Zyzak had been appearing on the front pages of major newspapers for weeks. The head of state, the head of government, as well as prominent commentators and historians in the country, spoke about him. After his master’s thesis was published, the institutions of Jagiellonian University and the Institute of National Remembrance were shaken.
And all this only because the media selected tabloid-style themes from the entire book of more than 600 pages: little Leszek Wałęsa urinating into a holy-water font and the virile bachelor Leszek, the father of an illegitimate child. As Zyzak says, these stories occupy the first 30 pages of the work. Almost nobody read the rest. Apparently, little is needed to become a tabloid historian. And Paweł Zyzak meets all the requirements of an ideal tabloid star, like Doda or Tomasz Jacyków.
Above all, what he did bears the mark of scandal and has its devoted fans and fierce opponents. Both groups have long held firm opinions about the book’s protagonist, Lech Wałęsa. That is why they either love Zyzak or—as gently as one can put it—do not love him.
What do the fans have to say?
Stanisław Kojder, the host of the meeting, stressed that the attacks on the young researcher, who had done enormous work and was merely an ordinary master’s graduate, were “boorish.” “And if Zyzak is called a libeler, what should the author’s critics be called?” he asked rhetorically Stanisław Kojder. He added that instead of substantive debate, the book was being ridiculed. To him, Paweł Zyzak is a young man born after 1981 who cannot have any knowledge of the period he describes except that acquired from the witnesses to the events with whom he spoke.
According to Stanisław Kojder, the newly minted master’s graduate may not have been able to bear the subject, but he undertook a titanic task that no recognized Polish historian with an established body of work had carried out.
“Wałęsa is an icon supporting Civic Platform, and the party wants to use Wałęsa’s authority to mask its political actions, so every criticism is received badly. That is where the attacks come from,” adds historian and city councillor Eugeniusz Kowalski. The meeting also featured statements defending freedom of speech, such as that of Tomasz Weigt, who believes everyone has the right to write anything. Eugeniusz Kowalski also opposes censorship. “You cannot enact protection of a politician’s honor, as was done under the Sanacja regime with Józef Piłsudski, when three years after his death one could be sent to prison for insulting Piłsudski’s name,” Eugeniusz Kowalski explains.
The book is objective, Zyzak’s supporters claim, because the author does not pass judgment but juxtaposes opinions. The number of anonymous statements is minimal.
What do the opponents say?
“These meetings with Zyzak are rallies of hatred against Lech Wałęsa,” claims one of the participants.
Bogusław Nowak, a city councillor, approaches the matter emotionally. He left during the meeting. Only to us did he honestly say that he remembered the communist era and ordinary citizens’ fear of opposing the ruling authorities. He values Wałęsa for having the courage, at that one moment, to take responsibility and lead the strikes. It was heroism that many lacked because people were intimidated. Nowak does not care who Wałęsa slept with or where he urinated. He demands respect for him because of the courage he possessed in the 1980s.
For one opponent, Zyzak’s past and his devotion to the Law and Justice party undermine the book’s credibility, because PiS had long been destroying established authorities and Zyzak fitted perfectly into this political trend. And anonymous—or, as Zyzak prefers, anonymized—accounts are, in the opinion of some meeting participants, worthless. This is a way of slandering Wałęsa under the guise of a scholarly work. “There is no need to evaluate two negative opinions placed side by side; people take shortcuts in their thinking. If Wałęsa urinated into a holy-water font, then, while wearing the Virgin Mary on his lapel, he is a hypocrite. That will be the common conclusion,” adds one of the meeting participants.
One thing cannot be denied. Historians have failed. Wałęsa, the Nobel laureate and the most recognizable Pole in the world, lacks a biography. The one that has been produced cannot be compared with anything; no substantive debate can be built around it. We have a historical void filled with media sensation, fueled by tabloid news. Instead of Doda and her bedroom problems with her partner, we have Wałęsa piss—the Polish version of Brussels’ Manneken Pis, the urinating boy. We could start sending text messages asking whether Wałęsa had a child from an illegitimate relationship.
People who attend meetings with Paweł Zyzak are interested in the author and the sensation he provokes. Along the way, they learn how very small the great Lech Wałęsa was and accept the spicy details of his personal life.
Has the time of tabloid historians arrived? And do we want them to write about us and our history?
(information ii)