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He sharply attacked the court that acquitted Stanislaw Wasylewski of
having collaborated with the occupying forces. (Wasylewski then
worked at and wrote for
Gazeta Lwowska.)
The court was of the opin–
ion that Wasylewski's writings "provided the population of the eastern
borderlands with spiritual sustenance." "While the Lvov Jews were
being murdered," wrote Kott, "Wasylewski wrote essays about flowers,
birds, and castles." He considered the justification for the verdict an
insult to those who wrote for, printed, and distributed the underground
press. He labeled Wasylewski's behavior despicable and cowardly.
I read these articles by Kott with a growing sense of confusion. In
their tone, style, and morally ambiguous pomposity, they are similar to
much that has been written in support of lustration and decommuniza–
tion in recent years. Only it's not Wasylewski who is now under fire, but
Boy. And he too is being criticized for his writings in Lvov during the
occupation-but under a different occupying power. In this sense, Kott's
settling of accounts ought to constitute a warning to those who are now
hot on the trail of writers and intellectuals who "collaborated" with
communism. The devil of fanaticism can change his mask-from that of
Voltaire to that of the Grand Inquisitor.
In fact, Kott's entire life story can be read as an object lesson. I have
read it closely and carefully, because it is somehow close to mine. Mal–
raux used to be one of my favorite writers . I loved the tradition of the
Enlightenment; I loved the derision of the rationalists; I couldn't stand
sentimental trash, nationalist megalomania, or clerical intolerance and
hypocrisy. The
Kuznica
syndrome was especially familiar to me, so that
its end was part of my own life story. At some point, I'd like to write
about
Kuznica-and
in a way that's different from what has been writ–
ten so far. I'd like to write about wonderful writers who became tools
of totalitarian dictatorship. How did this happen? How did they finally
make a break with the system? What happened to them afterwards? I'd
like to write about Kazimierz Brandys, the author of
Romantycznosc,
a
book much admired by Kisielewski, and about his
Wariacje pocztowe
[Postal Variations],
one of the best stories ever about Poland and Pol–
ishness, as well as about
Miesiace [Months],
an unusual chronicle of the
end period of communism, and
Nierzeczywistosc [Unreality],
a fasci–
nating document in which the writer spits out the gag that has been sti–
fling him. I'd also like to write about Dygat and Hertz, about Rudnicki,
Jastrun, and Wazyk, and about Stefan Zolkiewski, a distinguished man
of integrity who became entangled in the communist apparatus. With–
out an understanding of the
Kuznica
phenomenon, the phenomenon of
betrayal by the intellectuals and their subsequent redemption, it is
