On a large, green space within the walls Warsaw citadel - where the complex is located museum (Katy Museum, Military Museum, several smaller installations in the surrounding buildings) - the new building of the Museum of History stands out Poland. It has pharaonic dimensions, is square in shape, made of dark gray stone interspersed with white veins, without any external decorations. The interior, into which you step almost in awe, is no less impressive.
The museum is new, and so is the director, forty-year-old Marcin Napiórkowski, among other things the author of the book Turbopatrotism (Turbopatriotism, publisher Czarne, 2019), which has experienced some success in Poland. Napjorkovski has only been at the head of this institution for nine months, and during that time, with a team of more than 100 associates, he embarked on an "impossible" task: to present the history of Poland in one place. No matter how big that place is, it can, of course, receive only one fragment, section, or only one interpretation of the immeasurably large story about the past of this country. It is not necessary to emphasize how sensitive a task Napjorkovski undertook, because Poland also faithfully follows the political trend of oscillating between a liberal and conservative understanding of history, between the "big" history of battles and celebrities (history as continuous bloodshed) and the "small" history of everyday life.
History is, of course, the story of the past. What happened - happened irreversibly, but that does not mean that the past is dead. On the contrary. It is alive precisely to the extent that that past is spoken about, to the extent that it is interpreted, falsified, used or abused. We start the conversation with that motive.
"WEATHER" Do you agree with the statement that the past is never really dead??
MARCIN NAPJORKOWSKI: I agree. Although, I would try to expand that metaphor further. In the past, I worked a lot with farmers and agricultural metaphors are very close to me. It is also a very powerful source of mythology – in agrarian mythology, the death of what was is never the end. And it doesn't matter if we tell it through the story of Demeter, or if we try to explain it through the metaphor of the modern nitrogen and phosphorus economy... What has died gives life to what is to come, which will be renewed, and the subsequent layers of the past represent the soil in which the future is rooted.
Da, but those are myths.
Biology and chemistry, but also myths. And when we look at contemporary political struggles or the horizons of our imagination in science fiction... They always spring from the roots of what was. That is why I am a big supporter of studying and deepening our relationship with the past. Not because we need to look back, but precisely because the future - which is the most important - grows out of what was, lived and died before us.
Is it in that connection between the roots and the present, between past and future, there is some kind of necessity?
It seems to me that the agrarian metaphor is beautiful precisely because it shows us that the past enables, but does not determine. It opens up a space of possibility, not necessity. And above all, if we leave nitrogen and phosphorus aside for a moment, what we are constantly recycling, renewing from the past is a certain repertoire of signs that we cannot completely reinvent - because if the continuity were interrupted, we would cease to understand each other. But at the same time, whether it is language or other systems of meaning, each generation changes them. Like plants that regenerate, very slowly, but from generation to generation they adapt to new conditions and look for new ways of development.
Yet, what you're saying still moves between metaphor and simile. Does it exist? philosophers would say conceptual necessity in the unfolding of history?
So, once again - in semiotics we often use terms taken from structuralism: language (language) and speech (passwords). Therefore, there is a certain necessity in the form of limitations arising from language as a system. It exists. But passwords, speech, is a space of freedom. Of course, we can also speak from a philosophical perspective: is language a space of necessity that limits us? And to some extent it is. But it seems to me that it is more useful to see it as a space of freedom. That freedom is built out of necessity - and that's exactly why language is important.
Let's try this.. Interpretation (of the past) is a space of freedom, and the past is available to us only as an interpretation, does not exist as such.
I agree with that. A statement in language, like a game of chess, is possible only because there are rules, because reality resists and I cannot make any move. This resistance to reality allows our actions to have meaning at all. And the past is closed as a fact, facts from the past resist our interpretations. That limit of interpretation is very important. The moment we ignore it - we completely move into the realm of fiction, but we also lose understanding. Even when we talk about historical fiction, about a novel, a film or a series, we can understand each other because the resistance to reality is respected. That resistance has been preserved, at least symbolically.
Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes tend to rape the past.
If we look at the various forms - I will use your term "rape of the past" - that have been carried out by authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, then, without a moral assessment, we see very clearly the price we pay when we ignore the resistance to reality. When those rules are broken, when in they speak it is possible to say absolutely everything, the truth ceases to have any meaning, we lose the possibility of any mutual understanding. All authoritarianisms, all totalitarianisms promised perfect unity, that we would all be together. And what they really brought was complete atomization. The ultimate loneliness. It is also a very well-known mythological figure - when we go to the genie from the lamp or some wish-fulfilling being - it fulfills everything we ask for, removes all resistance to reality, and we realize that it did not make us happy. Because when we get everything we want, when there is no resistance to reality - there is no sense either.
And now, what does effective resistance to totalitarianism and falsification of memory consist of? Srđa Popović pointed to the Serbian example. Resistance to the falsification of the past consists in creating symbols that reconnect us and act as the sand we threw into the cogs of the falsifying machinery. Resistance is in reminding yourself of what reality is and in re-establishing common ground. In this way, what was destroyed by false semiotics, the false world of signs, can be recovered through semiotics. Through signs that remind us of reality, as well as the fact that the power of that totalitarian spirit from the lamp still has its limit.
Let's just dwell on the Serbian example for a moment...
I am not an expert on Serbian history.
An example is, I think, universal. Today, a war for the past is raging in Serbia. Partisans were good guys for 45 years, and now they are no longer there. Suddenly, war criminals are on the price, as well as collaborators, quislings... they are great now, they are proclaimed heroes. What does it look like in Poland?? Are you fighting for the past??
It is led, like everywhere. Many of those stories are stories that connect us. We also had examples of partisans. We too had a very ambivalent attitude towards the Soviet Union. And, of course, there were cases of collaboration in our country too - although less often. That is why it seems particularly interesting to me that in Ukraine, Poland and, as far as I know, in Serbia, there is a very strong current of falsification of history that comes directly from Russia. It is a very simple story: that Russia or the Soviet Union never attacked anyone, but always only liberated, fought against some form of fascism. And it is a very simple story. And what is the truth? The truth is – complicated.
To some extent, the struggle against the falsification of the past - the same as the struggle against various kinds of falsification of the future, conspiracy theories - can be described as a struggle between what is complex (precisely because it is true) and what is false (precisely because it is simplified), which does not include the complexity of the past.
Let me return to agriculture for a moment. Very often, farmers are too quick to reject certain new technologies, new solutions, because they do not fit into the simple picture of the world they believe in and consider correct. When I work with them, often representing scientific institutions, the scientists who designed these technologies, the solution is never more pressure and trying to change their beliefs and what they consider important. My task is, in fact, to listen to them very carefully, to understand their world and to try to convince them that reality is a bit more complex, and that in accordance with their own values, they can see a world that is more nuanced. And now, when I have the honor and pleasure of working in this large and beautiful museum, which still scares me a little, it seems to me that my task is exactly the same. That together with the museum team, working on the permanent exhibition, at various events and temporary exhibitions, we can resist various forms of distortion of reality - not by showing another simple picture, but by showing that the past is beautiful precisely because it is complex and multi-faceted. And that complexity is beautiful.
Just to add. Serbia has never attacked anyone either and has always been a victim...
And in Poland, we like to think of ourselves that way. The truth is hard, but the truth is more beautiful.
At one point you used the expression "true history". Ko, however, claims the right to "true history"?
Let me try to use other words. Perhaps we are not talking about the real one, but about the fruitful past. So, we don't have a "real land" and a "barren land", we have a fertile land and a desolate land. And we know very well what is draining the earth. For example monoculture: growing one plant year after year on the same land depletes the soil. We also know what makes soil fertile - and this was known as far back as the Middle Ages - crop rotation and diversity. I suggest that instead of talking about the real history, the real past, we think about the fertile past - the one from which a better future can spring and flourish.
This is the discourse of an educated man, scientist, so someone who observes things from a distance... My question is: is history, is historiography, can defend itself against political influence?
It seems to me, first of all, that the vision I presented may not be the vision of an educated man. That is certainly something I learned from the peasants, not from the professor. And it seems to me that the past, history or historiography cannot defend itself against politics. I know of no time in history where the telling of the past was free from politics. Chroniclers were always in the service of the court or the clergy. So maybe we should try to escape in the opposite direction. To bring more politics into history, to ensure fertility, the plant diversity that enables soil fertility. Simple, that is, barren history, occurs where only leftists or only rightists, only the government or only the opposition tell the story. If, on the other hand, we manage to create spaces of dialogue in which discussion takes place - then the soil becomes more and more fertile thanks to the excess of politics, not its withdrawal. Can I use bad words?
Go ahead.
The day before yesterday I spoke to a person who said that he will not vote in the upcoming elections in Poland because - politics is bullshit. Maybe it is. But - shit is fertilizer. If we take the most fertile soil for cultivation, the soil is full of partially decomposed remains, worms, garbage.... It's not pretty - but it's fruitful.
How did you imagine the museum's permanent exhibition??
For me, the most important idea is for this to be a participatory museum - in which we create a certain space where we invite various voices, but we start from listening, not from speaking. This museum is like a relay race. I came here recently, but work on a permanent installation has been going on for a good ten years. I am looking at different ideas for permanent installations. For example, in the hall for the 19th century, a large, seven-meter high ice wall was installed. Of course, it won't really be made of ice – it'll be made of glass – but it looks like something out of a movie Frozen. And I ask a historian curator: what does that wall mean? He told me a story. I ask another historian curator: what does that wall mean? She tells me a completely different story. And I realized, that wall does not have one meaning. Everyone who comes to the exhibition will have to interpret it for themselves. It is a large object, a monolith, that simply appears – too big, too strange, too beautiful to ignore – but does not impose meaning. He does not say that the Poles were heroes, nor that they were incompetent. That ice wall doesn't provide answers, but it does raise a lot of questions. The program line of this museum is to create a space where people ask questions about their own history and talk about it. We don't give simple answers. We give facts, dates, personalities, from which answers can be built, but we do not say "how it was" and "what is the meaning".
As a historian or as a philosopher, however, you choose the facts. How do you respond to this type of dilemma?
You overestimate my capabilities. More than 100 people worked on that setup, and my contribution - given that I came very late - is minimal. Those 100 people can't agree on a single thing, not even on the color of a horse's bridle. They argue all the time - and that, in my opinion, is beautiful. The exhibition will have 7300 m². It will be the largest exhibition of its type in Europe. The disadvantage is that it will not be possible to go around in one day. The advantage is that she cares - really everything. Everyone who visits it will reconstruct it in their own way. You can go through the whole history of Poland following the history of women, peasants or great battles and victories - the way it is usually taught in school. That's why I can't answer the question that journalists often ask me - what is the exhibition about? Because you can tell what the book is about - but this exhibition is not a book. It is a library.
Translated from the Polish Agnieszka Lasek
