Father Boniecki said at the August meeting in Bolesławiec: “Let us not argue about opinions. Opinions cannot be objectified. […] Let us argue about everything that makes it easier to understand reality.” With this guiding thought, the discussion was begun by: Jacek Ostrowski, author of the book “I Wanted to Be a Priest,” for which Father Adam Boniecki wrote the foreword, Bogusław Nowak, a Bolesławiec entrepreneur and host of the meeting with Father Boniecki, and Kamil Wiśniewski, who describes himself as a young person interested in the world.
Istotne Informacje: Is this a conversation somehow inspired by the meeting with Paweł Zyzak organized in Bolesławiec?
Bogusław Nowak: Zyzak does not interest me. I am more interested in who might want to invite someone like that. I had the opportunity to attend the meeting. I saw a young man who, in my opinion, is being manipulated, has fallen into a diabolical machine, and is doing strange work. To me, he is not someone who has experienced anything in life or had any serious experiences. And now he wants to make a name for himself through his strange book, which has nothing to do with history.
Kamil Wiśniewski: I was curious to see what a person who had written a 700-page master’s thesis looked like. And whether he had any humility. Whether he had measured his strength against the task.
Istotne Informacje: Do you think that someone writing about a person of Wałęsa’s stature, or Father Boniecki’s stature, must be a professor, have a vast body of work, and be mature?
Kamil Wiśniewski: No, but in my opinion Wałęsa deserves to be written about by professionals, people whose opinions will have value and carry the weight of experience and wisdom—and that cannot be said of the invited speaker.
Istotne Informacje: Zyzak is not a professional? He graduated from Jagiellonian University and holds a master’s degree in history.
Jacek Ostrowski: For me, the fundamental problem is that, although I have not read the book, Zyzak worked at the Institute of National Remembrance, used the materials collected there, and probably embellished them. After reading my book, Father Adam Boniecki asked me whether everything I had written was true. I did not answer that question because my book is fiction. And as an author, I was surprised by such a question. Someone writing has different visions and presents them in different ways. One can ask the author of Wałęsa’s biography whether it is true. The thing is, however, that he wrote a historical work. He left himself no room for his own vision of Wałęsa as a figure.
Istotne Informacje: So what is the problem with Zyzak’s book?
Bogusław Nowak: When I came to listen to him, I even wanted to believe him, but nothing of the sort happened. He did not convince me. He began twisting things, mixing fact with fiction. That was the fundamental problem at the meeting. When presenting the origins of his work, Zyzak says that someone from the countryside saw Wałęsa standing by a beer kiosk. To him, this is proof that Wałęsa was an ordinary bum and, on top of that, did not go to church at all. That is absurd. You cannot judge a person who is part of the history of many Poles in this country by such criteria. Wałęsa transformed our reality. I do not agree to reducing our reality to the level of the lower abdomen.
Kamil Wiśniewski: What is Zyzak’s problem? First, during the meeting he said that freedom of speech in Poland began after the Rywin affair. This suggested that until 2003 we had lived in a totalitarian state. The problem is that the books by Zyzak or Cenckiewicz immediately become ideology in our country. Second, can the testimony of the woman recorded by Zyzak be treated as fact in a book aspiring to be an objective historical work? The first historical biography of Lech Wałęsa? Do we believe everything negative that the Security Service collected about Wałęsa? Do we also allow for the possibility that the services fabricated files in order to keep Wałęsa in check? That is how intelligence works. It misleads the adversary.
Bogusław Nowak: I wonder how Mr. Zyzak would have behaved in those days, when it was necessary to jump over a fence. And when the Security Service had a thousand ways to neutralize Wałęsa. Today there are many heroes, but where are those who were able to say no in those difficult times?!
Istotne Informacje: Who, then, needs the destruction of authorities in the way Zyzak has done it?
Jacek Ostrowski: I once wondered what the greatest sin was, the one from which others arise. And I think it is envy. Wałęsa’s career, leading from an ordinary electrician to the Nobel Prize, must arouse envy. I am not a Wałęsa fanatic, but we cannot allow his image to be destroyed. Wałęsa achieved something important and did it not only for himself.
Kamil Wiśniewski: In my opinion, such a book is needed to justify the political struggle of certain people. Zyzak states without any doubt when Wałęsa began cooperating with the Security Service and when he ended that cooperation. This publication proves the falseness of the world in which we live and provides the ideological foundation of the Fourth Polish Republic. It is an attempt to prove that we do not live in a free country, and that everything Wałęsa achieved and everything that happened during 20 free years was in fact a conspiracy.
Bogusław Nowak: We know who stands behind such people and see it clearly: Robert Nowak, Radio Maryja, the Institute of National Remembrance, the Kaczyńskis. There is no need to delve into the whole matter. It emerged on its own at the meeting.
Istotne Informacje: How, then, should we view the phenomenon of the Wałęsa biographer’s popularity?
Jacek Ostrowski: For me, it is negative publicity for the book.
Bogusław Nowak: My first reaction was to decide not to attend the meeting, so as not to advertise it. But I was interested in who had come to the meeting with Zyzak, because I live in a certain community and want to know the opponents of my worldview. That was my only reason for attending the meeting.
Kamil Wiśniewski: I believe it is good for a nation to have a genetic code, so that everyone can find their own authority. The question is who will look for it individually.
Bogusław Nowak: We can view the world from its best or worst side. That is our choice.
Kamil Wiśniewski: Democracy is a system that tries to bring to power social groups that have never held power. As we can see, Zyzak’s style of toppling authorities finds fertile ground there. Will our democracy go in that direction—that of reducing the elites to the level of a swamp—or will we show what is most valuable? The resolution of this problem lies ahead of us. It is important to talk while seeing what Zyzak is doing. How will society receive it? Two years ago, one could see crowds of Poles in London outside polling stations. That was their rebellion, their opposition to everything Zyzak represents today. That is why I am an optimist.