ZBIGNIEW HERBERT
559
JT:
Certainly. Both our memory and the historical accounts confirm
that.
ZH:
And now we reach the problem of the enslavement of the elite.
The Great Linguist, Stalin , once said that one does not need to buy
a nation. One simply has to have engineers of human souls . The
government needed legitimacy which was provided by the intellec–
tuals, the so-called "creative" intelligentsia, and especially the writ–
ers. So I left that business. I did not want any part of it. I asked
others why they stayed.... This period left no outstanding, even
bearable, works. Here my friend Adam Michnik would quarrel with
me about certain titles.
JT:
Because of sustained propaganda, the sham character of that
period had not yet been intellectually and emotionally recognized by
everybody. This fact also has its consequences for the understanding
of what you call the continued occupation.
ZH:
All the works of that period were probably quite mediocre . I can
hardly talk about them, because I hardly ever read them. You will
have to excuse me . I believe that in such periods one should turn to
the classics, to look at great paintings, to listen to the music . No
power on earth could force me to read "The Short History of the
Bolshevik Party." The only piece by Yosif Vissarionovich I always
carry with me is his dissertation on language. Whenever
The Pick–
wick Papers
would not suffice, I open this work and my good mood
comes back. It is a gigantic joke, a grotesque, a satire on
rationalism.
JT:
The actual content of these works need not be the subject of our
conversation. Not reading certain books can also be a kind of
testimony . I am trying to find out why certain people swallowed that
red bait. I was lucky not to have done much damage myself, but as a
young man I worshipped for some time the achievements of the
Great Linguist. Why did I do that , why did the others, and why still
did not others?
ZH:
These questions concern the depths of the human soul. I shall
probably die unreconciled with the world . At least that is how I
would like to die . I lack knowledge of this world . I did not receive it
from the participants in this crime against culture. I didn't get any
answers. The only testimony can be found in Leopold Tyrmand's
"Journals." He found a way of writing about these matters, although
his book makes me uneasy , because he presents me as some kind of
St. Simon the Stylite, who would rather starve ... and so on. And
yet he knew only half of what I was going through , since like real
