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1

Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films

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Tes U.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

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2019

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vol. 25

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issue 34

172-179

PL

Tes Urszula, Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films “Images” vol. XXV, no. 34. Poznań 2019. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pp. 172–179. ISSN 1731-450X. DOI 10.14746/i.2019.34.12. One of strongest acts of personal protest in the communist era was self-immolation, which was the subject of two Polish documentaries. Maciej Drygas in Hear My Cry invoked the figure of Ryszard Siwiec, who immolated himself on September 8, 1968 as a sign of protest against the Soviet army invasion of Czechoslovakia. In his documentary, Drygas shows a fragment of the film with the burning man, juxtaposing it with the testimony of witnesses to the tragedy and the account of the family. This documentary restores the memory of the whole society, who due solely to the film, learned about the radical gesture of a common man. Holy Fire by Jarosław Mańka and Maciej Grabysa in turn invokes the heroic but forgotten Walenty Badylak, who immolated himself in March of 1980 in Cracow as an expression of his objection to distortion of the truth about Katyń. Both acts of self-immolation had for many years been perceived as totally futile acts, while the directors show that the self-immolation of these now has a deep and symbolic meaning. In my analysis, I shall invoke historic and cultural contexts, conduct a multifaceted interpretation of self-immolation act and discuss the complex imagery included in the films.

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Polskie Wesele AD 1968 z Szarym Człowiekiem w tle. Performowanie historii w „Usłyszcie mój krzyk”

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Sikora S.

Kwartalnik Filmowy

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2017

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issue 100 O świętowaniu

68-80

PL

Tematem artykułu jest film Macieja Drygasa „Usłyszcie mój krzyk” (1991) – słynny dokument opowiadający o podpaleniu się Ryszarda Siwca, które miało miejsce 8 września 1968 r. na Stadionie Dziesięciolecia w Warszawie. Sikora stwierdza, że w swym filmie Drygas zderzył ze sobą przede wszystkim dwa performanse, które wydarzyły się w jednym miejscu i w jednym czasie i które pozostały względem siebie w szczególny sposób nieprzezroczyste – akt samospalenia Siwca i odbywające się na stadionie dożynki państwowe. Autor kreśli rozmaite konteksty tych wydarzeń (m.in. odniesienie do „Wesela” Andrzeja Wajdy /1972/), a przede wszystkim osadza swoje rozważania w obszarze badań performatywności. Analiza tych zagadnień prowadzi go do konstatacji, że film i kino jako formy rytuału mogą odczyniać historię, ale także pozwalają zobaczyć ją czasem na nowo w innym i pełniejszym świetle.

EN

The subject of the article is the film by Maciej Drygas “Hear My Cry” (1991) – a famous documentary about the self-immolation of Ryszard Siwiec, which took place on September 8, 1968 at the Decade Stadium (Stadion Dziesięciolecia) in Warsaw. Sikora states that Drygas collided two performances that happened in one place and at one time and that remained opaque to each other in a special way – the act of self-immolation by Siwiec and the state harvest festival taking place at the stadium. The author sketches various contexts of these events (including references to Andrzej Wajda’s “The Wedding” /1972/ ), and above all, he sets his reflections in the field of performativity research. The analysis of these issues leads him to the conclusion that film and cinema as a form of ritual can break the spell cast on history, but also allow it to be seen again and again in a different and fuller light.

3

An Ordinary Man, a National Hero, a Polish Palach? Some Thoughts on the Memorialization of Ryszard Siwiec in the Czech-Polish Context

81%

Stach S.

Acta Poloniae Historica

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2016

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vol. 113

EN

On 8 September 1968, Ryszard Siwiec set fi re to himself during a harvest festival in the 10th Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw. Through his self-immolation, he sought to protest against Communist rule in general and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in particular. However, his death did not gain wider attention. Further protests ‘by fi re’ took place in the subsequent months and years in East Central Europe. Among them was the self-immolation by the Czech student Jan Palach in Prague. In contrast to Siwiec, this young man was immediately recognized as a martyr in Czechoslovakia as well as on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It was only after 1989 that Ryszard Siwiec’s story became increasingly well-known. Today, his act still remains in the shadow of Palach’s, however. This article deals with the marginal position of Siwiec in the Polish national pantheon. By reflecting on the various constraints on creating martyrs in state and post-socialism, it focuses on one particular aspect of Polish and Czech – or rather Polish-Czech – memory politics. As for the ‘Polish Palach’ Ryszard Siwiec, the paper demonstrates that Czechs have played a crucial role in popularizing him.

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Jan Palach w czeskiej poezji

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Kulmiński R.

Prace Filologiczne. Literaturoznawstwo

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2017

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issue 7(10)

243-256

EN

The article tackles the analysis of lyrical pieces dedicated to Jan Palach. From the extensive material, including inter alia Kazimierz Wierzyński’s poem Na śmierć Jana Palacha w Pradze broadcasted by the radio station of Radio Free Europe, or the piece written by a popular Bulgarian poet, Valery Petrov, entitled Self-immolation, I have selected only those works which were created in Czechoslovakia right after Jan Palach had committed self-immolation. The primary reason for such a selection is that they were composed shortly after Palach’s act and were written by Czech and Slovakian poets emotionally committed to the dramatic political suicide of a young Prague student and experienced the events of January 1969 directly. As a consequence, the following works remain in my interest: Miroslav Holub’s Praha Jana Palacha and Josef Kainar’s Bolest at’ mi poví, published in a weekly magazine of the Association of Czechoslovakian Writers “Letters” on 23rd January 1969, Jan Skácel’s Hořící keř, as well as the poem by Pavol Horov Malé rekviem za Jana Palacha a iných, both published in “Letters” on 6th and 13th February accordingly, and the poem written on 30th January 1969 by Jan Zábrana entitled První (Noc v Tatrách). The aspects I am mainly interested in in the works referred to above are the manners of articulating the heroization of Jan Palach and his act. Indeed, these poems constitute a part of heroic discourse, they create heroic narration and present the self-immolated person in a blaze of glory as an indisputable hero

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Samospaleńcy jako nowy ruch społeczny? Próba systematyzacji zjawiska w ujęciu integralnym i systemowym

58%

Wałdoch M.

Świat Idei i Polityki

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2017

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issue 16

123-150

PL

Do aktów samospalenia dochodzi od tysięcy lat, a zjawisko swoje najsilniejsze ognisko posiada w Azji. Globalizacja i unifikacja sprzyjają błyskawicznemu przekazywaniu informacji. Do samospaleń dochodzi również poza systemem, wobec którego samospaleniec występuje w formie protestu, o czym może dowiedzieć się opinia publiczna na świecie i w systemie, którego protest dotyczy. Wbrew obiegowym opiniom, samospaleń dokonuje się przede wszystkim z przyczyn politycznych i społecznych, głęboko altruistycznych, a nie jak to proponują rozumieć przedstawiciele reżimów niedemokratycznych z powodu chorób psychicznych i społecznego niedostosowania ofiar. Zjawisko samospaleń z przyczyn politycznych zasługuje na systematyczną obserwację i analizę ze strony przedstawicieli nauk o polityce, gdyż podobnie jak miało to miejsce w Tunezji (2010), samospalenie może być znakiem głębokich przemian politycznych na obszarze wielu państw. Samospalenia wywoływane są przez rządzących i posiadających władzę w różnych wymiarach życia poprzez łamanie praw człowieka.

EN

In this paper an author highlight that political self-immolation has been occurring for nearly two thousand years and the main center of this phenomenon is in Asia. Unification of attitudes and globalization are factors that in a flash spread information around the world. This means that about self-immolation everyone, potentially, know in a minute after it occur. Against common knowledge self-immolation are done because of socio-political reasons, deeply altruistic and not because of psychological reasons or unadjustedness of self-immolators as proposed by representatives of nondemocratic regimes. Self-immolation phenomenon is worth of permanent observation by political scientists as they may lead to political changes of great importance as it was in Tunisia (2010). Those who have power and authority by breaking human rights are responsible for self-immolation acts.

Refine search results

1 Acta Poloniae Historica

1 Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

1 Kwartalnik Filmowy

1 Prace Filologiczne. Literaturoznawstwo

1 Świat Idei i Polityki

1 Kulmiński R.

1 Sikora S.

1 Stach S.

1 Tes U.

1 Wałdoch M.

1 2019

3 2017

1 2016

Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films

Polskie Wesele AD 1968 z Szarym Człowiekiem w tle. Performowanie historii w „Usłyszcie mój krzyk”

An Ordinary Man, a National Hero, a Polish Palach? Some Thoughts on the Memorialization of Ryszard Siwiec in the Czech-Polish Context

Jan Palach w czeskiej poezji

Samospaleńcy jako nowy ruch społeczny? Próba systematyzacji zjawiska w ujęciu integralnym i systemowym