214 EMIGRACJA
had steadily expanded its activities, invites selected guests to Poland, tempts the
younger generation with subsidized travel and summer courses, and indulges,
through the Interpress Agency, in shameless propaganda. Its political line was
to denigrate all memory of the Polish Independence Movement, especially of the
leftist, anti-Russian, Pitsudskiite variety, and, whilst preaching ad nauseam of
the emigres'^1 duty to their adopted countries, to appeal to their simple patriotic
instincts. Yet formidable obstacles persisted. The political emigres could not
have been expected to reconcile themselves to a regime which had deprived
them of a rightful place in the land of their birth. No amount of special plead-
ing could hide the fact that the communist regime condoned the USSR's annex-
ation of the eastern provinces, where many emigres were born, and that for
many years after the War 'People's Poland' could not guarantee the safety, let
alone the civil rights, of independent-minded people. Secure in the justice, if not
the practicality of their cause, the political Emigration made the traditional
choice to live and die abroad in freedom rather than to surrender to manipula-
tion at home. Their epitaph may be borrowed from lines addressed to another
defeated nationality:
Your name and your deeds were forgotten
Before your bones were dry;
And the Lie that slew you is buried
Beneath a deeper lie.
But the one thing that I saw in your face
No power can disinherit.
No bomb that ever burst
Can shatter the crystal spirit.^17A new phase began when the Communist regime collapsed in 1990. Free move-
ment at last became possible. Some Poles, especially youngsters and business-
men, returned from abroad. But most were too rooted to their foreign homes,
too embroiled in the lives of their families, to consider a permanent move. They
visited their relatives in Poland, amd looked with fascination on an unknown
free country. They thanked God that the era of forced separation was over. But
they did not stay.
Emigration, therefore, seems to be a permanent part of the Polish condition.
For those who emigrated willingly or even gladly, the experience was quickly
overcome, and in some cases, the homeland was soon forgotten. But for those
who departed under the duress of economic or political misfortune, the step
could never be easily taken. For them, Mickiewicz's moving translation of
Childe Harold's Farewell holds far deeper meaning than for most of Byron's
original English readers:Adieu, adieu! My native shore Bywaj zdrowy, kraju kochany
Fades o'er the waters blue; Juz w mglistej nikniesz pomroce
The night-winds sigh, the breakers Swisnely wiatry, szumia
roar balwany