16.11.23Darkplaces of history
About a period ago, as if to remind Cyprian Kamil Norwid of the words "The past is d of and d of, but whatever else" appeared. Congo in Poland. Traitors with Joseph Conrad Max Cegielski (Agora, Warsaw 2023). The book is worth noting, for example, the various political reinforcements of the March of independency and the beliefs and symbols presented on this occasion, but besides in connection with the seismic displays of the outgoing power and its circumstantial representatives, and above all, with respect to what is happening in Ukraine and the Polish-Belarusian border, which in Gaza and Israel, and in general with the tendency to rewrite past and to what is being said, and what for any reason is silent. You read this book smoothly, but the fact is alternatively painful...
The title of Cegielski's book and the graphic plan of its cover can be read as a foreshadowing of relationships with motivated individuals (the author's name is not for no good reason the dominant character in this solution) of closer and further wanderings conducted under Conrad's patronage (photography of the writer's face in the background) after dark places of our past (the Congo in Poland), which is clearly a mention to The cores of darkness (originally: Heart of Darkness) and Conrad's African expedition.
The propensity to the vagrants announced in the title as a trademark of the author’s personality defines the first sentences: “When I was a small boy, I had a passion for maps. [...] I was a tiny specialist from the capitals of countries and territories, and I wrote them down for hours (Congo in Poland..., pp. 9-10). It is collided by Cegielski somewhat further with the corresponding autocharacterist words of Charlie Marlow from The cores of darkness “ erstwhile I was a small boy, I had a passion for maps. I gazed for hours in South America and Africa or Australia, delving into the grandeurs of the discovery of journeys" (Jw., p. 11, text translated by Angel Zagórska). This message is accompanied by a confession:
Years later, erstwhile I read this conviction spoken by Charlie Marlow, I felt that I had discovered a missing brother, a literary double. I thought he was definitely drawing his maps, possibly not just real ones? He did not appear to be a dangerous doppelgänger, but an older, experienced friend who has already penetrated the cases that bother me and can now guide me across the borders. Not only those marked on maps, not only as a smuggler in many geographical dimensions (i.e., pp. 11-12).
But Cegielski immediately points out that in aligning the goals of his own vagrant with his biography and Conrad's most crucial book (The core of darkness) is not so much about circumstantial places, but about the meanings of Conrad's story, which were marked by events which occurred in those places in their time and which inactive happen somewhere (cf. The search for dark human places / here: Polish activities will be important.
It is worth mentioning that not the first Cegielski – which is carefully noted in the book communicative – uses the communicative thus told by Conrad-Marlow. For the "tropical Congo" (cf. p. 21) is besides applicable to various spheres of darkness. In 1972, Werner Herzog's movie Aguirre, the wrath of Godin which the manager described in The cores of darkness the action moved to the 16th century, during the times of conquest of South America. Later, in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola shot Apocalypse Time, showing the Vietnam War as events comparable to African darkness. In 1 of the articles in the volume released in 2017 as part of the celebration of Conrad's Year (160th anniversary) we will read:
I heard The core of darkness He erstwhile wanted to screen Andrew Wajd. The action was to take place in the 3rd Reich. Here we have 2 friends from which at any point, already during the war, 1 disappears. I heard he went east. The second goes on a search and finds his fellow acting commander of the concentration camp. To complete the image, it is worth noting that Wajda's thought was born before Sometimes Apocalypse. It's a shame the screen wasn't real. Indeed, we could then contact the "needle of darkness" in a much little abstract way. The movie referring someway to our geographical realities, to the collective historical memory, would be closer to us than Coppola (Simon Hiżycki OSB, The core of Joseph Conrad's darkness or the Book of Anti-Types, in: Give justice to the visible world. essays about Joseph Conrad's work, NCN, Warsaw, p. 243.
Then I guess it can be said that Cegielski makes up for the deficiency of Hiżycki in his book. The reading of his travel essay allows “to touch the cores of darkness’ in Polish space, well known to us, geographical realities and replenish or refresh our collective historical memory. We'll get back to that in a minute. I'm gonna request a small reminder first.
Joseph Conrad is simply a literary pseudonym born in Berdyczów by Józef Teodor Konrad Korzenowski (1857-1924), author The cores of darknesswhich in Cegielski's travels is simply a kind of guide. This is “The Pole who became an English writer; a professional naval officer who abandoned shipping at a mature age and took up literature” – we read in the preceding Prose selection Conrad's introduction of Zdzisław Najder (Ossolineum, Wrocław 2015, BN II/259, p. V). The core of darkness He wrote in 1899 as a consequence of a short but pregnant for him in the effects, both intellectual and health, of his stay in the Congo in 1890.
Conrad, erstwhile going to Africa, fulfilled his youthful dreams of traveling and learning about the world. He was convinced that Europe was doing a large mission there and was making progress. On the spot, he saw with his own eyes what the colonialized “civilization of the wild” looked like under the auspices and interests of Leopold II, a Belgian king who in 1885, by means of an global conference governing the colonization process of Africa became the owner of the Free Congo State, himself in his African property was never, but a deficiency of financial ideas adequate to its size and resources could barely complain.
Colonization was expected to combine ideas of enlightenment and capitalist trade. It resulted in conquest, unimaginable looting, dehumanization and the death of millions. That's what Conrad saw and understood while in Congo. Hypocrisy of the summary of the European thought of civilization and reality will show in The cores of darkness. Its strong expression will be prepared by Kurtz, about whom Marlow tells, a noble ideology task formulated under the motto On Combating Wilderness and bearing at the end the inscription “Toss this full cattle!”(The core of darkness, Przeł. Magda Heydel, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2011, p. 66).
Conrad's “African Education” was besides applicable to his relationship with Roger Casement, whom he met as shortly as he arrived. At that time, Casement served as a British diplomat and was preparing a study showing what it truly is to civilize Africa. Conrad "considered him to be the only righteous man among the tropical climates corrupted or his own greed and desire to have the Europeans he encountered there" – we will read in a beautiful communicative that takes on the motives of oblivion and the ghosts of the past within the framework English pilgrimage (see besides The rings of Saturn The President, Przeł. Małgorzata Łukasiewicz, Wydawnictwo A.B.W., Warszawa 2009, p. 118). Nevertheless, after years of being a well-known author and Casementa being charged with treason, they were arrested and sentenced to death, Conrad refused his signature on a petition for his release... In this story, it was worth adding that Casement, deserved for the UK Irish, in the patriotic hope of establishing free Ireland in planet War I sought German support for specified plans, which was evidently against the British interest. In doing so, appropriate services spread the alleged Casementa journal, so-called. Black Diary, thus providing curious parties with additional arguments disparaging the erstwhile diplomat. The diary records indicated that he was homosexual. Context means it. Trying to save Casement's life proved futile... Mario Vargas Llosa, let us add by the way, he wrote a fresh in which the hero is just Casement (Celt's dream, Przeł. Marzena Chrobak, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2011). Those curious will find in it a prison, touching memory of a erstwhile diplomat's relationship with Conrad and this refusal to sign...
And now more about yourself. The cores of darkness. This is simply a communicative that no uncertainty has long belonged to the planet canon of literature and, after a 100 and twenty-five years since the uprising, has not lost any importance, although in our Polish school, during fresh reforms, it was removed from the list of existing readings. It's significant, due to the fact that it's about constantly up-to-date questions and reconnaissances that not only dark places known from geography concern...
Polish The core of darkness translated many times. An ancient translation of the Zagórska Angel, Conrad’s cousin, is available. There are translations by Jędrzej Polak or Ireneusz Socha. There is already a large translation Magda Heydel with her excellent MP, To the End of Experiencethat precedes the motto – referring straight to Conrad's song quote of the final passage from Moral Treaty Czesława Miłosz: Let's go in peace, simple people. ♪ There's a core of darkness ♪. In 2015, an interesting text entitled Conrad was published. The Heart of Darkness performed Jack Dukaj“ I am not an interpreter. I'm the author of Joseph Conrad writing Heart of Darkness for twenty-first century Polish readers”, which – incidentally – for the school could be an electrifying incentive to read. In the Year of Conrad (2017) she besides appeared An different graphic communicative based on The cores of darkness (Conrad. Anyango, Mairovitz, Heydel, Lokator, Kraków 2017).
There is also, of course, a full library of explanation of Conrad text. It is read, among another things, in comparison with the author’s biography, and besides “with the Bible in hand”. Kits with fragments Eneida Vergilius or Divine Comedy Dante. It suggests reading in relation to various travel or dystopian novels.
He was besides accused of spreading racism. specified an action was initiated by the celebrated modern Nigerian author Chinua Achebe (translations of his novels are available in Polish). For example, a literary theorist and culture critic, a left-wing intellectual, Edward Said, who in his time was active in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... An analysis that clearly proves that specified allegations were, however, created by incorrect reading can be found, for example, in a sketch Dangerous masterpieceCzaplinian Industrywhich was created as Members of The cores of darkness in translation by Jędrzej Polak (Vesper, Poznań 2009; the text is available online). This surely shows how much depends on the cultural context, both erstwhile it comes to literature creation and its reading.
Professor Czapliński, aiming to conclude his analyses and interpretations The cores of darkness, points out, moreover, that Marlow does not treat his communicative simply as stories about Kurt, a derailed man, but besides himself. In fact, this is about self-knowledge, self-awareness. Czapinski writes:
This is – both in The cores of darkness, as well as possibly in all Conrad's work – the highest value. If a man is going to meet a alien for something, it is to learn something about himself – to see if the rules of life that he was exporting from home have kept their power. Conrad's plots in this respect are similar: they depict an endless test, a constant test to which – a bit like in the Gnostic fresh – The hero is subject to his ability to see whether he has already understood the essence of the universe, whether he has already possessed a secret. But there is no eventual fact in Conrad, which does not mean that there is no moral truth. This is what Marlow says: “A comic thing, a life: a mysterious order of ruthless logic for a useless purpose. The most you can anticipate from him is any self-knowledge – which comes late and is an endless harvest of remorse” (p. 104 in the above-mentioned edition). The first view is pessimistic; he says: we live for what, according to a plan that is unknown to us, but inevitable. The second view is little depressing just due to the fact that its meaning is unclear; he says: since the meaning of existence of the universe will not rip out, then it is only the self-knowledge that matters. [...] Marlow came into contact with a man who crossed the Nietzschean border – a border where man is actually and yet the measurement of everything. [...] It's not that Kurtz lost his temper, it's that he deliberately got free of him. If only greed or power were involved, the substance would be simple. But Marlow sees there was greatness in this man.
It was that Kurtz "knelt behind the veil" (crossed by Jędrzej Polak, p. 104) and did not tremble, did not retreat, did not experience fear. He saw that there was no god, no predate morality, no inherent good. Throughout the African adventure Kurtz lived in a state of creation ecstasy – erstwhile he felt death coming, he judged everything, repeating twice the word: “Horror! Horror!”. This word can be translated as “Hinty!” or “Smear!”. Both are essential here: Kurtz thus expresses the disgust and horror of human existence – himself and everyone.
This is what literature and doctrine look like. The anthropological look in turn leads to the conclusion that the title "nucleus" or "heart" of darkness means human evil. prof. representing this option Darius Chaya in the book Lessons in Darkness writes:
In this optics, the title phrase became the codename of human evil. The evil that lies deep within us, not in social structures, cultural disguises or impersonal ideologies. Conrad showed that, contrary to what we thought, nothing truly protects us from falling into evil: neither spiritual commandments, nor orders of reason, nor – "the full Europe has folded upon Kurtz" (or Angel Zagórska) – civilizational gratification. Therefore, 1 can belong to a community of believers, or as Kurtz belongs to a clan that uses the knowing of progressives and is considered a associate of the civilisational community and, at the same time, colliding with these loyalties, to commit evil, to become “inhuman” – as the language suggests – a villain. Conrad argued that crime, wickedness, evil are not an act of human nature, on the contrary: they are highly human. He brutally exposed the illusions of optimistic anthropology, exacerbated with precision the analyst's story of unlimited progress, this peculiar hybrid of enlightened religion in reason and nineteenth-century infatuation with the capabilities of technology. He described and called the end of a certain European delusion.
There's something symptomatic about the ending of Conrad's story. In hesitation, understatement, Marlow's vote suspension. In the celebrated surviving lie he commits, passing on to Kurtz's fiancée the “truth” about him and his final moments. As if he had full awareness of the dark abyss he had experienced, but realizing the consequences of this experience, he preferred not to call it to the end or key in vague wording. He seeks out rather desperately different barriers for human inclination to evil, but he does not seem to believe in them much (Monster, Archaeological, text from 2008 in: Lessons Darknessand, ed. II, supplemented, Publishing home Czarne, Wołowiec 2023, p. 172).
Now, let's go back to the announcement at the beginning of these Entries Cegielski's book and his vagrant, in which Conrad's biography, his work, and especially Marlow's communicative from The cores of darkness with the African experience in it is to service as a guide. It will turn out that we will gotta go to Ustrzyki and Gorlic, to Narew, to Bieszczady and to the erstwhile Prussia, to Jurata and to Brussels, but besides to Auschwitz, that we will learn about the Bojki and Lemki, about the spiritual refugees from the Netherlands and Frisia, and about the destiny of the Roma, Jews and Ukrainians, but besides about Poles, that we will read about the rewrite of past and the memory of tragic events, about the accusations of Chinua Achebe repeated by Barak Obama. We will discover that russian solstice sending refrigerators to their homes looted in Bucz or Irpien act like their predecessors from another nations in another places years ago. We will see that Korzeniowski was like present immigrants from India or Pakistan who are coming to Poland. We'll have an chance to think about the difference between words resettlement and resettlement. We will learn about the past of Polish oil manufacture and about the “Galician hell” ... It will turn out that we have dark places of past that we don't talk about. On the basis of the described expeditions and related readings, we will discover the first question about our identity and the search for answers to the question of who I am...
In specified a context, if you consider how the texts presented gotta the problems of education usually addressed at the end of my next Entries, it would mean asking about the meaning of reading literature, what we request it for. The answer would be obvious: to discover with it any truths about ourselves and the planet in which we live, and to draw from specified organized self-knowledge awareness of individual work for our own conduct. It would be worth returning to the comments of Darius Chai, quoted above, who writes:
It is simply a pity that we cannot read literature as an anthropological source, usually relegating its designation into areas, possibly besides nutritious, but yet aesthetic fiction. possibly then reality would surprise us less. It's impossible not to announcement that The core of darkness, read from the position of the past bloody century, appears to be a pervasive prophecy, as without a tiny prediction of the coming nightmare. fewer people thought that as a catalyst for the worst in us, not the chaotic African jungle, but, it would seem, rather tamed space of the European ecumen (Monster, Archaeological, jw., pp.172-173 ).
Perhaps it's time our school discovered this way of reading alternatively of trying to get to know the students mostly with historical and theoretical literature...
