Jacek Kuroń - Careerists (43/150) скачать в хорошем качестве

Jacek Kuroń - Careerists (43/150)

To listen to more of Jacek Kuroń’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Jacek Kuroń (Social activist)   Polish activist Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004) helped to transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy. [Listeners: Jacek Petrycki, Marcel Łoziński; date recorded: 1987] TRANSCRIPT: All that business at the teacher training college began right from the start. I had just read 'Obywatele' by Brandys. I had a lot of comments. First of all, the book, the characters in it were just cardboard cut-outs. Then I saw a poster in the corridor announcing that a discussion was going to be held about 'Obywatele' by Marian Brandys. There was this lad standing next to me and I said something about fancying a discussion about this. It turned out that he was studying Polish and he says, 'I'm the chairman of the discussion club that's arranging this meeting. You want to join in? Good, I'll put you down as a speaker, and you go and introduce yourself to Profesor Serafinowicz.' Perhaps we should edit out this name. Why should we be making trouble for some little old professor... So I went to see him, and just ahead of me he was telling this young girl what she was going to say and she was writing it all down. He finished instructing her and then said, 'Ah, there's still you to see, comrade - everybody addressed one another as 'comrade' - so, comrade, you'll say...', and he told me what I was going to say. I listened to him. 'But this is what I'd like to say.' ' No, no, not that.' I came out of there totally shocked, I thought it was hilarious. The meeting took place and I went up to speak. I brought my bit of paper with me and mumbled a few sentences I'd written down according to the subject he'd told me to speak about. Then I elbowed aside the bit of paper and said, 'Now I'd like to say what I think.' So I told them what I had to say. But this story wasn't as notable as what happened afterwards. Before I went up to speak, there'd been a very pleasant boy whose name was Józek, but I can't tell his surname any more. He looked like a farmhand with his long arms and hands reaching below his knees. Children went out to work earlier then and he spoke angrily about how as an orphan, he was brought up by the parish priest who exploited him not just materially by claiming additional value, but also mentally because he'd brainwashed him, and it was only thanks to the people's rule that he'd seen the light and justice, and had turned away from all of that, and then the peoples' authorities had sent him away to university. It was thanks to the people's authorities that he was a student there and everything. But he was still influenced by the brainwashing he'd received and it was only now, thanks to the book 'Obywatele' by Comrade Brandys that he'd rediscovered a more intellectual outlook on life. The applause broke out, Brandys was almost in tears. To be honest, I was really moved by this. However, after a while, there was a meeting with Broniewski, for instance. And out comes Józek saying he used to work for this parish priest who exploited him in all kinds of ways and now he's been brainwashed, and even though thanks to the peoples' authorities he's seen the light, it's only after reading the poems of Comrade Władyslaw Broniewski that he's got it back. Later, there was Stryjkowski and other comrade authors, and every time Józek would turn up and each of these authors was practically in tears, I have to say. But there were masses of people like him. This is from the outside.