14.08.25. It's nothing!

14.08.25. It's nothing!

No 1 can uncertainty that the political guards of Polishness, including the defender of the canon of Polish literature at school, know precisely where the title expression of these formulas comes from Entries. Trilogy Henryk Sienkiewicz, as well as the texts which by their power order to read as an educationally obligatory reading, know with all certainty by heart. While they were going to school, they would read or miss everything from cover to cover. Suspects Michał Rusinek – who late reported the readiness to question in all the heavens the case of respective high-profile politicians from cognition suggested to Poles of reading – would defy without uncertainty and without difficulty (see the "Election" pages of 5.08.2025 – Rusinek:I will gladly question Morawiecki and Błaszczak from the school readings they are fighting for now or p. Interview Morawiecki with readings he is now fighting for "Election magazine" of 9.08.2025). After all, “they went out on people” and, according to a deep sense of social responsibility, now emphasize the request for young people to learn certain texts at school in order to prevent contemporary tendencies of not reading, and consequently the spiritual poorness of children and young people. In good faith, they most likely change through all cases the word canon, repeating it with specified frequency, that in any people it gives the impression of a powerful canonade. Asocial sensitivities, which we besides do not lack, however, prompts to ask questions about real intentions and real reading experiences of these defenders of Polishness. Especially erstwhile they callback how the concept of canon is defined by researchers of this problem. I think everyone will admit that, for example, the definition of Michał Pawel Markowski may be of concern in the situation described here. For it reads:

Canon is – very effective – a tool of cultural manipulation, i.e. convincing about the value of this or another part of reality (no distinction). Show me your canon, and I will tell you who you are, which is what you truly mean. Modi memorandi.Memory culture Lexicon, ed. Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska, Robert Trąba, student technological Publishing House, Warsaw 2024, pp. 182-185 or: Michał Paweł Markowski, Interpretation, word / image territories, Gdansk 2023, p. 466).

First of all, it is not certain whether these political guards of Polishness and its canons have an thought of interpretations, that is, about exploring possible meanings of what is to be read in school according to their ideas. It is besides not known whether another remark of Markowski, as quoted above, applies to their readings typical of the native past of literature. That is to say, "Interpretation is simply a substance of meaning; it is simply a substance of existential transfer from a reality of meaning without meaning to reality" (Interpretation, jw., p. 22, honors kw). However, from fierce disputes over the canon, we have a national athletics in which political factions, average citizens, fight about reading on the school list, and the applicable ministry unexpectedly opposes even the specialists employed by it. By definition Wilczyński Przemysław It comes out big. Canon of hypocrisy (see ‘Common Weekly’ of 5.08.2025).

So I wonder if the literary devotees described would actually pass the Rusinek exam with a shield if he asked them, for example, to interpret the meanings of the expression shown in the title present Entries, this is over what Mr. Volodyjowski said to his Basa, saying goodbye to her, as well as the context in which this expression was spoken and to what de facto "Nothing" he repeated came down...

Their work could aid them here Sienkiewicz's bodies by a literary student Richard Koziołek, but it appeared long after our Polish defenders had finished school education and took another classes (Black Publishing, Volowiec 2018). In any case, the author of this work – in depth analysis of texts Trilogy – points out, among another things, that Sienkiewicz, in these novels, created, as popular convictions say, “for the encouragement of hearts” and showing the integrity and strength of the nation, did indeed "play with memory and knowledge" (Bodies..., p. 485) in the context of the thought of "everlasting return" (Bodies..., p. 487). Koziołek so recalls a passage from a lecture on the historical fresh by Sienkiewicz. Author Trilogy he justified the “heartwarming” in it, but besides the request to “account for the past” erstwhile it comes to society. He wrote:

What are the past of humanity and its individual branches? A communicative of falling and rebirth. It would be unnecessary to say how much encouragement can come from considering this wave of life. You can add drugs to any drink, but you do not follow that there are no refreshments” (Bodies..., p. 487; text besides available online).

The goat considers that the cited sentences translate into the entries in Mr. Volodyjowski the word "radical uncertainty in the reasonableness of history" (cf. p. 499) and "experiences of failure and sense of loss" (p. 500). It follows that:

The celebrated “nothing” that Michael Baska comforted, tamed with his death, expresses this helplessness most fully. [...] In spite of the twofold repetition, the intended consolation does not work; “nothing” not only strengthens and does not even mask, but reveals its dense content (cf.

The conclusion of this consideration concerns the time erstwhile Volodyjowski, blowing up a fortress in Kamieniec Podolski, died. Sounds like this:

The devastating past of “nothing” is amoral, it contains no message, it touches good and bad equally. [...] Repeated "nothing" means denying the life of meaning, shifting its meaning from past to a sphere of limited certainty of religion ("a void that 1 God can fill"). Therefore, despite the late (always) rhetoric of the ceremony sermon of priest Kamiński, the theatrical entrance of Sobieski (“Salvator) and the Chocimian Epilogue the right finale Mr. Volodyjowski There's a image of a fortress exploding. Reinforced by the detonation of fire [...] makes “the blanks, towers, walls, people, horses, cannons, surviving and dead, the masses of earth—all of it caught up in flames, mixed, as if in 1 terrible charge, flew into the air” (Bodies..., p. 501-502).

All that has been said so far is simply a context consistent with the June essay Jan MichałowskiIt's nothing! Why does Poland gotta repeat itself? (WL, Kraków 2025). The title of this book, reinforced graphically on the cover with the sign "plus minus infinity" maintained in the colours of our national flag, seems to be yet expressive. Author – writer, regular columnist and associate of the editorial board “Plus Minus” and weekend magazine “Rzeczpospolita” – as a individual born in 1990 can analyse our past from a distance, without individual experience even in relation to the times of PRL. He puts in his essay, as the cover note says:

The bold thesis that along with the dismemberment we were deceived as a nation of romanticist lies. And the false perception of our place in past and Europe has been organizing reality for 2 100 years, including in the cursed ritual of the victim: from Somosierra, by Poniatowski in Elstera's currents, the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising, to Katyń death pits and Smolensk disaster.

The book refers, of course, according to the title, to the positor Sienkiewicz and presents the author's explanation of the meanings of the expression "nothing!" from his novel, as well as the essential passages of the text for specified consideration, if the reader did not have at hand Mr. Volodyjowski. Maciejewski says:

There was no more crucial phase in the past of Polish literature than this saying goodbye to Volodyjowski. besides due to the fact that in my opinion he says goodbye to romanticism here. From messianism, “Polish – Church between nations” converts. Poland is neither Christ nor the Church. Volodyjowski does not shed his blood in the name of national mysticism, his “nothing” is different, which is different. besides Poland, which, like all “early things” is “crust like a dried branch (Nothing!, p. 36).

He then analyses the course of Polish past by the prism of categories developed by René Girard, so (1) mimetism, i.e. following others in destructive form and (2) scapegoat, that is, behaviour characteristic of the situation erstwhile people spontaneously unite against 1 victim, and war on each 1 transforms into uniting everyone against one. Like Girard, Maciejewski refers in presented analyses to beautiful literature. In his book there are references to works by Mickiewicz, Slovak, Krasiński and many others. There is simply a communicative about how the mediate name of Joseph Konrad Korzenowski, given to him at baptism in tribute to the hero GrandpasIt became Conrad abroad. Maciejewski, behind Sienkiewicz, is liable for romanticism and the importance of its influence on Polish knowing of national history. The partition and elimination of Poland from the map interrupted the continuity of the “long duration” of the Polish state, he stresses. Poles are alike

They didn't cease to exist, they just stopped being so recognizable. The world, by agreeing that there is no and there will be no specified thing as Poland, decided simply to make its existence indifferent. [...] He arranged – he wrote it in treaties and covered the signatures of the most powerful rulers – that Poles would no longer be. The Petersburg Treaty and its record, in which Russia, Prussia and Austria agree that the name of Poland is erased forever, is truly an agreement on common antacidity. Let no of us – said Catherine the Great, looking down at their Western partners – can hear them. Don't let all the Polish moans and squeaks come to us. And then they will close themselves, and in time they will disappear. Where they belong (Nothing!, pp. 193-194).

Romanticism in place of the broken continuity of the existence of the state, however, designed the principles of Polish survival, creating a “romantic lie”. Maciejewski recalls that Girard called it

A condition where a individual does not realize that he imitates others. After all, “Romantic” is the 1 who “is yet himself”, freed himself from the tight cocoon of the convention. Authentic is his second name. He continues in blissful conviction of the sovereignty of his desires, that he himself is the creator and master. [...]

"Romantic lie" has a dual meaning in the past of Poland in fresh centuries. It sounded most powerfully in the era of romance. This unfinished eon of our history, which will last as long as it lasts, so the surviving lie in it will proceed to reap its harvest.

Imitating, treacherous mimetism was an effort to make the nation a Church, a mystical, blood-powered body (no distinction). Poles imitated here, put into practice, another desire. The desire of the world, which was expected of them, to become a sacrifice. They'll be around and forever laying their lives on the altar of history. They'll take on the function of scapegoat. [...] In my opinion – says Maciejewski – our communicative deserves more than to be liberated from it. [...] I don't think it's possible to get free of my own communicative in any another way than by knowing it. (no distinction). Accepting that there were desires, alien patterns that we blindly imitated. That we were not sovereign – not only as a enslaved nation, but in a much deeper and worse way. We didn't want each other. We did it according to others. besides those who wanted us to truly cease to exist. In order to be able to say “nothing” in Poland with a clear conscience and a sense of conformity of the court.

You can't get free of history. But convert inside it – already. This book is specified a test. And although not in the form of a novel, it is an effort to scope “the fresh truth” of the past of Poland in the last 3 centuries (Nothing!, pp. 38-40, honor cz).

In Maciejewski's stories, there is actually something like Mickiewicz’s “I see and describe”. Not all yearnings, but the request to realize what is happening “now” and what happened “once”. There is besides an effort to exposure and item how “once” it affects “now”. So you might think of the book as a reaction to our entanglement in past and the myths that govern us. Not without reason Michał Przeperski gave his review of Maciejewski's book the title Build or die? (see ‘New Books’ 2025, No 7-8, pp. 83-84). The answer to specified a question as a consequence of the examination of past was usually clearly linked to the attitude of Volodyjowski and his "nothing!"

Maciejewski begins with a communicative about the actions of the owner Mińkowiec, Ignacy Marchocki coat of arms of Ostoj, about which Juliusz Słowacki in Beniowski wrote: “The nobleman is half, half king, half Kato / Half madman, and half boy of the Caesars of Roma” (Nothing!..., p. 7.) Marchocki, after the second partition, erstwhile his lands were in Russia, surrounded his estates, treating them as the Minakovian State. He was a prophet and all another roles mentioned by the Slovaks. He even designed “a subtle plan to kill a full nation. All Poles should go to the field with their wives, children and belongings. Cities, villages and houses should be burned” (Nothing!, p. 9). For it is better to die for the homeland than to live in captivity, erstwhile the continuity of long-term life has been interrupted – this is the motto which in the past of Poles is constantly repeated. romanticist ideas resonate in it despite various attempts to disarm them to this day. This can be seen, for example, in Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz's poesy (1935-2022) or in reactions to the Smolensk catastrophe. We proceed to act as a scapegoat. It should be borne in head that the scapegoat chosen had to accept this role. Our “nothing!” consistently and for centuries has not lost meaning. This is what Maciejewski's essay is about.

During these 3 100 years of history, to which his book refers, a affirmative time, so regaining statehood, is an interwar 20. It happened that, in a message delivered on 6 August during the swearing-in ceremony, our fresh president, in effect, recalled many quotes from the speeches of crucial politicians of that time, convincing citizens to admit certain patterns of thinking. possibly in specified a context it would be good to survey another of the fresh essays on our history, namely Andrzej KiiowskiRepublic of crisis – time characterized by supertitle as 20 years of line walking (Agora, Warsaw 2025).

Adam Leszczyńskiauthor People's past of Poland, recommending a book by Kyivski writes:

You think it's a mess in Poland present and politicians are inactive fighting? We have holy peace compared to the Second Republic. In a fascinating essay Andrzej Kiiowski shows that the II of Poland was a country moving from crisis to crisis: hyperinflation, economical crisis, coup, bloody interior disputes.

You can add that just look at the contents The Emergency Republic, to discover in it – about insignificant incidents not to mention – 3 chapters, which in the titles have the entry “domestic war”. all time for a different reason. An extended review of this book will be found in the magazine indicated above. Michał Przeperski, Like a line jumper., fresh Books" 2025, No. 7-8, pp. 85-86).

On the another hand, if we return to the end of this presentation of historical stories about comments on education and school readings, it is worth recalling the position expressed in 1 interview by Małgorzata Niemczyńska, a retired Polish female from Krakow. She said, among another things:

Konrad of Part III Grandpas He's the most disliked literary hero in school. “The lover of the country” of the students drives me crazy, too. Why should we savor a man who has accomplished absolutely nothing, quarreled with the Lord God to prove to him that he is just as good as the Creator, locked in prison and demands that he be given the regulation of the world. Really, it's a manifestation of utmost megalomania. What good for Poland came from specified a hero? (see Polish female from Krakow dealt with Mickiewicz's work, in: “Election. Kraków” of 18.03.2024).

Indeed, from the “romantic lie” understood as defined above, nothing good for Poland came about and judging from what was said above, we yet got free of it. The problem, however, is that everything about the past time the authors of the books signaled present defines our cultural identity, lying in the warehouses of subconscious collective memory. In these warehouses, certain formulas and beliefs of politically correct conduct are stored. “Nothing!” is good and without reading Grandpas and Mr. Volodyjowski. After all, we know the marches of independency and the meaning of their slogans. fewer people have always heard children sing warm to fight a song. And so on and so on. Collective memory is constantly fueling the imagination and actions of many people, as you can see from, for example, reading Maciejewski's book.

A well - thought - out education cannot so consist in pretending that certain concepts did not be in the past and that there is no request to read the literature that presents them. Good humanist education is about organizing conditions that let this literature to realize and mention to reality. It is crucial to first discover the contemporary situations that interest young people and thus or otherwise mark their lives, and to the cognition of teachers are immersed in the past. Situations that make you ask where what comes from around you. This mostly allows us to discover that the past is not dead and that literature proves its long duration. So it is crucial why and how you read it, how you read it and how you talk about it. usually a well-chosen passage is enough. The thing is, this kind of conversation takes time and it's not about listing names and titles.

Well-educated practitioners know that even in a time of full “not reading” meaningful reading, which is mentioned here, is not only possible, but besides satisfactory for both students and teachers. The point is, first, what he advocated in his time Fernand Braudel (see erstwhile Entries). Secondly, the aim is to deprive political guardians of the cultural canon of the influence at any point on how educational programs are to be shaped, including what, with whom, when, and why read in school. Politics is not truly driven by any social work for the intellectual salaries of young people, but by the thought of formatting its future voters in the name of their own political interests. This is not a Polish specialty. specified attitudes have long been known. By the way, there's a book. William Max, which talks about different forms of dealing with “politically wrong” literary texts. It's called Hate for Literature (interview Krystyna Belaid and Tomasz Stróżyński, word / image of territories and Publishing home of the University of Lodz, Gdańsk-Łódź 2023). But more about it on another occasion...