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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781908120724 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Oval Books |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2000 |
| Series: | Xenophobe's Guide , #25 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 92 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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Xenophobe's Guide to the Poles
By Ewa Lipniacka, Catriona Tulloch Scott
Xenophobe's Guides
Copyright © 2011 Oval ProjectsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-908120-72-4
CHAPTER 1
Nationalism & Identity
Forewarned
Legend has it that one fine spring morning in ancient times, three Slavonic brothers, Czech, Lech, and Rus, set out to find new homes. Czech founded the Czech nation in the first good clearing they came to. The other two carried on until Lech saw an eagle building its nest, took it as a sign from the gods, and founded Gniezno, the first capital of Poland. Rus travelled on.
Lech's choice must rank with the ten worst decisions in history. Most of Poland is a flat open plain described by military experts as an 'ideal spot for a battlefield' (a feature exploited today by rental rather than invasion, for NATO manoeuvres, amongst others). Poland has been fought on or over at some time or another by virtually every country in Europe, including, amazing as it may seem, Sweden, and for whole centuries at a time it disappeared off the map altogether.
But the past is another country. Today Poland is vibrantly independent and planning to stay that way. It's holding its own in the EU and is as keen on playing host to American rocket bases as it previously was to Russian ones. The only invasions it anticipates, or hopes for, are from tourists, and investors.
How the Poles see themselves
The Poles are self-critical; they know themselves inside out, warts and all. What is more, they will compulsively pick at their blemishes. There is not a problem, be it social, political, economic, national or local, which is not regularly and minutely dissected, put together again in every order imaginable and argued over endlessly. There is no national characteristic, either real or imagined, which has not been lamented, and its consequences listed. But when it comes to transferring the words into deeds – well, that is the trouble with Poles: argumentative, undisciplined, no follow-through, straw fire, as any Pole will tell you, interminably.
However, this is a game only the home team can play. They would rather not have their faults pointed out by others. Under attack, they will defend every flaw, usually beginning with the phrase, "But you couldn't possibly understand, the problem is so Polish." Persist and you will offend and, with a Pole, taking offence comes only too easily, although luckily it doesn't last long. The most perfect solutions to all their problems more often than not are arrived at late at night, with alcohol fumes heating the air, but are forgotten with the hangover in the morning.
How they see others
Slavonic brotherhood notwithstanding, the Poles have always considered that East is East and West is best and the twain meet on Poland's eastern frontiers. If money talks, then what it tells the Poles is to travel west when seeking fame and fortune because to the east lie lands that are rich with people who are poor and who cannot afford Polish plumbers.
Their Russian neighbours are seen as brutish; a people born to be dominated, neither enterprising nor hard working, their successes being put down to sheer weight of numbers and ownership of essential raw materials. Although wary of the Russian mafia, on whom they lay the blame for the rise in their own crime rate, the Poles were quick to capitalise on the opportunities that trade with Russia and its former empire offered and many a fortune was made, and lost, on the tricky Russian market. Because of this familiarity, the Poles were the first to warn of the danger of Russia's stranglehold on world resources. Now, when Russians turn off the gas tap with every cold snap, the rest of Europe can more easily understand Polish fears and resentment.
The Poles find their other neighbours, the Germans, a dull lot who, left to their own devices, will stay in their own backyard and nurture Heimat, but as a nation (whether by war or trade) are born to dominate. Though some Poles still worry that Germany might try to reclaim Silesia, an ever-increasing army of Polish migrants are making their home there, and most Poles hope that EU membership of both parties will keep German militancy at bay.
The Poles have the misfortune to be sandwiched between the two giants and try to turn it to their advantage by playing business partner to either and middleman to both. But then, they're adept at dancing on tightropes.
For nations to admire, Poles look further afield. Most frequently, in search of style gurus, they turn to Italy, and not for the first time in history. Bona Sforza, wife of Zygmunt the Aged, introduced the Renaissance to Poland, along with architects, artists and craftsmen, and revolutionised Polish cuisine by bringing lettuce, leeks, cabbages and cauliflowers from Italy with her. In the 18th century, Bacciarelli and Canaletto painted Warsaw, which was being remodelled by, amongst others, Italian architect Dominic Merlini. After the Second World War, Canaletto's paintings were used as a guide for the reconstruction of streets and façades that the Germans had demolished.
For centuries the Poles, especially the aristocracy, slavishly followed French style from language to fashion, and lived in France if they could afford it. Poles who fought bitterly to save themselves from becoming Russians or Germans voluntarily made themselves imitation Frenchmen. Napoleon was revered, though he only saw the Poles as cannon fodder, and Polish law and many civil institutions are based on the Napoleonic code. But French xenophobia and frequent ganging up with Germany in EU forums, has brought the one-sided love affair to an end. Relations are so frosty that even the French language is rarely taught in Polish schools.
Nowadays Polish hearts and minds belong to the English. There are English pubs and English products, signs in English over shop doors, and English taught in all schools. Football fans even try to measure up to English football hooligans, luckily without much success. Britain and Ireland were the first EU countries to open their doors to the Poles, who flock there to work, study and play. Consequently, Roman Catholicism is the fastest growing religion in Britain and European demographic statisticians are working overtime to keep up.
Poles admire the Americans for their single-minded pursuit of wealth, but see them as nie kulturalni (uncultured) – a signal condemnation in Polish eyes. American 'Polish' jokes have little currency in Poland. However, Poles laugh at Polish Americans and see them as a naïve lot, but put this down to the effect of living in America.
For all that the Scandinavians are just across the Baltic and frequent ferries ply merrily between them, there seems to be little bonding of souls. Shoals of Poles go to Sweden and Norway to augment family finances by fruit picking and the like, and Swedish companies turn to Poland for cheap labour and designers – though Poles are shy about the former and the Swedes are loathe to admit to the latter. Only recently has the founder of IKEA admitted that his fortune (and fondness for vodka) came from sourcing his flatpacks in Poland in the 1960s. Not that any of this generates heat. A placid indifference reigns on both sides – a phenomenon amongst neighbours. They share the Baltic, but little else. Oil and water just don't mix.
With their smaller neighbours, political expediency is leading to a burial of the Polish/Ukranian hatchet, while the Lithuanians are tolerated, in fact quite liked, although sadly the feeling is not always mutual: the two shared a government for too long, with the Poles as senior partner. With so many Poles earning their crust in the West, much of the employment slack in Poland is being taken up by Ukrainians and Lithuanians. The Czechs are considered too lacking in soul to be proper Slavs. The street cred they earned by choosing a playwright for president is spent. On the other hand, the Slovaks, with whom the Poles share the Tatra Mountains, are well liked. However, it is the Hungarians who the Poles treat as brothers, although they are not Slavs at all. Though they share neither border nor language, or possibly because of this, Hungarians are seen as kindred spirits, sharing aspirations, temperament and love of strong drink.
How others see them
The Poles have always been seen as mad romantics. For this read 'manipulable hotheads' – all too often true. Winston Churchill stated: "There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and few mistakes they have ever avoided." Quentin Crisp went further by describing the Poles as: "Not a nation, but an unsound state of mind."
Much of the West sees the Poles as a workforce on the move, a nation of remittance men. The Hungarians admire the Poles for having retained their economic and political miracle, their own having hit the buffers. But being hero-worshipped doesn't come easy to a Pole as heroes don't complain, but you cannot be a good Pole without being able to indulge in a jolly good moan.
Before the Second World War, the Poles were considered to be 'Middle Europeans'. After the war, the country itself having shifted considerably westwards, Poles were known as 'East Europeans'. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the newly found independence of the Baltic States, Poland, without moving an inch, has become Central European again. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many people have no idea where Poland is. Some confuse it with Holland. Many imagine it as permanently snowbound, presumably associating it with the North Pole.
CHAPTER 2Character
The defensive Pole
Geopolitics is the chief architect of the Polish character. The Poles, famed as magnificent fighters, are in reality avid self-defenders. They would much rather not have to be. Even in its brief period of expansion in the 15th century, Poland acquired territory by treaty, not battle, huddling together with Lithuania against the Teutonic Knights (Prussians by any other name).
Polish xenophobia is a self-defence mechanism: essential to the Poles' survival is the obsessive nurturing of language, culture and traditions, all of which are portable and can be handed on 'underground'.
Polish borders are a thing of such infinite fluidity that geography teachers are rumoured to have a special salary supplement for the extra hours of preparation they have to put in when establishing how many countries border with Poland at any given time, and which rivers are in or out. This also explains why more Poles live outside Poland's borders than inside. Many were left behind during border shifts – like the little old lady who, when informed that her home was now in Russia, not Poland, said, "Thank God, I couldn't have stood another of those cold Polish winters."
Some were reluctant tourists, a long-standing favourite trip being 'Siberia by cattle truck'. Some were washed out by the tides of uprisings or war and deposited wherever. For example, the Poles in France are relics of the 19th-century uprisings, while the Poles in Britain were stranded after the Second World War, hence the Ealing or Bradford Poles.
Now that the Soviet Union is no more, Polish communities have emerged from all its former territories as far afield as Kazakhstan, and former Polish towns like Lviv in the Ukraine and Vilnius in Lithuania. Poland has ever been a net provider of economic migrants and many made for the Statue of Liberty along with every other hungry European. The biggest urban concentration of Poles today, after Warsaw, is in Chicago. There are sizeable Polish communities in Germany, Brazil, Peru, anywhere – in fact, you can't travel far in the world without bumping into a Pole. This means that today's Polish citizens are inveterate travellers, not on package tours but on family visits. Exiles from all over the world, even unto the third generation, flock to and from Poland bent on business and pleasure, delighted that all those Saturday mornings spent learning Polish are paying off at last.
Regional differences in Poland are often still dictated by the national characteristics of the 18th- and 19th-century occupants of the region. Hence Poznan , once ruled by the Prussians, is home to a law-abiding and industrious people, fanatically tidy and too pedantic for words who, infuriatingly, always turn up everywhere on time. Kraków and its environs are full of petty bureaucrats, like their old Austrian masters. And in Warsaw and district you will find sloppy layabouts, quite like the Russians, in fact.
The regional minority held dear by all Poles, and butt of affectionate 'straw-chewing yokel' jokes, are the Górale, the inhabitants of the mountain regions. The story is told of the Góral who, watching a towny doing his morning press-ups in front of his tent, declared that he had never before known a wind so strong that it blew a woman from under her mate.
The flexible Pole
It is not surprising that key national characteristics are adaptability, a knack for improvisation, and the ability to make the best of what is available. A good Polish cook is one who can make gourmet soup from a rusty nail. Older Polish cook books give recipes of the familiar 'take a dozen eggs' variety, alongside those for 'what to use if you have no ...'. For example, 'Almond cake if you have no almonds (use ground beans and almond flavouring)'.
Although the economic imperative for these characteristics, known collectively in Polish as 'kombinowanie', has gone, relegated to the history books along with the queues and shortages that gave birth to it, it is still an integral part of the Polish personality. A heady mix of cerebral gymnastics, technical skill, gung-ho can-do-ery and a pinch of deviousness, it enabled the Poles to rig up clever devices when there was nothing suitable on the market. It also showed them how to circumnavigate the unworkable regulations and laws that communist governments created to confound their citizens. You might think these tactics would fade without the necessity to keep them honed. Not a bit of it. Poles now employ all their stratagems on the EU.
Poles apart
The Poles are either positive or negative. They work or they play. They are useless at the sort of playing at work that passes for industriousness in many Western European offices.
At the moment, Poles are divided between those who want to embrace the West, with everything that brings and entails, and those who would defend to the death the essential purity of Polishness (whatever that may be); those who feel that the Church should have a big say in government and those who think it should have none. The quintessential Polish dilemma is that two opposing views can be held simultaneously in one and the same Polish breast. They are either bubbling with life, or comatose; they love or they loathe. It is this total commitment to the occupation of the moment that earns them the reputation of being mercurial. As Hemar wrote in his song: 'If only Poles did systematically and economically what they do spontaneously, they would be perfect.'
The public Pole
Polish people are very public spirited. They consider it a moral duty to pass comment loud and clear on anything of which they may approve or disapprove. Thus, if you are in a public office tangling with bureaucracy (par for the course, as tangling is what Polish bureaucracy is for), you will have a chorus of support from all other members of the queue. If you dawdle at a shop counter, you may have to endure comments on your ineptitude, lack of sense, morals, taste, and so on, from the folk behind you. Public officials and shop assistants will join in, on one side or the other, depending on their mood.
Any minor disaster that may befall you in public will be treated as street entertainment by the audience that will gather instantly. Exhibitionists, this is the nation for you. There is good reason, too, for the thick net curtains that adorn windows. It is an attempt to maintain some semblance of privacy. But it is a vain attempt. There is no defence against intrusion. In Poland, you need some form of light relief during the long winter nights, so you might as well give in and join the gossip circuit. It is the only chance you may have to correct a few of the wilder assumptions about your blameless life. It also means you always have a shoulder to cry on without the need to explain: people will know before you do what you are crying about.
Style
All – well, most – Poles are born with a sense of style. Even when resources are scant or non-existent, Poles manage to look stylish. This was most evident in the 1960s, when Warsaw shops were full of utility clothing yet the streets were thronged with a fashion parade to rival Carnaby Street or Montmartre. Only the right labels were missing, because the outfits had been run up on the home treadle sewing machine.
During the Second World War, in Palestine, Polish officers who had escaped from occupied Poland were incorporated into the British Army. Within days, they were transforming the standard issue British Army tropical baggy shorts into natty little bum -hugging numbers.
Devotion to style pervades all areas of life: the table might be rickety, but it is covered with a snowy tablecloth and decorated with a vase of flowers.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Xenophobe's Guide to the Poles by Ewa Lipniacka, Catriona Tulloch Scott. Copyright © 2011 Oval Projects. Excerpted by permission of Xenophobe's Guides.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Nationalism & Identity,
Character,
Beliefs & Values,
Behaviour,
Manners,
Leisure & Pleasure,
Eating & Drinking,
Sense of Humour,
What is Sold Where,
Health & Hygiene,
Culture,
National Heroes,
Conversation & Gestures,
Custom & Tradition,
Systems,
Crime & Punishment,
Business,
Government,
Language,
About the Author,
Copyright,