31 августа - День рождения польской "Солидарности" (1980). 31 августа 1982 - один из самых страшных дней в жизни героя программы, участника сопротивления Костека Геберта, обозревателя "Газета Выборча". Есть еще кое-что страшное. Старую песню, которую он поет, сам Костек называет "страшной". Почему?

 Hey English speakers! There is an English transcript available as well.

Русская дача – это маленький дом за городом, с высоким забором, обычно рядом с железнодорожной станцией. Сюда приезжают горожане на выходные, чтобы отдохнуть, поработать на огороде, встретиться с друзьями. В нашем случае – дача принадлежит правнучке бывшей коллеги Ленина по подпольной работе. Здесь нет огорода, только старый сосновый лес. Это дача интеллигенции. Такие дачи похожи на советские кухни. Это место, где едят, выпивают, спорят до утра о политике, философии, искусстве и Боге. И конечно поют, не давая спать соседям.
Во время одного такого пикника хозяева дачи и их друзья встречаются с участником польского подполья («Солидарность») Костеком Гебертом. Как и большинство людей в России, они не очень много знают о польском сопротивлении и пытаются вспомнить, что происходило в это время в СССР. Костек рассказывает им несколько историй и поет гимн «Солидарности». «Страшная песня», так говорит Костек о гимне. Это песня «Mury» («Стены»), но оказывается, ее написал каталонский бард Луис Льяк (Lluís Llach) и назвал ее «L'estaca» («На привязи»). Старая песня, ее судьба, рассказы Костека о преодолении страха перед диктатурой приводят друзей к грустной мысли: может быть, страх возвращается в Россию. Или, возможно, он никогда не исчезал?

Note: На каталонском языке «L'estaca» означает палку, к которой привязывают скот. В русском языке такой аналог не отражает понятие «не свободы». Поэтому в программе мы переводим слово «l'estaca» как частокол (the fence).

A Simple Way to Learn an Old Song

The Russian dacha. It's a little cottage outside the city, surrounded
by a tall fence, usually not too far from a train station. It's here
that people from the city come on their weekends - to rest, to work in
the garden, and to gather with friends. In this case, the dacha
belongs to the great granddaughter of a former colleague of Lenin's.
Back from his days in the underground. Only here there's no garden.
Just tall pine trees. It's what's considered a dacha for the
'intelligentsia.' These dachas somewhat resemble those well-known
«Soviet kitchens» in their purpose: you not only eat and drink, but
argue about politics, philosophy, art, and God until dawn. And of
course you sing… lest the neighbors get some sleep!

During one such 'picnic,' the owner and her friends meet with Kostek
Gebert - a participant in the Polish Solidarity movement. Like many
in Russia, the friends don't know a lot about the Polish resistance –
much less what was happening in the USSR during that same time.
Kostek tells them a few stories and sings them the hymn of Solidarity.
«It's a terrifying song..» says Kostek.

The Poles know the song as «Mury» or «Walls» though - it turns out -
it was written by Lluis Lach, a bard from Catalonia, who named it
«L'estaca» or «Tether Post». So it's an old song. And, as Kostek
tells of this tune's fate in overcoming fear before tyranny, the
gathered friends come to the sad thought: maybe that fear is returning
to Russia?

Or, just perhaps, it never left?

Note: In Catalan «L'estaca» refers to the wooden post to which cattle
were tied. In Russian, the term doesn't carry the additional meaning
of 'lacking freedom.' Therefore, for the purposes of the program
transcription, «l'estaca» has been translated as «fence».


Sound: Guitar playing, female voice humming

GUEST 1 I don’t remember the words!

KOSTEK I haven’t sung this for years...

HOSTESS’ MOTHER Don’t you remember the words?

NARRATOR No, he doesn’t know this song...

GUEST 1 I don’t have time to learn them...

KOSTEK (humming) What comes next? I don’t remember!

NARRATOR I don’t remember this song

KOSTEK Come on, come on, come on! [Let’s sing it]

Sound: Someone is tuning the guitar

Music starts and ends with the end of the announcement

FEMALE ANNOUNCER Foundation for Independent Radio Broadcasting presents

MALE ANNOUNCER A SIMPLE WAY TO LEARN AN OLD SONG

FEMALE ANNOUNCER A feature by Elena Uporova

Sounds: People eating and drinking near a country house (dacha), train, ambience

KOSTEK (speaking Russian with a lovely Polish accent)
Vertinsky [Russian singer famous in early and middle 20th century] was my mother’s favorite… She had many records by Vertinsky.

NARRATOR
Near Moscow, in the Village of Old Bolsheviks, Kostek Gebert, an old member of the Polish underground, is smoking a pipe. He’s a journalist. Perhaps back then, in the 80-s when he was publishing one of the underground newspapers of Solidarność , he was smoking his pipe too.

KOSTEK
I’m a coward, you know what I mean? If there was any chance for me not to do this nonsense, I’m sure I wouldn’t do it. Er-m… There was a big rally on 31 August 1982. In Warsaw 100,000 people went out to the streets. Within 5 or 6 hours we had control of the city. But the fight was viscious. At the end of the day, you can’t defeat police, can you? I remember myself running away from a policeman who was following me. I picked up a stone and I realized that if I threw this stone I could hit this man’s eye. It would simply kill him. And at that moment I understood that I could do it. And that fear was greater then any other fear I’d felt. It was the most terrifying sensation… even now I remember that. It was a matter of a second. If I didn't waiver, I could kill a man.

Sounds: People eating and drinking; barbecue

NARRATOR
There are five of us. We listen, enjoying the grilled meat and drinks.

HOSTESS
We were going to have soup and then fish, but we were running short of coal and so we had the fish first and now we’re going to have soup.

KOSTEK
Which is also beautiful!

HOSTESS
Yes?

KOSTEK
Uh-huh.

Pause

KOSTEK
There was always fear.

Sound: Kostek lights his pipe

Music starts and ends

KOSTEK
Huh! A colleague of mine wrote once in his underground newspaper [in Poland]: “Fine. Suppose, we give up, okay?”

Music starts again

KOSTEK
“You won, we’ll go take courses on Marxism-Leninism, vote general Jaruzelski for Warsaw University Chairman. In other words, we’ll do everything you want. What can you give us in return? Another bottle of vodka for a month?” Every day it was like that…

GUEST 2 (at the background)
And what did you do that for?

KOSTEK
What for? You’d just turn on the TV and you could see. There was nothing there already...

Music ends

Sounds: A train passes by, the Hostess collects dishes. Guests ask her not to take away the fish, while the Hostess’ mother wants to bring soup. Steps, someone goes off to the house.

NARRATOR
Someone goes to wash dishes, another brings soup. A train passes by again. Memories come on their own...

Sounds: A doors slams, radio talks, the Hostess, her mother and Guest 1 are busy washing dishes.

MOTHER
It was a time when... a strange year... [[1981]]

HOSTESS
The most humdrum year.

MOTHER
Everyone got used to living a double life

Music starts

RADIO (in the room)
The dollar has raised a little in Moscow while the Euro on the contrary has fallen...

BREZHNEV (archive recording)
Dear Comrades! Dear foreign guests!

MOTHER
Well... you could say, it was the year following the [Moscow] Olympics...

Sound: Call-sign of Radio Solidarność


BREZHNEV
Dear….

Sound: Radio announcer: “This is Radio Solidarność”

BREZHNEV
... foregn guests!

Sound: Delegates appauding

MOTHER
[a time of] Boredom and squalor

JARUZELSKI (from the archive recording of the 13 December 1981 broadcast appeal – martial law was introduced)
Chaos...

Sound: Rado Solidarność broadcast jammed

MOTHER
It seemed that agents....shadowing everywhere around you.

BREZHNEV
... foreign guests!

GUEST 1
Don’t you remember – Jaruzelski, the guy in sunglasses? They compared him to Pinochet.

MOTHER
It was all very tense…

Mix: Jaruzelski’s appeal, Brezhnev, Radio Solidarność broadcsts

Music ends

Sounds: Dacha again. Everyone drinks to Solidarność.

HOSTESS
Let’s drink...

MOTHER
To your victory. I sincerely envy you...

KOSTEK
To our common victory. We learned everything from you. From [scientist and dissident] Sakharov.

MOTHER
You learnt it, while we, unfortunately...

KOSTEK
Well, if we learnt it, it looks like anyone can!

NARRATOR
We drank more and as always we felt like singing.

KOSTEK
It’s like this: When Poles drink they eventually start singing Russian songs. (Starts singing in Polish a song by the famous Russian bard Okudjava)

NARRATOR
Kostek sings Okudjava.

KOSTEK
(Forgets the words). If you didn’t know Okudjava and Vysotsky [[another famous Russian bard]] you didn’t have a chance with a girl.

NARRATOR
But right now we don’t want to listen to Russian songs. We want to hear the songs of the Polish underground. The Solidarność anthem.

KOSTEK
Oh!

GUEST 1
Maybe something by Kaczmarski?

KOSTEK
(Starts singing the song “Mury”in Polish)

Mix: Train passing, Kaczmarski hums “Mury”

KOSTEK
It’s a terrifying song. It was written by a Catalan poet Lluís Llach.

Mix: Music fades into the song “L’estaca” sung by Lluís Llach

NARRATOR
I imagine a thin black-haired 20 year old guy holding a guitar. Somewhere in Barcelona. It’s 1968. Seven years before General Franco’s death. The man with the guitar sings: “There’s a fence around us. It can’t last forever. If we thrust upon it all together it will fall down and we will gain freedom”.


Music: Lluís Llach sings “L’estaca”


NARRATOR
This is “L’estaca”. It would become a symbol of resistance to the Francoists. Lluís sings in Catalan: tomba, tomba, tomba - the fence is falling, falling, falling down....


Music: Lluís Llach sings “L’estaca”


NARRATOR
... Or maybe it’s already Paris, Olympia. After that incident in Cuba where that guy [with the guitar] had said: “I’m from Catalonia. It’s in Spain. Which is the last fascist country in Europe”. He was banned from singing in his own country. And he went to France...

Music: Lluís Llach sings “L’estaca”


KOSTEK (Takes up the song in Polish)
“The walls were falling, falling down, and the old world was buried under them”

NARRATOR
...while the song went to Poland.

Mix: Sound of train fades into the song “Mury” sung by Jacek Kaczmarski

Music: “Mury” sung by Jacek Kaczmarski

NARRATOR
Lluís Llach was brought up in a Catalan village. Jacek Kaczmarski was ten years younger than Lluís and was brought up in Warsaw. He wrote the lyrics of an unofficial Solidarność anthem when he was 20. In Lluís’s verse it’s a fence, in Jacek’s – it’s walls, mury in Polish. Walls fall down when we are together – sings Jacek Kaczmarski along with two other bards of Solidarność - Przemysław Gintrowski and Zbigniew Łapiński

Pause

NARRATOR
When the Poet is silent the walls grow...

Music: “Mury” (the words in Polish: “The walls were growing, growing, growing...”)

Music: Lluís Llach sings “L’estaca”


NARRATOR
On one of the Catalan web-sites I found a blog called “«L’estaca» in Belarus”. It is all in Catalan and there’s not a single word about Belarus. It’s just a story of the song which ends with very simple words: “Gracias Lluís Llach”... Tomba, tomba, tomba...

Music: Lluís Llach sings “L’estaca”

Mix: Music, train, people eating and drinking. Guest 2 offersa drink to Guest 1.

NARRATOR
In the last verse of the Polish song the Poet keeps silent. The walls grow. Why? Why am I confused with that? And why don’t I want to ask Kostek about that?..

KOSTEK
And the walls were growing, growing, growing and the chains were already around the legs...

Sound: Train passing by


END

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