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Aleksander Smolar - Facing the disapproval of friends (36/201)

163 views · Published 18 December 2018 · 2:09 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2018 · News & Politics

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To listen to more of Aleksander Smolar’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFwlxPLurqAOCrabBgGrqLA7

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation. [Listener: Vitek Tracz]

TRANSCRIPT: I had two interesting conversations which also testified to the division, you could say, that existed in opposition circles at that time. One was with a friend with whom I’m very close to this day although we often have quite complicated relations and now there are long periods of silence and of not seeing one another, and that’s Adam Michnik. He told me that I’m lucky that Jacek [Kuroń] and Karol [Modzelewski] were still in prison, so in other words he was disapproving of my leaving. And he said that this leaving on my part was most definitely disapproved of by them. This upset me but not greatly. Firstly, I understood perfectly what he was saying yet at the same time… I wasn’t taking it personally because I wasn’t leaving out of cowardice, I wasn’t going to a better life. This was the second time that I felt like I was in some sense committing suicide. I mean, I didn’t have much faith in a future in Western countries, I wasn’t created… even though I’d been abroad several times and it wasn’t like I didn’t know what the West was like, but really, to this day I’m organically tied to Poland and even Ania, whom I’ve only just seen in Paris, made an ironic reference to my endless trips to Poland and to my obsession and in some way addictive attitude towards Poland. But… I had no qualms of conscience because I believed that my choice had been dictated, I’m certain of this, that I was honest with myself and it wasn’t a matter either of fear or of a desire for some kind of career, of finding myself in a better world. I knew that the meaning of my life was still in Poland, that I could find some kind of consolation, chose the path of academic life by simply burying myself in books and so realise that part of my nature.

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