When in 1992 I was asked for suggestions for the Polish speech at the CSCE summit in Helsinki, I proposed that two additional principles be added to the decalogue of principles guiding the relations between States in Europe adopted in 1975. The first of the additional principles concerned reconciliation. According to it, part of the process of building a better tomorrow for Europe should be coming to terms with history and mutual forgiveness. That’s what it seemed like to me then. President Wałęsa referred indeed to the postulate for reconciliation in his speech then. No reactions, however, followed. No one must have treated the words of the Polish speech with due consideration. If they were heard, they were probably interpreted as a catchy figure of speech.
In Europe, where the Franco-German example seems to have encouraged others to follow suit, the past still haunts us. The previous Polish government launched an unprecedented anti-German campaign before the 2023 elections. It linked it with a demand for reparations (a considerable $1.3 trillion). The then Polish ambassador in Berlin publicly stated in 2023 that “the lack of compensation for Poland also means that Germany has not finally come to terms with its past and in fact rejects the legacy of the Third Reich weighing over it.” Despite everything, according to him, “Germany has a chance to build stable and healthy relations with Poland, but only on the basis of historical truth and just compensation.” He added that “without this, Germany cannot count on sincere reconciliation with its Polish neighbours.”
It turned out that almost 50 years of efforts, initiated by the groundbreaking message of Polish bishops, were not enough. Because there was no generous financial settlement? These joint youth programs, foundations, joint research and even joint universities, joint history textbooks, expiations of German politicians – all this is not enough? “There is no reconciliation without monetary settlement of accounts” – would be the new Polish motto in international relations? That the Polish bishops didn’t think about it either. Although the communist authorities did not criticise them for this at that time.
“We grant forgiveness and ask your forgiveness” – a brilliantly lofty phrase (and worthy of an award, as Jerzy Pilch would write, and rightly so, because it should be worth the Nobel Peace Prize to this day) included in the letter from 1965, could become a great Polish contribution to international politics. That’s what I thought thirty years ago. I imagined that this could be the basis for our diplomatic activity, not only in Europe. A few times, and the last time in 2005, I even said it out loud. But my voice was apparently too quiet and had no impact on reality. Once, one of the Turkish intellectuals involved in the matter of reconciliation with the Armenians considered this phrase of the Polish bishops to be a groundbreaking sentence in the history of international relations. I agree with him.
So later, as the EU ambassador to Armenia, I tried to transfer the wisdom of the Polish bishops’ letter to the relations of Armenians with Turks and Azerbaijanis. With great resistance even from the Armenians. The basic difficulty was that, unlike the Germans, the Turks in their official policy denied guilt (for the genocide of 1915). And the Azeris themselves felt like victims and did not even want to think about reconciliation until full control over Nagorno-Karabakh was established (and they did not then even allow people with Armenian roots into their territory, as Krzysztof Penderecki himself found out).
And in the category of even more serious cases requiring reconciliation, there are at least a few more. Iranians and others cannot compete with athletes from Israel because their authorities prohibit them from doing so. The Ukrainians now do not want to shake hands after the end of their sport competitions with the Russians.
At the 2023 World Athletics Championships, the gold medal in the javelin was won by an Indian and the silver by a Pakistani. And they posed for photos together on the stadium track. This was a rare and optimistic picture. At the Paris Olympics the two sportsmen changed their places at the podium but the congratulatory gestures were repeated. But the North Korean competitors who posed for a selfie with their Southern kin were reported to face unpleasant problems when back home for that.
I once flew (on a diplomatic passport) to Amman. The border guard, looking through my passport, suddenly asked: “What was your mother’s name?” I was stunned because no one ever asked me for my mother’s name at the border. “Zofia,” I replied, embarrassed. But I was tempted to ask if it would have made any difference if her name had been Esther, Sarah, or Rachel.
My fundamental question: is it possible to build a sense of community in the world, is it possible to promote a new global identity, if emotional hostility persists between some tribes of this world?
We, as Poles, of course still have to manage the legacy of history in our relations with our neighbours. True, our neighbourhood was difficult.
In the west – Germany, you know. The problem is relatively simple because the Germans do not deny their guilt. But they are still coming to grips with the size of this guilt. For years their public conscience was formed to carry the burden of the crimes committed on Jews but the crimes committed to Poles were not visible enough in their awareness. They have a job to do in this respect in many years to come. Irrespective of the issue of the financial compensation.
In the south – Slovakia. No thorny issues from from the past. Polish and Slovak historians reached an agreement on the interpretation of the history of Spiš. It does not require gestures of reconciliation. The Czechs accepted our apology for the occupation of Zaolzie and the 1968 intervention. Nobody wants to look deeper into each other’s history.
In the east with the Lithuanians, if problems arose in the last 30 years, they were related to the rights of the Polish minority, not historical events. Lithuanians do not demand an apology for Żeligowski’s action and its consequences.
The case of Ukraine is still serious. For the overwhelming majority of Poles there will be no reconciliation with Ukraine without its apology for Volhynia, even after repelling Russian aggression. However, the current war will bring heroes to Ukrainians and a feat that will allow them to stop glorifying Bandera to build their own identity. Hopefully it will consolidate its pride and confidence to help it confront the painful past.
The most difficult thing will undoubtedly be building reconciliation with Russia. First of all, because imperial Russia (today Putin’s Russia) denied and denies any guilt. Not only towards Poland. Quite the contrary, Russia has demanded expressions of gratitude from us (for “liberation” from fascism, for the Western Territories, for help in reconstruction after World War II). As Russia gets bogged down in a war of aggression against Ukraine, Poland and Poles have become enemies number one in Russian state propaganda, being called genetic Russophobes, historical ingrates. And in Poland, the image of Russia and Russians has become deeply negative. Even Russian composers are no longer played in many opera theaters and philharmonic halls. The adjective “ruski” became synonymous with treason and barbarism.
As long as Russia is ruled by the heirs of imperial thinking, there will be no breakthrough in relations with Poland (and several other neighbors) – this is an obvious truth. But we cannot stop believing in reconciliation. And try to take it up when the right time comes. Because such a time must come.
I argued in the past, even until 2014, that we (not only the West, Europe, but also Poland) need to show that we can offer a positive program towards Russia. Even if we don’t have much hope that Russia will be able to take advantage of it. When Obama began to reset US relations with Russia in 2009, I could understand his motives, although I found public gestures of cronying up with Medvedev, Putin or Lavrov half a year after the Russian aggression against Georgia highly awkward.
I also understood the effort to mend relations with Russia undertaken by the then Polish government. And it produced some good fruits, for example within the Committee for Difficult Matters. But I was puzzled by the rather naive belief that it could actually lead to a breakthrough in relationships. But above all, I looked with embarrassment at the inertia of this process when, after the protests on Bolotnaya Square in 2011-2012, it was clear that a return to sharp confrontation was inevitable, because Putin began to accuse the West of the policy of “regime change” in Russia, and even Americans started withdrawing from reset. By then, our policy towards Russia had to undergo a sharp course correction. And it happened, but only after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The problem with Russia for centuries was that its leaders wanted to evoke either fear (when it was strong) or sympathy (when it was suffering from smuta and misfortune) among its partners (and especially its neighbours). I believe that one day there will be leaders in Russia who, like in other normal countries, will simply want to gain respect from their partners. Then we will reconcile.
What about other nations? For example, our neighbor across the Baltic Sea – Sweden. In 2005, the Swedish ambassador apologized for the Deluge of XVII century, to everyone’s surprise, because no one expected it. But Sweden does not want to return the works of Polish culture that were looted then and later (Łaski Statute!). Because Sweden was also robbed centuries ago? Of course not.
Talking about our war spoils, at least we have a strong argument not to return the „Berliner” archives (Prussian Treasure) to the Germans. Because the Germans did not provide any compensation for the destroyed and looted works, and they did not show even greater willingness to find the loot in private collections. But Sweden has no arguments. And these Polish works of culture, from the point of view of their cultural identity, remain to them a foreign body even after four hundred years.
The Egyptian obelisk in Paris is different, right? Of course I’m joking. Well, the logic of moral progress leaves no doubt about it. These removed and looted cultural memorabilia should be returned to their original place. Even the Elgin marbles, although they were shipped to protect them from total destruction by the Turkish occupiers. Even Egyptian mummies, even though the rightful heirs of the ancient Egyptians are only a modest minority in Egypt, and the Arabs (also under the rule of the Turks) used to treat these monuments as culturally alien for centuries (the temple in Karnak was destroyed by Muslim fanatics, and the temple in Luxor was “enriched” with minarets, etc.), they did not particularly care about them, but today they treat them as part of their identity. The return of cultural goods to their original places must become the norm!
There are strong arguments for the thesis that it is impossible to dig up the past indefinitely and that one must have the courage to draw a thick line somewhere along the timeline. After all, no one in Poland will demand an apology from Mongolia for the invasion of Genghis Khan’s troops and the slaughter of the flower of Silesian knighthood near Legnica. But it turns out that old wounds can become worse after years. This is how I treat the growing demands for compensation for colonial exploitation. Germany has paid over a billion euros to the Namibian government for crimes committed against the local people over a century ago. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands apologized for practicing slavery in former colonies two hundred years ago. The reproaches are therefore strong.
Others say that a new world cannot be built on dwelling on wrongdoings and historical sentiments. And they argue that for young people the past no longer has such a distinct dimension, that the past flattens out in their consciousness, and what interests them and unites them in their identity is the look into the future. Historical reconciliation for a common global identity is not necessary, in their view. They cite the example of the European Union. They quote Hans-Magnus Enzensberger, who argued that after World War II, Europeans found refuge in “collective amnesia.” And with what good results! So the only solution for the world is collective amnesia. Immediately there were commentators insinuating that nations that deny their guilt are ideally suited to the new world. And they claim that Turkish denialism towards the Armenian Genocide should not be an obstacle to Turkey’s membership in the EU, but rather an argument for its quick accession.
For thirty years (after the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa), the so-called transitional justice has been applied in practice. In countries that shed oppressive governments, emerged from civil wars, started building a new internal order, mechanisms were adopted to settle crimes, compensate for suffering, review court judgements, conduct lustration and verify state services, especially the so-called military, police and security segment.
Similar mechanisms for relations between states have never been introduced. Would the establishment of the Peacebuilding Council, as proposed in the report of the UN SG Panel, fill this gap? Doubtful, because the task is extremely difficult. For example, would Russia and Ukraine agree to UN involvement in rebuilding trust between them after the end of an open war?
I saw how clumsily international institutions coped with rebuilding relations between post-Yugoslav states and societies and beyond, but especially between Serbia and Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, not to mention Serbia’s relations with Kosovo. Some believed that the memory of bad emotions would disappear by itself, others focused on subregional structures, such as the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe (and later the Regional Cooperation Council) or the South-Eastern European Cooperation Process. Others assured that the problems would disappear on their own after all countries join the European Union.
The problem, however, is that populists of all stripes, especially in difficult times, will dig into history to stir up emotions that will carry them to power. Never mind their retropian visions, which are intended to deceive and fool society. It’s worse with the so-called historical politics that it forces us to look for an explanation for our own failures in past wrongs and suffering inflicted on us by our neighbours.
And memory remains plastic and selective. In the wake of pro-Palestinian demonstrations following the Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip, open anti-Semitism has spread across European capitals. Even in Warsaw. In France, President Macron himself had to call on his fellow citizens to stop the march of anti-Semitism. Europe, which went through the Holocaust, once again became a dangerous place for Jews to live. Of course, the reason is simple. The mass influx of Muslim migrants also affects Europe’s historical identity in this respect. For them, the Holocaust is not a defining experience of historical legacy. And the result is that in Europe the Prime Minister of Israel can now be shamelessly compared to Hitler (and in Russia the Jew Zelensky can be defined as a Nazi). However, what is more difficult to explain is the phenomenon of anti-Semitic attitudes penetrating left-wing parties and movements in Europe. The nationalistic right has lost its historic monopoly on anti-Semitic views. They are now full of them on the left, which, oh holy paradox, has in the past attracted politicians of Jewish origin and fought anti-Semitism.
I also observed with sadness how, during Putin’s rule, Russians were given messages intended to induce amnesia towards the devastating legacy of the last world war. This was not done even under the communists, and the threat of total nuclear war was quite real then. Putin’s propaganda fed Russians, especially the young, with fairy tales about war as an ordinary thing, an adventure of life, a glorious mission. For years, society has been prepared for the senseless death of thousands of young people, for sacrifices and losses that have no purpose other than to implement the leader’s imperial delusions.
It would seem that the European experience of past wars should be an eternal warning against starting new adventures. Let us only hope that our Europe, the Europe of the European Union, is not affected by fresh amnesia, as in the case of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.
So I guess a new world can’t be built on amnesia after all. Therefore, an effort of reconciliation is needed.
