The Hell of the Revolution and General Margrafski

myslpolska.info 2 years ago

We are presently watching the series “Womb Hunting” based on the fresh Wencesław Holewiński “Pogrom 1905”, sometimes his second fresh “Pogrom 1906” (PIW 2021) most likely besides material for the next series.

I just read it, but it's on the shelf for like 2 years. A fresh in about the same kind as the previous, kaleidoscope of episodes and characters in the Revolutionary Realities of Warsaw 1906. The protagonists are Poles, Jews and Russians, revolutionaries, PPS fighters (the central character is Józef Monwiłł-Mirecki), impounders and women bombers – as well as those who went to work with Ochrana. And the another side – Russians: General-Gubernator Grigorij Skałłon, somewhat cynical, alternatively disgusting with what he does, dreaming of peace, Gen. Andrei Margrafski, having a wife of Polka, a sophisticated expert of philosophy, shot by the PPS in Otwock and yet Viktor Grun, the commissioner, ruthless and degenerate to the bone, playing the life of his recruited agents, among whom is the intelligent and sensual Michalina Zaborowska, who is not going to die for the revolution, but besides for Russia.

I was intrigued by the subject with Stanisław Brzozowski, who was most likely persuaded to cooperate with Margrafski. The author of the book presents this episode: “He got more than he could possibly have: an analysis of the youth of Warsaw. And she was the seed of them... no, due to the fact that he did not want to usage these words, nor could he put him in a line of filth who were ready for money to plunge even their fathers, he preferred to think of Brzozowski as a kindred. A spiritual brother. He did not always agree with him, he frequently showed greater and better knowledge, due to the fact that sources had another sources. But he admired his analytical mind.”

And their dinner meeting: “They sat in the dining room. Black-brown, mustached, bearded. Uneasy, always moving his hands. This conversation last year was in his memory. They talked about philosophy. He was incredibly well-read. Kant, Nietzsche, Soler, Bergson, Marx, Greek philosophers, had everyone in his head. But he didn't take their views as his own. This work was his starting point, and it shaped the reasoning and the changing image of the world. There was no dispute between them at this point.

The cook prepared an exquisite dinner, a puree soup from thorns, any pastry dumplings made of French cake with a cerebellum, eggs planted in cancer necks, yeast buns with crayfish stuffing, and a strong red por-tweein, for apple dessert plombies, but Stanisław barely ate, did not pay attention to food. He coughed all the time. They both knew it was tuberculosis. And that he would conflict with her for the remainder of his life.

– Why didn't you graduate? – he asked, although he knew the answer in advance. And he wasn't wrong.

– I don't request them anymore.

– You don't want to do a university career? With your mind, they know?

– Don't flatter me, General, it's unnecessary. I could have done the same. You have a fresh mind, and unlike many of your superiors and subordinates, you have no hatred.

They talked about Sienkiewicz for a long time. Brzozowski mocked him.

– This is not the way to national rebirth. It's just perpetuating a myth, surviving the spirit of past times. Work - this word came back like a boomerang – only she gives us, Poles, a chance. But this national lava is hard to move, to implant the senses of another thought.

He formulated beautiful sentences, could have already dazzled his listeners.

He then brought him a fresh [Sienkiewicz] entitled “Wire’ and wrote a dedication he did not expect: “To my friend Andrzej”. In Polish. He didn't add a name either. possibly consciously?’

Finess. According to investigation from historians, Margrafski was a supporter of the acquisition of Poles on anti-German grounds, looking at the common enemy of Slavonics in the Reich. He was besides a supporter of the separation of Poles, mainly peasants, from the destructive, in his opinion the influence of the Jagiellonian tradition. Let us add that in the assassination of the General on 2 August 1906, his 7-year-old boy was besides killed, and 1 of the assassins was the future Prime Minister of Poland on the emigration of Tomasz Arciszewski.

What wonders is the applicable deficiency in the fresh endection, although it appears in respective places, but as if in the background, described alternatively neutrally (elections to Duma, demonstration memory 5 November 1905, on the case of Brzozowski the names of 2 activists ZMP “Zet” and ND – Jan Załuski and Stanisław Kashnica appear).

The wording of the fresh is not unambiguous – the rations of all parties, revolutionary, Russian and hostile revolution (conservatives and endecids) – are presented here without pushiness and dictism. The revolution itself and the activities of the PPS do not appear to be praiseworthy patriotic heroism (a major part of the Kingdom society treated this activity as a specified banditism), which should be positively noted at the time erstwhile our past becomes an insurgent-romantic comic book. The advantage of the fresh is besides a reasonably precise dedication of the atmosphere of Warsaw at the time, with the dead streets of Wola and Powiśla, but besides with the exquisite Krakowskie Przedmieście. Here the author utilized many sources, including the regular press of 1906.

Jan Engelgard

Illustration: Image by Stanisław Masłowski "Świt 1906"