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Jerzy
Intense patriotism overcomes many senses of logic and fear - long live patriotism!
Leslie

No, thank you.
Such intense patriotism, which overcomes logic and fear, usually verges on nationalism and prejudice. I think skinheads have this kind of patriotism. No logic, no fear, only mad fury against the different than themselves.

I think that it's out of the question <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And I have the impression that our discussion concerned a bit different matters. Ie. the question was not 'is suicidal foolishness foolish or not' but a bit more,hm, sophisticated? Or am I wrong?

I understand that as a teacher you feel a leader, responsible for the youth and I like this attitude. I used to be a teacher at university level, and felt the same <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />But don't you think that the situation is incomaprable - we have peace, we have balanced situation on our borders, all friends there (well - but one, I guess, there's Eric in Saint Petersburg, ha ha ha ha). You cannot guarantee even to youself that you'd teach 'the same line' if you'd have been a teacher in the secret Polish school in Warszawa 1940-1944, can you?

Anyway, thank you for Asnyk, our famous half-romatic, half-positivist. I must confess that I especially like his love poems, not the political ones <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> With "Jednego serca tak malo" sonet on the lead (remember - the one sang by Niemen). I remember a story of a young man, member of Home Army, caught by Germans while carrying a huge number of 'bibula' (secret press)and tortured. Home Army menaged to contact him in prison and ask what are his wishes/needs. He replied with Asnyk:

'Though I perish,
Though I fall,
Yet life will not have been squandered
For the finest part of life is in such struggle and pursuit.
It will be worth while seeing that magic building of crystal from afar.
It will be worth while to pay with blood and pain for entering the region of the ideal.'

And here's my poetical dedication for you, Jerzy, the bearer pf the torch of learning.
I'll give you a chance to guess what is the dedication <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
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now, let's get serious
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My testament

by Juliusz Slowacki



I have lived with you, suffered and shed tears with you.
No noble person have I ever passed aside.
Today I leave you, ghosts in shadows to pursue,
And if happiness were here � in sorrow I stride.


I have not left behind me a single offspring
Either to play my lute or to carry my name ;
My name has passed away like a flash of lightning,
And will last for generations like an empty strain.


But you that have known me, pass to all in legend
That I wore out my youth for the land of my fathers ;
When the ship struggled � I stood at the mast to the end,
And when she was sinking � I too drowned in deep waters...


Yet some day, pondering about the destined lot
Of my poor homeland, any noble man will consent
That my spirit�s cloak was not by begging begot,
But as my ancestors� glories shines resplendent.


Let my faithful friends at night gather together
And burn up my poor heart in die leaves of aloe,
Return it to die one who gave it to me later :
So the world pays mothers � giving them ashes to stow...


Let my friends sit down, each one holding a goblet,
And drown in wine my burial � and their own despair...
If I am a spirit, I�ll appear to them yet,
If God frees me from torment, I will not come there...

BUT I BEG YOU - LET THE LIVING NOT LOSE HOPE EVER

AND BEAR THE TORCH OF LEARNING BEFORE THEIR COMPATRIOTS
AND WHEN CALLED, GO TO THEIR DEATH ONE AFTER ANOTHER
LIKE THE STONES TOSSED BY LORD ONTO THE RAMPARTS...


As for me � I am leaving a small group of friends,
Those who were able to love my haughty spirit ;
One can see I have fulfilled God�s hard assignments
And assented to have here � an unwept casket...


Who else would go on without the world�s accolades,
Such indifference to the world as I display ?
To be the helmsman of a boat that�s filled with shades,
And fly off as quietly as the shade flies away ?


And yet I leave behind me this fateful power,
Useless while I live... it just graces my temples ;
But when I die, it will, unseen, press you ever,
Till it remakes you, bread eaters � into angels.



Translated by Michael MIKOS

I expected something like that.

I admit sincerely this Slowacki`s poem used to be my favourite one, I knew most of it by heart (with this one stanza, of course, which gave a title to a famous book, the one I read a dozen times in my high school).
It was a long time ago, in my youth, when I believed Warsaw Uprising and others were noble and worth praising. I was a typical Pole who believed that military struggle against all odds is so natural and valuable.

But I changed. I started to believe that the sacrifice of life is not necessary to preserve the nation`s spirit. Life is a supreme idea for me - it shouldn`t be lost foolishly, according to some silly romantic tradition.

If you disagree and want to change something, you don`t have to build barricades and then let tanks roll over you.
There are so many means of expressing your disagreement. E.g. a 1980 strike ha ha ha ha.

Not sure you were so typical then... In fact I haven't met many who'd say so. Certainly not the ones of the Home Army I know... But I think I slowly start to understand your position: you were so overwhelmed with the idea of a 'romantic sacrifice' in your youth that at some point of your growth the pendulum just had to go the other way. Someday it shall stop in the middle ha ha ha. Did I tell you that I like your ha ha? I prefer it to these strange signs... you don\t mind if I use it, do you.