Forty-five years ago, on the sixth of April, the Polish tv series entitled "Nicodem Dyzma's career", was launched on the basis of a fresh by Tadeusz Dołęg – Mostowicz. It turned out to be a cultural event of the highest rank. Everything on this show was almost perfect, especially acting. Over time, the show was attributed a political pronunciation. "Nicodem Dyzma's career" began to be treated as a summary of the PRL, and especially the period of Edward Gierek's team's rule.
I remember those days erstwhile I was a teenager. The show fascinated me and seduced me. I peculiarly liked the roles of Bronisław Pawlik, as Kunicki/Kunik and Jerzy Bończak, as Krzepicki.
From the distance of forty-five years, I can safely say that this show was not so much a summary of the Polish People's Republic as the announcement of the 3rd Polish Republic.
For thirty-five years I have been active in the public life of the 3rd Republic of Poland at different levels of political life, mainly at local level. In material terms, I am not a beneficiary of what happened in Poland after 1989. As much as I could and could, I tried to build at least a part of honest, average Polish state in my public activity. Yes, I've been successful, but besides painful failures. I'm inactive an attentive observer of what was going on at the time, and I dare say I realize the point of all this. On this basis, I say that the series "Nicodem Dyzma's career" was the announcement of the 3rd Polish Republic, which became the guiding thought and motto of what we have been dealing with for thirty-five years. The series perfectly shows the mechanisms of political, economical and social life that function in the IIIRP. Ways to build political careers, to analyse wealth in the economy or to gain social standing, the creators of the show showed professionally. Consider the example of 2 of the characters I mentioned on the show. Let's start with Zygmunt Krzepicki.
Krzepicki is simply a typical greedy baker. Supposedly a capable economist, but “he didn't get along.” I'm certain he knows very well who with whom and where, but does he have any circumstantial cognition that allows him to run a state, a ministry or a bank? After all, he's a retainer of an aged aristocrat. He surely has an outstanding talent for intrigue, which becomes a catapult for the career of the title character of the show.
This description of Krzepici corresponds to thousands of today's greedy bakers, populationing ministries, state and local government agencies, state-owned companies and supervisory boards. Their most crucial qualifications are a large orientation of who with whom and where, but the circumstantial competences for occupying the positions are very dubious, at most confirmed by a diploma from any Collegium Humanum. They are firmly embedded in the structures of the parties that govern and so have access to various lucrative positions where there is no request to worry about qualifications and responsibility. They have a highly developed thieving cunning, which in modern Poland is commonly confused with intelligence. How many of these I see in the structures of local power in the household Steel Wola! In fighting for individual benefits, they are ruthless and cynical. In the fight to keep the benefits gained are solidarity with another mediocrity, which is the top strength in Polish public life. The largest and best school in breeding specified Krzepicki became PiS. The current governments of the PO and its coalitions are expected to fight it, but despite the fact that in their ranks besides there is no shortage of Krzepicki, they do not have much success in this fight, and, for example, in Stalowa Wola it is possible to talk about the Krzepicki agreement with the PO and PiS.
Another example of a modern career is Leon Kunicki a.k.a. Kunik. He's a smart guy, but alternatively talented with an authentic talent for doing business. On the flight he understood that the best interests are done on government orders, so he brazenly bribes Dysma, as a friend of ministers, due to the fact that “who wants to go rapidly must lubricate the axles”. Kunicki is on the marketplace with the law in force, but present it may not rise peculiar negative feelings, due to the fact that effort to comply with this jungle rules in modern Poland and not so much gain money as to keep the company. And this is where we gotta mention to the situation in Steel Wola. Many tiny and medium-sized enterprises last and even make good money through good relations with local authorities. Local power is 1 of the biggest payers, so entrepreneurs effort not to exposure it. This is evident by what initiatives they support and even who they employ. If, for example, you are a non-PiS alderman, you may have problem uncovering a occupation even in the position of a regular physical worker. These straight political relationships between local authority and entrepreneurs are 1 of the biggest pathologies of public life in Poland. This is absolutely dominated by ways of making money or simply building fortunes a la Leon Kunicki a.k.a. Kunik.
I do not want to go to extremes, and I gotta admit that although modern Krzepiccy and Kuniccy are besides disgusting types, they can make fast careers and gain wealth exclusively on the back of hundreds of thousands of competent and hard-working people. However, it is not those hardworking who have been a symbol of all governments since 1989. The Krzepic and Kunicki creation strategy reached its apogee during the years of the PiS rule. It depresses me that there is no extremist break-up with these mechanisms that the state is destroying in all respect. Has dysmism already become an immanent strategy of functioning of the current form of Polish statehood? I'm afraid to effort to answer that question.
Andrzej Szlezak
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