Cultural diplomacy at its best. Giedroyc in St Petersburg

The Literary Institute, however, is still an active institution today. It continues to be widely recognised by its address: the famous Maisons-Laffitte, which also once housed the editorial offices of Kultura. Maisons-Laffitte was indeed an extraordinary place in the post-war period. It sheltered Czesław Miłosz in 1951 when he decided to quit working for the Polish communist authorities. It was also where Miłosz wrote the Captive Mind in which he analysed the mechanisms of political instrumentalisation that can both be found in the submissiveness of the cultural elite towards an authoritarian regime and the resignation of independent thinking. In addition, it was at Maisons-Laffitte where figures such as Father Józef Sadzik, who was a close friend of Czesław Miłosz and the founder of another Polish émigré publication, Éditions du Dialogue, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, future advisor of US President Jimmy Carter, could meet and chat at the same table. All this was possible thanks to the efforts of the hosts of Maisons-Laffitte, and Giedroyc in particular.

A political animal

Giedroyc called himself a political animal. And indeed he was one. However, he also had an amazing literary taste as well as an understanding of the role that literature could play in the process of transforming societies. Thus, it was him who convinced Witold Gombrowicz to write his diaries (Dzienniki) which were later published in subsequent issues of Kultura. It was also because of Giedroyc that Kultura became what we can call a meeting place: it gathered the most important Polish writers who, after the war, were dispersed throughout the world and lived in such places as Argentina, Belgium, Guatemala, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It was only in Kultura that they could publish texts in their native Polish language.

As a political beast, Giedroyc never refrained from political engagement and through Kultura demanded that Poles come to terms with the loss of their pre-war eastern territories. Even more in his correspondence with Juliusz Mieroszewski, also published in Kultura, the foundation of the now well-known ULB concept was formulated. This concept – whose name derived from the first letters of the states it focused on: Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus – assumed that their independence would be a stability guarantee for Central and Eastern Europe, and, indeed, Europe as a whole. It was presented to Kultura readers at a time where societies in the region were still strictly oppressed by Soviet authorities. Giedroyc, however, was convinced that the post-war political power arrangement was doomed to failure and would collapse one day.

Somewhat less known than the ULB concept were Giedroyc’s plans and aspirations which were not related to his editorial work. Together with Józef Czapski (a Polish painter and writer who was also one of Kultura’s founders), he envisioned the creation of a European University. Its location was debated to lie somewhere between Geneva and Strasbourg. The university was meant to have two departments: one for law and economics and the other for humanities (where literature and history of all the nations that lived behind the Iron Curtain would be taught). The university, in this way, would educate the citizens of a new Europe. The project, however, was never implemented, even though some initiatives and attempts were made.

A story of Eastern Europeans

All the books, magazines and correspondence that were authored by Giedroyc can be found today in the archives of the Literary Institute. The high value of their content is reflected by the fact that UNESCO has placed them on its Memory of the World Register. Volumes of Giedroyc’s correspondence as well as numerous academic publications analysing the activity of the Literary Institute have also been published in Poland and abroad. They have been authored by historians, political scientists, literary scholars and cultural experts. Clearly the plethora of published work shows that those who were responsible for creating Kultura continue to intrigue and impress today.

Overall, the variety of publications that analyse either Kultura or its authors and editors is vast and they range from those that focus on specific issues to biographies. Among all that is available, one clearly stands out. It was a book written by a Polish author named Magdalena Grochowska and first published in 2009. Titled Jerzy Giedroyc. Do Polski ze snu (Jerzy Giedroyc. To a Poland of dreams), the book is a fact-based publication, yet one that reads like a novel, or a historical report on resistance against communism. While presenting the biographies of the people who were once part of Kultura, Grochowska tells the story of Eastern Europeans – an intellectual history, to be more precise. It is a story that shows the difficult fate of the Polish intelligentsia in the second half of the 20th century. Grochowska’s book was well-received in Poland and granted many prestigious awards. Its popularity now has a chance to go beyond Polish borders as a Russian edition, titled Ежи Гедройц: К Польше своей мечты, was published this year – which, no doubt, would have pleased Giedroyc immensely.

Equally agreeable for Giedroyc would be the fact that the book was published in St Petersburg and as a result of joint efforts of three institutions, two of them being Polish: the Polish Institute in St Petersburg and the Polish Book Institute; and one Russian: the Ivan Limbach Publishing House. Grochowska, in her book, discusses how the Russian writers and thinkers who were living in Warsaw during the interwar period later impacted Polish post-war émigrés. These writers included Dmitry Filosofov, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky, who all fled Russia in 1920 following the Bolshevik Revolution. Giedroyc was particularly influenced by Filosofov, who was known for his publishing activities and the discussion clubs organised in his home. These were ideas replicated by Giedroyc once he himself became an émigré in Paris. Grochowska also rightly mentions Aleksandr Herzen, who as an émigré co-published a journal called Kolokol (Bell) in London. Written in Russian and French, Kolokol became an influential publication. Its impact inspired Giedroyc, as he confessed in a letter to Juliusz Mieroszewski: “A journal published abroad, free of compromises and liberally-minded, edited for Russians and by Russians, read by all … and influencing the situation in Russia … This is our ambition – partially already achieved”.

The Russian translation of Grochowska’s book and its publication in St Petersburg is an unquestionable tangible trace of cultural diplomacy as it was understood by those who established Kultura. Józef Czapski would often say that specific people and their engagement in cultural matters are more important for building good relations between nations than hundreds of promotional activities. In the case of this book, such a person was certainly the former director of the Polish Institute in St Petersburg – Natalia Bryżko-Zapór. The numerous activities that she championed during her tenure in St Petersburg can be seen as an implementation of Giedroyc’s belief in the creative power of language.

An extraordinary editor

As mentioned above, it was Giedroyc’s wish that Kultura be shut down upon his death. This decision is often explained by the fact that Giedroyc never prepared a successor. Or possibly it would be better explained by the fact the editor had other plans? Maybe it was not the lack of a suitable person to take over the leadership of the magazine but rather his conviction that Kultura was a product of a specific group of people, who were – in fact – irreplaceable. Or maybe it was an expression of Kultura’s credo?

Certainly his dying wish was a clear expression that an extraordinary journal needs an extraordinary editor; one who responsibly promotes certain views but – at the same time – is open to polemics that allow readers to understand the opposite point of view. Such an assumption makes it quite clear that a journal can last only as long as the editor in chief has influence over the editorial policy.

Translated by Iwona Reichardt

Dorota Sieroń-Galusek is an assistant professor at the Department for Cultural Education, Faculty of Ethnology and Educational Science, Silesian University in Katowice. She is also the author of Moment osobisty. Stempowski, Czapski, Miłosz (A Personal Moment: Stempowski, Czapski, Miłosz. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego) published in 2013.

Book review, Jerzy Giedoryc