The events have got under way in Warsaw to mark the 25th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize for Solidarity founder Lech Wałesa.
Michał Kubicki reports
The news from Oslo came on October 5, 1983. It was just over two months after the lifting of martial law but the Solidarity movement was disbanded and hundreds of union activists remained in prison. The importance of the Nobel Peace Prize for Walesa therefore cannot be overestimated.
‘This prize made me, personally, immortal and it gave the Solidarity movement a new lease of life, so we could go on to victory. Without that prize, I cannot imagine further successes. I am convinced that victory would not have been possible. This is how much I value that distinction,’ said Wałęsa.
Six years after Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize, Poland had its first non-communist government in its post-war history, and in 1990 Walesa became Poland’s first democratically elected president after the war. Small wonder that, as journalist Jerzy Kisielewski says, he is seen as an icon for Polish democracy: ‘For the world Walesa is a symbol of free Poland. For us, for many people, Walesa is a symbol of the events of August 1980. He was a leader, he is a symbol.’
For many historians, however, it is wrong to think of Walesa as a man who singlehandedly defeated communism in Poland. Professor Wojciech Roszkowski: ‘It is not only Walesa. Walesa was our leader, we trusted in him but I think the leadership of Solidarity also played a role and those nine million union members as well.’
A Polish weekly headlined its cover story on Walesa: An uncomfortable jubilee, a reference of course to a book, published in Poland recently, containing documents suggesting that Walesa acted as an informer of the communist secret service in the 1970s. Its publication started a debate on Walesa’s past and his role in modern Polish history. Is the perception of his place in history likely to change?
‘Walesa is still considered a national hero not only in Poland but also abroad and I don’t think the perception of what he did in the 1970s and 1980s as leader of the opposition will change much in France, Germany or the United States. He will still be considered as one of the most prominent figures of the independence movement in Poland and one of the human rights icons, alongside the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu,’ said deputy editor of "Rzeczpospolita" Marek Magierowski.
Lukasz Warzecha of the daily Fakt claims that Poles have the right to know all the facts relating to the biographies of historical figures: ‘We should try to separate historical truth about Walesa from his historically great role as Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner. We should somehow try to guard his symbolic value for us, regardless of what he did before 1980s. I think the whole debate is drowned in the political quarrel between two political camps.’
A wide range of events is planned for later this year to mark the anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize for Walesa. They include a get-together in Gdansk in December of Nobel Prize winners and politicians from round the world.