BOOKS
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chitecture. (His remarks on the history of literature are, unfor–
tunately, marked by a certain superficiality and carelessness in the
selection of adjectives: the works of the eighteen-century satirist Ig–
nacy Krasicki can in no possible way be called "impressionistic," nor
can Witold Gombrowicz's novel
Ferdydurke
be classified as "Sur–
realist. ")
In contrast, Ascherson is mostly interested in the nature of the
modern Poles' political consciousness; although he, too, views histor–
ical experience and historical memory as the key to this
phenomenon, he puts a greater stress on the shaping influence of the
events of our age. One could say that in Zamoyski's optics, as in
those of many other historians, the watershed event of Polish history
is the Partition of Poland; from Ascherson's viewpoint, the signifi–
cance of this event is undisputable, but it is the birth of modern
political tendencies a century later (Roman Dmowski's nationalism
and J6zef Pil'sudski's socialism) that carries more weight for the
thinking of today's Poles . This difference is important because the
Partition of Poland was one of those experiences that, though tragic,
unified the nation spiritually , whereas the divergence of political
opinions a hundred years later marked the beginning of a profound
fragmentation which today forms the other, perhaps less visible, side
of Polish society's responses to its predicament. Characteristically,
Zamoyski entitled his book
The Polish Way,
as if one such way ex–
isted ; Ascherson's
The Struggles for Poland
is by no accident put in the
plural.
In terms of focus, point of gravity, and style of presentation,
these two books are markedly different indeed. Perhaps their only
shared feature is their sheer external appeal, achieved in both cases,
among other things, by a truly exquisite choice of illustrations. But
their conclusions , too, are similar. Zamoyski admits that "in conven–
tional terms , the history of Poland is one of failure"; her destiny has
not been fulfilled as "one of material culture, of political domination
or of territorial expansion." However, "The achievements of the
Poles lie elsewhere, in the field of political culture and moral civiliza–
tion , and the mission they have fulfilled has been an ethical
one . . . the Poles were playing the part of moral guinea pigs sub–
jected to a series of political experiments. The fact that the rest of the
world has chosen to ignore the lessons to be drawn from these is
another matter." Ascherson seems to continue this line of reasoning
when he says : "The struggles for Poland will go on. They are no
