Ken Cockburn, Author at Zielony Balonik

And Yet the Books

October 29, 2025October 30, 2025 by Ken Cockburn

The Institute of English Studies in the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw hosted their sixth Scotland in Europe conference during 22-24 October 2025. A wide range of 23 sessions were held with speakers from Poland, Scotland, Hungary, Czechia, Italy and France. Expert papers were presented on the themes of Polish-Scottish Relations; the challenge and interpretation of translations; European perspectives; contemporary Scottish fiction; poetry; 17th and 18th century Scotland; multi-modal perspectives; and politics past and present.

Historical studies, including personal genealogical searches and archival research, demonstrated the longer-term impacts of the political, economic and social contexts of their time with current perspectives. The importance of the role of literature and literary figures, creating an exchange network of ideas, culture across political boundaries, came to the fore supplemented by an appreciation of translation and multilingualism. Scotland provided speakers from the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh, the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, the Adam Smith Global Foundation and Zielony Balonik.

It was a pleasure to be able to describe our Scottish Polish Book Club and to refer to current initiatives such as The Richard Demarco Archive Trust and its collaboration with the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódż; the Bibliotheca Polonica Collection in Edinburgh; and the Sir Walter Scott Club. During the conference I was being approached mostly by the younger participants for more information and how to set up a book club. The University of Warsaw intends to produce a summary of the proceedings in due course. My own note for my presentation is attached.

Krystyna Szumelukowa
28 October 2025

SCOTLAND IN EUROPE CONFERENCE VI, UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW, 22-24 OCTOBER 2025

AND YET THE BOOKS
KRYSTYNA SZUMELUKOWA
Convener, The Scottish Polish Book Cub

And Yet the Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Berkeley, 1986

Czeslaw Miłosz, translated by Czeslaw Miłosz and Robert Haas

I hope that you love this poem as much as I do!

The idea to form a Scottish Polish Book Club began in 2004 when Poland joined the European Union. By 2006 we were established as Zielony Balonik taking the name from the cabaret so popular in Kraków from 1905-1912. It was chosen to embrace the legacy of the cabaret representing free floating ideas expressed in literature beyond borders and made more accessible with modern communications technology.

Zielony Balonik celebrates its 20th anniversary next year. We can look back and surprise ourselves as we have read over 120 books; arranged public events; entertained authors; written our own books and poems; provided teaching materials for schools; participated in Edinburgh’s festivals; enjoyed literary visits to Poland; and rescued a book collection in Edinburgh’s last remaining Polski Dom. Our club includes members who are European, British, Scottish and Polish We read books in English and Polish. Our first book was Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day House of Night, and our current reading is The Polish Book of Short Stories. Where would we be without Antonia Lloyd-Jones?

To consolidate our literary endeavours we established a web site in the spirit of Zielony Balonik to reach out beyond our intimate group and also provide an archive of our reading. The Covid Pandemic then arrived to challenge us to learn the pros and cons of being hybrid. To see our reading list over the years and for reviews and comments you might like to visit our website.

The advantages of internet technology means that book choices now accumulate enriching information on authors, the translators, publishers, book awards and fairs and the literary world of the past and present. Our personal exchanges is our cherry on the top of an ever enlarging information cake. Our connections with libraries, universities, cultural organisations, the Scottish Government and local government and ambassadors and consuls have been enriching and thus we have been involved in a myriad of projects from designing tartans to erecting statues and advising on exhibitions and theatre scripts!

But also as individuals we have gradually accumulated our personal book collections which are taking up more and more space on our shelves at home. We are faced with the cataloguing of our own books and personal decisions on their future homes. Who can we trust to curate our collections? As a book club we engaged in the rescue and cataloguing of the literary heritage housed in the last remaining Polski Dom in Edinburgh prior to its renovation. The collections of books, documents, photographs, videos, art works and memorabilia were in disarray and decay on the floors and in boxes, not even on the shelves. The work appears to have been in vain with no access to the collection.

The building in Edinburgh which became the Polski Dom in 1948 actually dates back to 1820; the year when Adam Konstanty Zamoyski came to the university to study economic theory. The following year the Zamoyski family donated ninety-three works of Polish literature and culture to the Library of The Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet in Edinburgh. A further fifty works were also presented by Count Sobański. These collections include the Chronica Polonorum (1521) and a second edition of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus printed in 1566. ‘Bibliotheca Polonica’ has been resting quietly for many years as a backdrop to the history of relations between Scotland and Poland. It is good to know that Dr. Kit Baston is now researching the original Polish Collection for an exhibition in anticipation of the British Council’s 2025 UK /Poland Cultural season. It has only taken over 200 years!

Also in 1820 Karol Sienkiewicz, Prince Adam Czartoryski’s librarian, visited Edinburgh and met Sir Walter Scott. ‘Britomania’ had come into vogue heralding literary exchanges, influences, translations, and new connections associated with WalterScottism in Poland. To be a witness to events in Scotland and in the non-place of Poland at that time must have been as dramatic as it can be now. It was Jan Czeczot in 1822 who referred to Adam Mickiewicz as the Walter Scott of Lithuania.

The Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club was founded in 1894 and celebrates the life, works, and legacy of Scotland’s greatest storyteller. It is an active and thriving literary society of over 200 members, drawn from Edinburgh, across the UK, and overseas.

A vibrant programme of meetings, lectures, excursions, and online publications, we explore Sir Walter Scott’s enduring influence — not only in literature, but across art, history, music, law, architecture, ecology, and cultural identity. The aim is to advance public understanding and appreciation of Scott’s work, ensuring his ideas remain alive, accessible, and dynamic for new generations. Go to the website and join us!

It would be of great interest for the club to host an event in 2026/2027 with a focus on the impact of Sir Walter Scott in Poland. There is already a substantial body of academic research on the subject notably produced by the late Witold Ostrowski and by Mirosława Modrzewska.

To take another point in time I move on to the aftermath of the Second World War and the process of reconciliation. Donations of military documents from 1940-1947, when Polish forces were based in Scotland, were made to the Signet Library and then in 1962, the Millennium of the Polish state was recognised with the donation of a thousand books by the Polish community in Edinburgh. All the collections were then presented to the National Library of Scotland. In addition, the University of Edinburgh hosts the Polish Medical School Library and Collection from the times of the Second World War, tirelessly curated by the late Maria Długołęcka-Graham.

The desire for peace and security in Europe and to overcome the accumulation of grief of loss of life and homeland was expressed by the inauguration of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. One of its tireless personalities is the eternal Richard Demarco who celebrated his 95th birthday this summer to the rendition of STO LAT! Over 60 years he has traversed the cultural scene in Europe opening doors for Polish painters, sculptors and performance artists resulting in a one million plus archive of photographs, rare books, posters, letters and catalogues.

On the day he welcomed Daniel Muzyczuk, the Director of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, and announced its new collaboration with the Demarco Collection and Archive Trust, The National Galleries of Scotland, the University of Dundee and Papple Steading in East Lothian. Always looking to the future, he said;

“I hope to announce how I envisage future generations of academics, artists, and art students will benefit from the Demarco art collection and archive as a unique academic resource with the support of our charity, the Demarco Archive Trust, to encourage future generations to focus on how the history of the Edinburgh International Festival cannot be separated from the history of the second world war with a distinct Scottish-Polish dimension”.

Funding to the Muzeum Sztuki from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage will cover the costs of transportation and packaging, which will include the purchased works and the donation of the collection and archive. The shipping and inventory is to be completed by the end of this year and then work on the archive and collection will begin so that parts will be available online.

It is with some hope that Zielony Balonik may have been a catalyst to achieve wider Scottish Polish literary connections, no matter how modest. Individual members past and present have different reasons for our exploration of Poland through literature. This is our strength. We have inevitably been immersed in its turbulent history and geography and the turmoil and suffering of its populations in non-fiction and fiction to the point of despair at times. But we have also been impressed with the quality of authorship and translation in the re-reading of past classics and the vitality of contemporary writers deep into crime and psychology producing Book Fair Rock Stars such as Jakub Żulczyk! Women writers have featured with our own Scottish member, Jenny Robertson, publishing From Corsets to Communism: the Life and Times of Zofia Nałkowska in 2019. We read contemporary works by Anne Applebaum, Neal Ascherson and Philippe Sands as a matter of course to give us insight into the current political world.

Scotland is not just a so-called ‘small stateless nation’; it is a country of enlightenment which has its daily struggles at every moment in time. Mistakes and muddle are normal. But the opportunities for active citizenship abound and the answer to any question can itself be questioned. The Global Scot is to be found everywhere just as The Global Pole. When the Scottish and Polish Diaspora come together then there is every reason to celebrate.

The Institute of English Studies in Warsaw

October 29, 2025 by Ken Cockburn

The Institute of English Studies in the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw has received a collection of books about Scotland and by Scottish authors from the estate of the late Dr. Robert Lindsay Hodgart, who fulfilled an academic career as an urban geographer at the University of Edinburgh. He had strong personal links with Warsaw and Poland through marriage and on retirement was able to devote more time to experiencing Poland.

A small selection of the collection was on display in the Faculty Library during the Scotland in Europe Conference 22-24 October 2025. It was an eye catching and colourful point of interest along one of the wide corridors of the stylish building in Ulica Dobra opposite the magnificent Main Library of the University of Warsaw.

Pages of books in different languages are represented on its exterior and in its interior. A lovely place to visit when in Warsaw and to relax in the botanical gardens and in the roof top gardens.

Krystyna Szumelukowa
28 October 2025

Netflix Lalka

October 2, 2025 by Ken Cockburn

From Robert, our unofficial Warsaw correspondent:

On a walk today, near Nowe Miasto, we came across the site of a film set which was under construction for the Netflix production of Lalka (The Doll).

We have all read the book and will remember the shop! The one in the attached photos is made from polystyrene slabs.

I hope a storm does not occur before the film is completed.

The International Book Fair Warszawa May 2025

June 21, 2025 by Ken Cockburn

The cheerful back cover to the brochure tells its own story. Over a long weekend in Warszawa the enthusiasm for books was visible with tents outside in Plac Defilad, stalls inside the Palace of Culture and an overflow into the Modern Art Gallery next door. Younger ones out numbered the older readers everywhere with literally hundreds of publishers present, many of whom had corralled their authors to put in an appearance. The partnership this year with the Republic of Korea as the special guest was not out of place and very much a sign of the times as Poland is a a dynamic global actor on the world stage.

The size of the pavilions seemed also to be a reflection of the changing world of publishing. To my surprise the Czytelnik stall was one of the smallest with just room for two people, one of whom was Adam Zamoyski quietly signing the occasional book and politely interested in our reading of Isabella the Valiant, but camera shy. In contrast, the super size pavilion housing NieZwyklą Książkę was heaving with dramatic books for the younger generations. The beautiful book covers were enticing, many of which were emblazoned with English titles. Świat Książki also pulled in the crowds but it was easy to do as they launched the latest book Kandydat by Jakub Żulczyk, the day before the first round of the recent presidential election. The queues awaiting his arrival were long. But I managed the photo before he had a chance to sit at the signing desk escorted by his suitably attired entourage! He was not camera shy! I am waiting for the translation of the book into English.

Jakub Żulczyk signing a copy of his new book Kandydat

I was delighted to see that I could buy a new edition of Śłowka by Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński which includes the Piosenki Zielonego Balonika. My companion book for my visit to Warszawa was Russia’s Neighbour: the New Poland by Bernard Newman published in 1946. I wanted to recall his commentary of that time alongside my new encounters in 2025. The result is a desire to return to the book fair next year!

Krystyna Szumelukowa

Wojtek, The Bear Who Went to War

November 30, 2024November 30, 2024 by Ken Cockburn

The Bear Who Was a Private in the Polish Army

Thanks to Elaine at Clooti (who ensure this website runs smoothly) for pointing out this piece on the BBC website. It highlights a new play about Wojtek the bear which ran at the Albany Theatre in Coventry recently, adapted by Alan Pollock from his children’s book The Bear Who Went To War.

Wojtek is well know in Edinburgh thanks to the statue of him in Princes Street Gardens. We have our own page about Wojtek on our website here.

The Laundry Girl and the Pole

October 11, 2024 by Ken Cockburn

Leszek Wieciech writes:

As my friends know, even though a quarter of a century has passed since my return from Edinburgh to Warsaw, I continue to search for traces of the several hundred years of Polish-Scottish contacts. While finding commemorative plaques, cemeteries, monuments in Poland or Scotland is relatively easy, tracking down forgotten works of art is much more difficult. Of course, during my visit to the City Chambers in Glasgow I saw a painting by Feliks Topolski, someone told me about Alexander Żyw and his work, but somehow I did not come across any traces of Poles and Poland in Scottish literature. Now I know they are there, I just had to look deeper…

And some time ago, while browsing through copies of Dziennik Żołnierza (Soldier’s Diary), in the issue of October 29th 1942 I came across an interesting, hot discussion regarding the short story ‘Opowieść o szkockiej praczce i polskim żołnierzu (originally ‘The Laundry Girl and the Pole’) by Fred Urquhart, published in several previous issues of the newspaper. In letters to the editor, many readers criticized the author for presenting Polish soldiers in a distorting mirror, as men who unscrupulously exploited Scottish girls. There have been claims that it is a Scottish Decameron, with a Polish soldier in the main role. Some people doubted that the author was actually a Scot and not a Polish author writing under a pseudonym. Some readers were of the opinion that the author insulted the honor of a Polish soldier and that this short story should not be published in the Soldier’s Journal at all.

And that’s how I became interested in the short story and its author – Fred Urquhart, considered one of the greatest Scottish writers of the 20th century, a master of the short form, author of several outstanding novels. He was born in Edinburgh in 1912 and showed an interest in writing in his youth. Even before the war, he was recognized as an exceptionally talented writer with great prospects. His career in the elite environment of Edinburgh was hindered by his origins, as well as the fact that he was homosexual, had left-wing views and defended the rights of women and the working class. During World War II, he refused to join the army – he was a pacifist, a conscientious objector who believed that as an artist he could bring more to the country than as a soldier with a rifle in the trenches. In 1940 he appeared in court in Edinburgh twice and ultimately avoided prison sentence in exchange for being sent to work on a farm in Kincardineshire. In 1944 he moved to the English countryside.

‘The Laundry Girl and a Pole’ was written in the initial period of his work. The author placed the main emphasis on the moral transformation of Scottish girls during the war, largely as a result of their contacts with English and Polish soldiers. The theme of Scottish girls’ relationships with foreign – including Polish – soldiers also appears in other short stories and in the novel Jezebel’s Dust. Urquhart encountered Polish soldiers in Cupar, Fife, where in 1940 he worked as a gardener while living with his American friend Mary Litchfield – a communist party activist in the Fife district. At her instigation and through Lieutenant Stanisław Luxemburg, he contacted the publishers of Dziennik Żołnierza, offering his recently finished story. After long discussions, the editors decided to publish ‘Opowiadanie o szkockiej praczce i polskim żołnierzu’, but significantly shortened and reviewed due to fragments “bordering on pornography”. The translation was undertaken by Stanislaw (Stanley) Bogacz. The publication, which was serialized in 19 parts from October 1st to 26th 1942, sparked a heated discussion in the Polish community in Scotland. Stanisław Bogacz, in a letter to the Scottish writer Dorothy K. Haynes, Urquhart’s friend, wrote that there were “hundreds of letters of protest” when the story was published in Soldiers’ Daily.

First, I read the short story in Polish translation, in the version published in Dziennik Żołnierza. My first impression was that it was like a jigsaw puzzle with something missing. Moreover, I noticed some awkwardness and anglicisms in the Polish translation. After reading, I was left with some dissatisfaction, intensified by what I had already read about Fred Urquhart. Since he was the greatest Scottish short story writer and one of the best Scottish writers of the 20th century, a master of the short form, his works should have been more complete even in the early stages of his work. I decided to read the story in the original, which turned out to be quite a difficult task, as Urquhart’s work is not present on the Polish book market. Fortunately, we live in the 21st century and Uncle Google told me that ‘The Laundry Girl and the Pole’ was published in the collection The Clouds are Big with Mercy. I brought the collection from Great Britain and started reading it.

I quickly realized that the 1942 translation was a significantly censored version of the original, which is why my initial impression of the incomplete puzzle. Therefore, I decided that the Polish reader deserved the full version of Fred Urquhart’s story, so I decided to translate ‘The Laundry Girl and the Pole’. It was not an easy task. Fortunately I received support from my Scottish friends in Warsaw, especially Paul Gogoliński. Another challenge was reaching the copyright owner, Colin Affleck. Fortunately, after some problems, I managed to reach him and obtain the right to publish the short story in Polish. Along the way, I learned some interesting details about the circumstances of its publication.

Ultimately, my translation of Fred Urquhart’s short story was published under the title ‘Namiętność. O małej Nettie i polskim żołnierzu’ in the Res Humana periodical, starting from issue 1/2024, and on the related website. My translation is a translation of the full text and has not been censored in terms of content. I also tried to reflect in the Polish text, at least to some extent, the fact that the author used the Fife dialect in many dialogues. To make it easier for the reader to understand certain fragments, I have included information about songs, films or books from that period mentioned by the author in the references.

More than 80 years after the story’s publication, it is difficult to find any fragments in it that would be associated with pornography for a modern reader – or even come close to it. The author described the relationships of Polish soldiers with Scottish women in a realistic, often humorous way. In real life it resulted in a large number of mixed marriages and children born from these relationships. He simply described reality faithfully… I will never forget how, during a meeting with a representative of the local government authorities in Fife in the second half of the 1990s, it turned out that my interlocutor had a Polish uncle. He jokingly commented on his family history that if it had not been for the injection of Polish soldier’s blood during World War II, the Fife district would have suffered a genetic disaster. On the other hand, the text shows some false ideas of Urquhart about Poland and Poles, which is especially visible in the fragment regarding the ‘Dąbrowski Mazurka’:

“The Poles started singing a song that none of the girls knew. There was a foreign song about it, nostalgic and forlorn. The voices rose and fell plaintively… If you girls, you listened to the wireless on Sunday nights instead of gallivanting… you’d know it was the Polish National Anthem…”

Fred Urquhart died on December 2, 1995 in Haddington, a few months after I arrived in Scotland. Incidentally, the first place I set foot on Scottish soil in August 1995 was a petrol station in Haddington…

Why did none of my friends mentioned Fred Urquhart to me? Maybe it’s because – even before the war – he had leftist views, bordering on communism? Maybe the fact that he was homosexual and spent most of his life in the English countryside, outside the Edinburgh elites? Or maybe the fact that during World War II he was a conscious conscientious objector, which meant that, by court order, he had to take up work as an agricultural worker in order not to go to prison? Or maybe he and his short story were simply forgotten…

Either way, it is worth recalling this forgotten novella about the Scottish laundry girls Nettie and the Polish soldier Jan. Without stories like this, there would not be such a large Polish diaspora in Scotland after the war.

***

Leszek Wieciech is a former diplomat and a manager experienced in lobbying and government relations. He is actively involved in education on Polish-Scottish cultural and historical links, author of several articles on this subject, and a member of the GlobalScot business network.

2021-2023: Board Member, Head of the Anti-Corruption Programme at the UN Global Compact Network Poland.

2009-2019: CEO & President of the Polish Organisation of Oil Industry and Trade. Responsible for successful lobbing related to the fuel sector, including reduction of tax frauds.

2008-2009: City Director Warsaw, Clinton Climate Initiative. Dealt with climate-change related challenges faced by the C-40 members.

1999-2006: Government Affairs Manager BP Polska, responsible for integrated lobbying for the Polish branch of the global company.

1984-1999: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1986-90 Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, 1994-95 Deputy Director of Personnel, 1995-99 Consul General of Poland in Edinburgh).

Co-founder of the Road Safety Partnership, since 2019 Vice-President of the Board. One of the pioneers of CSR education in Poland, co-author of the “Corporate Social Responsibility in Poland. Baseline Study” (UNDP 2007).

Member of the Chapter of the Order of the Smile. Member of the Advisory Board of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation (since 2022).

September 30, 2024September 30, 2024 by Ken Cockburn

Robert McMillan writes from Warsaw:

The ZB website has a few photos relating to Prus’s Lalka and the related walk in Warsaw. I also remember Jenny commenting on the absence of any photos relating to the heroine. Here are some relevant photos I took last week, including one with a route map.

See also the main page about the book here, with our thoughts on it.

Autocracy Inc

September 16, 2024 by Ken Cockburn

Autocracy Inc: The dictators who want to run the world by Anne Applebaum (Allen Lane 2024)

My first reading of Anne Applebaum was Gulag published in 2003 and my precious copy was signed by her on 11 August 2018 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It was a towering exposition of the terror inflicted on millions of people by Soviet Russia in its network of camps. My own father survived imprisonment north of the Arctic Circle by the Gulf of Pechora during the Second World War. My second reading was Iron Curtain, an equally monumental book published in 2012 which expanded into the geography of central and eastern Europe and details its subjugation under Stalinist control from 1944 to 1956.

Then a hiatus until 2020 when I read Twilight of Democracy which is a commentary of the current fragility of the democratic world from the starting point of the dawn of the 21st century. The emergence of the forces of authoritarianism challenging democratic norms and the destabilisation of civil society driven by illiberal, anti-competitive and anti-meritocratic power bases alongside the accelerating pace of modern media are based on selective nostalgia to appeal to the disaffected. She sounded the alarm bells and now in 2024 we have the book Autocracy Inc which further expands the geography to the globe and the network of autocratic regimes who share common interests to preserve power and resources and challenge or disregard international institutions, norms and laws. The levers of power include surveillance technologies and media savvy to sidestep and outflank democratic based politics and politicians.

The role of Russia as a key protagonist is critical to the spread of authoritarianism globally but specifically in central and eastern Europe its leadership from Vladimir Putin has extended into direct military force into Ukraine. The sowing of seeds of disaffection based on selective nostalgia are powerful slow burning tactics to destabilise democratic societies however they may be constituted. They promote hopelessness, cynicism and disillusion. No democracy is safe from such tactics. Multipolarity is the new autocratic mantra justifying rule by law of the leader rather than leadership under the rule of law. Thus Zimbabwe supports the Russian “Special Operation “ in Ukraine as a transactional deal rather than following any mutual ideal.

Alongside these political tactics are the unknown consequences of autocratic global networks supporting kleptocracy, corruption and criminality where there are no territorial boundaries and which are enabled by the subservience of vested interests in democratic societies. Anne Applebaum has raised these concerns very lucidly in this book which has now become a catalyst for discussion. It has been dedicated to optimists but I would prefer to consider myself a positive pessimist. My own father told me in 1989, when Poland freed itself from the yoke of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall came down, that Russia would be back in 40 years. That would be 2029. I was optimistic then that he would be wrong owing to the ending of the Cold War and the presumed will of all to pursue peace through co-operation and respect for basic freedoms. I realise now that he knew never to underestimate the forces of autocracy and that democracy and its freedoms can never be assured.

Krystyna Szumelukowa
September 2024

Kraków in sepia: two snapshots from a Scottish album

January 7, 2024January 11, 2024 by Ken Cockburn

Jenny Robertson writes:

“My first inkling of Poland came in a Glasgow classroom when we were shown on an old reel to reel projector a broken film, barely visible made by Film Polski. Only years later did I realise it was about the restoration and return of the Wit Stworz altar to the Mariacki church in Kraków. It thrilled me with a sense of survival and of valuing something precious: Polska.”

The two poems below draw on her memory of that film, and her first visit to the city itself.

Kraków in sepia: two snapshots from a Scottish album

1958, Chored maisterstick

Lang syne in ane Glescae schule –
chalk stour, reek o damp claes an sweat,
we’re shawn a fillum “tae dae wi art”. Sklintering bits
o celluloid, gaistly shapes atweesh gliff blitz
o licht, a wee bit ferlie, syne a name,
film polski, and a thocht: reclaim.

We hae seen yon chored maisterstick braucht hame
tae Kraków – nae saining i the Kirk fae it,
no yet; but a-unkenning I was gien a wee sma keek
– blawn haar in hairst –
intae airts weel hoddit, a hale mind-set
“dunted, but no daunted yet”
that pu’d me thence, like metal skelfs tae strang magnet.

Long ago, in a Glasgow school, chalk dust, smell of damp clothes and sweat, we are shown a film “to do with art”. Broken bits of celluloid, ghostly shapes between momentary blitz of light, a little wonder, then a name, film polski, and a thought: reclaim. We saw that stolen masterpiece brought home to Kraków – no consecration in Church for it, not yet; but all unawares I was given a very small glimpse, like blown sea mist in autumn, into places well concealed, a whole mind-set: “struck down but not defeated yet”, that pulled me thence, like pieces of metal to a strong magnet.

1962, Student tour

Four years later – careless twenty – I am here
in soaring summer heat,
hear hejnal sound across the Market Square:
basements, dim-lit, thrum with illicit beat.

We Scottish girls discard our bras.
“Just like the Polish girls,” we whisper, unaware
our Playtex frillies are undreamt of where
girls use no make-up, wear long, braided hair,
or, city-slick, her nylons, 15 denier, sheer
cost an hour of sex per desired pair.

Oświęcim? Not on our student tour
of cities bright with socialist hope,
but in a cellar where she works with hard-to-lather soap,
a woman slumps on backless chair; hands puffy, damp.
Rolled sleeves expose a number stamped
on her swollen wrist,
– silent witness and unspoken text.

A lifetime later I still see her deformed hand;
in mind and memory bear that violent brand.

Inny świat?
(A different world?)
Jenny Robertson, December 2023

Warsaw Fictions

November 22, 2023November 22, 2023 by Ken Cockburn

Our de facto Warsaw correspondent Robert recently sent these photos relating to Lalka (The Doll) by Bolesław Prus, which we read in 2021, along with this commentary:

“No doubt most of you will remember when we read the classic book ‘Lalka’.

“This morning we came across the 2 carved information plaques in the attached photographs. Each one is about a main character from the book. Curiously, the text assumes that these fictional characters DID live in the premises with attached plaques.”

Wokulski is the main protagonist, who owns the shop in which Rzecki works – and while said shop plays a central role there’s a lot more to the book than shopkeeping.