Encountering Warsaw
I have to admit that I did not like Warsaw when we first arrived. I think that there were several reasons for this:
1) it was raining. Weather is significant in a way that it shouldn't be, I think; it only rained that first day in Warsaw but I do think of it as a grey city. Weather is like "mood" in that respect; if the world of the happy man is different from the world of the sad man, how much more is the raining world different from the sunny world? (Especially since "weather" presents itself as though it were a-socially objective, a "fact of nature" with which we mere individual humans have to struggle -- even in our language, as we say "it is raining" without ever clearly specifying what the "it" refers to. And we can't really specify what the referent is, except for "the world" as a whole -- furthering the connection between weather and mood.)
2) Laura's foot. There was a little accident a few days ago in which Laura fell and sprained her ankle (but we didn't know that it was only sprained until mid-day Saturday), so abruptly the travel plans had to change: Jenny and Laura remained in Krakow while the rest of us went to Warsaw. So I found myself trying to occupy two places at the same time -- two cities, Warsaw and Krakow -- and two sets of concerns, each specific to a different group of students. Thank goodness for SMS technology, which allowed us to stay in touch. It's not fair to Warsaw to blame my initial experiences on it when they so clearly have nothing to do with the city, but those initial experiences did color the city for me.
3) architecture. Warsaw remains dominated by solid grey blocks designed for the New Soviet Man, together with the fascinatingly hideous Palace of Culture and Industry. This adds to a more formal and forbidding atmosphere, certainly in contrast with Krakow. (Wartime devastation is obviously to blame for this, but the causation of the architecture is less interesting to me at the moment than the effect of that architecture.)
4) there is a German word -- Gemütlichkeit -- which indicates a certain kind of homey-ness, comfort, richness of communal feeling; it also has connotations of provincialism, small-town-ness, and the like. Köln has it, at least in the suburbs. München has it pretty much all over the place. So does Krakow. Warsaw doesn't. Warsaw is a city in a way that Krakow isn't. Maybe it's the architecture, maybe it's the wider streets and extensive mass transportation network, maybe it's the sheer number of people. Maybe all of the above. But Warsaw is -- or was, at least to me -- less comfortable than Krakow was.
As we spent a little more time there this weekend, I began to be able to let go of my expectations -- my expectation of seeing Krakow, I think -- and see Warsaw differently. The grey architecture looked more like an unfortunate legacy after a while, and the monumental Soviet carvings on the buildings started to take on a less ominous character. And we found good places to eat, even if they were a little more expensive than in Krakow. Plus, we went to see memorials and monuments and the like over the next two days, which also gave an access point into what was at first a somewhat forbidding edifice. Running Saturday morning also helped.
I am under no illusions that my experience of Warsaw remains a highly idiosyncratic one. But from looking over other people's notes, I see continuities. Undoubtedly these arise largely from our collective process of making meaning, and will continue to do so. Is Warsaw really a grey and forbidding city? Is it really like Berlin, especially East Berlin, which was the parallel that kept coming to mind for me throughout the weekend? What might "really" mean here?
Did we actually encounter Warsaw? How would we know?
[Posted with ecto]
1) it was raining. Weather is significant in a way that it shouldn't be, I think; it only rained that first day in Warsaw but I do think of it as a grey city. Weather is like "mood" in that respect; if the world of the happy man is different from the world of the sad man, how much more is the raining world different from the sunny world? (Especially since "weather" presents itself as though it were a-socially objective, a "fact of nature" with which we mere individual humans have to struggle -- even in our language, as we say "it is raining" without ever clearly specifying what the "it" refers to. And we can't really specify what the referent is, except for "the world" as a whole -- furthering the connection between weather and mood.)
2) Laura's foot. There was a little accident a few days ago in which Laura fell and sprained her ankle (but we didn't know that it was only sprained until mid-day Saturday), so abruptly the travel plans had to change: Jenny and Laura remained in Krakow while the rest of us went to Warsaw. So I found myself trying to occupy two places at the same time -- two cities, Warsaw and Krakow -- and two sets of concerns, each specific to a different group of students. Thank goodness for SMS technology, which allowed us to stay in touch. It's not fair to Warsaw to blame my initial experiences on it when they so clearly have nothing to do with the city, but those initial experiences did color the city for me.
3) architecture. Warsaw remains dominated by solid grey blocks designed for the New Soviet Man, together with the fascinatingly hideous Palace of Culture and Industry. This adds to a more formal and forbidding atmosphere, certainly in contrast with Krakow. (Wartime devastation is obviously to blame for this, but the causation of the architecture is less interesting to me at the moment than the effect of that architecture.)
4) there is a German word -- Gemütlichkeit -- which indicates a certain kind of homey-ness, comfort, richness of communal feeling; it also has connotations of provincialism, small-town-ness, and the like. Köln has it, at least in the suburbs. München has it pretty much all over the place. So does Krakow. Warsaw doesn't. Warsaw is a city in a way that Krakow isn't. Maybe it's the architecture, maybe it's the wider streets and extensive mass transportation network, maybe it's the sheer number of people. Maybe all of the above. But Warsaw is -- or was, at least to me -- less comfortable than Krakow was.
As we spent a little more time there this weekend, I began to be able to let go of my expectations -- my expectation of seeing Krakow, I think -- and see Warsaw differently. The grey architecture looked more like an unfortunate legacy after a while, and the monumental Soviet carvings on the buildings started to take on a less ominous character. And we found good places to eat, even if they were a little more expensive than in Krakow. Plus, we went to see memorials and monuments and the like over the next two days, which also gave an access point into what was at first a somewhat forbidding edifice. Running Saturday morning also helped.
I am under no illusions that my experience of Warsaw remains a highly idiosyncratic one. But from looking over other people's notes, I see continuities. Undoubtedly these arise largely from our collective process of making meaning, and will continue to do so. Is Warsaw really a grey and forbidding city? Is it really like Berlin, especially East Berlin, which was the parallel that kept coming to mind for me throughout the weekend? What might "really" mean here?
Did we actually encounter Warsaw? How would we know?
[Posted with ecto]
1 Comments:
At July 21, 2004 at 3:46 PM,
Miroslaw said…
The Warszawa I know has the elements you describe, but my feelings about them are quite different. I start from the 1944 Uprizing, after which the Germans destroyed what was left of the city. The Polsih nation rebelled against an unspeakably harshand, much stronger occupier. We did this when the Russians were only miles away partly because our capital was to be liberated by us or we would die trying, partly because we believed the Russians would help. That is part of our romantisist tragedy. In old parts of the city you will see remnants of walls on which there are inscriptions that read" At this spot, the Nazis executed the following individuals -names give-. We shall never forget". After the uprising ended, the Germans leveled what was left of the city. Like a phoenix, Warszawa rose from its ashes, and through the contributions of Poles all over the world, it rebuilt the old town, the monuments. That is our heritage. As a nation, we are a phoenix. We visit the rebuilt old places understanding ourselves in them. As a culture we have had to be reborn many times. We accept the inevitable cycles of history with humor as well. The Soviet occupation is characterized by that incredibly ugly Palace of Culture. We call it the "Russian Wedding Cake." Soviet architecture is slowly being replaced now with Polish and western styles of building. It will take time. We have been around since 966. I think the Irish probably understand how we feel better then most.
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