Tradition

• Post Eagle
• June 21, 2019
• Our Polonia
• 0 Comments

  If you are a playgoer, you have no doubt seen or heard the score from “Fiddler on the Roof”. One of the hit songs from the play is entitled, “Tradition”.

  Thinking it an appropriate subject for this week’s column, I have decided to more thoroughly attempt to explain the Polish ethnic culture — what it is and what it really means to all of us. In doing so, we must begin with the most important word in our ethnic background: TRADITION.

  Tradition has been defined, in the sociological sense, as “all the knowledge, beliefs, standards and values handed down from the past”. It has also been labeled as a “way of thinking handed down from generation to generation”. Whatever the case, our tradition is primarily our Polish Heritage.

  When we talk about it in today’s society, we have to go back to study the main threads of Polish thought through the centuries, the dominant ideas that molded both the life and opinions and guided the actions of our ancestral Poles. For it was during these centuries that our tradition formulated to today’s mainstream of Polonian thought.

  For example, we find the Poles operating with great power during the 19th century when no Polish state existed but when the nation tenaciously endured–even though it lacked a state, by hugging its traditions to its bosom very closely.

  Another fine example was when Poland was restored in 1918. Its tradition, long preserved in the person of living Poles, sprang at once into a political and national effectiveness.

  By looking into the historical window displaying this Polish tradition, I will not attempt to show you how it reveals itself.

  Polish literature supplies us with our first clue. A series of historical novels such as Sienkiewicz’s famous and widely translated Trilogy lead one into the Polish heart and mind. Reymont’s renowned treatise entitled, “The Peasants” reiterates a similar tone. In addition, there are numerous histories and literary editions published in the last 50 years which set forth our structure and culture.

  Even editorials in the Polish daily and weekly press carry an undercurrent of the traditional new point and news stories often reflect the typical Polish point of view.

  Art is the second form of traditional revelation. Though not world famous, Poland has a rich and abundant art from Gothic and Renaissance time down to today, and in the pictures painted by Polish artists one readily finds the Polish mind. If you have ever located and viewed the national heroes and see what they embody and stood for, you will learn other elements of the Polish tradition. In Poland, for example, there is a lack of military statues and no abundance of monuments to great poets, writers of prose, scientists, musicians and civic patriots.

  The regaining freedom time and time again after its loss was an occurrence so colossal in Polish history that it represents a monumental love of liberty and is one of the richest and most colorful traditions of Polish life.

  Conversation also reveals tradition. The major elements of this form of our culture are reflected through our courtesy, toleration, democracy and our intellectual interest. In addition, there are chivalry, idealism, love of the soil, a sense of national mission for freedom and a deep respect for religion are all part and parcel of our culture. We Poles, for example, have a great love of democracy and a deep resentment of anything bordering upon dictatorship or infringement of one’s rights and dignity as an individual.

  The laws that are passed and the constitution’s adopted also embody the tradition. For example, apart from England, Poland was the only other country which as early as the middle of the 15th century had appropriate statues guaranteeing personal liberty. In the years 1422, 1430 and 1433 the Polish constitution stipulated and reaffirmed the following: “State assures free development of community life” and “these rights cannot be restricted by origin, religion, sex or nationality”. This, to me, is fantastic considering the century.

  Again in the historic but ill-fated constitution of 1791, liberty and protection to all religious creeds is assured–and provision was made for the revision of the constitution every 25 years.

  The crises and events of history not only create traditions but also reveal them and afford opportunity for their expression. For example, the hopeless revolts of the Poles against the Russian domination of 1830 and 1863 demonstrated without a doubt the Pole’s passionate love of freedom and his heroism, devotions to nation and ancestral religious belief.

  Finally, there are the education institutions of higher learning, such as the great number of universities throughout Poland, the country’s great library system and the fact that many of Poland’s past presidents were university professors, all point to a great traditional love of learning.

  If you are interested in knowing the basic characteristic trait of the Polish tradition, the best way it can be characterized is thusly: “the Greek tradition was beauty; the Hebrew, righteousness; the Roman, law and order; the American is freedom; the Chinese, reverence for ancestors; the French, intelligence and taste. Of the Poles, it is knightliness, nobility in its best sense, and a high evaluation of the spiritual aspects of things”, this according to author Paul Super.

  In concluding, I again would like to quote author Super, an expert on tradition, to complete the picture: “The Polish tradition is the body of points of view, the typical Pole believes in profoundly; (it) is more or less an ideal of life; the best thoughts of the typical man, though indeed all Poles, at times, act in accordance with certain requirements or characteristics of the tradition. It is this conformity, as much as race or blood which marks Poles as Poles.”

. . . . SEE YOU SOON, GOD BE WILLING  . . . .