The Wajda question

Andrzej Wajda begs the question: who, in fact, is this artist, rewarded and reviled in communist-ruled Poland, accused of Polish nationalism and national nihilism? Is he a Great Compatriot who made the name of Poland famous throughout the world? A latter-day fair-haired boy who reinforced the Polish smug self-satisfaction with the polonaise and the uhlan's sabre? Or perhaps a cosmopolitan European, a nihilist scoffer who poured salt into Polish wounds? Is he a sage or is he rather an intuitive genius led by instinct and faith in Polish tradition?

For those taught in communist schools about "underground gangs" and "fascist reactionaries," Andrzej Wajda's film Ashes and Diamonds was a vindication of the underground army and a humanization of those who lost in the war for Poland. However, for the Home Army generation this film was yet another humiliation and slander. What was the nature of the controversy? Zbigniew Herbert wrote in his poem Przeslanie Pana Cogito (The Envoy of Mr Cogito):

repeat the old incantations of humanity, fables and legends

because this is how you will attain the good which you will not

attain

repeat great words repeat them stubbornly

like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand

and they will reward you with what they have at hand

with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap.'

For Zbigniew Herbert, the Home Army soldier dying on a garbage heap was a symbol of ultimate tragedy. It was like the end of the world - the world of a free Poland. For Andrzej Waj da this death was part of the drama of a generation, not followed, however, by the end of the world. "Life went on, since - as the main character from the film Landscape After Battle bitterly says - the living versus the dead are always in the right."

For Herbert, the Home Army defeat was a test of preserving loyalty to the dead; for Wajda it was an experience which he attempted to rationalize intellectually and artistically in order to be able to go on living. A Home Army soldier in Herbert's poems is Gilgamesh, Hector, or Roland; a Home Army soldier in Wajda's film is a youthful, vigorous young man, with human virtues and vices, who...