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people-like Wiktor Woroszylski-were broadcasting reports from the
burning city, and others-like Kisielewski-were calling for caution
because they feared a possible Soviet invasion of Poland? After two
months, Kott returned to the subject of Joan of Arc. In October, Saint
Joan had been "rational in her madness." At that time all of Poland had
been "rational in its madness." But was this still the case after a victory
achieved without bloodshed in Poland and the bloody intervention in
Hungary? "When you are the weaker side, you can be victorious only
once. After that, God helps the stronger side." This is why caution was
necessary, why heroic Joan of Arc became an unnecessary nuisance.
Stefan Kisielewski, the heroic joker of
Tygodnik Powszechny,
knew
this well. He would have wanted "Joan to return to her family village.
He would not have wanted her to save anyone or try to do so....Only
Woroszylski would have wanted her to be a saint. Even Jerzy Zawiejski
would have been against. He would have become an adviser to the par–
liament in Paris, he would have forgiven the English, and he would have
prayed that Joan avoid the stake, because he had a warm heart. But he
would have sentenced her to life imprisonment." And our hero-narrator?
He no longer has complete faith in Joan. He can see both sides of the
issue. He respects level-headed analysis and rational argument. "Passion
is one-sided"; rationality encourages discussion. Maybe those who said
that in the end the English would be driven out and France united were
right. "Maybe there really was no cause to rush to make history." So, get
thee to a nunnery, Joan!
In
1957,
a group of distinguished writers formerly associated with
Kuznica,
among them Jan Kott, left the PUWP. This was a gesture with–
out precedent. Until then, no one had ever left the Party; the only way
out was expulsion. The fact that these writers left the Party had sym–
bolic significance. The very people who after the war had urged the Pol–
ish intelligentsia to support the communist leadership were now
publicly withdrawing their support for the communists.
A high-level Party apparatchik commented, "I am amazed to see such
unprecedented capitulation on the part of communists in the face of bour–
geois liberalism and the abandonment of any attempt to struggle for social–
ist culture." The anti-communists greeted the developments following
October '56 with delight and optimism. The difference must be empha–
sized. The rebellious ex-communists were devastated by Khruschev's
report, the Polish October, and the invasion of Hungary, while their former
adversaries saw these events as a source of hope for normality.
The hero-narrator we find in the pages of Kott's books and essays
was not aware of this difference. And yet he was viewed as one of those
