As Polish Mother’s Day approaches on 26 May, Magdalena Jelonkiewicz reflects on the differences – and surprising similarities – between her and her own mother’s experiences
The relationship between history, ever-changing socio-economic conditions and the life of an individual has always fascinated me. People create history and history shapes people. With that in mind, I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I swapped places with my mother.
Even though there is more than 30 years difference between my mother’s school days and mine, we surprisingly share similar, almost universal, regimented memories, seemingly pre-designed by the former communist state. The system controlled our daily lives from early days; however, having no sense of political perspective, we were happy playing the role of obedient citizens. We did not mind the spectacle of the Labour Day Parades with red carnations and ‘Exemplary Student’ labels pinned to our white shirts, waving flags and singing patriotic songs. It wasn’t too bad and, most importantly, we got to skip classes that day.
Then, there were the regular tedious school assemblies with the inescapable military elements like marching, singing the national anthem and honouring the school’s flag. One such assembly is engraved vividly on my mother’s memory; one morning back in March 1953 the pupils were informed of the death of ‘Good Uncle Stalin’. The gathering turned into an obligatory mourning scene and my mother cried.
My most memorable school briefing did not involve tears. I was announced the winner of the art competition entitled ‘The Soviet Film in the Eyes of a Young Spectator’. The trick was that I had never seen a Russian film; I just drew the first thing that came to my mind, which happened to be an orange squirrel on the moon. Little had I known that my imagination matched the one of our Soviet brothers, who launched poor Laika into orbit in 1957. In this way I guaranteed myself the first prize – the rare delicacy of a bar of chocolate and a banana sponsored by the organisers, not to count the round of applause and a mention in the local paper. I failed at my first rebellion attempt.
By the time I went to college, Poland was a newly developing capitalist state, and because of that my mother’s and my own memories begin to differ. In 1966, a law was passed whereby college applicants would get two additional points if they came from a working class background, had done an army service or six months’ work experience. Back then, universities in Poland became centres of political opposition. In the 1990s, however, the only opposition students experienced was their own one, to cramming sessions at the end of each term.
When my mother graduated, all businesses were state-owned and unemployment did not exist. At the end of my studies, the unemployment rate was 18 per cent and my first job offer came, in fact, from Ireland. It is interesting that relocation was a turning point in my own and also my mother’s life. Together with my father, she moved from her hometown of Kozienice to Kolobrzeg, where he had accepted a job in a newly established hospital. The town is located in what post-war communist propaganda called ‘Regained Territories’, ass-igned to Poland as part of the Yalta Conference in 1945. The term was coined to encourage reluctant people, especially from former Eastern Poland, to settle down permanently in those areas. Even though Kolobrzeg had been Polish for decades when my mother moved there, she never fully settled feeling quite “foreign” in the place.
My mother brought me up the way she was brought up. We came from the same background and share the same values. But I wonder what our lives would be like if we just swapped our dates of birth, while keeping our personalities and family relations. With my passion of languages and travel, being born in the last year of the Second World War, I would probably have no other choice but to study Russian Philology. A few years later, equipped with a degree and a passport for the Eastern Bloc countries, I would have made my way to the Soviet Union and could quite possibly have ended up in Moscow writing this article for Moskovskaya Pravda.
On the other hand, if my mother was born in the demographic boom of the 1970s, it is plausible that her and my dad’s relocation would go a step further and involve another European country. According to a recent survey conducted at the Warsaw Academy of Medicine, 80 per cent of students plan to emigrate on graduation. Ireland remains one of the most popular destinations. And who knows? Maybe, like me, my mother would have settled in Dublin.
And where would that leave me in the picture? Had I been born in Ireland, I would have probably opted for Eastern European Studies, and maybe my immigration would mean coming back to my parents’ country of origin.
I hope Poland will have enough to offer in 20 years to attract many immigrants back home. The possibilities are countless. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “There is properly no history, only biography.”
Even though there is more than 30 years difference between my mother’s school days and mine, we surprisingly share similar, almost universal, regimented memories, seemingly pre-designed by the former communist state. The system controlled our daily lives from early days; however, having no sense of political perspective, we were happy playing the role of obedient citizens. We did not mind the spectacle of the Labour Day Parades with red carnations and ‘Exemplary Student’ labels pinned to our white shirts, waving flags and singing patriotic songs. It wasn’t too bad and, most importantly, we got to skip classes that day.
Then, there were the regular tedious school assemblies with the inescapable military elements like marching, singing the national anthem and honouring the school’s flag. One such assembly is engraved vividly on my mother’s memory; one morning back in March 1953 the pupils were informed of the death of ‘Good Uncle Stalin’. The gathering turned into an obligatory mourning scene and my mother cried.
My most memorable school briefing did not involve tears. I was announced the winner of the art competition entitled ‘The Soviet Film in the Eyes of a Young Spectator’. The trick was that I had never seen a Russian film; I just drew the first thing that came to my mind, which happened to be an orange squirrel on the moon. Little had I known that my imagination matched the one of our Soviet brothers, who launched poor Laika into orbit in 1957. In this way I guaranteed myself the first prize – the rare delicacy of a bar of chocolate and a banana sponsored by the organisers, not to count the round of applause and a mention in the local paper. I failed at my first rebellion attempt.
By the time I went to college, Poland was a newly developing capitalist state, and because of that my mother’s and my own memories begin to differ. In 1966, a law was passed whereby college applicants would get two additional points if they came from a working class background, had done an army service or six months’ work experience. Back then, universities in Poland became centres of political opposition. In the 1990s, however, the only opposition students experienced was their own one, to cramming sessions at the end of each term.
When my mother graduated, all businesses were state-owned and unemployment did not exist. At the end of my studies, the unemployment rate was 18 per cent and my first job offer came, in fact, from Ireland. It is interesting that relocation was a turning point in my own and also my mother’s life. Together with my father, she moved from her hometown of Kozienice to Kolobrzeg, where he had accepted a job in a newly established hospital. The town is located in what post-war communist propaganda called ‘Regained Territories’, ass-igned to Poland as part of the Yalta Conference in 1945. The term was coined to encourage reluctant people, especially from former Eastern Poland, to settle down permanently in those areas. Even though Kolobrzeg had been Polish for decades when my mother moved there, she never fully settled feeling quite “foreign” in the place.
My mother brought me up the way she was brought up. We came from the same background and share the same values. But I wonder what our lives would be like if we just swapped our dates of birth, while keeping our personalities and family relations. With my passion of languages and travel, being born in the last year of the Second World War, I would probably have no other choice but to study Russian Philology. A few years later, equipped with a degree and a passport for the Eastern Bloc countries, I would have made my way to the Soviet Union and could quite possibly have ended up in Moscow writing this article for Moskovskaya Pravda.
On the other hand, if my mother was born in the demographic boom of the 1970s, it is plausible that her and my dad’s relocation would go a step further and involve another European country. According to a recent survey conducted at the Warsaw Academy of Medicine, 80 per cent of students plan to emigrate on graduation. Ireland remains one of the most popular destinations. And who knows? Maybe, like me, my mother would have settled in Dublin.
And where would that leave me in the picture? Had I been born in Ireland, I would have probably opted for Eastern European Studies, and maybe my immigration would mean coming back to my parents’ country of origin.
I hope Poland will have enough to offer in 20 years to attract many immigrants back home. The possibilities are countless. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “There is properly no history, only biography.”
