lunedì

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Dal 20 maggio in libreria. Polonia mon amour, il libro


La foto in copertina
Porto di Świnoujście, faro. Archivio dell'Ufficio turistico polacco di Roma
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Il rapporto Khrushchev al XX Congresso e i polacchi

"Tumultuous, prolonged applause ending in ovation. All rise." Khrushchev's "Secret Report" and Poland
by Robert Looby
In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, addressing a closed session of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, did the unthinkable and denounced his predecessor Stalin. The report on the "cult of the individual", which inevitably and quickly leaked out across the Eastern Bloc, was shocking - people were reported to have fainted upon hearing it. Robert Looby takes a look at the report, and the Polish reaction to it at the time...

La Polonia e gli armeni

Polish Government and Local Authorities Vary in Opinions on Armenian Genocide Issue
Online Armenian Newspaper Yerkir, 28.02.2006 12:41
YEREVAN (YERKIR) - The local authorities are not at one with the government on the Armenian Genocide issue, shepherd of the Armenians of Poland Tadeus Isahakian-Zalezski told PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. In his words, during the 7 centuries that Armenians lived in Poland they merged with its culture, participated in the construction of Lwow, Stanislawow, Lublin and were rewarded for their fidelity – on April 19, 2005 the Polish Seym passed the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. “However this fact apparently did not have much importance for the Wrowlaw authorities, who closed the Armenian Genocide exhibition after a call from the Turkish Embassy,” Tadeus Isahakian-Zalezski said adding, “It turns out that foreign embassies have a greater authority than the government of the country.” According to him, a country that is “knocking on the door of Europe” should recognize the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide. To note, formal part of the event was followed by the performance of Armenian songs by “Musa Ler”, a band from Warsaw. Many Poles unaware of the Armenian culture were present at the event.

domenica

La Chiesa polacca e il comunismo

Polish priests collaborated with communist regime
Warsaw, 16:39
The Polish Church has admitted for the first time that some of its priests had been collaborating with the secret militia of the communist regime, and asked for forgiveness for all evil deeds of those involved. "Some members of the Church caved in to the pressures exerted by the horrible communism system", says the Declaration produced after the meeting of Polish Bishops in Warsaw. "We are regretful for that and ask those who suffered for forgiveness", the Declaration says. According to the data of the National History Institute, which probes into Communist and Nazi crimes, more than 10 percent of the Polish clergy collaborated with the communist secret services...

The difficulties of dealing with the past in societies with newly established democratic regimes

Princeton University, Campus Announcements
Polish journalist and activist Adam Michnik will deliver a lecture titled "A Dictatorship's Past: The Cleansing of Collective Memory" at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 14, in 219 Burr Hall.
The lecture will focus on the difficulties of dealing with the past in societies with newly established democratic regimes. Michnik will examine transitions to pluralism and democracy in Germany after World War II, in various Latin American countries in the 1980s and 1990s, in post-apartheid South Africa and in post-communist East-Central Europe.

Processare Jaruzelski?

Poland to try Jaruzelski, 82, for alleged communist crimes
Ian Traynor, central Europe correspondent
The Guardian, Saturday April 1, 2006
General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former communist leader of Poland, is to stand trial for "communist crimes" 25 years after he tried to crush the Solidarity trade union, declared a "state of war" in Poland and jailed tens of thousands of people. The 82-year-old former military officer, who headed the Polish communist party and served as defence minister, prime minister and president, has always argued that his decision to impose martial law on Poland in December 1981, 18 months after the rise of Solidarity sent tremors through the Soviet bloc, was the lesser of two evils - aimed at preventing the greater despair that could have followed a Red Army invasion of Poland. Prosecutors filed charges against Gen Jaruzelski and several others yesterday, arguing that his crimes also violated Poland's communist constitution.
He could face 11 years in jail if found guilty. "We're expecting the trial to start quite soon," said an official at the institute. "It's a political issue, of course." ... Gen Jaruzelski has apologised for declaring martial law, as well as for his role, as military chief, in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. But he has always said he did what he thought was best at the time, only to learn later that his acts may have been "shameful". The indictment filed yesterday charged Gen Jaruzelski with being the head of an "organised criminal group of a military nature, which aimed to perpetrate crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment" and violating "workers' rights". Gen Jaruzelski said yesterday that million of Poles supported his decision to impose martial law. He denounced the move to put him on trial as a "moral court". "I am deeply convinced, more now than ever, that martial law was needed," he told Polish television. The former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said the indictment of Gen Jaruzelski was a "necessary" move towards settling Poland's accounts, but he voiced no pleasure in hearing of the charges. The former adversaries buried the hatchet last year in a joint television appearance.

Geometrie centroeuropee

The Visegrad Group - Polish Geopolitical Axis
Simon Araloff, AIA European section, 27.02.2006
Fifteen years ago the "Visegrad Group" (or V4) association was perceived by its founders to be a completely natural necessity for that period. It was a natural reaction to the political and economic vacuum formed in the central part of Europe after the collapse of the Council of Economic Mutual Assistance and the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Also it was a completely necessary tool for a dialogue with NATO and the EU. The Soviet giant collapsed on the east, Germany was uniting in the West. And Berlin with Moscow under Gorbachev, as under Yeltsin, carried on an active dialogue, restoring what would become a decade later under Putin and Schroeder, a powerful geopolitical axis.
In this situation Poland, which was not invited to this association, and frankly was not really rushing to fraternize with the Germans and Russians, was a unique state suited for a role at the center of the creation of a completely different axis - the "north - south" axis, from Estonia in the north to Croatia and Slovenia in the south. The "Visegrad Group" was supposed to become the core of this new geopolitical axis around which Warsaw intended to build an alternative center of gravity on the European continent.

La Politica orientale della Germania

Berlin to Buy Warsaw's Silence
Simon Araloff, AIA European section, 18.04.2006
Diplomatic sources in Warsaw and Berlin inform that the German leadership lately makes vigorous efforts to involve Poland in Germany's economic and political relations with Russia... Considering the necessity of further cooperation between the railway companies of Germany, Poland, Belarus, and Russia, the German side proposed the Polish state-owned railway company - Polskie Koleje Panstwowe (PKP) – to sign a relevant agreement with participation of the Russians... In this context it is appropriate to mention the efforts that Berlin has been making of late to neutralize the Baltic States' counteraction to broadening of the German-Russian cooperation in the energy sphere. According to the diplomatic sources in Berlin, such efforts already took some positive effect in case of Latvia and Estonia, and the next in line is Lithuania, the Prime-Minister of which is scheduled to visit the German capital in the near future.
IN SOSTANZA: It is perfectly clear that the attractive economical propositions to Warsaw, like the abovementioned partnership in railway sphere, serve the same purpose of breaking down the unified Polish-Baltic front that still confronts Berlin's and Moscow's attempts to rehash the energy and geopolitical map of Europe. In this connection it is also appropriate to recall the German leadership's generous compromise to Poland during recent discussion of the EU budget. It seems that Warsaw is ready to sacrifice its rather amorphous principles in exchange for a real amount in hard currency…

Patto tedesco-russo sul gas. Analisi

Schroeder - Putin Pact: Germany and Russia Divide Europe Again
Simon Araloff, Axis Information and Analysis European section
A failure of negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union on the Ribbentrop - Molotov Pact`s expansion to Southeast Europe preceded the collision of these superpowers in June 1941. Judging from the development of German-Russian relations for the last years, it is obvious that the both parties have learned from mistakes of the past. Today the European continent, including its southeast part, is turning into the arena of their joint expansion – this time an economic one. And exactly as at the end of the 1930s, relations between Berlin and Moscow are being built up to the disadvantage of the East European countries, Britain and the United States of America. However, given Moscow's policy, some changes are quite possible…

Europa-Russia? Polonia-Germania? Zbigniew Brzeziński

Poland: An Actor or a Player?
The Warsaw Voice, 26 April 2006
Prof. Zbigniew Brzeziński, former U.S. Presidential advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave a lecture during conference "Poland in Europe in the Face of Global Challenges" in the Center for International Relations in Warsaw. His speech was entitled "Europe as a Global Actor in International Politics." Here are some excerpts:
/.../ We need to have a policy toward the East. I happen to strongly believe that the successful democratic Ukraine will help develop a successful democratic Russia. By the same token, a failed democracy in Ukraine will delay the transformation in Russia and maybe even divert Russia in negative directions. There is a problem today in our relationship with Russia. Western expectations, both American and European regarding democracy in Russia, have proven to be excessive and based to too much on personal assessments. We'll see how the G8 works out in St. Petersburg. We'll see whether talks on energy security will really lead to real energy security. If the G8 meeting is a success perhaps it will lead to some renewal of the democratic process evolution in Russia. There has been talk of expelling Russia from the G8 including from some very prominent American politicians. I do not favor that because I think that the G8 has some utility.
/.../ Let me get to the conclusion that Poland can only play that role if it continues with its commitment to German-Polish reconciliation. This is fundamental. In the settling of reconciliation there can be differences but the differences cannot dominate the reconciliation. Reconciliation must dominate the differences and that is a very important, even subtle distinction. Poland can only play a role in Europe if it is truly reconciled with Germany. Poland's influence in Washington is not going to increase but to diminish if Poland's commitment to German-Polish reconciliation is weaker in any fashion. So Poland also has strategic choices to make. It also has contributions to make if Europe is to be both an actor and a player.

Solidarnosc = 25 anni, monumento a Gdansk

25 years of Solidarity. Strikes by Polish shipyard workers in Gdansk 25 years ago helped to usher in the end of the Cold War.
Jan Zappner - Berlin - 26.8.2005 | Translation : Fiona Wollensack
Mythologising the movement
Today, the movement which is accredited with bringing about the fall of the Eastern Block is to be honoured with a museum – an ambitious project in which a new town covering some 73 hectares is to be built on the former shipyard of Gdansk. The museum will be at the entrance to the port city, and a portrait of Lech Walesa will smile down upon “Freedom Road” from the facade of the new museum.
This smile is meant to attract the money of investors, says Roman Sebastianski, marketing director of the investment fund Synergia 99. “The mythology of the Solidarnosc movement still sweeps down the streets here.” Up to 10,000 new jobs and flats for 6,000 people are to be created in the next 15 to 20 years in the new town, but the building project on the shipyard land is still controversial. For many people it is the final death knell for the shipyard, a fact they do not wish to have to face.
Will, after 25 years, the shipyard be buried along with Solidarnosc under its own larger than life mythology? This will be a hot topic of discussion at the celebratory events taking place during the coming weeks in Gdansk. The role of the man who became the symbol of Solidarnosc during its stellar rise will also be discussed, especially now that he, Lech Walesa, has now announced that he wishes to leave the union.

Patti tedesco-russi: oggi come ieri? Dibattito

Poland Criticized For Nazi Slur
May 4, 2006 6:59 p.m. EST
Joanna Wypior - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Warsaw, Poland (AHN) – Poland has been criticized by both German and European Union officials for its verbal assault of comparing a German-Russian pipeline deal to a pact made between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union before World War II... "Such absurd comparisons are harmful for German-Polish relations," Ruprecht Polenz, the Christian Democrat head of the parliamentary foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying by Germany’s Bild newspaper...

La televisione in Polonia e nell'Est europeo

Television Across Europe: Regulation, Policy, and Independence
The Open Society Institute (OSI), October 11, 2005, da p. 449
The pivotal role of television in supporting democracy in Europe is under threat. Public service broadcasters are compromising quality to compete with commercial channels, and many of them depend on governments or political parties. Meanwhile, ever larger concentrations are developing in the commercial sector, often with clear political affiliations. These developments jeopardize broadcasting pluralism and diversity, with the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe most at risk.
The reports cover the eight Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that joined the EU in May 2004 (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia); Bulgariaand Romania, expected to join in 2007; two candidate countries (Croatia and Turkey);four older EU member States (France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and the potential EU candidate countries in South-Eastern Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Macedonia, plus a special report on Serbia).

I russi e il lavoro sulla memoria russa

Yakovlev - An Architect of the Perestroika
"Although we succeeded in crushing Stalin's fascist totalitarianism, its heritage lives on."
from the Vilhelm Konnander's weblog
Over the past 15 years, Yakovlev has dedicated himself to the crimes of the soviet era; as chairman in the Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression; and since 1993 through his own Yakovlev Foundation (Mezhdunarodny Fond Demokratsii). By this work, some 4.5 million innocently convicted have been rehabilitated, among those Raoul Wallenberg. Still 400,000 cases remain to scrutinise... "Who is guilty?", Yakovlev asked. This recurrent question in Russia is often given a misdirected answer. When we point at Lenin, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks, we avoid to touch on our own guilt. We hide our heads in the sand, and pretend that it wasn't we that shot all those people; that it wasn't we that betrayed the neighbour to save ourselves. The truth is that the guilty are as much among us as they are in hell. Although we succeeded in crushing Stalin's fascist totalitarianism, its heritage lives on.

lunedì

la storia e il codice penale. I turchi e gli armeni

Diario del 14 gennaio 2005
Il nostro inviato nel negazionismo
Turchia in Europa, nonostante il massacro
Il nuovo articolo 306 del codice penale di Ankara punisce con il carcere fino a dieci anni chi afferma: «Gli armeni hanno subìto un genocidio». Alla faccia delle modifiche fatte per compiacere Bruxelles
di Chiara Alpago-Novello
/.../ Piero Kuciukian, autore di numerosi libri sulla cultura e le vicende degli «ebrei del Caucaso», ha fondato l’associazione I Giusti per gli armeni e fa parte del Comitato per la foresta dei giusti (l’anno scorso il Comune di Milano ha premiato il suo impegno con l’Ambrogino d’oro). «Da europeo», commenta, «prendo atto del fatto che l’Europa sia nata all’indomani della rinuncia dei singoli Stati al nazionalismo. Per la Turchia, profondamente nazionalista, questa rinuncia significa riconoscere quello che in nome del nazionalismo è stato fatto, dal genocidio armeno ai massacri dei greci e degli assiri alle persecuzioni dei curdi /.../ «Tutti i media hanno dato grande risalto al famoso articolo del nuovo codice penale turco sull’adulterio», sottolinea Antonia Arslan. «Nessuno sa, però, che negli stessi giorni è stato approvato un altro articolo, il 306, che stabilisce una pena sino a dieci anni (aumentata della metà o di un terzo se il reato è commesso attraverso i media) per chi agisce contro gli interessi nazionali. La commissione giustizia del Parlamento specifica qualche esempio di azioni punibili: tra queste, affermazioni come “l’esercito turco deve ritirarsi da Cipro” o “gli armeni hanno subìto un genocidio in epoca ottomana”». Alcuni deputati sono riusciti a far passare un emendamento che limita la possibilità di perseguire il colpevole al caso in cui sia motivato da interessi materiali e pare che si stia discutendo l’eliminazione dell’esempio di Cipro e dell’Armenia (a fine dicembre, però, la realtà era questa), ma la portata, anche simbolica, del provvedimento resta intatta. E infatti lo stesso Parlamento europeo nel famoso rapporto del 15 dicembre, pur lodando le riforme in corso, si dice preoccupato per l’articolo 306, in evidente contrasto con la libertà d’espressione. «Altrettanto sotto silenzio è passato il fatto che nel 2003 il ministro dell’Istruzione turco abbia inviato una circolare a tutte le scuole, dalle elementari alle superiori, perché venisse insegnata la “vera” storia del genocidio», continua Arslan, «ovvero che sono stati gli armeni a massacrare i turchi (si è addirittura indetto un concorso tra gli allievi sul tema, ndr)».

Rousset e i gulag sovietici

Diario del 24 gennaio 2003
Storia per frammenti
I lager sovietici? «Non esistono»
David Rousset, reduce dai campi nazisti, icona della sinistra francese, nel 1950 denuncia l’orrore dei gulag in Urss. Ma è trotzkista e non gli credono. Tra i critici, Jean-Paul Sartre
di David Bidussa
/.../ in quella mattina di novembre Rousset si trova in tribunale con i suoi vecchi amici di lotta politica, con cui ha condiviso la sua militanza eretica e controcorrente negli anni dello stalinismo trionfante non perché sta accusando l’universo concentrazionario nazista, bensì quello sovietico.
Rousset è un vecchio militante della sinistra socialista nei primi anni Trenta e poi a lungo militante nel movimento trotzkista francese (nel 1934 incontrerà anche il «vecchio» come i giovani trotzkisti chiamavano Trotzkij negli anni dell’esilio, durante i suoi mesi di clandestinità dalle parti di Grenoble).
In quella mattinata di novembre non entra in tribunale per difendere la sua versione dei fatti, ma perché la sua esperienza concentrazionaria lo ha diviso da una parte dei suoi vecchi compagni di sventura. Il problema che egli pone con la sua decisione è il seguente: una volta assunta la memoria della propria tragica esperienza che cosa si fa di quella memoria? Ovvero: la memoria serve a celebrare il proprio passato eroico o costituisce uno strumento per ficcare il proprio «sguardo attento e impietoso» nelle pieghe smagliate anche della propria parte politica? In quell’aula di tribunale in breve si consuma – trasformando quel luogo in un vero palcoscenico teatrale – una scena della guerra intima che la sinistra europea ha a lungo combattuto dentro di sé nel corso del Novecento. Che cosa dunque ha portato Rousset in rotta di collisione con una parte del suo mondo politico e che cosa accade su quel palcoscenico?