Watching the funeral coverage of the Polish president on Sunday brought back maelstrom of memories from my 2009 summer trip to Poland. There was nothing more exhilarating than dodging tourists & locals in that enormous, medieval square of squares, walking streets dripping with history, and suffering sensory overloaded as my eyes took in the exquisite, millennia-old beauty of St. Mary’s cathedral.
It also had me contemplating the recent protests over whether or not President Lech Kaczynski is worthy of being buried in the Wawel Cathedral crypt. Home to kings & royals of ages past, national heroes, and legendary poets. This internment has caused a great deal of consternation among many Poles. This is Wawel, after all. This IS Poland. Its beating, patriotic heart. Its mournful spirit and its triumphant glory.
As for my own two cents worth…
The crash of that jet, with its precious cargo of leadership, was a catastrophe of horrendous proportions. But the burial in Wawel is appropriately symbolic. Such a horrific disaster, taking place on the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, and in the same forest, comes loaded with too much emotional and historic baggage to ignore or dismiss out of hand.
An elected president of a vibrant democratic republic, reborn after years of indentured, ideological and economic servitude, dies on the way to a memorial for an event that contributed to the start of that black time period. The crowning achievement of one nation’s attempt to annihilate another. But the victimized nation continues to stand, and this disaster signifies - more than any other — that tragedy can be over-come, again and again. The death of those 96 individuals on that terrible day marks the turning point for the reborn, re-vitalized Poland. Conquering history, conquering catastrophe, and spitting in the eye of karma.
I didn’t care personally for the man or his policies. But as a hero of Solidarity, as a child film star embedded in Polish folklore, and as a martyr to the national dream of Poland, his burial in Wawel is entirely & justifiably appropriate. He and his wife have transmuted into the symbol of Poland’s ultimate survival and prosperity…and what better place to honour that transformation than in the depths of Poland’s very history, among ancient bones, undying spirits, and heroic mythology.
Sometimes, politics can be incidental to a greater cause. This is one of those times.
