Gdańsk or Danzig?



The Gdansk Coat of Arms

Polish  are sensitive about Gdansk being referred to as Danzig but unfortunately this is the name better known by foreigners. It has been always a sensitive issue and I believe that German citizens of Gdańsk do not like its Polish name either. The thing is that the town was ruled by both of the nations for a considerable time.

The town was funded by the first Polish king Mieszko I in 980s. In the early times Gdansk changed hands frequently from Polish Dukes to Pomeralians.  From 1308 till 1454 Gdansk was a part of Teutonic Knights State. Only from 1454 Gdansk became a part of Polish Kingdom and for a considerable time, till 1793 when Poland was partitioned between Prussia, Russia and Austria and disappeared from the map of Europe for a long while. By that time Gdansk citizens were mixed nation, equally of Polish and German background. Both of the languages were used in the town.

After the First World  Gdansk became a free city in 1920.

Following Germany's defeat in World War I, the Allied powers in the Treaty of Versailles (1919) decided to create the Free City of Danzig (under a commissioner appointed by the League of Nations) covering the city itself, the seaport, and a substantial surrounding territory. The League of Nations rejected the citizens' petition to have their city officially named as the Free Hanseatic city of Danzig (Freie Hansestadt Danzig).^[41] The citizens of Danzig received a separate citizenship of the Free City and thus lost their former German citizenship.

This lasted till 1939. For Poland the World War II started in Gdansk, the 1^st of September 1939. And again Gdansk fell into German hands. From 1945 is again a part of the Polish Republic.  One consequence of Gdansk changing hands is a change of all streets names from German to Polish.

My imperfect calculations point to Gdansk being under Teutonic, Prussian or German ruling for about the same time as under Polish. About 300 years each off  and on.

Over the ages some world famous people were born in Gdansk. Among others: Hevelius – astronomer and the founder of lunar topology, Daniel Fahrenheit – father of the temperature scale; Arthur Schopenhauer – philosopher. None of those people are thought as having Polish origin. They were not. At the same time all of them were born in the period when Gdansk was under Polish ruling. This shows the nature of the city, both nations can claim the towns as theirs. This is why we, Poles are so sensitive when the town is referred to as Danzig.  Feelings are not always objective of know history too well.

              

                                                     Fahrenheit House - Gdansk



In one of my earlier posts I wrote about Henry Strassburger – the man of style. Henry is my friend who lives in Australia, in Sydney. His father 

Henryk Leon Strasburger (1887-1951) was a Polish economist, General Commissioner in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk) and delegate to the League of Nations. He was also a member of the Polish government in exile during World War II. According to the New York Times, he was among the earliest and most outspoken of Poles to recognize the Hitler menace to his country. His warning was clear in his book The Case of Danzig, published some months before the outbreak of World War II.^[1]

As the General Commissioner of the Polish Republic he was responsible for liaison between the Senate and the Polish government of the Free City of Gdansk

 My friend Henry was born in Gdansk at Gralathstrasse.  He asked me once to find out what has happened to the house he was born in and find the street. After some enquiries I found out that the current name of the Gralathstrasse is now Hoene-Wronskiego. This is the street I live at when in Gdansk. Nice synchronicity, I think. The street is not long there are only 12 buildings there. All were build at the beginning of the XX century. The house Henry was born belongs to the Medical Academy and the ornaments on its facade indicate that it was maternity ward of the main Gdansk Hospital. It is the house at the corner of the street and my house is at the corner of the other end of the street.    

   

                       

                                                                                            



Sorry, Ray from Mummulgum

Some time ago I wrote about how my old IBM colleague explained to me that patriotism may lead to nationalism and we all know where it can end. Life convinced me that Ray was very right and I rarely display signs of nationalism. One of the reasons is that, as I said to my friend recently, I am confused about me feeling or not feeling European. There is so much of an Aussie in me, you see.

With all of that I see with even more confusion that I am rather nationalistic as far as tennis is concerned. Most of the non-Polish people do not know much about Polish tennis. Frankly there has not been all that much to know. But then it came Radwanska, today world number 3 tennis player.  She has not won yet any of the two most important, in my opinion, competitions– Australian Open or the Wimbledon. I hope there are some chances this year to change the score. She won yesterday over Li Na in a quarter final, nice revenge after the reversed situation in the Australian Open 2013. While I like Li Na and in any other situation I would cheer for her, yesterday was a different story.

My Polish nationalistic pride is getting stronger with each Wimbledon day. Will this last another day or more? I wish!  Today two Polish players – Kubot and Janowicz played against each other in the quarter final.   Beautiful tennis, by the way, I am sorry that my friends in Sydney will most likely not watch the match. The tennis commentators said many times today that there were many Great Slam matches when two Australians played against each other. So for my Aussie compatriots such situation is nothing special but when I put my Polish hat on I am proud that it has happened eventually to Poland as well.

Since yesterday, my cooking has improved as I have a small TV set in the kitchen and while I watch tennis I cook more elaborately than normally. Tonight it was a nice vegetarian dish and a  mandatory glass of red wine to cheer Janowicz victory.

Hurray for two Poles in the Wimbledon semi-final!

Linden trees are in bloom!

It is only lately that I started to notice beauty and details of nature. Trees and flowers open up a new way of experience to me. Well, it is the time in my life to smell the roses. This could be it. Now, that I spend the most beautiful months of the year in Poland I notice its nature in a different, more profound way.

Lindenstrasse today

I suppose I always liked linden trees as they are typically lining up streets making them look like alleys. This effect I always admired. However, I have learnt to notice more than that. Right now linden trees are in bloom. The flowers are not very showy as far as the visual side is concerned but they smell divine.

The street next to the house I stay in when in Poland used to be called  before the II World  War Lindenstrasse. At that time Gdansk was called Danzig and was The Free City of Danzig, half Polish, half German.

The Free City of Danzig (German: Freie Stadt Danzig; Polish: Wolne Miasto Gdańsk) was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (today Gdańsk) and surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920^[1][2] in accordance with the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

The German name of the street was fully justified  by the presence of the trees and I am sorry that the name has been changed after the war to the name of Julian Tuwim, a Polish poet. While I love Tuwim’s poems, I would much preferred the exact translation from the old German name. More appropriate in my opinion as the linden trees are still  it their old place.

It is nice and warm at the moment in Gdansk and my windows are open most of the time. The smell of the trees comes to my place which is perfumed with linden fragrance. Lovely...

Snobism, silliness and oysters

 

Today I have been asked by my friend: do you like oysters? It made me smile as I recalled a situation taking place many years ago when I would have categorically answered such a question – Of course not, I am not a snob!

To explain such a strange reaction I need to go back many years to the time when I lived in Paris. This was the first foreign place I lived in after moving from Warsaw to the West. My readers may not know that I was brought up in communistic Poland not being aware of the limitations being exposed over Poles by the regime . I was happy in Poland, you may say, I did not know any better. And I did not. But this is a different story. This one is about oysters.

I despised snobbishness since I can remember. Sometimes I think I am a snob about not being snobbish.  One of friends of my, at the time, husband was a sophisticated, elegant, worldly girl and I decided that she was a snob by my standards. Now when I look at the situation I think that I was just silly and felt inadequate so I had to compensate it somehow by looking down at Charlotte’s (even the name seemed pretentious to me) worldly manners. One autumn she came to visit us in Paris and we went to a coffee place in the Latin Quarter. It was a simple Parisian place but Charlotte knew that they may serve oysters at this time of the year. She asked and got a confirming answer so oysters were ordered. Oh how I was disapproving!! How snobbish can one get?? Oysters?? Ha! I am not sure where I got the idea that to eat oysters is snobbish or exclusive. Maybe it  was one of the communistic, egalitarian ideas which rubbed off on me?

Anyhow the oysters were served and they smelled divine while they were shucked at the table. This is the French way; at least it was at that time.Suddenly the air in the coffee place full of cigarette smoke started to smell of sea, freshness, saltiness and a hint of lemon.

                                                

 

Charlotte was really a nice person, it was me, pehaps, who was not nice towards her. She generously offered me one to try. I still remember the inner fight : it is soooo snobbish to eat that, but it smells soooo good!! I was fighting with my old convictions for a while but I am glad that my silliness was won by the divine smell of oysters which from then on became one of my absolutely favourite foods. Fresh oysters, not cooked in any silly way some consider elegant. Me snobbish this time??? But I really think that fresh oysters are the best, especially the Sydney Rock ones.

Thank you Charlotte for the introduction to the wonderful food and a great lesson of appreciation of  smells and taste of sea captured in oysters. They won over my silliness and sense of insecurity.

Bugle Call from Krakow

For many years I did not think about Poland, for some years I even did not like the country. I felt an Australian even if I still have this funny, some call it charming, Polish accent . I personally do not see much “charming” about my accent but Poland is becoming this way to me. Charming. Also beautiful, sophisticated and sentimental as its people.

Recently I made the second time in my life the choice to live in Australia. I considered that Poland was not my country any more, just the country I was born in. Now I am starting to have doubts, not about living here. Australia is definitely my home. But big part of the space in my heart belongs to Poland and this  I am realising with each day I spent here.

Today, accidentally I changed the radio station and at midday I heard the time signal and Krakow bugle call. This is what I heard as a child and later on, the same sounds the same format.  Something moved in me hearing the sounds I have almost forgotten with time passing.

The Marker Square of Krakow

                                 



Krakow is in my mind the #1 town in Poland. Its XIV century Jagiellonian University, the market Square with its Cloth Hall, monuments, St Mary’s Basilica, doves, horse carriages and many coffee places around the square, the gothic Wawel Castle.... It all makes the town absolutely unique. The sites can be appreciated by Poles and by many visitors from other countries. It is more difficult to appreciate the cultural life of Krakow being a foreigner. In many local cellars there are literary cabarets, jazz concerts, poetry nights. Wonderful, rich, crazy, funny, sad, romantic, sentimental places and people. Krakow is a hermetic place, outsiders are welcome as tourists but not so much welcome into the most important part of the Krakovian life. Any Polish person coming from a place other than Krakow is considered to be an outsider, especially those coming from Warsaw. Those are looked down at, not cultured enough, I suppose.

St Mary's Basilica

                                           

Bugler of current days

The story of the bugle call may be a legend, but it is so much a part of the town history that one doesn’t question it. The St Mary’s Basilica with its two towers always played an important role in the town history. From one of the towers a municipal guardian heralded opening and closing of the city gates. He would also play the bugle in case of a danger. A legend says that in 1240 a bugler played a warning signal seeing Tatars approaching the town. As he played his warning tune an enemy arrow pierced his throat and the tune abruptly stopped. In remembrance of this event the tune is played every hour on the hour towards four directions of the world and interrupted suddenly to commemorate the events from the 1240. 

Bugler of current days

 This is how it sounds
This is a PS written more than one year after the original post but I found out something new about the bugle. Actually not so much about the bugle itself but about Jack Nicholson. He knows the bugle and he can sing it up to its sudden end! Ha! This is surprising. The reason is that he has been for many years a friend of the Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowski. They met in the 60ties when none of them was famous or rich. It was in Cannes and after smoking a few joints on the beach together they became fast friends. I shudder to think what kind of education Jack Nicholson may have received from the Polish larrikin, talented but  crazy and very creative man. And what did they do in Krakow for Jack Nicholson to learn the bugle? I am sure Nicholson knows a few positives about Polish girls.

The first day of summer

Today is the first day of summer on the Northern Hemisphere. I must say that I am attracted to starting seasons at the first of an appropriate month rather than complicating the issue by using astronomical calendar and concepts of equinox and solstice.

I always had problems with knowing when exactly the seasons start in Europe. There are moveable dates. This year the summer in Poland started today – the 21^st of June. This is the longest day of the year. In Gdansk 17 hours and 14

minutes. It is quite nice when around 10 pm there is still some natural light and shortly after 3 am is getting light again. I am glad that I will be in Sydney when in December the daytime here will shrink to 7 hours.

Midsummer has been celebrated in Slavic and Scandinavian countries as a very special day and a special occasion to dancing, drinking, flirting...

I wonder if this is not dictated by the cold climate and dark winter days. Summer by contrast is so much more special than it is in Australia. The midsummer celebrations are linked to the summer solstice and it was celebrated on the day when Poland was a pagan country. The date of celebrations was changed later for religious reasons to take place two days later at the eve of St John’s day.

The midsummer night was an occasion to find a life partner by the young people who either did not want to marry candidates chosen by elders or did not have anybody selected for them yet.

Young girls were weaving wreaths out of magical herbs and flowers placing a light in the middle. The wreaths were placed on water of  rivers, brooks, creeks and sent down the stream.

                                    

 Young men waited for the wreaths to come their way further down the river.  Their task was to catch a wreath which they particularly liked.  Not all were lucky to catch one, but those who did came back to the girls to find the one whose wreath it was. She was going to be the lucky boy’s wife.

                                      

    

Value of an old friendship

I had a very special visitor for few days. My friend who I met many years ago, at the first uni day.

I come from a rather small town by Polish standards. Inexperienced, unsure of myself going to study in Warsaw, big smoke and big challenge for me. Huge cultural shock. I was provincial and had to catch up. The first day at uni I showed up in a hall full of students. I did not knowing what to do, where to turn and I did not know anyone there. Near me was a pretty girl in a grey suit who smiled at me.  She did not know anyone either. There is love from the first sight, confusing perhaps but it happens. This was something similar – it was a friendship at the first sight. We both managed to get our masters degree at maths but we would be very reluctant to count years of our friendship. We are talking big numbers here.

Barbara and I studied together, laughed a lot together, played bridge especially at the exams time. We shared a lot of interests but we were different, like Sense and Sensibility sisters. She was the Sensibility one. Then we went our separate ways, getting married, Barbara having children and choosing different career streams. I even left the country for many years. The friendship was always there, always important to us even if we would not meet for more than 10 years at a time. We still stayed close in some mysterious way. When we meet we have our jokes, we speak the language which only we understand. We talk shorthand. Looking back, I understand why our old boyfriends were not amused being in our company. They must have felt really out of our conversation. For us though, it was fun.

Barbara just left today, after few days we spent together in Gdansk. This time we had a one year break since the last meeting. When she was here we had the same old fun, we still were saying our updated but still private jokes, and talked our specific language. I feel grateful for having a friend I can trust, rely on, respect, learn from and love. A friend I can meet after many years apart and catch up as no time has passed since the last meeting.