In many ways, Poland is one of the
success stories of the new Europe,
transforming itself from a one-party
state to a parliamentary democracy
in a remarkably short period of
time. More than a decade of
non-communist governments has
wrought profound changes on the
country, unleashing entrepreneurial
energies and widening cultural
horizons in a way that pre-1989
generations would have scarcely
thought possible. Gleaming corporate
skyscrapers have taken root in
Warsaw, and private shops and cafés
have established themselves in even
the most provincial of rural towns.
The country has a radically
different look about it, having
exchanged the greyish tinge of a
state-regulated society for the
anything-goes attitude of private
enterprise - and all the billboards
and window displays that go with it.
However at the heart of modern
Poland lies an all-too-familiar
paradox: the very people who made
the country's democratic revolution
possible - militant industrial
workers and anticommunist
intellectuals - have found
themselves marginalized in a society
in which street-smart businessmen
and computer-literate youth are far
better poised to take advantage of
the brave new Poland's burgeoning
opportunities.
All this may come as a shock to
those who recall the Poland of the
1980s, when images of industrial
unrest and anticommunist protest
were beamed around the world.
Strikes at the Lenin shipyards of
Gdansk and other industrial centres
were the harbingers of the
disintegration of communism in
Eastern Europe, and, throughout the
years of martial law and beyond,
Poland retained a near-mythical
status among outside observers as
the country that had done most to
retain its dignity in the face of
communist oppression.
For many Poles, the most
important events in the movement
towards a post-communist society
were the visits in 1979 and 1983 of Pope
John Paul II , the former
archbishop of Kraków. To the
outside world this may have been
surprising, but Poland was never a
typical communist state: Stalin's
verdict was that imposing communism
on Poland was like trying to saddle
a cow. Polish society in the postwar
decades remained fundamentally
traditional, maintaining beliefs,
peasant life and a sense of
nationhood to which the Catholic
Church was integral. During
periods of foreign oppression -
oppression so severe that Poland as
a political entity has sometimes
vanished altogether from the maps of
Europe - the Church was always the
principal defender of the nation's
identity, so that the Catholic faith
and the struggle for independence
have become fused in the Polish
consciousness. The physical presence
of the Church is inescapable - in
Baroque buildings, roadside shrines
and images of the national icon, the
Black Madonna of Czestochowa
- and the determination to preserve
the memories of an often traumatic
past finds expression in religious
rituals that can both attract and
repel onlookers.
World War II and its
aftermath profoundly influenced the
character of Poland: the country
suffered at the hands of the Nazis
as no other in Europe, losing nearly
twenty percent of its population and
virtually its entire Jewish
community. In 1945 the Soviet
-dominated nation was once again
given new borders, losing its
eastern lands to the USSR and
gaining tracts of formerly German
territory in the west. The resulting
make-up of the population is far
more uniformly "Polish"
than at any time in the past, in
terms of both language and religion,
though there are still ethnic
minorities of Belarusians,
Germans, Lithuanians, Slovaks,
Ukrainians and even Muslim Tatars.
To a great extent, the sense of
social fluidity, of a country still
in the throes of major transitions,
remains a primary source of Poland's
fascination. A decisive attempt to
break with the communist past as
well as tenacious adherence to the
path of radical market economic
reforms adopted in the late 1980s
have remained the guiding tenets of
Poland's new political leadership -
a course seemingly unaltered by the
changing political complexion of
successive governments. Few would
question the economic and human toll
reaped by Poland's attempt to reach
the El Dorado of capitalist
prosperity - not least among the
most vulnerable sectors of society:
public sector employees, farmers,
pensioners and the semi- or
unemployed. Despite this, the Polish
people, as so often before, continue
to demonstrate what to the visitor
may appear an extraordinary
resilience and patience. Hope
springs eternal in the minds of
Poles, it seems, and for all the
hardships involved in establishing a
new economic order - an order to
which the majority of Poles retain a
remarkable, if grumbling, political
commitment - individual and
collective initiative and enterprise
of every conceivable kind is
flourishing as almost nowhere else
in the region.
Symbolizing a transformed
geopolitical landscape, the new
millennium finds Poland a member of NATO
, the US-led military alliance of
which it was - officially at least -
a sworn enemy only ten years
previously. Perhaps even more
significantly, Poland, along with
neighbours the Czech Republic and
Hungary, is now decisively engaged
in EU membership
negotiations, a move that if - or
more accurately, when - it actually
happens promises to transform the
country more profoundly than
anything since the advent of
communism.
Tourism is proving no
exception to Poland's general
"all change" rule, but
despite the continuing state of flux
in the country's tourist
infrastructure, it is now easier to
explore the country than anyone
could have imagined only a few years
back. This sea change is reflected
in continuing and significant
increases in the numbers of people
visiting the country.
Encounters with the people
are at the core of any experience of
the country. On trains and buses, on
the streets or in the village bar,
you'll never be stuck for
opportunities for contact: Polish
hospitality is legendary, and
there's a natural progression from a
chance meeting to an introduction to
the extended family. Even the most
casual visitor might be served a
prodigious meal at any hour of the
day, usually with a bottle or two of
local vodka brought out from the
freezer.
