Vikipeedia:GLAM/Estonia-Poland relations/8

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Poland as a window to Europe[muuda lähteteksti]

During the Interwar period, Poland was a window to Europe for Estonia in many fields of culture. Polish theatre had tight connections with Western Europe. Polish drama was frequently staged in Estonia, already soon after the creation of the republic, in the 1920s. In December 18, 1938, one of the most famous actors and theatre directors in the history of Estonian theatre Ants Lauter brought to stage in the theatre Estonia Włodzimierz Perzyński’s (1877–1930) play “Reckless sister” (“Lekkomyślna siostra”). Several renowned Estonian actors such as Ants Eskola (Janek Topolski) and Kaarel Karm (Olzevski) acted in the play. The same play was also staged during the Soviet era (1957) in Pärnu Lydia Koidula Drama Theatre (director Arnold Sikkel).

Polish playwright Włodzimierz Perzyński (1877–1930)

In Estonia, Gabriela Zapolska’s plays were staged twice: “Miss Maliczewska” (“Panna Maliczewska”) in Workers’ Theatre and “Moral Lady” (“Moralność Pani Dulskiej”) in Vanemuine. Another popular Estonian director Leo Kalmet staged “Caesar and the Person” (“Cezar i człowiek”) in Drama Theatre in 1940, when Poland was already occupied. These are just a few examples of Polish drama on Estonian stages. Considering how much of the repertoire of Estonian theatre was Polish dramaturgy, it can be said with conviction that Polish culture played a major role in the development of Estonian theatre.

Polish film director Andrzej Wajda (1963).
Estonian translator and publisher Hendrik Lindepuu
“Between 5 and 50”, a portrait of Leszek Kołakowski on his 50th birthday, 1978.

In 1996, Hendrik Lindepuu translated “The Lexicon of Contemporary Theatre” (“Słownik współczesnego teatru”) by two prestigious Polish theater critics, Małgorzata Semil and Elżbieta Wysińska, into Estonian. According to him, Polish theatre is very influential and unique, which is largely due to the royal and Catholic history of Poland. Lindepuu has translated hundreds of Polish works, drama and other literature, into Estonian. His interest in Polish culture started in the 1980s thanks to the influence of the writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, director and theatre innovator Jerzy Grotowski, and the movie “Ash” by director Andrzej Wajda. After this he started to study Polish on his own. Andrzej Wajda is the author of the Oscar Best Foreign Language Film-nominated “Katyń”, which is about Polish officers who had fallen prisoner to the Red Army in 1940. After the completion of the film, the President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves awarded Wajda the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana 3rd class award. According to Lindepuu, his intellectual example is the Polish writer Czesław Miłosz, whose large black and white photograph is on the wall in front of his desk. “When I am very tired, I look at Miłosz, we look at each other for a while and… I continue translating. On my walls, his photos figure the most, as he is for me the greatest authority and example, a true literary titan!” Lindepuu states in the Päevaleht’s interview. In addition to that, he also highly esteems writers Marek Hłasko, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, and Leszek Kołakowski.

Interestingly, as many as five works by the Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski have been translated into Estonian, while almost none have been translated into Latvian, Lithuanian, and Finnish. It can be said that Estonians have been lucky in this respect. Lindepuu says: “Why have I translated Kołakowski so much and why will I certainly continue to do so? Because his way of thinking, which values traditions, and his metaphysical skepticism are close to me; because he writes of complex things simply and he writes damn well.” Lindepuu's first contact with Kołakowski was theater-related instead: in 1989, Lindepuu attended a play written by Kołakowski at the Polish Festival of Contemporary Dramaturgy in Wrocław.

„ "Why have I translated Kołakowski so much and why will I certainly continue to do so? Because his way of thinking, which values traditions, and his metaphysical skepticism are close to me; because he writes of complex things simply and he writes damn well." “


Hendrik Lindepuu

In 2005, the President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, presented Hendrik Lindepuu with the 1st Class Gold Cross of Merit for fruitful translating. In 2019, Lindepuu was awarded the Transatlantyk Award, the most important translation award in Poland. In the same year, the translator received the August Sang Poetry Translation Award for the translation of Anna Świrszczyńska's poem "The Peasant Woman". The poem is presented here in the two languages.

Polish dramaturgy still plays an important role in Estonian theatre. In Poland, 2004 was declared the year of Witold Gombrowicz, which is why Elmo Nüganen, one of Estonia's best directors of today, staged Gombrowicz's "Wedding" at the Toruń Theater. It is considered to be one of the deepest and most complex texts in Polish drama – Nüganen also stated that if the piece fails, the fall can be very high. However, Nüganen's work was excellent, and it also made waves in the Polish theatre scene itself. Critics compared Nüganen's production to the works of Polish theater choreographers Jerzy Jarocki and Jerzy Grzegorzewski, and several critics named Nüganen's "Wedding" the best production of the year.

Polish playwright Wojciech Tomczyk

In 2008, Aare Toikka staged Wojciech Tomczyk’s “Nuremberg” at VAT Theatre. He has spoken about how the idea of ​​the theatre piece was born. Aarne Üksküla, one of the strongest actors in the history of Estonian theatre, and director Toikka wanted to bring a story with a political undertone to the stage. This is how they got to "Nuremberg", which one Polish intendant recommended to Toika. The piece is a tragic story about the Soviet reality during the time of the Polish trade union Solidarity (1980s). The author Tomczyk himself said the following about his work: “I was interested in the psychological process, people's mutual relations, as well as their relation with the history of the Polish People's Republic. The latter is extremely interesting, even exotic /.../. I was not so much interested in the time’s special services, but in the manipulation mechanism, which, moreover, is used in the same way, for no reason. But you don't have to be an intelligence officer to manipulate someone. Every day we can become convinced that our public life is a ghost theatre of illusions, a complete fiction.” Therefore, it can be said that this is an exciting Polish story that does not really only concern itself with Poles. This story speaks about everyone, including Estonians.

In Poland, the Polkovnik was played by Janusz Gajos (in Estonia by Aarne Üksküla). Gajos is an actor who people from all around the former Socialist Block recognize as Janek from the Polish TV show “Four Tank-Men and a Dog” (1966–1970).

Tomczyk himself was present at the premiere of VAT Theater’s "Nuremberg". Aare Toikka says: “And the first thing he [Tomczyk] said to me after the premiere was: “Oh God, I know this actor [Üksküla], I know him from the movies!” It may have been courtesy, but the author stated that our version of "Nuremberg" was the best he had ever seen.” The film that Tomczyk recognized the actor Üksküla from was probably “Łza księcia ciemności” (The Devil's Tear), which was made in 1992 as a Polish-Estonian collaboration. The film was directed by Marek Piestrak. As it was a science fiction film, Sven Grünberg made the soundtrack. Both Estonian and Polish actors took part in the film, while several top actors from Estonia took part in the movie (Jüri Järvet, Aarne Üksküla, Lembit Ulfsak, Ita Ever, Egon Nuter, etc.), which shows that this film and the collaboration were quite important for Estonians. Among Polish actors, Hanna Dunowska and Tomasz Stockinger starred in the film.

Sources[muuda lähteteksti]

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