The anniversaries we are celebrating this year – twenty-five years of the Polish transformation, the fifteenth anniversary of our accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and ten years of our membership in the European Union – give us an excellent opportunity for summing things up. In the opinion of the former Prime Minister, and present Member of the European Parliament, we have succeeded to change deeply both Poland and Europe. It is also true of the institutional sphere – nowadays both the institutions of the Polish state and those of the EU are marked with the way that our country has taken since 1989.
Can a theatrical spectacle rectify the greatest neglect of Poland’s post-1989 transformation and create a ‘positive’ founding myth of the ‘Solidarity’? This is the ambition of the musical 1989 produced by a creative team led by Marcin Napiórkowski, Katarzyna Szyngiera, Mirosław Wlekły and Andrzej ‘Wolny’ Webber (co-produced by the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre and the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Krakow). According to the announcements, it was to be the first musical in Poland in the likeness of the American Hamilton, for the first time with entirely rapped vocals, showing the fall of communism from a new perspective and finally giving women their rightful place in the struggle for a free Poland. What captivates the audience is undoubtedly the musical and dance qualities of the performance, but the vision of history presented raises serious questions. A major misunderstanding in 1989 is the complete erasure of the church and the figure of John Paul II from the life of Poles in the 1980s. Furthermore, the diminishing of the role played by Lech Walesa in 1980-1989 is also completely incomprehensible. In the stage history, the leader of the August strike remains in the shadow of Jacek Kuroń and his own wife Danuta, and becomes a character without charisma, rather resembling Ubu Roi from Jarry’s play. The show tries to capture the energy of the Polish women’s strikes of the autumn of 2020, but on stage they are mainly rebellious lonely wives of activists who find encouragement in a conservative vision of family (‘to be simply one of many families’). There is nothing subversive here. Unlike in Hamilton, this is not a look at Poland ‘then’ from the perspective of Poland ‘today.’ Despite the repudiation of the traditional narratives, the paradigm of Polish Romanticism still triumphs because the entire dramatic plot is based on an old romantic cliché: ‘He did not find happiness at home because there was none in the fatherland’ (Mickiewicz, Konrad Wallenrod). The artists create their own counter-history, which they are of course artistically entitled to do, but they do not answer the question of causal power, i.e. where did society draw its strength to survive during martial law, or what led to the fall of the communist regime in 1989.
Minęło już 28 lat od chwili, gdy rozpoczęła się w Polsce transformacja ustrojowa, czyli proces przechodzenia od gospodarki centralnie planowanej do gospodarki rynkowej. Opinie wśród ekonomistów dotyczące jej przebiegu, skutków i kosztów są podzielone. Celem artykułu jest prezentacja stanowisk polskich ekonomistów wobec sposobu i skutków dokonanych przekształceń systemowych. Starano się zaprezentować zarówno opinie bezkrytycznie akceptujące przebieg i skutki transformacji, jak również krytyczne wobec jej rozwoju i konsekwencji bez oceniania, kto ma słuszność.
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It’s been 28 years since in Poland began political transformation, process of the transition from centrally planned economy to a market economy. Opinions among economists about the course, effects and costs are divided. The main goal of this article is to present attitude of polish economists towards the method and effects of transformations system. Presented opinions uncritically accepting process and results of transformation as well as opinions criticizing course and consequences of transformation, without judging who is right.
This article aims to provide in-depth analysis of one of the most overlooked Andrzej Wajda’s films Panna Nikt, which is an adaption of Tomek Tryzna’s novel. In reference to Don Fredericksen’s concept of liminality of the director’s cinema, the author of the article examines the motifs of initiation in the movie. Wajda had a double reason for representing the rite of passage: to tell a story of a girl in her puberty period and to create a metaphor of Poland after the transformation in 1989. Although the director was critical towards cultural changes and the influences of the western pop culture, he tried to capture the audience attention by the use of postmodern aesthetics. Because of this Panna Nikt is full of contradictions and could be regarded as an expression of Wajda’s own, artistic liminality.
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