Bialowieza or How to Retell Polish History - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow Dr Anna Barcz

Recorded March 8, 2019. A lecture by Trinity Long Room Hub Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow Dr Anna Barcz organised by the
Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies. The history of
Bialowieza mirrors a long practice, beginning with Lithuanian kings
from the Jagiellonian dynasty in the 14th century, of cutting the
wood and clearing the forest for hunting. Described by the
prophetic, romantic, Polish-Lithuanian poet Adam Mickiewicz in Pan
Tadeusz [Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman’s
Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse], an
epic written in 1834, it is one of the greatest signs of
environmental consciousness expressed in the national literature.
It includes a fragment of description of the deepest heart of the
forest that gathers and preserves all species and where humans
cannot enter. This so-called “motherland of woods” resembles a
strict nature reserve – however, in comparison with our times,
Mickiewicz’s sanctuary exists only in the wild. Why even the most
symbolic, entangled with the national history landscape as
Bialowieza cannot help to foster the protection of nature? This
question cannot be reasonably answered but we can try to retell the
history from the perspective of the forest and its non-human
inhabitants. Some would call it the environmental history and some
- like me - would advocate for changing the national discourse of
telling history in general. In contrast to the existing problem of
logging and other human practices disturbing vulnerable
Bialowieza’s ecosystems and preventing the authorities from
extending the borders of national parks mainly on the Polish side
(despite the UNESCO heritage list that includes Bialowieza since
1979), I take the militant discourse that ascribes national
identity to the trees as an example. In the patriotic, historical
narratives, the forest is a soldiers’ ally, a partisans’ hideout, a
hero of songs from the First and Second World Wars, and a witness
to history (the forest guerrilla survived even the war,
transforming into the so-called anti-communist – the last partisan
hid in the forest until 1963). The cultural bond with the forest
derives from the darkest history of the first settlers in Eastern
Europe and environmental conditions that they found here. Thus, the
traditions of nature conservation are inextricably linked to the
history of the Polish statehood. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/