under their control by the very act of comprehending it. Irzykowski writes, “The optical surface of the world is becoming larger. Let’s imagine that it had been twisted, wrinkled, and creased until now and that the folds are now slowly smoothing out, in order to obey the law of reflection.”6 Yet Irzykowski accentuates the potential for misunderstanding the world through cinema. He concludes, “Cinema is a cult of visibility. Cinema registers the world, but it may also turn it into fiction.”7 What, then, may it turn into fiction?
Because cinema in Poland is associated with the country’s political and cultural situation, a brief introduction to Polish history may be helpful. In the late eighteenth century, Austria, Prussia, and Russia annexed parts of the region. In the partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, the empires carved new borders through the corresponding eastern, northwestern, and southwestern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Res Publica, until, little by little, it ceased to exist. The Polish constitution passed on May 3, 1791, which promised to create a modern constitutional monarchy, never had a chance to take hold. For the most part, the territories’ ties to the empires were based on historical, ethnic, or geographical connections that existed only on paper. In reality, the inhabitants retained many of the diverse cultural, religious, and linguistic traditions known under the Res Publica. The languages spoken in the region included German, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish. A serf-labor, agrarian socioeconomic structure remained intact for many years. Members of the powerful Roman Catholic Church lived alongside Jews, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, and Uniates. Most significantly, a revolutionary spirit—a free, curious, polyglot spirit—took hold during the final partition. The opening line of the anthem adopted by the newly formed Polish foreign legion in Italy, “Jeszcze Polska nie umarła, kiedy my żyjemy” (Poland has not died as long as we live), illustrated the new sense of nationhood.8
Consequently, in 1896, cinema did not arrive in Poland but in parts of Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire, where descendents of some of the inhabitants of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had carried on a century-long struggle for independence. Inhabitants were usually allowed to move freely among the formerly Polish areas of the empires, though for most of the nineteenth century, their opportunities were limited by informal social restrictions on movement between classes, in particular the continued exploitation of peasants and Jews (even after the abolition of serfdom) by landowners. The political and cultural state of affairs of the region varied according to empire and period. As a result, each part of the region greeted the introduction of cinema a bit differently.
The southern region of Galicia, which was under Hapsburg rule, included the present-day Ukrainian towns of L’viv (Ger. Lemberg, Pol. Lwów) and Drohobych (Ger. Drohobytsch, Pol. Drohobycz). In 1846, Austria also annexed Kraków (Ger. Krakau), the most culturally active city in the region. Consequently, the areas arrogated to Austria-Hungary (as the imperial state was known after 1867) became the most densely populated of the partitioned regions. The late 1860s brought the emancipation of the Jews, who long had maintained a degree of cultural and linguistic latitude, and greater freedoms for everyone else. Speakers of German, Polish, Ukrainian, and Yiddish enjoyed a great deal of cultural autonomy, which allowed for an active university life as well as publications and theater productions in several languages. It should come as no surprise, then, that the very first demonstrations of moving pictures in the partitioned lands took place in Kraków.
The northern and western parts of the former commonwealth, including the Baltic Sea area called Pomerania and the southwestern area of Silesia, were under control of the German Empire, or Kingdom of Prussia, and comprised a mixture of German-speakers and Polish-speakers. The cities of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Gdańsk (Danzig), Królewiec (Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad), Poznań (Posen), and Wrocław (Breslau) were part of this region. The Prussian lands of the former commonwealth enjoyed more economic stability than the other partitions as well as such social privileges as obligatory elementary school education (from 1825). But its Catholic and Jewish residents experienced severe limitations on their religious and cultural activity. In many areas, the majority of inhabitants were Lutheran and German-speaking.
The Russian partition constituted almost 60 percent of the lands of the former commonwealth but was less densely populated than either Galicia or Prussia. It included parts of present-day Belarus (including Minsk), Lithuania (including Vilnius and Kaunas), and Ukraine (including Zhytomyr). This area witnessed much insurrectional activity during the partitions for several reasons, including friction between the large percentage of Polish-speaking Catholics living there (as high as 80 percent) and the Russian-speaking, Orthodox ruling class as well as several reactionary political moves by both Russia and the insurgents.
Twentieth-century Polish filmmakers often sought their subject matter in the major events of the nineteenth century, seeing in them the essence of Polish nationhood. Literature dealing with failed uprisings, in particular, inspired many a filmmaker. The first revolt, known as the November Uprising of 1830–31, spurred the Great Emigration, in which several thousand military and intellectual leaders fled to Paris and other European cities out of fear of reprisals. Many of these intellectuals turned the failure of the revolution into an internationally supported movement for independence. They drew plans for the reinstitution of the former borders and formed a literary movement known as Polish Romantic nationalism, which flourished in the 1830s and 1840s. The Polish Romantics, particularly their most important poet, Adam Mickiewicz, took very seriously the unifying possibilities of the Polish language. Their attachment to the language was as political as it was emotional and nostalgic. It offered proof that a nation could flourish as a diaspora of citizens of various empires and countries. However, their attachment to language was also universalistic, asking speakers of other languages to understand its messages, even if they could not understand its words, and to align themselves with its cause. Many of them looked to mysticism and religious radicalism to find expression for a homeland that existed without land—a home in words, simultaneously universal and national. In their longing for and preoccupation with the fate of the nation, they wrote passionate, imploring poetry and drama that drew from the traditions of Slavic folklore, kabbalah, Martinism, and other mystical outlets of expression. They glorified patriotism and strove to awaken a Polish national consciousness, which they felt was asleep within the hearts and minds of Polish-speakers. A second failed insurrection in 1846 and revolutionary activity in other parts of Europe during the so-called Spring of Nations in 1848 strengthened the resolve to regain independence. A third failed insurrection, the January Uprising of 1863 in the Congress Kingdom, was a turning point for the nationalist movement. Russian powers renamed the area “Vistula Land” and removed its autonomy, triggering the transformation of its socioeconomic structure. Insurgents were executed or deported to Siberia, the Polish nobility lost its status, and local languages were made unofficial. The Polish nationalist movement reacted by intensifying its campaign in the German Empire. In Galicia, where cultural autonomy accompanied a lack of economic control, some people expressed a need for agricultural modernization and economic overhaul.
At this time, there emerged a new literary movement, Positivism, which supported “organic work,” scientific progress, and economic reform. Positivist writers such as Eliza Orzeszkowa and Bolesław Prus examined daily life in the empires, the relationship between human beings and nature, and Polish history in their novels. The Positivists were avid translators, acquainting readers in the partitions with Western traditions and encouraging the influx of new ideas and technology. They supported industrialization, openness to other countries, and free labor, which resulted in the migration of the emancipated peasants and minorities to large cities. In 1887, visionaries and intellectuals took notice of yet another example of Positivist ingenuity: the publication of a guide to the artificial language Esperanto, written by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, of Białystok (Bielastok). In later years, many Positivists took an active interest in cinema and saw their works adapted for the screen, and film critics were counted among the most avid proponents of Esperanto.9 At the same time, Yiddish emerged from the neighborhoods and the shtetls as a rich language, full of original metaphors and colorful proverbs expressive of the folkloric traditions of Jews in the region. It, too, became a source of inspiration for filmmakers.
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