New Eastern Europe - November-December 2017

(Ben Green) #1

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book, discusses how the Russian writers
and thinkers who were living in Warsaw
during the interwar period later impacted
Polish post-war émigrés. These writers
included Dmitry Filosofov, Zinaida Gip-
pius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky, who all
fled Russia in 1920 following the Bol-
shevik Revolution. Giedroyc was par-
ticularly influenced by Filosofov, who
was known for his publishing activities

and the discussion clubs organised in
his home. These were ideas replicated
by Giedroyc once he himself became an
émigré in Paris. Grochowska also rightly

mentions Aleksandr Herzen, who as an
émigré co-published a journal called
Kolokol (Bell) in London. Written in Rus-
sian and French, Kolokol became an in-
fluential publication. Its impact inspired
Giedroyc, as he confessed in a letter to
Juliusz Mieroszewski: “A journal pub-
lished abroad, free of compromises and
liberally-minded, edited for Russians and
by Russians, read by all ... and influenc-
ing the situation in Russia ... This is our
ambition – partially already achieved”.
The Russian translation of Grochow-
ska’s book and its publication in St Pe-
tersburg is an unquestionable tangible
trace of cultural diplomacy as it was un-
derstood by those who established Kultu-
ra. Józef Czapski would often say that
specific people and their engagement
in cultural matters are more important
for building good relations between na-
tions than hundreds of promotional ac-
tivities. In the case of this book, such a
person was certainly the former direc-
tor of the Polish Institute in St Peters-
burg – Natalia Bryżko-Zapór. The nu-
merous activities that she championed
during her tenure in St Petersburg can be
seen as an implementation of Giedroyc’s
belief in the creative power of language.

An extraordinary editor

As mentioned above, it was Giedroyc’s
wish that Kultura be shut down upon his
death. This decision is often explained by
the fact that Giedroyc never prepared a
successor. Or possibly it would be better

explained by the fact the editor had oth-
er plans? Maybe it was not the lack of a
suitable person to take over the leader-
ship of the magazine but rather his con-
viction that Kultura was a product of a

In her book, Grochowska
discusses how Russian
writers and thinkers who
were living in Warsaw
during the interwar period
later impacted Polish
post-war émigrés.

Eastern Café Cultural diplomacy at its best, Dorota Sieroń-Galusek
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