women, who have had their back for years and bolstered their world, power and self-confidence – turn into helpless children”.35 Kępski’s diagnosis, though relevant and probing, may be susceptible to certain corruptions. In her article on feminism in Poland, Monika Ksieniewicz warns that the interpretations of the Mother Pole myth, which emphasise women’s latent agency, may be cunningly used to protect patriarchal values. According to her, the oft-repeated maxim that “the man may be the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head whichever way she pleases” misleads society into believing that the Mother Pole model is a source of authority when, in fact, it only gives women a semblance of power. Ksieniewicz’s diagnosis overlaps with the opinions offered by Maria Budacz, who, like many other migrant writers, depicts this myth as a force which oppresses women and prevents them from becoming  Piotr Kępski, Single (Warszawa: Jirafa Roja, 2009), 90.  Kępski, Single, 92. 34  Kępski, Single, 126. 35  Kępski, Single, 127. 32 33

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

201

themselves.36 In migrant fiction, the majority of female protagonists find it impossible to gain profound freedom in a society in which traditional patterns of living, despite certain criticism and weakening, are still generally valued and sustained.

A Microcosm of Polish Society in Britain The power of ingrained tradition within a larger context of culture, no less than the power of history or politics, is a pervasive theme in Polish migrant writing. In Dublin, moja polska karma [Dublin, My Polish Karma], Magdalena Orzeł notes: “You have left Poland but you can’t escape Poland […]”.37 This becomes evident in the emergence of what the sociologist Anne White calls “Polish society abroad”, and more specifically in the fact that Polish migrants living in a foreign country form communities that “can be considered to some degree a microcosm of Polish society in Poland”.38 Similarly to White, many authors, such as Jacek Wa ̨sowicz, Iwona Macałka, Michał Wyszowski or Łukasz Ślipko, to name but a few, observe that as soon as Polish migrants leave their homeland, they search for it abroad. Many people read Polish newspapers, books, or websites and watch Polish films, shows, or news; others go to Polish shops, schools, restaurants, medical centres, libraries, masses, or events; some include Polish traditions in their Christmas, Easter or wedding celebrations. Despite living a great distance from Poland, many of them keep track of the situation in their native country. They also recreate the stereotypes. For example, the female characters follow a modified version of the Mother Pole model, just like Gabi in Łucja Fice’s novels, who plods away as a carer of the elderly in the UK in order to provide for her family in Poland. Even those who have managed to flee from the pressure of stereotypes, acquired a cosmopolitan identity, and thrive in multicultural settings are reminded of their roots when other people enquire about their distinctive accent. Confronted with the representatives of other cultures, migrant characters become increasingly aware of their Polish identity, something many of them had rarely acknowledged when they lived in Poland. A very similar process is documented by Declan Kiberd in his brilliant book Inventing Ireland, in which he observes that the Irish identity was  Budacz, Wot. 4, 79.  Magdalna Orzeł, Dublin, moja polska karma (Kraków: Skrzat, 2007), 134. 38  White, “Polish society abroad”, 186. 36 37

202 

J. KOSMALSKA

often defined in opposition to the British identity. He quotes the example of Oscar Wilde who came to the conclusion that Irish people discovered themselves only after they had left their homeland. Kiberd elaborates on this idea in the following way: “Identity was dialogic; the other was also the truest friend, since it was from that other that a sense of self was derived. A person went out to the other and returned with a self, getting to know others simply to find out what they think of him or herself”.39 What Kiberd remarks about the Irish is also apposite to Polish migrant protagonists. Their deep interest in what the British think about them is most evident in the numerous passages where the characters view themselves through the eyes of local citizens. For example, a character in Michał Wyszowski’s Na lewej stronie świata [On the Left Side of the World] bemoans the way English people perceive migrants as the shells of sunflower seeds that litter their country.40 Both Magda, the narrator in A.M. Bakalar’s Madame Mephisto,41 and Gabi, the protagonist in Łucja Fice’s Wyspa starców [The Isle of Old People],42 lapse into frustration when the English behave as if Polish people were poor unfortunates for whom England was a true paradise. This attempt to first imagine oneself from the perspective of the other and then debunk various misrepresentations is a constructive element in the shaping of the characters’ selfhood. This search for self-identity may also explain why the characters show such a rapturous devotion to recognising the faults of their fellow countrymen. Ironically, nobody seems more critical of Polish migrants than they themselves. Their obvious intention is to pinpoint national vices of their compatriots in order to combat them. But at a deeper level, it is also a way in which the characters subject themselves to self-examination: if they recognise certain faults in their countrymen, they deny with fervour any of these features in themselves. Interestingly, the more they renounce a particular trait, the more it emerges from the depths of their unconscious. For example, the migrant narrators are critical of the fact that Polish people complain in excess while their own repeated complaints about their fellow countrymen escape their notice. Another feature, often noted in migrant books, is that there is a low degree of solidarity among Polish migrants. Stories of predatory Poles  Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (Vintage Books: London. 1996), 48.  Michał Wyszowski, Na lewej stronie s w ́ iata (Warszawa: MG, 2010), 26. 41  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 10. 42  Łucja Fice, Wyspa starców (Warszawa: Warszawska Firma Wydawnicza, 2013), 78. 39 40

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

203

taking advantage of their compatriots to line their own pockets, such as those documented by A.M. Bakalar in Children of Our Age, inspired a paraphrase of the Latin proverb “Homō hominı ̄ lupus est” into “A Pole is a wolf to another Pole”. In virtually all books, Polish migrants caution their Polish friends to be wary of other Poles living abroad. By a paradox, which seems to escape the characters’ notice, it is also Polish migrants who often prove most helpful when the protagonist finds himself or herself in an adverse situation. In general, the paradox is what seems to underline the representation of Poles and Poland in migrant writing. At the same time, a Polish person might be the truest friend and the deadliest enemy of another Pole. Poland is depicted simultaneously as a nostalgic land of happy memories and a gloomy limbo in the grip of underdevelopment. At the core of these paradoxes lies a realisation that contradictions mark the foundation of Poland. Jacek, a second-generation Pole in Wot.4, finds a reflection of these inconsistencies in Polish cities, in which “the centres are covered with the sheet of modernity and splendour and the recesses are strewn with holes and poverty”.43 His parents’ attitude to their native land seems no less contradictory: living in England, they miss their family, friends and food, but as soon as they arrive in Poland, they want to go back to the UK “because they can’t bear the tension”.44

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Poland and Poles In Dublin, moja polska karma [Dublin, My Polish Karma], Magdalena Orzeł notes that although Polish migrants leave their native land behind, they carry all their anxieties, wounds and habits with them.45 As their memories travel with them, a definitive break with the past is not possible. Piotr Kępski elaborates on this idea in Single, in which the protagonist Marta Cichy, having moved to London, reads her diary (the symbolic reminder of her past), nurtures old wounds and practises her “stupid, painful rituals”.46 When she questions her own behaviour, which seems utterly inexplicable even to her, she becomes aware of her inability to cut  Budacz, Wot. 4, 44.  Budacz, Wot. 4, 44 45  Orzeł, Dublin, moja polska karma, 56. 46  Kępski, Single, 34. 43 44

204 

J. KOSMALSKA

the cord that binds her to the past. Kępski emphasises this inability at the level of language when Marta asks herself a series of negative questions, which help her investigate the depths of her unconscious: Why didn’t I burn these notes? Why didn’t I dump them? I wouldn’t even have to tear the pages here. Nobody would be able to read the jottings in a foreign, Slavic language anyway. Why don’t I do it then? Why won’t I break free from the past? I don’t know, maybe because this notebook gives me an ersatz feeling of continuity. It is a lifeline for my impaired identity. Even the worst memory is better than none. When I came to London, I haven’t become someone else. I wasn’t reborn. I didn’t erase what had already happened. Although I did dream about it and promised myself I would turn into a new person, a kind of Super-Marta.47

This passage is filled with echoes of John Locke’s theory of memory:48 Marta’s personal identity persists because she retains memories of herself. In other words, she sustains her personal identity through a chain of memories that bind her to her old self. Although it inevitably keeps her from a quick metamorphosis into a Super-Marta of her dreams, it also provides her with continuity that becomes a base on which she can pattern her new life abroad. In his article on Migration, Food, Memory, and Home-Building, Ghassan Hage notes an analogous tendency in migrants whose memories of their native land provide them with a shelter which they use to launch themselves into their new lives abroad. In a somewhat similar way, the characters in Polish migrant books invent an imaginary private Poland that serves as a backdrop against which they create their new identities and build their new homes in a foreign country. This private land becomes a space where migrants translate their past into their present and future. In Wioletta Grzegorzewska’s poem Mapa emigrantki [The Map of Emigrant Woman],  Kępski, Single, 34.  John Locke’s theory of memory propounds that personal identity persists over time because the person retains memories of himself/herself at different points in life, and each of those memories is connected to one before it. For example, if a woman remembers her first day of kindergarten, she maintains a memory link to the girl from the past. John Locke’s most thorough discussion of this issue can be found in his “Chapter XXVII: Identity and diversity, Book II: Ideas” in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (2017; first published in 1694), ed. Jonathan Bennett, pp.112–121. The text is available online at: https:// www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book2.pdf. 47 48

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

205

the speaking persona—asked about the location of Poland by her hairdresser—replies: Where is Poland located? In gawky verses, in favourite books, which were sized at the airport. by an officer because ‘the luggage was too heavy’; in the father’s ossuary, in the house by the Boży Stok River; maybe it grows inside the belly and will soon say: mum?49

The migrant’s mental map of her native land, however studded with nostalgic reminders of the past, is in fact her response to what awaits her in the future. In the stanza, a tide of memories leads the speaker to pose a question in the final line of the poem that is expressive of hope, optimism and a new beginning. It suggests that the act of remembering is to some extent an attempt to invent and construct the future. The same implication is spelled out in the closing chapter of Maria Budacz’s Wot.4, in which the narrator falls asleep and conjures up a utopian vision of Poland. In the narrator’s dream, the competent government has turned Poland into a modern and prosperous place where people are genuinely happy. This utopia is built out of the narrator’s memories, which she mentions earlier in the book, but here the previously described realities are reversed: her father is no longer quick to anger when he watches the news, her aunt who suffers from cancer is pleased with the healthcare system in the country, and her uncle who lost his job praises the administrative efficiency of state agencies. As in so many other migrant texts, what begins as the character’s travel into the past ends as their journey into the future. In this journey, a life of migration offers itself as an analytical tool: the foreign country becomes a social laboratory in which the migrants examine Poland and Polish people amid the foreign realities, and in doing so, gain a deeper understanding of their native land and themselves. Acknowledgements  I am very thankful to Vincent Landy and Maggie Bowers for their excellent editorial work.

49  Wioletta Grzegorzewska, Mapa emigrantki, In Na końcu s ́wiata napisane. Autoportret współczesnej polskiej emigracji, ed. Elżbieta Spadzińska-Żak (Chorzów: Videograf II, 2008), 305.

206 

J. KOSMALSKA

Bibliography Assamann, Aleida. “Canon and Archive.” In The Invention of Cultural Memory, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning, 97–107. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2021. Assamann, Aleida. “Cultural Memory” as Part of NITMES  – Network in Transnational Memory Studies, Humanities Universiteit Utrecht: Utrecht (2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjwo7_A%2D%2Dsg&list= PLeBDdx1RvpDQgORu4-­0se2X2dgZG7mnjn&index=1&t=15s Assmann, Jan. “Communicative and Cultural Memory.” In The Invention of Cultural Memory, edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning, 109–118. Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. Bakalar, A.M. Children of Our Age. London: Jantar Publishing, 2017. Bakalar, A.M. Madame Mephisto. London: Stork Press, 2012. Barker, Philip W. “Poland.” In Religious Nationalism in Modern Europe: If God Be for Us, 75–112. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. Bryla, Martyna. “Weeding Out the Roots? The Construction of Polish Migrant Identity in A.  M. Bakalar’s Polish- British Fiction.” Complutense Journal of English Studies 28 (2020): 1–10. Budacz, Maria. Wot. 4, Warszawa: Papierowy Motyl, 2012. Cieciela ̨g, Paweł. Wyznania religijne w Polsce w latach 2015–2018 [Religious Denominations in Poland 2015–2018]. Warszawa: Główny Urza ̨d Statystyczny, 2019. Durkheim, Émile. Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by Joseph Ward Swain, Project Gutenberg Project, 2012, https://www.gutenberg.org/ files/41360/41360-­h/41360-­h.htm. Fice, Łucja. Wyspa starców. Warszawa: Warszawska Firma Wydawnicza, 2013. Fidelis, Malgorzata. Women, Communism, and Industralization in Postwar Poland. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Gębski, Ireneusz. W cieniu Sheratona. Warszawa: Warszawska Firma Wydawnicza, 2012. Greg, Wioletta (aka Grzegorzewska Wioletta). Swallowing Mercury, Translated by Eliza Marciniak, London: Portobello Books, 2017. Grzegorzewska, Wioletta. “Mapa emigrantki.” In Na końcu świata napisane. Autoportret współczesnej polskiej emigracji, edited by Elżbieta Spadzińska-Żak. Chorzów: Videograf II, 2008. Hage, Ghassan. Migration, Food, Memory, and Home-Building, in Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates. New York: Fordham University, 2010. Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” In: Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 15–69. London: SAGE Publications & Open University, 1997.

9  A COUNTRY CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORIES: REPRESENTATIONS… 

207

Hallstein, D.  Lynn O’Brien. “Conceiving Intensive Mothering.” Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 8, no. 1–2 (2006): 96–108. Höijer, Birgitta. “Social Representations Theory: A New Theory for Media Research.” Nordicom Review 32, no. 2 (2011): 3–16. https://doi.org/ 10.1515/nor-­2017-­0109 Hryciuk, Renata E. and Elżbieta Korolczuk. Pożegnanie z Matka ̨ Polka?̨ Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012. Imbierowicz, Agnieszka. “The Polish Mother on the Defensive? The Transformation of the Myth and Its Impact on the Motherhood of Polish Women.” Journal of Education Culture and Society 1 (2012), 140–153. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20121-­140-­153 Jankowski, Stanisław M. Dawaj czasy! Czyli wyzwolenie po sowiecku. Poznań: Rebis, 2017. Kaliński, Dariusz. Czerwona zaraza. Jak naprawdę wygla ̨dało wyzwolenie Polski. Poznań: CiekawostkiHistoryczne.pl, 2017. Kępski, Piotr. Single. Warszawa: Jirafa Roja, 2009. Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland. London: Vintage Books, 1996. Koziarski, Daniel. Sociopata w Londynie. Warszawa: Prószyński i S-ka, 2007. Ksieniewicz, Monika. “Specyfika polskiego feminizmu.” Kultura i Historia 6 (2004). Leszczyński, Dariusz. “Przeobrażenia gospodarcze w Polsce w latach 1989–2016.” Refleksje 12 (2015). https://doi.org/10.14746/r.2015.2. Locke, John. “Chapter XXVII: Identity and diversity, Book II: Ideas.” In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Jonathan Bennett, 2017, first published in 1694. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/ locke1690book2.pdf Łatka, Rafał and Józef Marecki. Kościół katolicki w Polsce rza ̨dzonej przez komunistów. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2017. Macałka, Iwona. Moja podróz˙ przez z˙ycie. Łódź: Piktor, 2008. Mickiewicz, Adam. “Do matki Polki.” In Sonety odeskie, 6–8. Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska, 1830. https://wolnelektury.pl/media/book/pdf/sonety-­odeskie.pdf. Milcarek, Paweł. “Kamienie milowe dziejów chrześcijaństwa.” In 1050 lat chrześcijaństwa w Polsce, 9–56. Warszawa: Główny Urza ̨d Statystyczny i Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego SAC, 2016. Nowak, Justyna. Opowies ́ć emigracyjna. Gdynia: Novae Res, 2010. Orzeł, Magdalena. Dublin, moja polska karma. Kraków: Skrzat, 2007. Ozaist, Jacek. Wyspa obiecana. Bogdan Zdanowicz, Kraków: Łobez, 2015. Ramet, Sabrina P. “Introduction.” In The Catholic Church in Polish History: From 966 to the Present, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Sadłoń, Wojciech. “Życie religijne Polaków na przestrzeni wieków.” In 1050 lat chrzes ́cijaństwa w Polsce, 213–228. Warszawa: Główny Urza ̨d Statystyczny i Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego SAC, 2016.

208 

J. KOSMALSKA

Slany, Krystyna. “Family Relations and Gender Equality in the Context of Migration.” In The Impact of Migration on Poland, edited by Anne White, Izabela Grabowska, Paweł Kaczmarczyk, and Krystyna Slany, 108–130, London: UCL Press, 2018. Spis, Gregory. Pamiętnik tłumacza. London: Meridian Publishing, 2018. Sturis, Dionisios. Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz. Wyspa Man i Polacy. Historia Spla ̨tania. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo W.A.B, 2015. Suskiewicz, Łukasz. Egri Bikaver. Szczecin-Bezrzecze: Forma, 2009. Ślipko, Łukasz. Pokój z widokiem na Dunnes Stores. Opole: Wydawnictwo RB, 2011. Świstow, Klaudyna. “Rodzicielstwo wirtualne. Duchowa adopcja jako nowa forma Rodzicielstwa.” In Pożegnanie z Matka ̨ Polką? edited by Renata E. Hryciuk and Elżbieta Korolczuk, 309–330. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012. Titkow Anna. “Figura Matki Polki. Próba demitologizacji.” In Poz˙egnanie z Matka ̨ Polka ̨? edited by Renata E.  Hryciuk and Elżbieta Korolczuk, 27–48. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012. Wa ̨sowicz, Jacek. 100 Kijów w mrowisko. Warszawa: Grupa M-D-M, 2013. White, Anne. “Polish Society Abroad.” In The Impact of Migration on Poland, edited by Anne White, Izabela Grabowska, Paweł Kaczmarczyk, Krystyna Slany,186–212. London: UCL Press, 2018. Wyszowski, Michał. Na lewej stronie świata, Warszawa: MG, 2010.

CHAPTER 10

Poles Among Others: Literary Perspectives on Polish Migrants in Britain Since 2004 Dirk Uffelmann

From the Perspective of Another Foreigner(ski)  “Kā jau ı ̄stā britu stroikā manas pol ̧u valodas zināšanas pieauga proporcionāli ieman ̧ām apieties ar instrumentiem—Lema un Kopernika tautieši te bija pārstāvēti biezā slānı ̄.”1 In the English version from 2019: “My Polish vocabulary grew exponentially alongside the skills I acquired. Countrymen of Stanislaw Lem and Nicolaus Copernicus comprised an ethnic majority on our [construction] site […].”2 This is the predominant impression of present-­day London from the migrant perspective of the Latvian first-­person narrator of Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns’s (alias Vilis Lācı ̄tis) migrant novel Stroika ar skatu uz Londonu, which saw an English-language remake under the pseudonym of William B. Foreignerski and the English title Stroika with a London View.  Vilis Lācı ̄tis [Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns,], Stroika ar skatu uz Londonu (Riga: Mansards, 2010), 74–5. 2  William B. Foreignerski [Vilis Lācı ̄tis/Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns], Stroika with a London View (London et al.: Austin Macauley, 2019), 79. 1

D. Uffelmann (*) Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_10

209

210 

D. UFFELMANN

The Latvian narrator is “with Janusz and our multinational gang of chippies,”3 all of them being part of the “Eastern European colony”4 in London. We learn from Foreignerski that under certain circumstances labour migrants manage to impose their language on other subalterns, thus partially relinquishing their own subaltern position and acquiring a kind of sub-hegemony in the socio-cultural hierarchy of global-workmigrant London. While Foreignerski’s unskilled Latvian construction worker cannot ignore the Poles in London and must even learn Polish rather than English to get along at his workplace, from the Polish perspective the presence of other migrants can well be overlooked, if we are to believe a non-fiction book by Polish migrant Jarek Sępek, W 80 dni dookoła s w ́ iata (nie wyjeżdżaja ̨c z Londynu) [Around the World in Eighty Days (not Leaving London)] from 2010: “Even if I had lived in London only for one year and was stuck in its “Polish” part to the ears (Polish newspapers, shops, beer, room- and workmates), I knew that this city was a melting pot of everything and everybody. Just so far I had observed this obliquely through the window, as if I watched it on TV.”5

Observing something through a window precludes direct contact, meaning a co-presence without interaction. But Sępek decides to mingle and have a closer look: “Here was everything […] I saw the whole mixture of cultures, races, and languages.”6 How can we make the diametrical perspectives of Foreignerski and Sępek speak to each other? Do they, taken together, suggest that while other migrants perceive Polish migrants in London as dominant, Poles don’t interact with others?

3  Foreignerski, Stroika with a London View, 80. Missing in the Latvian version. While the English edition of Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns’s novel stresses multinationalism in London and criticism of Britons, the Latvian original is much more focused upon internal post-Soviet relations. Roughly speaking: where the Latvian edition speaks about Latvians, in the English version the Poles are the subject. I will therefore further refer to Foreignerski, meaning the English edition of Rugȩ̄ ns’s novel. 4  Foreignerski, Stroika with a London View, 16. “austrumeiropiešu kolonij[a].” Lācı ̄tis 2010, 13. 5  Jarek Sępek, W 80 dni dookoła świata (nie wyjez˙dz˙ aja ̨c z Londynu) (Warsaw: Carta Blanca, 2010), 7. All translations from the original Polish are the author’s own. 6  Sępek, W 80 dni, 8.

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

211

“Re-East-Europeanizing” the Decolonial Option: On Theory Similarly to the way in which Sępek admits the presence of other migrants but denies the presence of real interaction, both literary and academic perspectives on the lives of migrants in their host countries readily acknowledge topoi of the multi-ethnic melting pot London, but tend to depict intercultural relations as bicultural, in this case Polish-British,7 which is at odds with the multi-ethnic reality of Britain’s industrial cities, let alone present-day London, where the postcommunist immigration from Eastern Europe adds to the various postcolonial migration inflows from the British Commonwealth, making the city “super-diverse.”8 In London’s low-paid sector, as we learn from Foreignerski’s formula of the “multinational gang of chippies,” the default constellation of inter-ethnic encounters is not British vs. migrant, but migrant vs. different migrant. These types of third-place encounters among representatives of various waves of immigration have received little attention in sociological research apart from scattered empirical explorations, for instance by Bernadetta Siara, Michał Garapich, Łukasz Krzyżowski, or Anne White, and from Magdalena Nowicka’s continuous research.9 On the one hand, Nowicka diagnosed 7  See Miriam Finkelstein, “‘Ein Pole zu sein, ist schon ein Beruf.’ Repräsentationen polnischer MigrantInnen in der deutsch- und englischsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur,” in Migrantenliteratur im Wandel / Literatura migracyjna w procesie. Junge Prosa mit (nicht nur) polnischen Wurzeln in Deutschland und Europa / Młoda proza (nie tylko) polskiego pochodzenia w Niemczech i w Europie, ed. Brigitta Helbig-Mischewski and Małgorzata Zduniak-Wiktorowicz (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2016), 174–5. 8  Steven Vertovec, “Super-Diversity and Its Implications,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, no. 6 (2007): 1024–54, here 1030. 9  Bernadetta Siara, “UK Poles and the Negotiation of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Cyberspace,” in Polish Migration to the UK in the ‘New’ European Union, ed. Kathy Burrell (Farnham, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 167.87, here 175; Michał P. Garapich, “Chłopi i żołnierze, budowlańcy i pijacy. Dominuja ̨cy dyskurs migracyjny, jego kontestacje oraz konsekwencje dla konstruowania polskiej grupy etnicznej w wielokulturowym Londynie,” in Drogi i rozdroża. Migracje Polaków w Unii Europejskiej po 1 maja 2004 roku. Analiza psychologiczno-­socjologiczna, ed. Halina Grzymała-Moszczyńska, Anna Kwiatkowska, and Joanna Roszak (Cracow: Nomos, 2010), 35–54; Magdalena Nowicka and Łukasz Krzyżowski, “The Social Distance of Poles to Other Minorities: A Study of Four Cities in Germany and Britain,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43, no. 3 (2017): 359–78; Anne White, Polish Families and Migration since EU Accession (Bristol, Chicago, IL: Policy Press, 2017); Magdalena Nowicka, “Transcultural Encounters of Diversity—towards a Research Agenda: The Case of Polish Presence in the UK,” MMG Working Paper 10–04 (2010): www.mmg.mpg.de/workingpapers, accessed April 13, 2019; Magdalena Nowicka, “‘I Don’t Mean to Sound Racist but…’ Transforming Racism in Transnational Europe,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 41, no. 5 (2018): 824–41.

212 

D. UFFELMANN

“racial rhetoric” between Polish and Pakistani pupils, which stimulates “a new definition of whiteness”10 and establishes “racial hierarchies” from White through Asian to Black.11 The Polish migrants develop them only in Britain, amalgamating British and Polish legacies of racism into a new hybrid.12 On the other hand, the results of a long-term study demonstrate that the attitudes of Polish migrants towards other minorities—be those ethnic, religious, or sexual—differ massively from city to city, for example between London and Berlin. The scholars’ conclusion goes as follows: “there is obviously no such thing as a genuinely Polish—ethnic or national— collective habitus that would manifest in unified social attitudes within the group of Polish immigrants.”13 This calls for more focused and individualized investigations of the relationship between Poles and other ethnics in West European countries, and that is exactly what literature and literary studies can best contribute to migration studies. The picture in literary and media studies is not much clearer, which might be partially due to the structure of the material. Joanna Rostek diagnosed a mono-ethnic reductionism in the TV series Londyńczycy [Londoners], in which the solidarity in the “all-Polish team” is so overemphasized that it provokes the “accusation that Poles lock themselves in Polish-speaking ghettos,” downplaying any kind of “Anglo-Polish cooperation,” let alone collaboration with other migrants.14 When literary scholars such as Alfred Gall in his pioneering 2011 article envisage the “internationality” of Polish migrant writing and when Joanna Kosmalska in 2016 speaks of a “transnational turn” in Polish literature from the British Isles, this is aimed more at the “correlation of national culture and confronted internationality,”15 that is, at the Polish–British or Polish–Irish binary and its transnational communicative and economic infrastructures, than at interactions with other  Nowicka, “Transcultural Encounters,” 20.  Nowicka, “I Don’t Mean to Sound Racist,” 830–1. 12   Nowicka, “I Don’t Mean to Sound Racist,” 836; White, Polish Families and Migration, 141–9. 13  Nowicka and Krzyżowski, “The Social Distance of Poles,” 372. 14  Joanna Rostek, “Living the British Dream: Polish Migration to the UK as Depicted in the TV Series Londyńczycy (2008–2010),” in Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK, ed. Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann (Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2011), 245–75, here 255. 15   Alfred Gall, “Migration and Global Society: The Issue of Internationality in Contemporary Polish Literature,” in Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK, ed. Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann (Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2011), 177–99, here 183. 10 11

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

213

groups of migrants in Britain which are entirely unfamiliar to Poles when they go abroad (Kosmalska 2016, 179).16 In the case of Iwona SłabuszewskaKrauze’s Hotel Irlandia [Hotel Ireland] (2006), Gall, however, detects that when encountering “immigrants coming from all over the world,” the fictitious heroine Oliwia “associates herself—and her fellow countrymen— with Asianness.”17 Thus, Mieczysław Da ̨browski’s claim of “a signal of the new situation of perception of Allochthones” sounds rather normative, given the scholar’s own finding that Polish literature from America is mostly about Poles, while only a few texts authored by Polish migrants, such as Krzysztof Niewrzęda’s Czas przeprowadzki [Time of Relocation] from 2005, can serve as counter-examples of metropolitan heterogeneity.18 Even Nora Plesske and Joanna Rostek, who read recent Polish literature about London against the backdrop of older postcolonial London texts, with regard to Justyna Ociepa’s story “Niezguła” [“The Boob”] from 2007 and the rather wraithlike encounters among representatives of different ethnic groups, point solely to the fairy-tale-like rendezvous of a 56-year-­ old female Polish migrant with a “deus-ex-Tube,” an Oriental polygamic “prince Al-Lucia, a famous clairvoyant, hypnotizer and medium.”19 While initial signs of the “perception of Allochthones” may emerge, what is missing in the existing research is the scrutinization of trilateral interactions. This comes as a surprise since one of the main virtues of literature (especially of prose and drama) is obviously staging and narrating interactions. One might argue that literary studies naturally call for an interactionist glance at tri- or multi-ethnic relations. When it comes to the theoretical framing, a pioneering role can be attributed to Nataša Kovačević’s postulate of integrative “EU literary studies.” For Kovačević, this novel field—among other focalizations—has to comprise the 16  Joanna Kosmalska, “Twórczość Polaków na Wyspach Brytyjskich. Transnarodowy zwrot w polskiej literaturze,” Teksty drugie 3 (2016): 165-86, here 179. 17  Gall, “Migration and Global Society,” 188. 18  Mieczysław Da ̨browski, Tekst międzykulturowy. O przemianach literatury emigracyjnej (Warsaw: Elipsa, 2016), 235–7, 261. 19  Nora Plesske and Joanna Rostek, “Rubble or Resurrection: Contextualizing London Literature by Polish Migrants to the UK,” The Literary London Journal 10, no. 2 (2013): 7, 35; Justyna Ociepa, “Niezguła,” in Na końcu świata napisane. Autoportret współczesnej polskiej emigracji. Konkurs Literacki Polish Books, Londyn 2007, ed. Polish Books UK (Chorzów: Videograf, 2007), 220–30, here 229.

214 

D. UFFELMANN

“postcolonial and postcommunist contact zones in a united Europe,”20 be this in Eastern Europe or in the continent’s West, where they assume the form of third-country interactions of migrants from postcolonial (Third World) and postcommunist (Second World) countries. While in 2007 Mita Banerjee, drawing on Hanif Kureishi and Salman Rushdie, pessimistically registered that “there is no sense of a shared history or historical kinship between the ex-colonial and the postcommunist,” Kovačević provides a productive interpretation of Guyanese migrant author Mike (Michael Angus) Phillips’s novel A Shadow of Myself (2000), backed by a glance at the play Let There Be Love (2010) by black Briton Kwame Kwei-Armah, and also touches upon the interactions between Poles and African and Asian migrants.21 Without reference to Kovačević’s 2018 study, Vedrana Veličković, in her 2019 book Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture, deepens the reading of Kwei-Armah’s play as a “clear attempt […] to explore points of connection and understanding between ‘old’ and ‘new’ migrants beyond tired representations.”22 Put more generally, the multi-ethnic reality of global economic migration calls for a global perspective on the post- and neo-colonial inequalities in the world as advocated by Madina Tlostanova and Walter Mignolo in their plea for a decolonial option.23 Tlostanova and Mignolo’s concept deliberately departed both from classical postcolonialism and from the recent research trend of postcolonial Eastern European studies to embrace a global anti-capitalist outlook on what they see as the “same universe” of “global coloniality” with its ever-same logic and “colonial matrix of power” that is exerted by “the West.”24 In contrast with this universalist approach, Foreignerski’s special interest in inner-East-European interactions in 20  Nataša Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 6, 158. 21  Mita Banerjee, “Postethnicity and Postcommunism in Hanif Kureishi’s Gabriel’s Gift and Salman Rushdie’s Fury,” Reconstructing Hybridity: Post-Colonial Studies in Transition, ed. Joel Kuortti and Jopi Nyman (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2007), 309–24, here 315; Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances, 161–2. See also Kwame Kwei-Armah, Plays: 1 Elmina’s Kitchen—Fix Up-Statement of Regret—Let There Be Love (London: Methuen Drama, 2009). 22  Vedrana Veličković, Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan¸ 2019), 142. 23  Madina Tlostanova and Walter Mignolo, Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflection from Eurasia and the Americas (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2012). 24  Tlostanova and Mignola, Learning to Unlearn, 2, 6–7, 33–4.

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

215

London compels me to call for reinstating also—among others—the “internal colonial difference” within Eastern Europe, hastily put aside by Tlostanova and Mignolo, and in its diasporic “Eastern European colony” and argue for “re-Eastern-Europeanizing” decolonial criticism while preserving its propensity for exploring global entanglements.25 My basic assumption is that Eastern Europeans are neither victims of the “colonial matrix” of “the West” all in the same way, nor do they form a homogeneous group as acknowledged by Kovačević, who considers “Eastern European countries ‘inter-imperial zones’ where national histories were shaped by multiple imperial legacies.”26 She, however, does not zoom in on this due to her focus on postcommunist-postcolonial (Second and Third World) encounters in Europe. As sound and necessary as it is to scrutinize postcolonial-postcommunist encounters, the inner-Eastern-­ European interactions in global migrant cities such as London should not be overlooked either. I venture that Lācı ̄tis-Foreignerski’s narrative of constant confrontation of Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and others in London can serve as a guideline for investigating other migrant texts: What mutual post-imperial and Orientalist attitudes do Eastern Europeans apply against other Eastern Europeans and how do multi-ethnic work teams develop modes of tolerating or even solidarizing with each other? It is from this angle that this chapter endeavours to provide a comparative reading of writings by Polish migrant authors about interactions with other migrants in Britain and other migrant writers’ perceptions of Poles. The corpus consists of post-accession texts published after the accession of Eastern, Central Eastern, and Southeastern European countries to the EU in May 2004 and includes, among others, books by A.M. Bakalar, Gosia Brzezińska, Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Daniel Koziarski, Adam Miklasz, Jarek Sępek, and Daniel Zuchowski, on the one hand, and Marina Lewycka and Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns alias Vilis Lācı ̄tis alias William B. Foreignerski, on the other. Given that the authors in question draw on diverse—Polish, British, Ukrainian, Latvian, and other Eastern European—traditions of cultural and/or economic Othering, this chapter scrutinizes both the mutual Orientalizing tendencies and the transnationalizing trajectories involved.  Tlostanova and Mignola, Learning to Unlearn, 3.  Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances, 19.

25 26

216 

D. UFFELMANN

From Initial Animosities to Practical Solidarity Both Vilis Lācı ̄tis and William B. Foreignerski are pseudonyms of the former rock musician (with the Pupociklu-vasara band) and enfant terrible of contemporary Latvian literature, Aleksandrs Rugȩ̄ ns. While the former pseudonym, which literally means “little bear,” alludes to Vilis Lācis, an infamous Stalinist writer and politician, the latter plays with the migrant experience of being perceived as a foreigner from the East, underlined by the ignorant hetero-stereotype about the Slavic ending “ski”—an ironic, self-foreignizing, and self-Orientalizing twist. When translating his prize-­ winning Latvian debut novel from 2010 into English for London-based publisher Austin Macauley, Rugȩ̄ ns practically rewrote the entire book, reducing the inner-(post-)Soviet historical polemics, which he apparently regarded as indigestible for the British audience, and strengthened the Polish dimension, which he obviously perceived as more familiar to the prospective British reader. Given the Latvian first-person narrator’s prism, the Poles in Foreignerski’s London are, however, never on their own. They appear in interaction, initially mostly in dialogues and recalled conflicts. On the construction sites depicted by Foreignerski, Poles are in command and have the power to abuse others. The English version of the novel switches to Polish for the swearing: “‘Wilhelm, jestes ́ dupa nie budowlaniec’ [Wilhelm, you are an ass, not a builder], he declared after the first couple of hours I spent under his leadership.”27 The narrator continues with generalizing his diagnosis about his Polish foreman: “He emanated swearing as the sun radiates light, enriching the day with such linguistic pearls as ‘bloody kurwa fuck’ and ‘builder’s dupa.’”28 The hetero-stereotype of swearing Poles compels the other Eastern European migrants to epitomize Janusz as “Mr Kurwa” [Mr Bitch].29 The narrator continues the Othering: Janusz […] was a Pole with a strong love of beer, football, and small, skinny women. If a nice-looking female passed our site he would wolf-whistle in excitement. 27  Foreignerski, Stroika, 80. “Tu esi absolūts nejēga, Vil ̧is,—Janušs man pazin ̧oja pēc pirmajām pāris stundām, ko biju nostrādājis vin ̧a vadı ̄bā.” Lācı ̄tis 2010, 75. In the English version Foreignerski applies a peculiar foreignizing translation—from Latvian into Polish. Thanks to Maija Burima for her help with comparing the different language versions of the novel. 28  Foreignerski, Stroika, 80. 29  Foreignerski, Stroika, 78. “uzvārdā Kurwa.” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 74.

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

217

For a man pushing his sixties, his sexual drive was enviable. At the same time, the level of his sensitivity towards the feelings of others was so low […].30

Then the inner-East-European comparison comes into play. The migrants from post-Soviet countries warn others of the Poles in contrast to Russian-speaking migrants: Mate, I’m totally fine with the Russian lingo anywhere in the world because all our folks—well, our ex-folks, from the Soviet-influenced territories—you know what I mean—they all speak Russian. Lithuanians, Ukrainians… never deal with the Poles, though. They’re cunts. They steal our jobs, working for even less money than we do.31

While, according to Foreignerski, the latter allegation can hardly be substantiated, it is neither intercultural skills nor competence that motivates hierarchy on London’s construction sites: “I know a Polish dude who, during nine and a half years in London, only learned two phrases in English— actually, I suspect he thinks these are two words—disvan (this one) and katit (cut it).”32 Neither the Poles nor the other Eastern European construction workers have learned their jobs, consistently lying about their qualifications in job interviews. What counts is, on the one hand, a worker’s time of arrival to Britain and, on the other, the prevalence of those sharing their ethnicity. According to Foreignerski, quantity changes the quality: Poles form the biggest group among construction workers in London and therefore Polish functions as sub-hegemonic lingua franca. Once the Latvian protagonist Vilis acquires basic “construction Polish,” he and his foreman Janusz interact with relative solidarity in private.33

30  Foreignerski, Stroika, 79. “[...] bija polis ar vājı ̄bu uz alu, futbolu un mazām kaulainām sievietēm. Ja garām mūsu saitam gāja kāda ı ̄paši slaida dāma, vin ̧š mēdza izdot sajūsminātu svilpienu. Priekš vı ̄ra, kam jau teju sešdesmit, vin ̧a seksuālais draivs bija apskaužams. Tajā pašā laikā vin ̧a smalkjūtı ̄bas lı ̄menis bija tik zems […]” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 75. 31  Foreignerski, Stroika, 17. “Vecı ̄t, man ar krievu valodu pietiek visur pasaulē, jo visi mūsējie—tas ir, es domāju, bijušie mūsējie, nu, tu zini, ko es domāju,—runā krieviski. Leiši, ukrain ̧i… Galvenais, nejaucies ar pol ̧iem. Tie ir baigie maitas, vin ̧i nocel ̧ mūsējiem darbu.” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 13–14. 32  Foreignerski, Stroika, 71. “Man pazı ̄stams polis pa devin ̧arpus gadiem Londonā iemācı ̄jies tikai divas frāzes, ko, manuprāt, vin ̧š uzskata par veseliem vārdiem: ‘disvan’ (this one) un ‘katit’ (cut it).” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 67–68. 33  Foreignerski, Stroika, 80–1.

218 

D. UFFELMANN

Foreignerski spreads observations about common features of Eastern European migrants throughout his novel: both the Poles and the post-­ Soviet work migrants share unrealized aspirations for intellectual jobs— Vilis for being a musician,34 the Pole Greg for working as a medical doctor, and young Janusz once had a promising start as a chess player.35 In Britain, their main joint deficit is poor English.36 Here Foreignerski applies standard formulae of analogy: “Neither I nor the Polish gang of dry-liners and plasterers were able to meet their [the Englishmen’s] work standards.”37 And: “Both I and the Polish guys were very well aware that we were being exploited big time.”38 Thus, Foreignerski draws a rather ambiguous picture of inter-ethnic encounters, oscillating between delineation of particular cultural background and solidarity. In his multi-ethnic London the latter also includes extra-European migrants such as the Pakistani girl Rahima (for sexual desire as a way of coping with superdiversity, see below).39 Foreignerski’s literary representation of the multi-ethnic communities on London’s construction sites is multilingual macaronisms. Indians and Eastern Europeans use the same macaronic term for each other: “Eastern Europeans call Indians Babay, or Babaychik, which means little Babay. Many Indians actually like the sound of the word and teasingly apply it to the Eastern Europeans themselves.”40 Wordplay and irony, we thus learn from this, make national and even linguistic differences both obsolete and interchangeable. How does this look in terms of intra-Slavic interactions in Britain? Sheffield-based writer Marina Lewycka, born into a family of displaced Ukrainians in Kiel in 1946, inserted Polish elements into her novel about work migration to Britain entitled Two Caravans, published by Fig Tree in March 2007. This rather unsophisticated and clumsily written book, which,  Foreignerski, Stroika, 9; Lācı ̄tis, Stoika, 7.  Foreignerski, Stroika, 81; missing in the Latvian version. 36  Foreignerski, Stroika, 36–7. 37  Foreignerski, Stroika, 32, emphasis D.U. “Ne man, ne pol ̧u brigādei, kas lika rigipsi un ̧ apmeta sienas, nekad nesanāca tik labi kā vin ̧am [angl ̧u jauneklim].” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 29, emphasis D.U. 38  Foreignerski, Stroika, 32, emphasis D.U. “Gan es, gan pol ̧i labi apzinājāmies, ka mūs jāj […].” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 29, emphasis D.U. 39  Foreignerski, Stroika, 82–5; Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 77–9. 40  Foreignerski, Stroika, 25. “Austrumeiropieši sauc indiešus par babajiem. Daudziem indiešiem patı ̄k šı ̄ vārda skan ̧a, un vin ̧i to zobgalı ̄gi attiecina uz pašiem austrumeiropiešiem.” Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 21. The phrase “or Babaychik, which means little Babay” is missing in the Latvian version. 34 35

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

219

however, applies a convincing proletarian idiom, continues a line of female self-exoticization from Lewycka’s 2005 bestselling debut novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. The two eponymous caravans are the nomadic home to strawberry pickers who experience a precarious employment status on a farm in England’s South Downs.41 One accommodates the female work migrants, the other one the male pickers. Lewycka begins with a constellation of work hierarchy comparable to Foreignerski’s, here in the “female caravan,” which the Polish strawberry pickers Yola and Marta share with two “Chinese” girls: Yola, as the supervisor, is a person of status, and although petite she is generously proportioned, so naturally she has a single bunk to herself. Marta, her niece, has the other single bunk. The two Chinese girls—Yola can never get the hang of their names—share the fold-out double bed, which, when extended, takes up the whole floor space.42

Yola’s dominant position within the group is supported by three social strategies: she occasionally prostitutes herself to the farmer; she is Marta’s “Ciocia” [aunt]; and she draws on a local migrant network stemming from her Polish home town of Zdrój. Her claims to be the “gang-mistress and the supervisor” of the entire group,43 however, meet with resistance from other migrants, especially from the newly arrived Ukrainian Irina: Yola, the Polish supervisor, who is a coarse and uneducated person with an elevated view of her own importance, said some harsh words about Ukrainians for which she has yet to apologise.44

Irina deconstructs Yola’s Polish hubris with counterfactual statements (“brief occupation”) about Polish-Ukrainian entangled imperial history: Not that she [Yola] has anything against Ukrainians, but it is her belief that the high point of Ukrainian civilisation was its brief occupation by Poland, though the civilising effects were clearly quite short-lived and superficial.45

 Veličković, Eastern Europeans, 95, 97.  Marina Lewycka, Two Caravans (London: Fig Tree, 2007), 2. 43  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 25, 26, 28, 37; Finkelstein, “‘Ein Pole,’” cf. 177. 44  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 18–9. 45  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 27. 41 42

220 

D. UFFELMANN

While the women engage in latent, but serious conflict, the male pair, consisting of the Ukrainian Andriy and the Pole Tomasz, serve as their farcical mirror. Both sides of the male pair are ironicized in the novel, Andriy with mistakes in his English (“homosexualisation”46), Tomasz with a certain social essentialization of Polish primitiveness: “[…] Tomasz’s trainers are another insult—their stink fills the caravan.”47 He has also stolen Yola’s underpants and keeps the sexual fetish object under his mattress.48 Lewycka’s narrative device for depicting the conflict between the women is the subsequent confrontation of competing perspectives on the same interaction: a personalized third-person narrative from Yola’s point of view and Irina’s first-person narrative, delineated from each other by asterisks, often directly opposed on the page.49 This rather mechanical implementation of Bakhtinian exteriority of the author beyond the two women’s “dialogical” perspectivity creates distance to their mutual intercultural othering. What is more, the women’s dialogue is part of an inter-­racial and interspecies polylog, voicing also the Malawian picker Emanuel and a dog, an exaggerated form of political correctness that undermines its own august intentions.50 Living in two caravans in the nowhere of the South Downs, the farm workers prepare their dinners together according to traditional gender order; the women’s cooking is facilitated by Tomasz’s hunting haul. The community becomes idyllic during the times when they are dining together. Lewycka uses relatively gentle and courteous expressions of iso-­ ethnic (Polish-Polish and Ukrainian-Ukrainian) love desires in the group.51 In stark contrast to this intra-group harmony, danger and violence are inflicted by outsiders whose intrusion is narrated in a sort of pulp fiction. The danger comes not so much from the British (from the farmer n ­ icknamed “Dumpling” and his jealous blonde “Angliska rosa”), but from another Eastern European migrant, the human trafficker and attempted rapist Vulk, who starts a veritable hunt for 19-year-old Irina. Irina’s early normative claim, “Soon, we were all firm friends,” manifests against the backdrop of the external dangers, but unfortunately without herself included since she is separated from the group when fleeing from  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 11.  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 11. 48  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 11–3. 49  For example, Lewycka, Two Caravans, 29. 50  See Lewycka, Two Caravans, 172–7. 51  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 40–41. 46 47

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

221

Vulk.52 The others flee, too, but in fear of the police, spending their first improvised but fully harmonious night all together in a Land Rover.53 While hoping to embark on a ferry from Dover, they draw closer and closer emotionally, spending the nights squashed in the Land Rover: “I will always remember this night, thinks Marta. Friendship like this is a gift from God.”54 Tomasz explains their multi-ethnic community to a shopkeeper: ‘You are right, madam.’ Tomasz smiles ingratiatingly. ‘We have come from all the corners of the world—Poland, Ukraine, Africa, China.’ […] ‘And Malaysia,’ adds Chinese Girl Two.55

After the spatially confined Chap. 2, the novel’s narrative disperses, and the inter-ethnic constellations become first pan-Slavic and then superdiverse.56 The only group that remains marginal in Lewycka’s narrative is the Brits; Lewycka’s Britain of labour migrants gets along almost without Britons. Though looking for work in different directions, the group from the two caravans reunites again (still without Irina). This time Lewycka even conceives a communitarian family romance between the hitherto-arrogant Yola and not-so-stinky-anymore Tomasz.57 The iso-ethnic (Polish-Polish) nature of love affairs marks the ultimate end of Lewycka’s imagination of inter-ethnic harmony. But when Yola is fired from a chicken factory by her new Romanian boss58 and the three Poles Yola, Marta, and Tomasz depart to their home town Zdrój, the Ukrainians remember them warmly. Andriy even acutely misses them.59 Both Lewycka’s and Foreignerski’s narratives tend towards ambiguity which they subsequently insert in a first-hand impression of Polish domination, mitigating the initial conflict constellation with practiced inter-­ethnic communities. This comes close to Miriam Finkelstein’s findings from her study of depictions of Polish migrants in contemporary German- and English-language literature: “On the one hand, the mutual relations  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 19.  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 59. 54  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 89. 55  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 73. 56  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 100, 126–7. 57  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 155–6. 58  See Finkelstein, “‘Ein Pole,’” 178. 59  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 209, 286. 52 53

222 

D. UFFELMANN

between these migrants are shaped by fierce competition; on the other hand, they also comprise a strong impulse of solidarity or even utopia.”60 In Foreignerski and Lewycka the reason for the latent conflict is hierarchy due to longer history of experience with unskilled work and, as Foreignerski stresses, the sheer number of Poles present in the UK after 2004. What unites the various Eastern European migrants is their joint experience of accidental proletarian habits that are sometimes socially essentialized (Lewycka’s Tomasz and Yola), sometimes induced by the labour migrant situation, which comprises employment below one’s qualifications.61 The ethical progress from initial confrontation to solidarity is stronger in Lewycka than in Foreignerski, but both novels substantiate Kovačević’s postulate that a “growing mixed-race population harbours possibilities for affinity between groups.”62

Intercultural Clashes Among the first writers after Poland’s accession to the EU to pick up on inter-migrant conflicts in London from the Polish side was Daniel Koziarski,63 who is not a migrant writer in the narrow sense, since the Gdansk-based lawyer himself spent only a short period of time in London. His topical novel Socjopata w Londynie [The Sociopath in London] (2007), however, scrutinizes Polish post-accession migration meticulously. It is the second part of a trilogy (2007–2010), whose first and third parts are set in Poland. Koziarski has managed to make himself notorious on the Polish book market as a provocateur by appropriating foreign modes of writing.64 In the  Finkelstein, “‘Ein Pole,’” 171.  Paulina Trevena, “A Question of Class? Polish Graduates Working in Low-Skilled Jobs in London,” Studia Migracyjne—Przegla ̨d Polonijny 1 (2011): 71–96; Dirk Uffelmann, “Self-Proletarianization in Prose by Polish Migrants to Germany, Ireland and the UK,” Teksty Drugie English edition 1 (2018): 187–207. 62  Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances, 184. 63  I owe thanks to Joanna Kosmalska for her consultation and logistical help with accessing relevant Polish primary texts that proved difficult to obtain in Germany. 64  Koziarski exculpates himself from the primitive discourses and aesthetics which can be found in his fictional works by explaining that he has continuously applied satirical approaches in his writing about protagonists difficult to digest for the reader (see Daniel Koziarski and Krzysztof Maciejewski, [Interview] “Wierzę w inteligencję czytelników.” Artofreading.pl, July 6, 2017). Nevertheless, some critical statements from the inner monologue of the protagonist about multiculturality (against the backdrop of the terror attack of July 7, 2005; Koziarski 2007, 177) sound rather straightforward. See Daniel Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie (Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka, 2007), 177. 60 61

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

223

case of the 2007 book, the title already signals distance between the implied author and his protagonist, Tomasz Płachta, a Molière-style character with just one dominant personal feature, that of a misanthrope always looking for a fight. His Catholic traditionalism, his patriarchal way of thinking, and a rare kind of inborn offensiveness prevent him from showing solidarity with other generations of the Polish emigration and with those who possess alternative sexual identities or disability, but especially from empathizing with the fate of other migrants.65 The novel starts with what appears to be the overwhelming impression of a newcomer to London—the city’s ubiquitous multi-ethnic encounters. The narrative jumps into the protagonist’s inner racist monologue about his first employer in London, Amden “(as it eventually turned out a Pakistani, not a Libyan, but that’s the same sort in the end),”66 about the Cameroonian Adu, in whose country of origin the Pole “for obvious reasons” shows not the slightest interest, and about Albanian criminal solidarity in London.67 Later Płachta repeatedly irritates his Chinese employer with racist remarks about the allegedly uniform appearance of all Chinese and gets fired from his second job in a multiethnic business.68 The racist confrontations culminate in Płachta’s clash with a black neighbour: ‘Get out of here! [...] Where have you come from – from Poland? Why have we opened up this border to Eastern Europe? So that we get flooded with uncultivated shit?’ she fretted.‘Look who’s talking? [...] At least I’m on my own continent, unlike you.’69

The brief affair with a Bolivian traveller named Silviana, which unexpectedly does not immediately fail because of Tomasz’s racism, ends over the “medical Orientalization” of the Latin American woman as a possible transmitter of AIDS.70 65  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 53–55; cf. Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann, “Can the Polish Migrant Speak? The Representation of ‘Subaltern’ Polish Migrants in Film, Literature and Music from Britain and Poland,” in Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, ed. Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 311–34, here 327. 66  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 7. In the protagonist’s inner monologue, the racist thoughts come encapsulated in brackets, which points at rather elaborated literary skills. 67  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 9, 13. 68  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 27, 30, 70–1. 69  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 48. 70  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 235, 242.

224 

D. UFFELMANN

Tomasz Płachta’s Pavlovian critique of everything and everybody does not spare fellow Polish migrants with their “emigrational anti-solidarity,” but the “sociopath” clearly constitutes the most appalling case of anti-­ solidarity himself.71 Thus, to a high degree, Koziarski’s eponymous sociopath seems aimed at representativeness, as a referential claim about an alleged socio-pathological nature of the recent Polish migration to London in general. Koziarski’s unbearable character appears as the perfect fictional illustration of what Nataša Kovačević diagnosed: “[…] postcommunist Europeans employ discriminatory discourses not only against internally ‘uncivilised’ others, but also against non-European migrants […].”72 In multicultural London this eventually leads to both social and economic failure: the ‘sociopath’ returns to Poland.73 The protagonist’s plans for writing a screenplay about inimical multi-ethnicity (which should depict Poles, Germans, Spanish, Brazilians, and Columbians as “anti-friends”) remain unfinished.74 Adam Miklasz’s Polska szkoła boksu [Polish Boxing School] (2009) ends with a return to Poland as well, even if the members of the group of Polish male work migrants from the Białystok region to Buckby in Northern England are much more prepared to reconsider their intercultural stereotyping of other migrants. In the beginning Miklasz unfolds the abundant glossary of playful derogatory words that his Polish migrant heroes apply to almost every possible culture in the world.75 Initially they find common language only with fellow East Central European Slavs with whom the first-person narrator identifies, paradoxically combining Hitler’s concept of “race” and Polish vulgar language: “Surprising implementation of the dreams of 19th-century Panslavists: ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’ unite the Slavic peoples.”76 The extension of post-Panslavic solidarity towards a twenty-­ first-­ century Sokol sport movement of four teams, “Poland, Turkey, Albania, and Slovakia,” however, turns out to be an illusion when a gang of Albanian criminals led by a man named Mustafa, who control Buckby, start an open feud with the Poles.77  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 13.  Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances, 160. 73  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 274. 74  Koziarski, Socjopata w Londynie, 171. 75  Adam Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu. Powieśc ́ emigracyjna (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Skrzat, 2009), 45–6. 76  Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu, 25, 45. 77  Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu, 156, 240. 71 72

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

225

In contrast to this abhorrent feud, the racist tensions between Africans and Poles working together in a chemical factory can be overcome with the help of humour and solidarity over the shared problem of insufficient proficiency in English.78 The African Roger successfully applies Signifying in the sense of Henry Louis Gates Jr. when redirecting Boruta’s racist Orientalization and bestialization against the Pole: “[…] Roger, when he heard the hail of abuse at his address, erupted against Boruta in pure Polish, with an only weakly hidden smile: ‘fuck off to the jungle, black ape!’”79 Given this creative appropriation of Polish hate speech, in the confrontation with the Albanians the “Blacks” even appear as possible allies to be exempted from Polish racism: “‘We chased the sons of bitches together with the bamboos. Fuck, the Blacks can fight, some of the fucking Albanians have already been smacked in the puss.’”80 But despite this occasional Polish–African alliance and even if the more than 200 Polish work migrants in Buckby organize joint resistance and beat up Mustafa, and the protagonist’s hope to build up a Polish–English relationship and stay in Buckby, the Albanians’ counterattack leaves the Slavic group with no choice but to evacuate themselves.81 Both Koziarski and Miklasz draw rather pessimistic pictures of the prospects of Polish presence in Britain, if for different reasons. While Miklasz’s rude, swearing Poles have a heart and learn to establish solidarity with Africans, Koziarski’s protagonist fails because of an inner blockade. In Miklasz’s case the hopes for integration and Polish–English alliances are destroyed by a sinister external force, the absolute evil of the Albanian mafia, which forms the blind spot in Miklasz’s attempts at overcoming ethnic stereotyping.

Cosmopolitan Short-Term Adventures The panorama drawn by Grzegorz Kopaczewski in 2004, the year of the accession, looks very different. Racism is notably absent in his fictionalized memoir Global Nation. Obrazki z czasów popkultury [Global Nation: Pictures  Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu, 177–82.  Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu, 183. 80  Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu, 310, 325. “Bambus” alludes to Julian Tuwim’s famous poem about the “little negro Bambo.” 81  Miklasz, Polska szkoła boksu, 284–285, 301, 305–6, 324–5; cf. Dirk Uffelmann, “Wrong Sex and the City: Polish Work Migration and Subaltern Masculinity,” in Polish Literature in Transformation, ed. Ursula Phillips, with assistance of Knut Andreas Grimstad and Kris Van Heuckelom (Munster: LIT, 2013), 69–92, here 82. 78 79

226 

D. UFFELMANN

from the Times of Pop Culture] with its programmatic English main title and the Polish subtitle reference to commercial globalization.82 The Polish firstperson narrator Daniel Berski hardly even hears of any ethnically or criminally motivated conflicts, just of one fistfight in a shop which has a South Asian manager, reported in passing, let alone witnesses any clashes himself.83 Fellow migrants form a community of like-minded youth instead: the first chapter introduces the reader to Daniel’s roommates in London’s Bayswater area, coming from Spain, Germany, France, and the US, while they jointly watch and comment on American TV series on Sunday mornings.84 Allusions to English-language TV programmes form a kind of epistemic guide for self-description: “All our London life was reminiscent rather of The Simpsons than Eastenders.”85 The novel mimics the convention of the sitcom. The influence of this genre coincides with Kopaczewski’s paratextual strategy: His chapter titles consist of quotes, most of them attributed to migrants from other countries, but some also taken from TV series or pop culture and in English, for example “POPeverything” or “Party, party, party, party all the time.”86 Entire dialogues are reproduced in English, even if the international cosmopolites hardly interact with any British people.87 Kopaczewski’s Daniel also indulges in global computer-mediated communication via email with his worldwide network of likeminded partying youth, partly in English, but mostly, even if the correspondents write from Denmark or Singapore, rendered in Polish without diacritics, as was customary in the early times of email communication.88 With his multinational peers in London, Daniel consumes international pop culture and the cheaper segments of global commerce (McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, GAP and H & M), mitigating this heyday of consumerism through delicate anti-capitalist allusions.89 To be able to do so, they perform occasional “mcjobs,” displaying hardly any identification either with the work or with their respective employers.90 In Kopaczewski, work is no 82  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation. Obrazki z czasów popkultury (Wołowiec: Czarne, 2004), 154. 83  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 97. 84  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 9. 85  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 15. 86  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 77, 177. 87  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 37–8, 73. 88  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 43–9. 89  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 53, 107, 369. 90  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 149.

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

227

reason for conflicts, just an inevitable means to be part of the London-­ based international community of young, flexible, unpretentious cosmopolites “[…] visiting London and pubs for backpackers—such a clubbing for the poor.”91 When he eventually finds a Canadian girlfriend, Fiona Fitzpatrick, Daniel Berski confesses programmatic hedonism: “I exercise the right to have a light and easy life.”92 Any expectations of a serious love story are disappointed; the novel “culminates” in an extended New Year tourist trip to New Zealand with Daniel’s American friend Brad.93 Even less interested in social and economic hardships is Daniel Zuchowski in his badly edited English-language collection of short stories The New Dubliners from 2014. The young male first-person narrator seems to have a Polish migrant background like the author, but this is not reflected in any deeper way; only with Damian’s story of seeking a job and being hired by Google in Dublin do we learn something about socio-­economics.94 The main attractor in the majority of Zuchowski’s debut short stories is onenight stands with pretty young women from various countries, bordering upon soft porn.95 Sometimes the female partners acquire just a name (Irune) and hardly any other features apart from the bodily, sometimes not even a name but just a country of origin: “Friday—Korean night, Saturday— Czech night, Sunday—Dominican night.”96 Emphasis is placed on the inter-racial dimension of the third instance of intercourse.97 A psychologically more complex plot of unplanned pregnancy and abortion as with the Czech girl Ester is the exception in this collection of short stories.98 As transpires from Zuchowski’s piece of erection-­ driven literature, sexual desire can serve as a short-sighted way of coping with superdiversity.99 Gosia Brzezińska’s Irlandzki koktajl [Irish Cocktail], released in October 2010, starts with a similar party setting as Kopaczewski, but in post-accession Dublin where the first-person narrator Kasia is celebrating the second anniversary of her arrival to Ireland on July 5, 2005.100 The party features  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 59.  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 181. 93  Grzegorz Kopaczewski, Global Nation, 277–353. 94  Daniel Zuchowski, The New Dubliners (Dublin: Literary Publishing, 2014), 161–90. 95  For instance, Zuchowski, The New Dubliners, 9–10. 96  Zuchowski, The New Dubliners, 10, 147. 97  Zuchowski, The New Dubliners, 149. 98  Zuchowski, The New Dubliners, 11–32. 99  See Banerjee, “Postethnicity and Postcommunism,” 315–6. 100  Gosia Brzezińska, Irlandzki koktajl (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Bliskie, 2010), 11. 91 92

228 

D. UFFELMANN

an international band, consisting of the “Scot John, the Irishman Pat and the recently joined percussionist Adam, a newcomer from Australia,” Kasia’s French roommate Henri, wild dancing girls, alcohol, marijuana, and the customary hangover on a lazy Sunday with tender Henri.101 From this jump in medias res the novel moves to the retrospective, a rather linear biographical narrative of Kasia’s first steps in Ireland, her finding a job, friends, an apartment, learning pole dancing, offering a more informative but always optimistic and cheerful picture of Polish work migration. Henri admires Kasia’s energy: “‘What a woman!’ Henri smiled at me. ‘Joie de vivre literally radiates from you.’”102 Torn between her Polish boyfriend Kuba, who stayed in Poland, and her Irish lover Eamon, Kasia can count on the solidarity of her Irish and British female friends, a “group therapy” which, however, much like in Kopaczewski, materializes in unsophisticated consumerism.103 The ultimate transnationalization of Kasia’s future, conceived by Eamon, who proposes that they spend a year together in Australia, however, remains unfulfilled; after her grandmother’s death, Kasia returns to Warsaw, trying to preserve a long-­distance relationship with her Polish boyfriend.104

Identificatory Alliances As we can see especially from Zuchowski, but partially also from Kopaczewski and Brzezińska, the openness to inter-ethnic encounters is to a certain degree ethically contaminated by sexual adventurism. This appears also in Foreignerski’s Latvian first-person narrator and other Eastern European migrants in their desire for the Pakistani girl Rahima, which deems other forms of interaction with her utilitarian.105 In Miklasz, the African-Polish solidarity is induced by the joint threat from the Albanian mafia and thus to a substantial degree instrumental as well, while tender feelings are reserved for a British girl. Strictly non-sexual alliances are rare in the corpus of Eastern European writing about Poles in Britain. The seriousness of the initial conflictual and  Brzezińska, Irlandzki koktajl, 17, 19–21.  Brzezińska, Irlandzki koktajl, 216. 103  Brzezińska, Irlandzki koktajl, 282; cf. Anna Kronenberg, “Emigracja i twórczość emigracyjna Polek. Od ewolucji społecznych do literackich,” Civitas Hominibus. Rocznik filozoficzno-społeczny 10 (2015): 157–167, here 164–5. 104  Brzezińska, Irlandzki koktajl, 303, 342–3. 105  Lewycka, Foreignerski, Stroika, 85; Lācı ̄tis, Stroika, 79. 101 102

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

229

eventual father–daughter-like alliance in Ai Kwei-Armah’s play Let There Be Love stands out in terms of psychological depth in contrast to the altruistic friendships emerging in Lewycka’s Ukrainian–African male (Andriy and Emanuel) or Polish–African (Marta and Emanuel) relations.106 A.M. Bakalar (Joanna Zgadzaj), author of the first English-language novel of Polish post-accession migration, Madame Mephisto, published in April 2012, came to Britain in 2004 after periods of living in various other countries. At first glance her female hero Magda is reminiscent of Koziarski’s Tomasz Płachta: “I am a professional liar. […] I take pleasure in experimenting with people’s emotions […].”107 But her aggression is directed towards conservative Polish attitudes and the “nationalistic rampage” of the PiS party in particular,108 while encounters with migrants from other countries such as the South African lawyer Percy Jantjes, her first sexual affair in London, acquaint her with exotic impressions, fostered by African cannabis, with which she develops her own illegal business.109 Her strongest sexual experiences, described in a soft-porn manner comparable to Zuchowski, come from her Black British (cannabis dealing and sex) partner Jerome.110 The middle part of the book consists of repeated trips to Poland which serve as an introduction to commonplace-Polish culture for the British reader. On the briefest of these trips Magda is joined by Jerome, whom she has to defend against racism in all-too-homogeneous Poland, contrasting it with “London’s diversity, the different skin colours, faces and languages.”111 The inter-racial encounter with Jerome pops up only very occasionally, maybe because the self-declared liar Magda acts as a self-­censor for the implied conservative Polish recipient of her shuttle migration novel about a person who feels “I am two people.”112 Bakalar goes as far as quoting postcolonial topoi (Homi K. Bhabha) from her own university studies to describe Magda’s shuttle identity of a “chameleon, displaying a combination of accents and faces” with a proficiency in English that makes her  Lewycka, Two Caravans, 71. For Kwei-Armah, see Kovačević, Uncommon Alliances, 162.  A.M. Bakalar, Madame Mephisto (London: Stork Press, 2012), 3. 108  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 1, 175; Tomasz Dobrogoszcz, “Fighting Stereotypes: Between Mimicry and Hybridity. New Fiction Interrogating the Identity of Polish Post-2004 Migrants in Great Britain,” Teksty Drugie English Edition 1 (2018): 9.23, here 18. 109  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 11–12. 110  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 58. 111  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 175. 112  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 3. 106

107

230 

D. UFFELMANN

“almost a native speaker but not quite.”113 However, Vedrana Veličković finds Magda’s credo literarily unconvincing and criticizes Bakalar for her “worn-out images” of hybridity.114 The only Eastern European text about Poles facing other migrants in Britain which can compare with Kwei-Armah’s play in literary quality and the impulse to highlight the analogies inherent in different migrant experiences was authored by Jan Krasnowolski.115 The story “Afrykańska elektronika” [“African Electronics”], written in Bournemouth in 2008, from Krasnowolski’s 2013 collection of the same title, signals its African dimension with the first two words, the name of the Polish first-person narrator’s buddy and work colleague at a perfume factory, Tombuko Ubijee. He came with his parents from Ghana to London when he was four, but had to flee—reminiscent of Miklasz—from there to save his life from gang violence.116 Tom has learned colloquial Polish phrases from his friend. “Tom says, Poles are ok.”117 This Polish–Ghanaian closeness, however, is challenged by racist comments from Polish fellow workers such as Grześ, which compels the narrator to defend his friend: “‘You say “bamboo” to my mate once again, and your mug will change its colour to blue, too. Got it?’”118 The mutual verbal aggression between the Polish men leads to a spiral of violence. When Grześ puts a throw-down on the first-person narrator, he is fired from the factory, but Tom repays the latter’s solidarity by commissioning a kind of voodoo (the eponymous “African electronics,” sending a photo of Grześ, who should “never again put his hand to any piggishness,” to an uncle in Ghana, a practising shaman, and the next day Grześ loses both of his hands in a shredder).119 Thus, both Tom and the Polish protagonist stand in for each other, and perceive assaults on the other as an assault on themselves, symmetrically self-metaphorizing themselves in the other’s position. But on this positive ethical note the solidarity actions end. The protagonist wants to help a female colleague at his new workplace, asking Tom to  Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 165–6.  Veličković, Eastern Europeans, 126. 115  Kwei-Armah, Let There Be Love, xiii–xiv. 116  Jan Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika (Cracow: Ha!art, 2013), 69. 117  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 70. 118  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 72. 119  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 73, 75, 79. I owe thanks to Artur Becker for reading this as an anticolonial allusion to the mutilation atrocities in the Belgian colony Congo Free State. 113 114

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

231

commission voodoo against her tormentor, Warren. As this order is carried out gruellingly, rumours spread. The voodoo practice, however, cannot be extended to a broader scale: “You actually demand from me that I have to ask the ghosts of the ancestors of my tribe, so that they solve the problems of some damn fucking whites?” Tom shouts with rage.120 And indeed, in Krasnowolski’s story voodoo demands its price: the two receive more and more analogous “orders” from others, which develops into a profitable business model, at the price of both of them losing their psychic equilibrium and remembering the pre-voodoo period of their joint factory work with nostalgia.121 The long-feared catastrophe arrives when Islamist terrorists, represented by a person of an unclear third ethnic background, “could be an Indian, Pakistani or Arab,” want to use the two’s access to magic to kill prominent figures of Western politics and show business.122 The nameless stranger of indeterminate ethnicity explicitly appeals to inter-ethnic solidarity with the work migrant from Eastern Europe: “You are like me— you dislike the world which you found. You are fed up with the wickedness, injustice and human harm. We share a goal, that’s why we will be allies.”123 But the Pole can in no way imagine inflicting harm on Rihanna.124 Fleeing from the Islamists, the protagonist finds Tom practising voodoo himself (the uncle in Ghana was his invention) and badly decayed by drugs and magical sources. Before dying from little snakes pouring out of his mouth, Tom psychologically normalizes the supranatural fantasy: “Everybody… will face… his own… nightmare, Tom wheezes.”125 The panicking narrator falls back into inter-ethnic and inter-religious stereotypes which he seemed to have left behind him on the first page of the short story, detecting in every Pakistani person a threatening “confessor of Allah.”126 The protagonist meets his first “own nightmare” in the person of disabled but clairvoyant Grześ, who serves as a mouthpiece for the narrator’s conscience, telling him that black magic inevitably turns against the one who tries to profit from it. Having found his house destroyed in a blast, the protagonist meets also-resurrected Warren, who

 Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 90.  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 99. 122  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 102. 123  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 104–5. 124  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 106. 125  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 109. 126  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 112. 120 121

232 

D. UFFELMANN

walks towards him to take revenge.127 Here the text breaks up with an open, but dreadful end. The fantastic elements which Krasnowolski inserts into the trivial socio-­ economic and socio-cultural circumstances of Polish post-accession labour migration that occupy his fellow migrant writers strongly distinguish his short story from the others’ rather unsophisticated life writing. Krasnowolski’s creative plot and its oscillation between supernatural fantasy and fine psychology not only renders this piece of writing the best text among recent literature from and about Poles in Britain, but also offers two conflicting visions: on the one hand, there is a Ghanaian and a Pole standing in for each other, while on the other, we see a fatal backlash to racism and Islamophobia. As we do not know whether vampiric Warren eventually kills the narrator, who is tormented by pangs of conscience, we also remain without an authoritative interpretation of whether it is desirable that Poles and other migrants in post-2004 Britain identify with each other or not.

Overall Picture The extreme differences in literary quality make it hard to sum up the findings, and the corpus is still too small for representative claims. However, there are several indicative trajectories, not only those represented by entire texts but also encapsulated in one singular narrative. While narratives by other Eastern European migrant authors about the presence of Poles in the UK start with Polish (relative) hegemony but then draw a picture of more (Lewycka) or less (Foreignerski) eagerly practised solidarity, in texts by Polish migrant authors, we encounter either extreme polarization (Koziarski, Miklasz) or optimistic alliances (Brzezińska, Kopaczewski). In the case of Krasnowolski, both appear entangled in a way that is difficult to disentangle. In their different ways, all share one feature: the various inter-ethnic triangles—be they Latvian–Polish–Pakistani, Ukrainian–Polish–Malawian, or Polish–Ghanaian–Pakistani—induce intriguing complexity into the inner-European binary of Britons and Poles or Irish vs. Polish, for good or for bad. The postcommunist migration and the repercussions of earlier postcolonial immigration to the British Isles interact as inner-Eastern European animosities erupt and alliances revive. The bizarre overlapping of stereotypes and practical solidarity deprives the decolonial world of any universal ethical matrix. As Dorota  Krasnowolski, Afrykańska elektronika, 114, 118–9.

127

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

233

Kołodziejczyk—only half intentionally—has shown in her exploration of Piotr Czerwiński’s still rather bipolar “Ponglish” writing from Ireland, a veritable multi-vector “cosmopolitics” of new migrant writing remains “futuristics.”128 Measured against similar normative claims, Lewycka’s vision of Polish–Ukrainian–African triangulation could be regarded as a naïve anticipation of such futuristics, while Krasnowolski’s conflicting vectors of Ghanaian–Polish identification and European–Islamic disidentification demonstrate that for literary aesthetics, the best possible world is not harmonistic, but complex and disturbing.

Bibliography Bakalar, A.M. Madame Mephisto. London: Stork Press, 2012. Banerjee, Mita. “Postethnicity and Postcommunism in Hanif Kureishi’s Gabriel’s Gift and Salman Rushdie’s Fury.” In Reconstructing Hybridity: Post-Colonial Studies in Transition, edited by Joel Kuortti and Jopi Nyman, 309–324. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2007. Brzezińska, Gosia. Irlandzki koktajl. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Bliskie, 2010. Da ̨browski, Mieczysław. Tekst międzykulturowy. O przemianach literatury emigracyjnej. Warszawa: Elipsa, 2016. Dobrogoszcz, Tomasz. “Fighting Stereotypes: Between Mimicry and Hybridity. New Fiction Interrogating the Identity of Polish Post-2004 Migrants in Great Britain.” Teksty drugie English Edition 2018, no. 1: 9–23. http://tekstydrugie.pl/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/07/Teksty-Drugie-en-12018.pdf (accessed March 3, 2020). Finkelstein, Miriam. “‘Ein Pole zu sein, ist schon ein Beruf.’ Repräsentationen polnischer MigrantInnen in der deutsch- und englischsprachigen Gegenwarts literatur.” In Migrantenliteratur im Wandel / Literatura migracyjna w procesie. Junge Prosa mit (nicht nur) polnischen Wurzeln in Deutschland und Europa / Młoda proza (nie tylko) polskiego pochodzenia w Niemczech i w Europie, edited by Brigitta Helbig-Mischewski and Małgorzata Zduniak-­Wiktorowicz, 171–184. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2016. Foreignerski, William B. [Lācı ̄tis, Vilis / Rugȩ̄ ns, Aleksandrs]. Stroika with a London View. London: Austin Macauley, 2019. Gall, Alfred. “Migration and Global Society: The Issue of Internationality in Contemporary Polish Literature.” In Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK, edited by Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann, 177–199. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2011.

128  Dorota Kołodziejczyk, “W poszukiwaniu migracyjnego pisania. Kosmopolityka pewnego przypadku literackiego na Wyspach,” Teksty drugie 3 (2016): 116–41, here 139.

234 

D. UFFELMANN

Garapich, Michał P. “Chłopi i żołnierze, budowlańcy i pijacy. Dominuja ̨cy dyskurs migracyjny, jego kontestacje oraz konsekwencje dla konstruowania polskiej grupy etnicznej w wielokulturowym Londynie.” In Drogi i rozdroża. Migracje Polaków w Unii Europejskiej po 1 maja 2004 roku. Analiza psychologiczno-­ socjologiczna, edited by Halina Grzymała-Moszczyńska, Anna Kwiatkowska, and Joanna Roszak, 35–54. Cracow: Nomos, 2010. Kołodziejczyk, Dorota. “W poszukiwaniu migracyjnego pisania. Kosmopolityka pewnego przypadku literackiego na Wyspach.” Teksty drugie 3 (2016): 116–141. Kopaczewski, Grzegorz. Global Nation. Obrazki z czasów popkultury. Wołowiec: Czarne, 2004. Kosmalska, Joanna. “Twórczość Polaków na Wyspach Brytyjskich. Transnarodowy zwrot w polskiej literaturze.” Teksty drugie 3 (2016): 165–186. Kovačević, Nataša. Uncommon Alliances: Cultural Narratives of Migration in the New Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018. Koziarski, Daniel. Socjopata w Londynie. Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka, 2007. Koziarski, Daniel and Maciejewski, Krzysztof. [Interview] “Wierzę w inteligencję czytelników.” Artofreading.pl, July 6, 2017. https://artofreading.pl/daniel-­ koziarski-­wierze-­w-­inteligencje-­czytelnikow/ (accessed May 5, 2019). Krasnowolski, Jan. Afrykańska elektronika. Cracow: Ha!art, 2013. Kronenberg, Anna. “Emigracja i twórczość emigracyjna Polek. Od ewolucji społecznych do literackich.” Civitas Hominibus. Rocznik filozoficzno-społeczny 10 (2015): 157–167. Kwei-Armah, Kwame. Plays: 1 Elmina’s Kitchen—Fix Up-Statement of Regret— Let There Be Love. London: Methuen Drama, 2009. Lācı ̄tis, Vilis [Rugȩ̄ ns, Aleksandrs]. Stroika ar skatu uz Londonu. Riga: Mansards, 2010. Lewycka, Marina. Two Caravans. London: Fig Tree, 2007. Miklasz, Adam. Polska szkoła boksu. Powies ́ć emigracyjna. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Skrzat, 2009. Niewrzeda, Krzysztof. Czas przeprowadzki. Szczecin: Forma, 2005. Nowicka, Magdalena. “Transcultural Encounters of Diversity—towards a Research Agenda: The Case of Polish Presence in the UK.” MMG Working Paper 10–04 (2010). www.mmg.mpg.de/workingpapers (accessed April 13, 2019). Nowicka, Magdalena. “‘I Don’t Mean to Sound Racist but…’ Transforming Racism in Transnational Europe.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 41, no. 5 (2018): 824–841. Nowicka, Magdalena and Łukasz Krzyżowski. “The Social Distance of Poles to Other Minorities: A Study of Four Cities in Germany and Britain.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43, no. 3 (2017): 359–378. Ociepa, Justyna. “Niezguła.” In Na końcu s w ́ iata napisane. Autoportret współczesnej polskiej emigracji. Konkurs Literacki Polish Books, Londyn 2007, edited by Polish Books UK, 220–230. Chorzów: Videograf, 2007.

10  POLES AMONG OTHERS: LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON POLISH… 

235

Phillips, Mike. A Shadow of Myself. London: HarperCollins, 2001. Plesske, Nora and Joanna Rostek, “Rubble or Resurrection: Contextualizing London Literature by Polish Migrants to the UK.” The Literary London Journal 10, no. 2 (2013). www.literarylondon.org/london-­journal/autumn2013/ plesskeandrostek.html (acccessed June 9, 2023). Rostek, Joanna. “Living the British Dream: Polish Migration to the UK as Depicted in the TV Series Londyńczycy (2008–2010).” In Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK, edited by Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann, 245–275. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2011. Rostek, Joanna and Dirk Uffelmann. “Can the Polish Migrant Speak? The Representation of ‘Subaltern’ Polish Migrants in Film, Literature and Music from Britain and Poland.” In Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, edited by Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff, 311–334. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Sępek, Jarek. W 80 dni dookoła s w ́ iata (nie wyjeżdżaja ̨c z Londynu). Warsaw: Carta Blanca, 2010. Siara, Bernadetta. “UK Poles and the Negotiation of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Cyberspace.” In Polish Migration to the UK in the “New” European Union, edited by Kathy Burrell, 167–187. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. Słabuszewska-Krauze, Iwona. Hotel Irlandia. Warsaw: Semper, 2006. Tlostanova, Madina and Walter Mignolo. Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflection from Eurasia and the Americas. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2012. Trevena, Paulina. “A Question of Class? Polish Graduates Working in Low-Skilled Jobs in London.” Studia Migracyjne—Przegla ̨d Polonijny 1 (2011): 71–96. Uffelmann, Dirk. “Wrong Sex and the City: Polish Work Migration and Subaltern Masculinity.” In Polish Literature in Transformation, edited by Ursula Phillips, with assistance of Knut Andreas Grimstad and Kris Van Heuckelom, 69–92. Munster: LIT, 2013. Uffelmann, Dirk. “Self-Proletarianization in Prose by Polish Migrants to Germany, Ireland and the UK.” teksty drugie English edition 1 (2018): 187–207. http:// tekstydrugie.pl/wp-­content/uploads/2018/07/Teksty-­Drugie-­en-­12018. pdf (accessed April 29, 2019). Veličković, Vedrana, ed. Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Vertovec, Steven. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, no. 6 (2007): 1024–1054. White, Anne. Polish Families and Migration since EU Accession. Bristol, Chicago, IL: Policy Press, 2017). Zuchowski, Daniel. The New Dubliners. Dublin: Literary Publishing, 2014.

CHAPTER 11

The Good Pole in an Ailing Britain: An Imagological Approach to Polish Migration in British Literature Joanna Rostek

Polish migration to Britain is a fruitful and relevant research topic, not least because it looks back on a history of at least 200 years. As Joanna Kosmalska writes, “from the [early] nineteenth century onwards, there have been various waves of Polish migration to the British Isles,”1 with prominent representatives including writer Joseph Conrad and sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.2 Today, Poles form one of the three largest national 1  Joanna Kosmalska, “The Response of Polish Writers to Brexit,” Journal for the Study of British Cultures 26, no. 2 (2019): 167. 2  Conrad’s Polish heritage is, however, difficult to discern in his oeuvre, because, as Adam Gillon explains, he “never took Poland as the central theme of his work; in fact, he shunned it” (424).

J. Rostek (*) University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_11

237

238 

J. ROSTEK

minorities in Britain. The Oxford Migration Observatory estimates that some 820,000 Poles lived in the UK in 2019, accounting for 15 per cent of non-UK citizens.3 Continental Western Europeans might not have been aware of the extent of Polish migration to Britain until Brexit brought it to their, often uncomfortable, attention, due to the anti-immigration rhetoric directed against Eastern European migrants. But even if approximately 100,000 Poles left Britain in the aftermath of the Brexit Referendum,4 the majority of Polish migrants have remained in the UK.  This has obvious consequences for Britain today, since “migratory processes […] not only affect the identities of migrants, [but] also change the host culture.”5 Therefore, Polish migrants are part of British culture and—as I shall illustrate in the course of this chapter—have featured in literary texts by British authors. In what follows, I will begin by discussing a common approach within literary and cultural analyses of Polish migration to the UK, which I term “the three-layered lens.” I will comment on its genesis, its advantages and disadvantages, and will finish by proposing an alternative, if complementary, method based on imagology. In the further course of the chapter, I will perform imagological analyses of two British novels: Jane Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and John Lanchester’s Capital (2012).6 My claim is that this approach opens up valuable new perspectives on the, perhaps, surprisingly positive place the Polish migrant holds in (parts of) the British literary imaginary. Given the sheer size of the Polish migrant community in the UK, literary and cultural analyses of this group, particularly within English Studies, remain relatively scarce, although this is likely to change with the growing number of writers of Polish origin who publish in English (e.g. Agnieszka Dale and Wioletta Greg). Although one has to be wary of generalisations, 3  Carlos Vargas-Silva and Peter William Walsh, “EU Migration to and from the UK,” The Migration Observatory, October 2, 2020. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/ resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-an-overview (accessed March 24, 2021). 4  Ibid. 5  Birgit Neumann, “Fictions of Migration: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003), Andrea Levy’s Small Island (2004). and Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani (2006),” in The British Novel in the Twenty-first Century: Cultural Concerns – Literary Developments – Model Interpretations, ed. Vera Nünning and Ansgar Nünning (Trier: WVT, 2018), 87. 6  Jane Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel, ed. Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich (1803; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019); John Lanchester, Capital (London: Faber, 2012).

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

239

it seems to me that those studies that do exist tend to analyse representations of Polish migration to Britain through a particular lens, which usually unites three characteristics: (1) it focuses on contemporary, twenty-first-century texts; (2) it places Polish migration in the wider context of Eastern European migration; and (3) it resorts to theories and concepts derived from postcolonial studies. Such a three-layered approach can be found, for example, in Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff’s edited volume Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture.7 In this collection, the Polish experience forms one section among several others that also cover further areas of Eastern Europe. The three contributions dedicated solely to Polish migration all focus on phenomena from the twenty-first century. Out of these, the two articles containing literary analyses use postcolonial thought: Dirk Uffelmann and I build on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s thoughts on subalternity and articulation.8 Marie-Luise Egbert avers in her contribution that after 2004, Polish migrants “faced some of the prejudices and obstacles which people from Asia and the Caribbean had encountered before them, and […] have occasionally been referred to as the ‘New Blacks.’”9 She thus draws a parallel between the Polish and the postcolonial experience. Another study that uses the three-layered lens with regard to Polish migration is Vedrana Veličković’s monograph Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe.10 As the title indicates, Veličković considers migrants from the whole of Eastern Europe, with Poles forming a sub-group. She likewise examines twenty-first-century, post-accession texts and draws on postcolonial criticism, deploring the fact that “Eastern Europe as a postcolonial space […] still remains relatively unknown or 7  Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff, Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, ed. Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010). 8  Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann, “Can the Polish Migrant Speak? The Representation of ‘Subaltern’ Polish Migrants in Film, Literature and Music from Britain and Poland,” in Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, ed. Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010). 9  Marie-Luise Egbert, “‘Old Poles’ and ‘New Blacks’: The Polish Immigrant Experience in Britain,” in Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, ed. Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 349. 10  Vedrana Veličković, Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe (London: Palgrave, 2019).

240 

J. ROSTEK

absent from Anglophone postcolonial studies, despite recent contributions by predominantly Eastern European scholars to repair the gap.”11 Dirk Uffelmann’s use of the three-layered lens is less straightforward in his articles on Polish migration to the UK, because in contrast to the two previously mentioned publications, he concentrates on the specificities of Polish, rather than Eastern European, migration. His contributions have been republished in his book Polska Literatura Postkolonialna, and as the title (Polish Postcolonial Literature) signals, postcolonial concepts, among them auto-orientalisation and subaltern masculinity, play a crucial role in his interpretations of predominantly twenty-first-century texts.12 I should add that I have also used the three-layered lens in some of my previous work.13 There are good reasons for the prevalence of the three-layered approach, and the high quality of the three volumes cited above certainly bears this out. The contemporary focus responds to the fact that the onset of mass migration from Poland to Britain is fairly recent. It dates back to Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, when the UK, Ireland, and Sweden were the only countries to grant immediate and unrestricted access to their labour markets to new EU members from Eastern Europe. Against the backdrop of struggling economies in ex-communist countries, this decision resulted in an unexpected movement of people from the so-­ called Accession 8 countries to the UK, Ireland, and Sweden.14 The history and consequences of the EU enlargement partially account for the fact that in literary and cultural studies, Polish migration is frequently seen as a sub-form of the larger flow of Eastern European migration. The socio-­ economic experiences of contemporary Polish migrants—their jobs, housing conditions, average age, and patterns of migration—display some similarities to those from other Eastern European countries. Another 11  Veličković, Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe, 6. 12  Dirk Uffelmann, Polska literatura postkolonialna. Od sarmatyzmu do migracji poakcesyjnej (Cracow: Universitas, 2020). 13  For example, Rostek and Uffelmann, “Can the Polish Migrant Speak”; Nora Plesske and Joanna Rostek, “Rubble or Resurrection: Contextualising London Literature by Polish Migrants to the UK,” Literary London Journal 10, no. 2 (2013), http://literarylondon. org/the-literary-london-journal/archive-of-the-literary-london-journal/issue-10-2/ rubble-or-resurrection-contextualising-london-literature-by-polish-migrants-to-the-uk/. 14  The Accession 8 countries include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

241

reason is that recent Polish migration to Britain forms part of a wider, European history of post-communism and its legacy, with Poland being only one country among many in the post-Soviet realm. The privileging of postcolonial theories and concepts to discuss Polish migration to Britain has several causes. Firstly, within literary and cultural studies in general, postcolonial studies is perhaps the field that, over the past six decades, has developed the most extensive and widely discussed concepts to capture migration, displacement, and cross-cultural encounters as well as their consequences for individual and collective identity, psyche, language, imagery, and institutions. As Barbara Korte usefully itemises, these concepts—which can potentially be applied with regard to the Polish migrant experience in Britain—include “alterity, hybridity, cultural hegemony, imperialism of the mind, burdens of (mis)representation, homeland and diaspora, displacement, contact zone, transculturality, border-­crossing and others more.”15 Secondly, for those exploring migration from within the field of English Studies, postcolonial terminology remains influential,16 because of Britain’s imperial history and because many twentieth and twenty-first-century British and Anglophone writers explicitly address forced and voluntary migration in their works. Thirdly, within Slavonic Studies, scholars have advanced that Poland, starting with its first partition in 1772, was subjected to colonialism by the Russian, Prussian, and Austro-Hungarian empires. Therefore, Polish literature presents “creative forms of working through experiences of violence and war,”17 comparable to those to be found in other colonial and postcolonial texts. However, the three-layered lens does have a few problematic side effects, despite its undeniable advantages and justifications. The first is that a focus on the twenty-first century alone runs the danger of a-historicity and of universalising the present moment with its specific tropes (e.g. of the Polish builder or the Polish au pair). It obscures the fact that Poles figured in British literature and culture prior to the EU enlargement and 15  Barbara Korte, “Facing the East of Europe in Its Western Isles: Charting Backgrounds, Questions and Perspectives,” in Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, ed. Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 17. 16  See, for example, Roy Sommer, Fictions of Migration: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie und Gattungstypologie des zeitgenössischen interkulturellen Romans in Großbritannien (Trier: WVT, 2001). 17  Uffelmann, Polska literatura postkolonialna, 8, my translation.

242 

J. ROSTEK

that their migration was often driven by other than economic concerns. The second drawback is that “Eastern Europe” can function as an orientalising and totalising container that lumps together dissimilar cultural, historical, and religious experiences and identities. Authors from Eastern Europe have drawn attention to this fact. Veličković notes: “Despite the fact that Bulgarians and Poles, for example, are far apart from each Other [sic] on the geographical map, they can all be subsumed under the category ‘Eastern European.’”18 Yva Alexandrova points out that the designation “Eastern European” is one that tends to be “thrust upon”19 people from this geographical region rather than their self-chosen identity marker. The distinction between the “East” and the “West” is moreover tainted by historical hierarchisations, which more often than not operate to the detriment of the former. For Alexandrova, today’s evocations of Eastern Europe uncritically rely on “the unpacked and unprocessed rhetorical forms of the eighteenth century—of the civilised [West] versus the barbarians [from the East],” which are “further reinforced by a powerful contemporary nuance: the West [is] wealthy and powerful; Eastern Europe poor and largely powerless.”20 While these power imbalances and implicit value judgements explain why postcolonial approaches have proven so fruitful, they at the same time call for circumspection when summoning the concept of Eastern Europe (even if it would be naïve and counterproductive to attempt to displace it altogether). Over and above a homogenising impulse, it is just as imperative to try to do justice to the many differences between the countries, peoples, and histories that make up “Eastern Europe.” The third disadvantage of the three-layered lens is that a reflexive employment of postcolonial terminology to some extent ignores the historical reality of Polish–British relations. It is true that Britain was a colonial power—but Poland never formed part of its territories. It is likewise true that Poland was subjected to imperial rule—but not by the British. In fact, in Polish collective memory, Britain holds a place as a country that, at least sometimes, supported Poland’s striving for freedom. Therefore, the disparity in power between coloniser and colonised that underlies postcolonial theory cannot be smoothly transferred to the case of the UK and  Veličković, Eastern Europeans, 10.  Yva Alexandrova, Here to Stay: Eastern Europeans in Britain (London: Repeater, 2021), 4. 20  Alexandrova, Here to Stay: Eastern Europeans in Britain, 3. 18 19

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

243

Poland. One could argue that postcolonial concepts—especially as they relate to the confluence of psychological processes, identity politics, economic relations, and aesthetics—remain productive and enlightening regardless of whether actual imperial rule had taken place. While this is true to some extent, literary and cultural scholars investigating migration have judiciously pointed out that one should be cautious about severing concepts from their historical contexts. Using terminology that relates to mobility in predominantly metaphorical or figurative terms, for example, neglects the extent to which migration is concerned with actual bodies and actual locations.21 Another point of criticism levelled at the use of postcolonial theory for the analysis of migration is the inflationary and slogan-like use of its terminology. Anna Veronika Wendland, for instance, warns against a “theoretical jargon which seems hermetical and untranslatable to representatives of other scholarly cultures or which is even rejected as cultural imperialist newspeak.”22 Doris Bachmann-Medick criticises that “too often these approaches reproduce many jargonish key terms  – coming mostly from postcolonial theory, and including the usual categorical suspects […]  – that are then applied rather uncritically to the field of migration.”23 Aneta Pavlenko concludes her analysis of the apparently spectacular career of the term “superdiversity” among linguists with the words: “what [this term] does is to improve the lives of those who signal allegiance to [academic] Newspeak. […] The benefits for migrants and refugees are less obvious.”24 Such interventions drive home that what might be theoretically and intellectually rewarding can go hand in hand with a linguistic occlusion of the migrant experience, which in extreme cases can lead to a discursive reduplication of the power imbalance which postcolonial theory actually tries to analyse and displace. Korte is correct in stating that “concepts from 21  Doris Bachmann-Medick, “Migration as Translation,” in Migration: Changing Concepts, Critical Approaches, ed. Doris Bachmann-Medick and Jens Kugele (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 275–6; Heike Paul, Mapping Migration: Women’s Writing and the American Immigrant Experience from the 1950s to the 1990s (Heidelberg: Winter, 1999), 26–33. 22  Anna Veronika Wendland, “Cultural Transfer,” in Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, ed. Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 61. 23  Bachmann-Medick, “Migration as Translation,” 275–276. 24  Aneta Pavlenko, “Superdiversity and Why It Isn’t: Reflections on Terminological Innovation and Academic Branding,” in Sloganization in Language Education Discourse: Conceptual Thinking in the Age of Academic Marketization, ed. Barbara Schmenk, Stephan Breidbach, and Lutz Küster (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2018), 162.

244 

J. ROSTEK

colonial and postcolonial studies transfer easily to the representation of Eastern Europe and Eastern European migration.”25 I wish to emphasise, however, that this should not lead to an automated transferral, unless postcolonial theory, Polish–British relations, and the experience of migration are to be divested of their historical specificities. If the three-layered lens poses certain problems, it follows that to open up new perspectives on literary and cultural responses to Polish migration to the UK, it is advisable to explore the heuristic value of complementary approaches within literary studies. My ensuing analysis of British texts that depict Polish migrants will move beyond the three-layered lens in that it (1) pursues a diachronic perspective that considers a text from the early nineteenth century alongside one from the early twenty-first century, (2) focuses on Polish migration alone, and (3) is inspired by imagology rather than by postcolonial studies.26 In his succinct introduction to modern imagology, Joep Leerssen explains its premises as follows: To a very large extent, we schematize and make sense of the world by means of notions (prejudices, stereotypes) of national characters and ethnic temperaments. Alongside gender, ethnicity and nationality are perhaps the most ingrained way of pigeonholing human behaviour into imputed group characteristics. Imagology, a long established specialism rooted in Comparative Literature, analyses the discursive articulations of such national characterizations; it studies them as a cross-national dynamics and from a transnational point of view.27

Imagology—which in its modern guise has shed its original belief in national essentialisms—differentiates between auto-images and hetero-­ images as well as between auto-stereotypes and hetero-stereotypes, that is, between images and stereotypes that a group has about itself versus images  Korte, “Facing the East,” 16.  The boundaries between imagology and postcolonial theory are, of course, far from impermeable. Recent trends in imagology have profited from contributions from postcolonial studies (Leerssen 22). Besides, the research questions of imagologists bear some resemblance to what cultural and postcolonial scholars examine in the context of representations:  see, for example,  Stuart Hall,  “The Work of Representation,” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997). 27  Joep Leerssen, “Imagology: On Using Ethnicity to Make Sense of the World,” Iberic@l: Revue d’études ibériques et ibéro-américaines 10 (2016): 14, https://imagologica.eu/CMS/ upload/Imagology2016.pdf. 25 26

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

245

and stereotypes that a group has about the culturally/nationally/ethnically Other. The dissemination and circulation of such images relate to the process of creating and negotiating national/ethnic identities through the means of culture. Without seeking to determine the empirical truthfulness of such images and identities and without negating their potentially problematic implications, imagology examines the poetic strategies through which they are constructed and maintained as well as their diachronic variations in relation to historical, political, and cultural developments. Because national characterisations—or “ethnotypes”28—play a crucial role in imagology, the approach might seem outdated and politically questionable from a twenty-first-century, cosmopolitan, post-national perspective. I concur with Leerssen, however, that “the condition of being post-­ national or post-identitarian means that the previous stage (the national, the identitarian) is still present as an implied precondition within its later Aufhebung, and often as an inherited condition or situation informing, even en creux, our present-day cultural responses.”29 The wish to transcend national stereotyping does not mean that its practice has disappeared (a fact all too plainly visible in contemporary politics and the so-called culture wars), nor that studying national images in literature has lost its heuristic value.30 For Leerssen, the work of imagology involves three interrelated steps: the intertextual, the contextual, and the textual.31 In what follows, I shall probe these steps with an emphasis on the textual approach with regard to two timeframes: the period around 1800 and the post-accession period (i.e. after the EU enlargement of 2004). Due to limited space, I will concentrate on one aspect of the imagological spectrum, namely texts written  Leerssen, “Imagology” 16.  Leerssen, “Imagology,” 29; See also Luc van Doorslaer, Peter Flynn, and Joep Leerssen, “On Translated Images, Stereotypes and Disciplines,” in Interconnecting Translation Studies and Imagology, ed. Luc van Doorslaer, Peter Flynn, and Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2016), 1. 30  Discounting the concept of the nation moreover runs the risk of a-historicity: Jane Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw appeared at a time that saw the birth of the modern nation and ensuing national wars in which Britain and Poland were, if differently, implicated. For a discussion of the value and challenges pertaining to the concept of the nation in the context of cultural studies, see Joanna Rostek and Gerold Sedlmayr. “Grayson Perry’s Brexit Vases as National Psychotherapy: Feelings (and) Matter.” In Mentalities and Materialities: Essays in Honour of Jürgen Kamm, ed. Philip Jacobi and Anette Pankratz (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2021). 31  Leerssen, “Imagology,” 20. 28 29

246 

J. ROSTEK

by British authors, with an emphasis on only one novel per period.32 The two imagological questions I am predominantly interested in are: Which ethnotypes of Poland emerge from the British texts (hetero-­ image)? Which ethnotypes of Britain do the texts promulgate, particularly as a result of the cross-cultural encounter (auto-image)? To a lesser extent, I will take into consideration further questions: How do the ethnotypes relate to the specific genre of the text (intertextual approach)? How do the ethnotypes relate to the historical context in which the texts were written (contextual approach)? (How) Do the ethnotype(s) of Poland change over time (diachronic perspective)? Across Europe, the period around 1800 and the early nineteenth century saw a heightened philosophical and political engagement with (modern) nationhood and nationalism. The first novel I shall consider is very much a product of this time, directly responding to contemporaneous events: Jane Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel, first published in 1803. Today largely forgotten, it became an immediate bestseller and saw twelve editions in Porter’s lifetime alone. It inspired at least two US-American cities to adopt the name “Warsaw” and allegedly prompted Percy Bysshe Shelley to live in London’s Poland Street.33 Set in the mid-1790s, Thaddeus recounts the story of its eponymous protagonist, Count Thaddeus Sobieski. Thaddeus’s mother is a Polish Countess, his father an English gentleman, whose identity, however, is only revealed at the end of the narrative. The novel’s first volume is based on historical facts: it sets in in the year 1792, during the Polish-Russian war, which three years later led to the third partition of Poland and to the country’s disappearance from European maps. Porter thus takes on topical political developments of her time. She depicts young Thaddeus as a courageous and valiant fighter for the freedom of his country, thereby 32  It goes without saying that because of this limited corpus, my analysis does not amount to a full-length imagological study, which would need to consider more texts and take into account the reverse perspective, that is, texts written by Polish migrants to the UK. I have examined Polish texts on migration to the UK elsewhere (Plesske and Rostek, “Rubble or Resurrection”; Rostek and Uffelmann “Can the Polish Migrant Speak”; Rostek, “Living the British Dream”), though not through an explicitly imagological lens. For analyses of literary texts written by Polish migrants to the UK—for example, by A.M. Bakalar, Agnieszka Dale, Wioletta Greg, and Grzegorz Kopaczewski—see the other contributions in this volume. 33  Thomas McLean, “Introduction,” in Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel, by Jane Porter, ed. Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), xii–xiii.

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

247

denouncing the imperial politics of Russia and rousing her readers’ sympathies for Poland’s struggle for sovereignty. When Thaddeus’s estates are destroyed, his family dies, and Poland has lost the war and its independence, the young protagonist flees to England. The novel’s second volume retraces the hardships he endures there as an impoverished political exile. Thomas McLean poignantly observes that with Thaddeus, “Porter is able to investigate an important figure of British history that Walter Scott and most of their contemporaries neglected: the foreign exile who makes Britain his adopted home.”34 The third and fourth volumes possibly prompted McLean to dub Thaddeus of Warsaw “a Jane Austen novel with a Polish protagonist”35: lighter in tone, they follow the conventions of the novel of manners and the sentimental romance, as they move the focus to Thaddeus’s love relations, the discovery of his lost English family, and his successful establishment as part of the English landed gentry. The Polish struggle for maintaining national independence was a topic that preoccupied educated British circles at the time. Leading Romantic poets, among them Coleridge, Keats, and Lord Byron, put pen to paper to praise the Polish general and insurrection leader Tadeusz Kościuszko. In him, as Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich, the editors of the modern edition of Thaddeus of Warsaw, maintain, “Britons saw an exemplar of national heroism.”36 Porter has her fictional Polish protagonist fight alongside the illustrious general and descend from an esteemed Polish king, Jan III Sobieski. By constructing her character in such a way, she bestows a representative function on Thaddeus: he stands for contemporary Poland and hence communicates the Polish ethnotype to British readers. Porter makes clear at the outset that she designed the Polish protagonist as a model hero. In her Preface, she avers that he is “a character which Prosperity could not intoxicate, nor Adversity depress” and that he represents “Magnanimity”37:

 McLean, “Introduction,” in Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel, by Jane Porter, xvii.  Thomas McLean, “Brexit Britain: Was Jane Austen an Original Little Englander?” The Conversation, December 6, 2019, https://theconversation.com/brexit-britain-was-janeausten-an-original-little-englander-128478 (accessed April 29, 2022). 36  Jane Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel (1803; Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 2011), 406; the aforementioned poems have been reprinted in the appendix to the modern edition of Thaddeus of Warsaw. 37  Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 3. 34 35

248 

J. ROSTEK

Placed at the summit of moral ambition, surrounded with greatness and glory, he neither shews pride nor vanity. And when […] he is plunged into the depth of sorrow; the weakness of passion never sinks the dignity of his fortitude; neither does the firmness of that virtue blunt the amiable sensibility of his heart.38

Throughout the novel, Thaddeus is hard-working, virtuous, honest, humble, patriotic, and courageous. Despite his noble birth and ancestry, he does not shrink from earning his living with work below his standing when he arrives on what at first emerges as unwelcoming English soil: he sells drawings and teaches German (notably, two “feminine” occupations), even if such activities involve demeaning confrontations with the locals. He helps the poor and the sick; he assists a damsel in distress; he rescues children from a fire. Thanks to his good looks, impeccable manners, and mysterious aura, he soon attracts the notice of English gentlewomen, who fall in love with him. He honourably withstands unwanted overtures and finally wins the heart of the equally virtuous and beautiful (and conveniently rich) Miss Beaufort, whom he marries at the end of the novel. Overall, then, the Polish ethnotype represented by Thaddeus is exceedingly positive—so much so that Margaret Oliphant, in 1882, condemned him as a “waxwork hero.”39 But while Thaddeus might seem too much of a type to be convincing for later aesthetic sensibilities, it is worth remembering the popularity he enjoyed as a literary figure upon the novel’s publication and acknowledging the favourable hetero-image of Poland he conveys. That Thaddeus strikes as a somewhat one-dimensional character is also linked to the genres which Thaddeus of Warsaw combines. Porter draws, among others, on the conventions of the novel of manners and the sentimental romance, which, at least prior to their aesthetic and psychological maturation in the course of the nineteenth century, tended to cast characters as types. In this context, it is worth emphasising that Porter places the Polish migrant not among the “bad” characters (of which there are several), but among the “good” ones. Colin Watson points out that novels of manners “aim to serve as mirrors reflecting sharp likenesses of society.” 40 From an imagological point of view, it is noteworthy that in Porter’s novel  Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 3–4.  McLean, “Introduction,” xxi. 40  Colin Watson, “Novel of Manners,” in The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, ed. Rosemary Herbert (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005), https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.uni-giessen.de/view/10.1093/acref/9780195072396.001.0001/acref9780195072396-e-0466 (accessed April 29, 2022). 38 39

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

249

of manners, a Polish character is vested with the authority to hold up such a mirror to English society—in both his functions as a commentator and as a positive role model, whom English readers are invited to admire and emulate. Simultaneously, Thaddeus functions as the protagonist of the sentimental romance. He is an empathetic character, every now and then overcome by powerful feelings and prone to shedding tears, while also being the male figure at the centre of the romantic plots. Finally, Thaddeus of Warsaw’s first volume contains elements of a genre that only a decade later Sir Walter Scott would establish as the historical novel. Porter constructs Thaddeus much as Scott would construct his protagonists: Thaddeus is a fictional descendent of a historical Polish king, he fights alongside historical Polish national heroes, and he participates in historically documented events. In sum, then, the Polish migrant is the model hero at the heart of all the genres that Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw combines: he is an observer of English society; he is a virtuous and compassionate man; he is a traveller who withstands misfortunes and adventures; he is a romantic hero; and he actively takes part in important historical events. That such a prominent role is accorded to a migrant is not self-­ evident in long-prose fiction around 1800. Thaddeus’s positive portrayal stands in stark contrast with the many disappointing encounters he has with British characters. Before the novel takes a conventionally uplifting turn in its final volume, the Polish migrant figures as a victim and critical observer of the ills that allegedly  befall English society. Thaddeus finds himself insulted as a “paltry immigrant,”41 his few goods are stolen, and many Englishmen and -women only offer their assistance when they believe him to be rich. Smitten English gentlewomen attempt to entice him into immoral romantic entanglements; arrogant English employers deny him his payment; mercenary tradesmen overcharge him; selfish and heartless Britons protest against their country being “over-run”42 by immigrants and proclaim that “the people of Poland have no claims upon us.”43 At the level of narration, Thaddeus repeatedly functions as the preferred focaliser through whose consciousness the social injustices, materialism, and xenophobia besetting English society are perceived and condemned. At one point, he wonders: “Is this a specimen […] of a nation, which on the continent is venerated for courage, manliness,  Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 105.  Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 114. 43  Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 108. 41 42

250 

J. ROSTEK

and generosity! Well, I find I have much to learn. […] whatever travellers had related of the English, they [are] the most impertinent race of people in the world.”44 The positive hetero-image of Poland is hence contrasted with a derogatory auto-image of Britain. The ending of the novel, which has Thaddeus happily assimilate into English society, as well as the assistance Thaddeus receives from several English characters, mitigate the extent of the social critique. Nevertheless, the Polish migrant in Porter’s novel acquires the double function of favourably representing contemporary Poland and criticising contemporary Britain.45 Fast forward two centuries, and a similar imagological constellation recurs. John Lanchester’s Capital arguably marks the entry of the post-­ accession Polish (labour) migrant into marketable twenty-first-century British literature. It was published to good reviews, advertised by its publisher Faber as a Top Ten Bestseller, and adapted into a BBC mini-series in 2015. The neo-Dickensian social panorama of twenty-first-century London is a multi-perspective novel that presents the fallout of the financial crisis of 2007–2009 and as such falls into the category of what Katy Shaw has termed Crunch Lit.46 It explores the relationship of various characters to the titular capital, that is, to London on the one hand and money and capitalism on the other. The cast of characters is wide and aspires to capture the post-millennial metropolis: it includes, among others, a rich banker and his family, an elderly woman, a refugee, a hard-working Muslim family, and an artist. The characters have some psychological depth, but they nevertheless function as representatives of particular socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. It is therefore noteworthy that one of the novel’s variable focalisers is the Polish labour migrant Zbigniew Tomascewski, to

 Porter, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 105–106.  Porter’s is not the only early nineteenth-century literary text to feature a noble Polish protagonist. Claire Clairmont, the half-sister of Mary Shelley, published a tale titled “The Pole” in 1832. The narrator describes the eponymous Pole in rapturous terms: “In stature he was sufficiently tall to give an idea of superiority to his fellow mortals; and his form was moulded in such perfect proportions, that it presented a rare combination of youthful lightness and manly strength. His countenance, had you taken from it its deep thoughtfulness and its expression of calm intrepid bravery, might have belonged to the most lovely woman, so transparently blooming was his complexion, so regular his features, so blond and luxuriant his hair. […] he had performed actions of such determined and daring bravery as had made his name a glory to his countrymen, and a terror to their enemies. […] [He was] this Mars in a human form, this Achilles who had braved death in a thousand shapes […]” (347, 362). 46  Katy Shaw, Crunch Lit (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 44 45

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

251

whom Lanchester dedicates 16 out of 107 chapters, and who becomes the carrier of the Polish ethnotype in Capital. Echoing the social realities of post-accession Polish migration to the UK, Zbigniew earns his living as a skilled builder, renovating and redecorating the houses of rich Londoners. Readers meet him for the first time on the premises of the affluent Arabella Yount, who is giving him instructions for yet another redo. The economic constellation of the encounter suggests a hierarchy, which puts the British employer above the Polish handyman. But readers’ sympathies are directed in the reverse direction (similarly to the case of the arrogant Dundas family who, in Porter’s novel, hires Thaddeus to teach their spoilt daughters German). Arabella may be wealthy, but she appears almost grotesquely shallow, childish, and wasteful, desiring changes to the lighting in her dressing room merely to have her face look prettier.47 Zbigniew, on the other hand, represents skilfulness, seriousness, pragmatism, and a sensible relation to money: he is the adult person in this interaction. Arabella histrionically enquires about the estimated cost of the renovation: “Just how bad is it? I can’t bear the suspense. Is it truly awful? It is, isn’t it?” Zbigniew’s reply marks him out as the measured voice of reason, reassurance, and competence: “I find some things cheap, I am careful but not too careful, eight thousand. I buy new, everything top-spec, five-year guarantee – you know me Mrs Yount, my personal guarantee – twelve thousand.”48 Thus, already the first dialogue featuring a Polish migrant has him appear in a positive light compared with his British interlocutor. This flattering portrayal of the Polish migrant is enhanced through recurrent narrative comments which cast Zbigniew in the role of an accidental anthropologist: Zbigniew was a sharp student of his British customers and knew that in this country builders had a reputation for specific things: they were expensive and lazy; they were never available when you wanted them; they took over your house and behaved as if it were theirs during the work; and they left things half-finished and went off to another job so that the last phase of the work dragged on for months. He set out always to be the opposite of all those things and to stick to this policy at all times.49

 Lanchester, Capital, 70.  Lanchester, Capital, 69. 49  Lanchester, Capital, 70. 47 48

252 

J. ROSTEK

In this passage, a British author has a Polish character voice a stereotype about British craftsmen, thus effectively deploying the culturally Other for an act of self-diagnosis—a literary strategy also employed in Thaddeus of Warsaw. The further course of the novel is constructed in such a way as to confirm the diagnosis: Zbigniew sticks to his philosophy, which secures him further commissions and the respect of his British employers. The secret to his success, it is suggested, lies precisely in the fact that he chooses to behave differently from the allegedly “expensive and lazy” British. In his portrayal of the Polish migrant, Lanchester thus sets up a positive hetero-­image of the reliable, sensible, and hard-working Pole, which he contrasts with a negative auto-stereotype of the British handyman, to whom he imputes the exact contrary characteristics. Stereotyping and generalisations are therefore definitely at play in Zbigniew’s characterisation, yet, similarly to Porter’s Thaddeus, in the first instance, they do not reflect negatively on the Polish migrant, but on Britain. A similar juxtaposition between the Polish and the British ethnotypes occurs in another passage: A boy who grew up in a tower block on the outskirts of Warsaw could not fail to notice marble worktops, teak furniture, carpets and clothes and adult toys and the routine daily extravagances that were everywhere in this city. […] There was in Zbigniew’s opinion something fundamentally wrong with a culture that had all this work and all this money going spare, just waiting for someone to come in and pick it up, almost as if the money were just left lying around in the street […].50

Here, as elsewhere, Lanchester resorts to and reifies the potent contrast that Alexandrova had identified as shaping the perception of Eastern Europe in Britain,51 namely that between the poor East (symbolised by the suburban tower blocks) and the rich West (symbolised by marble, teak, carpets). At the same time, Lanchester imbues this contrast with an inverse moral valuation: there is something “fundamentally wrong” with the lavish, wasteful West. Zbigniew is clearly not averse to making money himself; after all, this is why he is working in London and why he invests his savings on the stock exchange. But the novel emphasises that he does not intend to “waste” his capital on selfish superfluities, but to set up a family  Lanchester, Capital, 72.  Alexandrova, Here to Stay, 3.

50 51

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

253

business in Poland and enable his parents to “retire or semi-retire in comfort.”52 While people like Arabella mindlessly spend money on vanity projects, the Polish migrant uses it to secure further work and the “comfort” (not luxury!) of his family. The Polish character, then, though not without his faults, is favourably valorised within the normative framework of Capital. This positive valorisation, in turn, lends credibility to his verdicts about the British. Veličković argues, with reference to Kris van Heuckelom, that Zbigniew’s is a “narrative of a Polish worker who has ‘nothing to give to the host community’ apart from their labour.”53 From an imagological perspective, Zbigniew (again, like Porter’s Thaddeus) does give something crucial to the host community, namely a mirror in which they can view themselves: in fact, his first job in the novel is to change the “lights around the mirrors”54 in Arabella’s and her son’s bedrooms. It is through the eyes of, among others, the Polish migrant that the British nation self-­ critically observes itself in Lanchester’s state-of-the-nation novel. Zbigniew is on the one hand the token Polish builder, but on the other, his job has a symbolic function. By gaining access to his customers’ living rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms, Zbigniew obtains a literal and metaphorical inside view of contemporary Britain. In the logic of the novel—which in that respect is, again, similar to that of Porter’s text—his outsider status grants him an unclouded, “objective” perspective, which is why he becomes a mouthpiece for the articulation of British ethnotypes and the concomitant cultural critique: “Zbigniew had once had a sense of the British as a moderate, restrained nation. It was funny to think of that now. It wasn’t true at all. They drank like mad people.”55 In fact, it is Zbigniew who embodies values that were “once” deemed typically English: moderation, restraint, hard work, politeness, pragmatism, money-consciousness, and common sense. Fittingly, he is introduced into the novel while performing a stereotypically English activity, namely drinking tea, while listening to Arabella’s directions.56 Zbigniew is thus paradoxically both foreign and familiar, in the sense that he epitomises what Britain once supposedly was, but lost due to rampant capitalism. Seen in that light, the  Lanchester, Capital, 75.  Veličković, Eastern Europeans, 89. 54  Lanchester, Capital, 70. 55  Lanchester, Capital, 289. 56  Lanchester, Capital, 69. 52 53

254 

J. ROSTEK

hetero-image of the Polish migrant becomes simultaneously an auto-­ image of a projected foregone Britain. This multi-layered allocation of ethnotypes brings the nostalgic dimensions of Lanchester’s novel to the fore. Apart from the description of Zbigniew’s cramped living conditions and his arduous commute to work, the further course of the plot does not concern itself much with the economic and cultural challenges of migration, but takes a romantic turn. In another parallel to Thaddeus of Warsaw, Zbigniew becomes the love interest of more than one female character. In the end, he wins the heart of Hungarian labour migrant Matya, whom he chooses over a British lover. The attractive Matya, in turn, prefers Zbigniew’s to her British employer’s attentions. Zbigniew’s storyline in Capital ends therefore with an economic and personal happy ending and with his resolution to stay in London,57 which, given the positive ethnotypes both he and Matya represent, can be read as good news for Britain. Notably, the last glimpse the reader catches of the Polish migrant is of Zbigniew “bent to his work,”58 which re-emphasises industriousness as a fundamental feature of the hetero-image of Poland. In sum, then, the imagological approach to Jane Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw and John Lanchester’s Capital brings into view positive and surprisingly corresponding hetero-images of Polish migrants in texts by British authors. Leerssen draws attention to a particular imagological finding, namely that in literature, there are “[m]oral tropes that will always rhetorically valorize a character positively […]: being involved in a harmonious family life (as manifested in marital fidelity and in affectionate parent-­children relationships); hospitality; honesty, a work ethic and fidelity to the given word.”59 The Polish protagonists of both novels fulfil all of these criteria (with Zbigniew making progress in the realms of hospitality and intimate relationships as the narrative evolves). Since “ethnotypes are unfalsifiable” and their “empirical truth value […] undecidable,”60 the question of whether Polish migrants, around 1800 and today, were/are really as admirable as the authors depict them is beside the point. What is noteworthy from an imagological point of view is the apparent desire on

 Lanchester, Capital, 551.  Lanchester, Capital, 552. 59  Leerssen, “Imagology,” 19. 60  Leerssen, “Imagology,” 19. 57 58

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

255

the part of two British writers, separated by two centuries, to valorise the Polish migrant positively and on several levels. It is here that the imagological approach complements and even challenges the findings yielded by the three-layered lens. The latter has frequently emphasised negative aspects in the portrayal of Eastern European, and among them Polish, migrants. Korte asserts, for example: “Eastern Europe as imag(in)ed in Britain and other Western cultures today is still burdened by accumulations of clichéd images, some positive, more negative, but always inscribing the European East as an essential ‘other’ to the West.”61 Veličković explains about her study: “I am concerned specifically with the recurring New European figures in […] narratives, such as Polish builders, economic migrants, waitresses, and au pairs and to what extent these contemporary representations have been shaped by older, but nevertheless persistent, forms of negative stereotyping […].”62 Korte’s and Veličković’s diagnoses are understandable, and the fallout of Brexit is unlikely to subvert these gloomy appraisals. Still, I would argue that they illuminate only one side—namely a predominantly negative one—of how Polish migration to the UK has been represented in British texts. The benefit of the imagological approach is that it reveals that the figure of the Polish migrant has been present in the British literary imaginary for a longer period and in more positive ways than is usually acknowledged. One can accuse Porter and Lanchester of glossing over the factual difficulties Poles have to face in Britain. One can wonder to what extent the Polish migrant is just a stand-in for any other foreigner. One can deplore the novels’ tendency to functionalise the migrant for British navel-gazing, thus depriving Polish characters of actual articulation63: in both texts, the “good Pole” is to some extent a subservient counter-foil to an “ailing” contemporary Britain whose national problems the authors lay bare through the eyes of the migrant. Yet while these points of criticism are valid and render the politics of the ostensibly progressive novels more ambivalent than might appear at first glance, it is also important to acknowledge that in Thaddeus of Warsaw and in Capital, Polish migrants serve as carriers of an overall favourable Polish ethnotype. Thaddeus is a model hero, surpassing all British characters depicted in the text.  Korte, “Facing the East,” 5, emphasis mine.  Veličković, Eastern, 17, second emphasis mine. 63  For a discussion of the (limited) articulation of Polish migrants in literary and cultural texts from the UK and Poland, see Rostek and Uffelmann, “Can the Polish Migrant Speak.” 61 62

256 

J. ROSTEK

Lanchester’s Polish migrant brings with him not only cheap working skills, but also positively connoted character traits, which Britain is presented as being in dire need of. At the time of publication of both novels, migration was a contentious topic in British politics and society. After the French Revolution, Britain saw an influx of political refugees from France; this led to the passing of the Aliens Act of 1793, which put tighter controls on foreigners entering the country. In 2012, when Capital was published, the British Home Office launched its “hostile environment policy” to curb migration to the UK. Against these contexts, the novels’ affirmative valorisation of Polish migration ought not to be discounted by proponents of progressive politics. Obviously, one has to bear in mind Stuart Hall’s admonition that “adding positive images to the largely negative repertoire of the dominant regime of representation increases the diversity of the ways in which [the Other] is represented, but does not necessarily displace the negative.”64 I would argue, however, that Jane Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw and John Lanchester’s Capital raise the question of whether “the dominant regime of representation” as regards Polish migration to the UK might not be more positive than has hitherto been assumed, at any rate where literature is concerned.65 At the very least, the two texts challenge the regime, underline its historicity, and invite further (imagological, but not only) research.

Bibliography Alexandrova, Yva. Here to Stay: Eastern Europeans in Britain. London: Repeater, 2021. Bachmann-Medick, Doris. “Migration as Translation.” In Migration: Changing Concepts, Critical Approaches, edited by Doris Bachmann-Medick and Jens Kugele, 273–293. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018. Clairmont, Claire. “The Pole.” In Mary Shelley: Collected Tales and Stories, edited by Charles E. Robinson, 347–372. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. 64  Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 274. 65  A full-scale imagological investigation would also have to take into account the representation of Polish migrants in British film and television. The constellation of the “good Pole” in an “ailing Britain” can, for example, be retraced in Ken Loach’s feature film It’s A Free World … (2007), in the series of sketches about a Polish plumber in the Omid Djalili Show (BBC One, 2007–2009), and in Meera Syal’s short Brexit play/video “Just a T-Shirt” (2017).

11  THE GOOD POLE IN AN AILING BRITAIN: AN IMAGOLOGICAL… 

257

van Doorslaer, Luc, Peter Flynn, and Joep Leerssen. “On Translated Images, Stereotypes and Disciplines.” In Interconnecting Translation Studies and Imagology, edited by Luc van Doorslaer, Peter Flynn, and Joep Leerssen, 1–18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2016. Egbert, Marie-Luise. “‘Old Poles’ and ‘New Blacks’: The Polish Immigrant Experience in Britain.” In Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, edited by Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff, 349–361. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Gillon, Adam. “Some Polish Literary Motifs in the Works of Joseph Conrad.” The Slavic and East European Journal 10, no. 4 (1966): 424–439. Hall, Stuart. “The Spectacle of the ‘Other’.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 223–290. London: Sage, 1997. Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, 13–74. London: Sage, 1997. Korte, Barbara. “Facing the East of Europe in Its Western Isles: Charting Backgrounds, Questions and Perspectives.” In Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, edited by Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff, 1–21. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Korte, Barbara, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff. Eds. Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Kosmalska, Joanna. “The Response of Polish Writers to Brexit.” Journal for the Study of British Cultures 26, no. 2 (2019): 167–179. Lanchester, John. Capital. London: Faber, 2012. Leerssen, Joep. “Imagology: On Using Ethnicity to Make Sense of the World.” Iberic@l: Revue d’études ibériques et ibéro-américaines 10 (2016). https://imagologica.eu/CMS/upload/Imagology2016.pdf. (accessed April 29, 2022). McLean, Thomas. “Brexit Britain: Was Jane Austen an Original Little Englander?” The Conversation, December 6, 2019. https://theconversation.com/brexit-­ britain-­was-­jane-­austen-­an-­original-­little-­englander-­128478. (accessed April 29, 2022). McLean, Thomas. “Introduction.” In Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel. By Jane Porter, edited by Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich, viii–xxiii. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Neumann, Birgit. “Fictions of Migration: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003), Andrea Levy’s Small Island (2004) and Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani (2006).” In The British Novel in the Twenty-first Century: Cultural Concerns  – Literary Developments  – Model Interpretations, edited by Vera Nünning and Ansgar Nünning, 87–102. Trier: WVT, 2018. Paul, Heike. Mapping Migration: Women’s Writing and the American Immigrant Experience from the 1950s to the 1990s. Heidelberg: Winter, 1999.

258 

J. ROSTEK

Plesske, Nora, and Joanna Rostek. “Rubble or Resurrection: Contextualising London Literature by Polish Migrants to the UK.” Literary London Journal 10, no. 2 (2013). http://literarylondon.org/the-­literary-­london-­journal/ archive-­of-­the-­literary-­london-­journal/issue-­10-­2/rubble-or-­r esurrectioncontextualising-­london-­literature-­by-­polish-­migrants-­to-­the-­uk/. Pavlenko, Aneta. “Superdiversity and Why It Isn’t: Reflections on Terminological Innovation and Academic Branding.” In Sloganization in Language Education Discourse: Conceptual Thinking in the Age of Academic Marketization, edited by Barbara Schmenk, Stephan Breidbach and Lutz Küster, 142–168. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2018. Porter, Jane. Thaddeus of Warsaw: A Novel, edited by Thomas McLean and Ruth Knezevich. 1803; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Rostek, Joanna. “Living the British Dream: Polish Migration to the UK as Depicted in the TV Series Londyńczycy (2008–2010).” In Contemporary Polish Migrant Culture and Literature in Germany, Ireland, and the UK, edited by Joanna Rostek and Dirk Uffelmann, 245–275. Frankfurt: Lang, 2011. Rostek, Joanna, and Gerold Sedlmayr. “Grayson Perry’s Brexit Vases as National Psychotherapy: Feelings (and) Matter.” In Mentalities and Materialities: Essays in Honour of Jürgen Kamm, edited by Philip Jacobi and Anette Pankratz, 129–148. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2021. Rostek, Joanna, and Dirk Uffelmann. “Can the Polish Migrant Speak? The Representation of ‘Subaltern’ Polish Migrants in Film, Literature and Music from Britain and Poland.” In Facing the East in the West: Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and Culture, edited by Barbara Korte, Eva Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy Helff, 311–334. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Shaw, Katy. Crunch Lit. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Sommer, Roy. Fictions of Migration: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie und Gattungstypologie des zeitgenössischen interkulturellen Romans in Großbritannien. Trier: WVT, 2001. Uffelmann, Dirk. Polska literatura postkolonialna. Od sarmatyzmu do migracji poakcesyjnej. Cracow: Universitas, 2020. Vargas-Silva, Carlos, and Peter William Walsh. “EU Migration to and from the UK.” The Migration Observatory, October 2, 2020. https://migrationobservator y.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-­i n-­t he-­u k-­a n-­o ver view/ (accessed March 24, 2021). Veličković, Vedrana. Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe. London: Palgrave, 2019. Watson, Colin. “Novel of Manners.” In The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, edited by Rosemary Herbert. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. https://www-­oxfordreference-­com.ezproxy.uni-­giessen.de/view/10.1093/ acref/9780195072396.001.0001/acref-­9780195072396-­e-­0466 (accessed April 29, 2022). Wendland, Anna Veronika. “Cultural Transfer.” In Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, edited by Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning, 45–66. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012.

Index1

A Aberdeen, Lord (George Hamilton-­ Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen), 51, 52 Accession to European Union, 240 Adelson, Leslie A., 165n10 Afrikaans, 154 Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, 1801–1825, 30 Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, 1855-1881, 81, 129, 130 Alexandrova, Yva, 242, 252 Aliens Act of 1793 (UK), 256 Allega, Henri, 153 Althorp, Lord (John Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer and Viscount Althorp), 45, 47 Angeriano, Girolamo, 120 Anstey, Thomas Chisholm, 69 Antemurale Christianitis, 104 Anti-Soviet, 140

Archiwum Emigracji (University of Toruń), 141 Ascherson, Neal, x Ashurst Biggs, Maude, 107–109 Assamann, Aleida, 187n3 Aytoun, William Edmondstoune, 82 B Bachmann-Medick, Doris, 243 Bakalar, A. M. (Joanna Zgadzaj), 10, 161–181, 189, 191, 192, 199, 202, 203, 215, 229, 230 Children of Our Age (2018), 169, 170 Madame Mephisto (2012), 165, 166, 169, 170, 180, 189, 191, 192, 199, 202 Baldassar, Loretta, 162n2 Balfe, Michael, 117 The Bohemian Girl (1843), 117

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. A. Bowers, B. Dew (eds.), Polish Culture in Britain, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7

259

260 

INDEX

Banerjee, Mita, 214 Barker, Philip W., 191 Bartkowski, Jan, 70, 72, 72n25, 78 Bastille, storming of the (1789), 25 Battle of France, 144 Bauman, Zygmunt, 162n3, 237 Beaumarchais, Pierre, 64 Beaumont, Mr., 96 Belonging, 162, 163, 170, 178, 180, 181 Bem, General Józef, 75, 77 Bentham, Jeremy, 21, 30 Berry, Mary, 26 Besant, Walter, 6, 113, 115, 118–120, 120n22, 122–124, 127, 132 By Celia’s Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town (1893), 6 with James Rice: By Celia’s Arbour A Tale of Portsmouth Town (1878), 114n1 Bhabha, Homi K., 229 Bibliothéque Polonaise à Paris, 65 Boccagni, Paolo, 162n2 Boleslav I, Duke of Bohemia, 192 Borman, Antoni, 140, 147 Bourrier, Karen, 122 Boyes, Roger, x Brexit, 3, 3n9, 11, 161, 176–179, 181, 238, 255, 256n65 British Broadcasting Company (BBC), 146 British Nationality Act, 138 Brougham, Henry, 30 Bryla, Martyna, 10, 166n13, 167n14 Brzezińska, Gosia, 215, 227, 228, 232 Irlandzki koktajl (2010), 227 Brzeziński, Stanisław Poncjan, 71 Budacz, Maria, 10, 190, 191, 195, 200, 205 Wot, 4 (2012), 190, 191, 203, 205 Bukaty, Franciszek, 20, 22, 27, 28 Burghersh, Lady, 37

Burke, Edmund, 17, 21, 23, 24, 27–29, 100n58 Burrell, Kathy, 3, 3n10 Burzyński, Tadeusz, 20 Byron, Lord (George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron), 116, 118 C Campbell, Thomas, 32, 33, 72, 82, 116, 117 Canning, Sir Stratford, 49, 50 Castlereagh, Lord (Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh), 30 Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1762–1796, 22 Catholic Church, 192, 194–196, 198 Catholicism, 10 Cat-Mackiewicz, Stanisław, 142, 143, 156 Londyniszcze (1957), 142 Chartists, 32, 36 Chesterfield, Lord (Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield), 19 Chicago, 146 Chłapowski, Lieutenant, 77 Chmielowiec, Michał, 140 Chopin, Frédéric/Fryderyk, 35, 71, 77, 125 Chowaniec, Urszula, 164, 167 Chrzanowski, General Wojciech, 71, 71n21 Churchill, Winston, x Clarke, John, 41 Cobden, Richard, 32, 96–98, 96n41, 100, 107 Of Russia (1836), 96 Cobel-Tokarska, Marta, 8 Cold War, 138, 152 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 116–118 Committee of the Whole Polish Emigration in London, 75, 75n34

 INDEX 

Communism, 189, 192, 198 Confederation of Bar, the (1768–1772), 20 Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), vii, 30, 40, 42, 54, 116 Conrad, Joseph, 178, 237, 237n2 Constantine, Grand Duke of Russia, 65 Constitution of 3 May (1791), vii, 100 Cosmopolitanism, 154 Cosway, Richard, 29 Covid-19, 174 Coxe, William, 21 Craik, Dinah, 122 John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), 122 Cranmer, Thomas, v Crimean War (1853-6), 114, 115, 122, 126–129 Cromwell, Oliver, vi Cybowski, Milosz, 6 Czartoryska, Princess Izabela, 20 Czartoryska, Princess Marcelina, 35 Czartoryski, Adam Jerzy, 30, 32, 35, 36, 40, 43–45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 54, 57, 67–69, 68n11, 68n12, 77, 79, 126 Czartoryski, Adam Kazimierz, 19, 20, 22 D Da ̨browski, Mieczysław, 213 Dale, Agnieszka, 10, 161–181 Fox Season and Other Short Stories (2017), 175 ‘Hello Poland’ (2017), 176, 177 Dalmeny, Lord (Archibald Primrose, Lord Dalmeny), 55 Danilewiczowa, Maria, 151, 153 Davies, Norman, 191 Decolonization, 142, 144, 153

261

de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri Bernardin, 64 Desenfans, Noel Joseph, 29 Devonshire, Duchess of, 33 Dew, Ben, 6, 7 Dickens, Charles, 33 Diderot, Denis, 64 Disraeli, Benjamin, 56, 129 d’Orsay, Count, 33 Dulwich Picture Gallery, 29 Du Plat, Colonel, 52, 52n58 Durham, Lord (John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham), 46 Durkheim, Emile, 193 Dwernicki, General Józef, 77, 77n40 Dybowski, Aleksander, 76 Dybowski, Józef, 76 Dziennik Polski, 146, 146n19 E East European Studies, 214 Ebrington, Lord (Hugh Fortescue, 2nd Earl of Fortescue), 46 Edward VI, King of England (1547–1553), v Egbert, Marie-Louise, 239 Eliot, George, 117–119 Daniel Deronda (1876), 117 Middlemarch (1871-2), 114, 118, 119 EU literary studies, 213 European common market, 161 European Union, 3, 4, 7–9, 11 Evans, George de Lacy, 46 Eva Ulrike Pirker, 239 F Felski, Rita, 4 Fergusson, Robert Cutlar, 45–47 Fice, Łucja, 201, 202 Wyspa starców (2013), 202

262 

INDEX

Fidelis, Malgorzata, 198 Finkelstein, Miriam, 221 Fletcher, C.R.L., viii Foreignerski, William B. (Ruğen̄ s, Aleksandrs), 209–211, 210n3, 214–219, 216n27, 221, 222, 228, 232 Stroika with a London View (2019), 209 Fox, Charles James, 23, 29, 100n58 France, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24–27, 29, 30, 32, 37 Frank, Søren, 164 Fraternal Democrats, 36 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, 1840-1861, 79 French Revolution (1789), vii G Gajewski, Jan, 71 Gall, Alfred, 212, 213 Garapich, Michał, 211 Garton Ash, Timothy, x Gębski, Ireneusz, 195 Wcieniu Sheratona (2012), 195 General Anders’ Army/Polish Second Corps, 138, 145 Gephardt, Katarina, 129 Giedroyć, Jerzy, 147 Giełgud, Jan, 81, 81n49 Gielgud, Sir John, 81 Gladstone, William, 129 Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East (1876), 129 Glorious Revolution (1688), 20, 25 Gombrowicz, Witold, 148 Gomoszyński, J.F., 7, 87–109 A Course of Three Lectures on the History of Poland (1843), 91 Gordon, Sir Robert, 52 Goździak, Elżbieta, 164n7

Great Emigration, 63–65, 65n5, 70, 71, 82 Greg (Grzegorzewska), Wioletta, 10, 161–181, 193 Accommodations (2019), 174 Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance (2014), 171 ‘Mapa emigrantki’ (2008), 204 Swallowing Mercury (2017), 193 Swallowing Mercury (2019), 174 Wilcza Rzeka (2021), 174, 175 Grenville, Lord (William Grenville 1st Baron Grenville), 30 Grey, Lord (Charles, 2nd Earl Grey), 30, 41, 44 Grydzewski, Mieczysław, 140, 146, 147, 149, 153, 154 Grynberg, Henryk, 156 Z ̇ydowska wojna (1968), 156 H Habielski, Rafal, 146n19 Hage, Ghassan, 204 Hake, Thomas Gordon, 82 Hall, Stuart, 8, 10, 11, 186n2, 256 Hampshire Advertiser, 1, 2 Hampshire Telegraph, 2 Hanbury-Williams, Sir Charles, 18, 19 Harris, James, 21 Henry VIII, King of England (1509–1547), v Heytesbury, Lord (William á Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury), 42, 46 Höijer, Birgitta, 186n2 Holland, Lord (Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland), 30 Holmes, Martha Stoddard, 122 Horsley, William, 120 Hotel Lambert, 65 House of Commons, 17, 30 Hume, David, 94

 INDEX 

Hume, Joseph, 46, 52–57, 69 Hungary, 151, 152 Hunt, Leigh, 31, 116, 123 I Imagology, 238, 244, 244n26, 245 Inglis, Sir Robert, 46, 49 Instytut Literacki, Paris, 147 Inter-ethnic encounters, 211, 218, 228 Inter-imperial zones, 215 Intra-slavic interactions, 218 Iron Curtain, 138, 144, 152 Isle of Wight, 171, 174 J Jackowski, Ignacy, 73, 73n28, 81, 81n51 Jacobins, 29 James I/VI, King of England, 1603–1625, King of Scotland, 1567–1625, vi Jan (John) Sobieski III, King of Poland, 1674-1696, 116, 124 Jankowski, Stanisław M., 198 Jełowicki, Aleksander, 78, 78n45 Jews, viii, 101, 102, 108 Jeż, Teodor Tomasz, 70, 70n18 John à Lasco, see Łaski, Jan Jones, Ernest, 32 K Kaczorowski, Ryszard, 146 Kajsiewicz, Hieronim, 71 Kaliński, Dariusz, 197 Kałuża, Anna, 173 Katyń, ix Kazimierz, Adam, 22 Keats, John, 31, 116

263

Kent, Duchess of, 33 Kępski, Piotr, 200, 203, 204 Single (2009), 200, 203 Keynes, John Maynard, viii, ix Khrushchev, Nikita, 152 Kiberd, Declan, 201, 202 Kingsley, Charles, 122 Kirkor, Edward, 76 Kirkor, Franciszek, 76 Knezevich, Rush, 247 Kołodziejczyk, Dorota, 9, 10 Komarzewski, General Jan, 28 Kopaczewski, Grzegorz, 215, 225–228, 232 Global Nation. Obrazki z czasów popkultury (2004), 225 Korte, Barbara, 239, 241, 243, 255 Kościuszko, Tadeusz, 29, 31, 69, 115–117, 123, 126, 247 Kosmalska, Joanna, 10, 168n18, 212, 213, 222n63, 237 Kossowska, Stefania, 140–141, 140n9, 146, 157 Kovačević, Nataša, 8, 9, 213–215, 222, 224 Koza, Jan, 78 Koziarski, Daniel, 215, 222, 222n64, 223n65, 224, 225, 229, 232 Socjopata w Londynie (2007), 222, 222n64, 223n65, 223n66 Koźmian, Adam, 76 Koźmian, Jan, 76 Koźmian, Stanisław Egbert, 69, 76, 82 Kraiński, Wincenty, 71 Kraków, 6 Krasiński, Henryk, 69, 69n14 Krasiński, Walerian, 70 Krasiński, Zygmunt, 69 Krasnowolski, Jan, 10, 230–233, 230n119 Afrykańska elektronika (2013), 230n119

264 

INDEX

Kresy, 8, 148 Krzyżowski, Łukasz, 211 Ksieniewicz, Monika, 200 Kuczyński, Wincenty, 81, 81n49 Kultura, 147, 151, 154, 155 Kureishi, Hanif, 214 Kwei-Armah, Kwame (Ian Roberts), 10, 214, 229, 230 Let there be Love (2010), 214, 229 L Lach-Szyrma, Krystyn, 31, 69, 69n15, 70, 76, 79 Lācı ̄tis, Vilis (Ruğen̄ s, Aleksandrs), 215, 216, 216n27, 217n30, 217n31, 217n32, 218n37 Stroika ar skatu uz Londonu (2010), 209 Stroika with a London View (2019) (as William B. Foreignerski), 209, 210n3 La Fayette, Marie Joseph de, 66 La Fontaine, Jean de, 64 Lanchester, John, 11, 238, 250–256 Capital (2012), 11, 238, 250, 251, 253–256 Landor, Walter Savage, 31 Lansdowne, Lord (Henry Petty-­ Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne), 30 Łaski, Jan, v Laskowski, Szymon, 75 Lathy, Thomas Pike, 31 Łatka, Rafał, 191 Leerssen, Joep, 244, 244n26, 245, 254 Lelewel, Joachim, 97, 97n46 Lemański, Lieutenant Ludwik, 71 Leszczyński, Dariusz, 189 Lever, Charles, 118 The Dodd Family Abroad (1854), 118

Lewitter, L. R., 81 Lewycka, Marina, 10, 215, 218–222, 229, 232, 233 Two Caravans (2007), 218 Liberum veto, 99 Lind, John, 20, 21 Linde, Samuel Bogumił, 31 Lindsay, Maria, 124n38 Lingelbach, Jochen, 157n37 Literary Association of the Friends of Poland (LAFP), 33, 48, 58, 70n19, 72, 73, 73n26, 76, 77, 79, 93, 117, 123 Lloyd George, David, viii, ix London, 137–157 London Victory Parade, 145 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 124n38 Louis Philippe d’Orléans, 64 Low, Sampson, 119 Lublin, Scots colony, vi M Macałka, Iwona, 201 Mackiewicz, Józef, 156 Magenis, Arthur Charles, 52 Malraux, Andre, 153 Mansfield, Lord (William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield), 19 Marchlewicz, Krzysztof, 5, 6 Marecki, Józef, 191 Marx, Karl, 36 Mass Observation, ix Matka Polka (Mother Poland), 166, 166n13, 170 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 74 McLean, Thomas, 6, 247 Melbourne, Lord (William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne), 33, 72 Mendelssohn, Felix, 120n21 Michalski, Józef, 81, 81n49

 INDEX 

Mickiewicz, Adam, 65, 197 ‘Do Matki Polki’ (1830), 197 Mieroszewski, Juliusz, 155 Mieszko I, Duke of Poland, 191, 192 Mignolo, Walter, 214, 215 Migration, 161–165, 167–175, 177, 180, 181 Miklasz, Adam, 215, 224, 225, 228, 230, 232 Polska szkoła boksu (2009), 224 Milcarek, Paweł, 191, 192n13 Miłkowski, Zygmunt, 70, 70n18 Minifie, Susannah, 31 Mniszech, Michał Jerzy Wandalin, 19, 20 Model migrant, 11 Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), 64 Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de, 64, 103 Moore, Thomas, 120, 120n21 Odes of Anacreon (1800), 120 Morperh, Lord (George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle), 46 Moryson, Fynes, vi Moscovici, Serge, 186n2 Mother Pole (Matka Polka), 10, 196–201, 196n23 Muller, Karol, 76 Muller, Leopold, 76 Munch, John, 176n39 Murray, Rosalina, see Toynbee, A.J. Muscovy Company, v N Napoleon II, 90 Nasiłowska, Anna, 164 Navarino, Battle of, 129 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 152, 153 Neumann, Birgit, 238n5, 243n22, 245n30 Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia (1825–1855), 33, 34, 40, 43, 65

265

Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn, 22, 68, 69 Niewrzęda, Krzysztof, 213 Czas przeprowadzki (2005), 213 November Uprising (1830–1831), 5, 6, 39–41, 45, 46, 49, 57, 58, 63, 67, 69–72, 76n37, 81, 90, 91, 103–105 Nowak, Justyna, 194, 195 Opowies ć ́ emigracyjna (2010), 194 Nowakowski, Zygmunt, 149 Nowicka, Magdalena, 3, 211 O Ociepa, Justyna, 213 ‘Niezguła’ (2007), 213, 213n19 O’Connell, Daniel, 46, 49 Ogiński, Michał Kleofas, 23 Oliphant, Margaret, 117, 248 Operation of Barbarossa, 145 Orientalism, 7, 9 Ortega, Gema, 168n19, 168n20 Orwell, George, 150 Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), 150 Orzeł, Magdalena, 201, 203 Dublin, moja polska karma (2007), 201, 203 Ossory, Lady (Anne FitzPatrick, Countess of Upper Ossory), 26 The Oxford Migration Observatory, 238 Ozaist, Jacek, 188 Wyspa obiecana (2015), 188, 189 P Paine, Thomas, 27 Palmerston, Lady, 34, 35 Palmerston, Lord (Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston), 33, 41–47, 49, 49n46, 51–53, 56, 58, 71 Pandory, Puszka, 151

266 

INDEX

Pardoe, Julia, 82 Pasierbski, Lieutenant Hipolit, 75 Paszkowicz, Ksawery, 81, 81n49 Paszkowski, Józef, 82 Pavlenko, Aneta, 243 Peace of Amiens, 30 Peel, Sir Robert, 47, 50, 51, 56 Perry, James, 22 Philips, Ambrose, 105n81 Phillips, Mike (Michael Angus), 10, 214 A Shadow of Myself (2000), 214 Pigott, Charles, 25 Pigott, George, 46 Pitt, William (the Younger), 23, 25, 29 Plesske, Nora, 213 Płoszczyński, Napoleon, 81, 81n49 Podolski, Stanisław Emeryk, 71 Polish Democratic Society, 65 Polish government-in-exile, 142, 144–146, 145n16 Polish Historical Associations of London, 91 Polish second Corps, 138, 145 Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (PISM), 145 Polish National Committee, 65 Polishness, 163, 168, 170, 173, 176, 180, 181 Polish People’s Republic, 198 Polish Resettlement Act, 138, 138n2, 145 Polish Resettlement Corps, 145 Polish Socialist Party, 150 Polish University Abroad, London, 146 Polonia, 144 Poniatowski, Józef, 30, 32 Poniatowski, Michał, 22, 29 Poniatowski, Prince Józef, 66 Poniatowski, Stanisław Augustus, King of Poland (1764–1795), vii, 18–20, 24, 28, 29, 100

Ponsonby, Viscount (John Ponsonby, 1st Viscount Ponsonby), 53 Pope John Paul II, 192, 193 Porter, Brian, 103 Porter, Jane, 31, 114–117, 238, 245n30, 246–256, 247n36, 250n45 Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803), 11, 114, 116, 124, 238, 245n30, 246–249, 247n36, 252, 254–256 Portsmouth, 1, 2, 6 Post-Brexit, 10 Postcolonial, 211, 213–215, 229, 232 Postcolonial studies, 239, 241, 243, 244, 244n26 Postcommunist, 8–10, 211, 214, 224, 232 Post-dependence, 8 Potocki, Leopold, 75 Potocki, Seweryn, 22 Pragier, Adam, 151n25, 151n26 Prévost, Antoine François, 64 Protocolonial, 9 Prussia, 17, 19–21, 23, 29, 32, 34 Pułaski, Aleksander, 75 R Raczynska, Magda, 163n5, 165n12, 178n46 Ramet, Sabrina P., 191 Ranke, Leopold von, 107 Rappoport, A.S., 108 Short History of Poland (1915), 108 Red Army, 197 Reformation, the, v Rice, James, 6, 113, 115, 118–120, 122–124, 132 By Celia’s Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town (1893), 6

 INDEX 

with Walter Besant: By Celia’s Arbour: A Tale of Portsmouth Town (1878), 114n1 Richardson, Sarah, 31 Robertson, William, 94 Romilly, Lord, 30 Rostek, Joanna, 10, 11, 212, 213, 246n32 Roszewski, Jan, 75 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 20, 64 Roxburgh, Duchess of, 34 Rozański, Joseph, 2, 3 Ruğen̄ s, Aleksandrs, see Foreignerski, William B. (Ruğen̄ s, Aleksandrs); Lācı ̄tis, Vilis (Ruğen ̄ s, Aleksandrs) Ruğen̄ s, Aleksandrs/Vilis Lācı ̄tis/ William B Foreignerski, 10 Rupniewski, Nikodem, 76 Rupniewski, Roch, 76 Rushdie, Salman, 5, 214 Russell, Lord John, 47, 49, 55, 71 Russia, 17, 20–23, 28–30, 32, 33 Russian Empire, 5 Russo-Turkish War (1877-8), 114, 115, 128–130 Rykaczewski, Erazm, 79, 82 Rzepnikowska, Alina, 3 S Sadłoń, Wojciech, 191 Said, Edward, 89 Sandon, Viscount (Dudley Ryder, 2nd Earl of Harrowby), 46, 55 Sanguszko, Prince Roman, 124, 124n39 Scott, Walter, 79 Scottish Enlightenment, the, 94 Sébastiani, General Horace, 66, 67 Second world, 9 Sępek, Jarek, 210, 211, 215 W 80 dni dookoła s w ́ iata (nie wyjeżdżaja ̨c z Londynu) (2010), 210

267

Shackleton, Mark, 4n13 Shakespeare, William, vi, 69, 82 Shaw, Katy, 250 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 246 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 28 Siara, Bernadetta, 211 Sikorski-Mayski agreement, 145 Sissy Helff, 239 Ślipko, Łukasz, 201 Słowacki, Juliusz, 65 Smith, Adam, 18, 94 Smith, William, 28 Société Historique et Littéraire Polonaise, 65 Society of English Ladies for the Relief of the Polish Refugees, 33 Solidarity, x, 140, 142, 148, 189, 191 Somerset, Duchess of, 34 Spis, Gregory, 190 Pamiętnik tłumacza (2018), 190 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 239 Stalin, 144, 145, 147 Stasiewicz, Grzegorz, 71 Stawiarski, Franciszek, 76, 81 Stawiarski, Seweryn, 76, 76n36, 81n49 Steinkeller, Piotr, 71 Stormont, Lord (David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield, 7th Viscount of Stormont), 18, 19, 21 Stuart, Lord Dudley Coutts, 33, 35, 49–51, 54, 66, 66n7, 69, 70n19, 71 Sturis, Dionisios, 187, 195 Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz (2015), 187, 195 Suffolk, Lord (Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk), 21 Suskiewicz, Łukasz, 185, 186 Egri Bikaver (2009), 185 Sussex, Duke of (Augustus Frederick, Prince and Duke of Sussex), 30 Sweden, 23

268 

INDEX

Sword, Keith, 3 Sypniewski, Dominik, 80 Szadurski, Leon, 7, 87–109 Epitome of Polish History (1842), 92 Heaven Upon Earth (1848), 92 Szyrmowa, Józefa, 76 T Targowica, Confederation of (1792), 27, 28 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 32, 117, 127, 127n52, 127n53 Maud (1855), 117, 127 Terlecki, Tymon, 140n9, 149, 154, 155 Titkow, Anna, 196, 197 Tlostanova, Madina, 214, 215 Toynbee, A.J., 31 Trevena, Paulina, 222n61 Trollope, Anthony, 118 The Claverings (1867), 118 Tuwim, Julian, 149 Tyszkiewicz, Jerzy, 22 Tyzenhaus, Antoni, 19, 20 U Uffelmann, Dirk, 10, 11, 223n65, 239, 240, 246n32 UK Polonia, 168n18, 169 Ukraine, 11 Ulrich, Leon, 71, 82 Umiński, General Jan Nepomucen, 75 United Provinces, 23 Urquhart, David, 69 USSR, 138, 140, 144, 145, 148, 149, 151, 152 V Vane, Lord, 56 Vargas-Silva, Carlos, 238n3

Vatican, 192 Veličković, Vedrana, 177n43, 178n44, 214, 230, 239, 242, 253, 255 Vertovec, Steven, 211n8 Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901), 35, 37 Victoria Station, 185 Vienna, Treaty of (1815), 42–44, 46–50, 52–57 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 64 von Kaufmann, Major-General, 49 W Waite, Louise, 162 Wałęsa, Lech, x, 146 Walkowitz, Rebecca L., 165n10 Walpole, Horace, 21, 26 Walsh, Peter William, 238n3 Wasilewski, Jan, 75 Wa ̨sowicz, Jacek, 192, 201 100 Kijów w mrowisko (2010), 192 Watson, Colin, 248 Wedgwood, Josiah, 28 Węgierski, Karol, 81, 81n49 Wellington, Duke of (Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington), 41 Wendland, Anna Veronika, 243 West, Benjamin, 116 Westmorland, Lord (John Fane, 11th Earl of Westmorland), 52 Wharncliffe, Lord (John Stuart-­Wortley, 2nd Baron Wharncliffe), 56 Whig Club, the, 29 White, Anne, 3 Whitton, F.E., 107, 107n86 History of Poland (1917), 101, 107 Wiadomos ć i, 9, 137–157 Wielobycki, Dionizy, 81, 81n49 Wilberforce, William, 28, 30 Williams, John, 95

 INDEX 

Windrush, 138, 141, 142 Władysław IV Waza, King of Poland (1632–1648), vi Wolff, Larry, 88, 89, 89n8 Wolski, Felicjan Abdon, 82, 82n55 Wood, Nichola, 162 Worcell, Stanisław, 36, 75 Working Men’s Association, 36 World War II, 138, 142, 144, 145, 150, 188, 191, 197 Wroughton, Thomas, 21 Wyszowski, Michał, 201, 202 Na lewej stronie s w ́ iata (2010), 202 Y Yalta, x, 148, 149, 151 Yeames, William Frederick, 120 Peace and War (1886), 120 Yonge, Charlotte, 122 Yorke, Charles, 19 Z Żaba, Adam, 76 Żaba, Feliks, 7

269

Żaba, Napoleon Feliks, 77, 87–109 The Polish Exile (1832), 90, 90n11 The Principal Features of the History and Literature of Poland (1856), 91 Two Lectures on the History of Poland (1834), 91 Zahorska, Stefania, 150 Zamość, Scots colony, vi Zamoyski, Adam, 5, 145 Zamoyski, Count Władysław, 66, 66n7, 68, 77 Zamoyski, Władysław, 126 Zarycki, Tomasz, 9 Zieliński, Lieuteant, 77 Zuchowski, Daniel, 215, 227–229 The New Dubliners (2014), 227 Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław, 51n54, 57 Zygmunt II August, King of Poland (1548–1572), v Zygmunt III Waza, King of Poland (1587–1632), vi