Each generation must make its own effort out of the materials left by its ancestors and those that changed reality only made it possible for it to build its own synthesis again, just as a individual has to build his interior harmony daily.
Even if an exceptional generation had built up a synthesis that was highly close to social harmony, his work, though fruitful in effect, would not have saved his successors from hardships and dangers. It might let long-term usage of its fruit, but in the end perfect patterns would clot in the souls of the epigons into large but dead patterns, incapable to master the still-waved reality.
Therefore, tradition should not be overestimated. The desire to defy it is frequently a manifestation of thought - Flowering desire to work out the efforts of old generations. Of course, if individual cannot afford their own creation, then it is better for him to imitate the native patterns than to unthinkably ape-like currents in a abroad fashion, which so offends in all "fascist" movements, organizations with swastika in coat of arms and so on. But not everything that's always been better than today. Tradition is simply a valuable thing, especially if it is alive and if it flows from the lasting and healthy qualities of a nation or a civilizational environment, and is not a superficial raid or manner. In the past, many experiences can be found, with the past we have spiritual bonds, traces that are not entirely akin and should not be washed, but we must always remember that historical creation did not end with our ancestors, that we are not only descendants but besides ancestors. Epigonism is simply a denial of creativity. In turn the artificial reheating of tradition would be completely missed. The costume ball may be a good amusement at the carnival, but work is not done in the armor of the ancestor from the time of the cross wars.
We can admit the large spiritual benefits which the Polish state of the day gained in the 10th century by entering the ellipse of the Porzem civilization, but this is not a reason for any peculiar pride. If our pride is right against calling us the French of the north, we should not be put in the attitude of the client of Roman civilization. We have reason to be arrogant of Kochanowski, Skarga, Mickiewicz, but not Cicero, Horace or Vergilius, due to the fact that our people did not betray them. We are a nation of wealth, our greatness lies before us alternatively than behind us, so it is no wonder that many things impress us, but why make an ideology from it? Of course, we feel more spiritually related to Caesar than to Genghis-Chan and to Ulpian than Confucius, but we do not compete with Saint Paul in pride with Roman citizenship.
Today the traditions of ancient Roma are no longer as popular as in the era of capitalism, i.e. from humanism to planet war. Today, however, we exalt ourselves in the mediate Ages and talk about returning to it. Is this the right position?
Of course, he was a symptom of a simple foolish phrase about the "dark mediate Ages". The name itself, which was called this era, proves that we did not realize history. The "average" ages mean as much as the transition between 2 creative epochs. We know present that this was not the case that the 13th century produced a synthesis of civilization higher and higher than the Roman one, and from the mediocre spiritual attempts that he wanted to make during the capitalist period, the actual “medieval ages” between the 13th and 20th centuries.
But that doesn't mean turning back. Returning to the mediate Ages does not request to be taken literally. It is simply a negative password alternatively than a affirmative one. We feel the request to throw down the ballasts that the capitalist era has placed upon us; in doing so, it turns out to be a good number of things that this era regarded as superstition, foolishness, or shame. We return to a fair evaluation of the mediate Ages, but not to himself. We can and should draw many valuable advice from this era, but we should make fresh things with their help, not copies.
“If individual wants to look for patterns in the past,” says Leon Chwistek[1], it does not mean that he should do the same as he did in the past, but that he should do something else on an equally large level. If the general takes Caesar’s example, it does not mean that he is to usage wooden siege towers and mechanical temptations to throw distant stones—the thought is to act with an equally clear plan to have equally fast decision-making ability and equally large courage.”
Take another example: art. Let us callback the times of full romanticism erstwhile there was a cult of the mediate Ages, most frequently understood. This was the period during which the construction of pseudo-Gothic edifices was thrown into the construction of pseudo-Gothic edifices, which, having extended almost half a century, flooded the village with hundreds of pointed, soulless churches of red brick in the kind of St. Florian in Prague or St. Elizabeth in Lviv. Did this period prove his spiritual relation with the time of St Francis of Assisi? By no means, he proved only his creative purity. Even specified a highly noble artistic movement as the prerafaelic 1 who wanted to break up with the naturalism of the 16th century in painting did not make a fresh era, due to the fact that in the deficiency of interior strength and revolutionary courage he began to imitate. And although the Preraphaelites did imitate the noblest patterns of Fra Angelica and Botticelli, they remained a barren episode. Much more merit was given by the shallow movement of Italian futurism. And it was Cubism and Expressionism, dragging through quirks and frequently falling victim to them – that laid the foundations for the improvement of the fresh art; they did not make the large works themselves, but enabled them to be created in the future. Cubism and expressionism referred, unconsciously and accidentally, to medieval art: to compositional issues, to ornamentation, to fantasies unfettered by naturalism and anatomy, to deformation.
Imitation is superficial. Whoever saw the celebrated Berlin abomination, those in steel of the forged knights in Siegesalee, the typical product of the naturalistic tandem of the 19th century, should compare them with the work of Skokylas, who does not contact the mediate Ages, but spiritually is closer to him than the mentioned Berlin monsters. Why? due to the fact that Skokylas drew his inspiration to a large degree from the highland culture, which the raid of the capitalist era struck only superficially, which in its spiritual essence remained almost medieval.
But it's easier to make contact with a medieval artist in art than with politicians in life. We can strictly measure the "modern" age that separates us from the mediate Ages, but we are inactive its heirs. This decline must be taken with the benefit of the inventory, but it would not be right or even possible to renounce it altogether. “We don’t want to turn our electrical lamps into archery, our telegraph stations without wire into light signals, our aerodynamics into a shovel of witches, and our neurastenia and depression into hysteria and madness of feudal masters.” Of course. In the mediate Ages, the dynamics of life varies from 1 another. The dynamics of the mediate Ages was based on the large movements of the masses, on territorial changes in which full nations died, on large fertility and almost equally large mortality. Modern dynamics consists of constant changes in the way of life, fresh method inventions, and above all at an increased rate. We are a denial of medieval patience. Even our village slow ceases to be medieval, and the most spiritually stuck in the mediate Ages Poleszuk with his pace of life and work reveals to us together with beaver and moose as an attractive exoticism, but not as a model to follow. Today, there is simply a trend to condemn method achievements, but our psyche is influenced by them. They can be pushed in a different direction than before, but they are incorrect to be cut off.
Why not fly a plane? It is adequate to realize that the plane is just a tool, not to be attracted to the B. Winewer type, not to consider method advancement as spiritual progress, not to think naively that method improvements will bring an era of universal happiness. You can't go back to the past, so you can't go back to the mediate Ages. If we think to him, it is due to the fact that we know – and this is our large prey – that there are fixed values, independent of the ages, unchanging, timeless and superhuman, that the cognition of these values so common in the mediate Ages has been lost by the spirit of the capitalist era.
The materialism of modern civilization, its obliging and standardizing action, imposing, or at least threatening to impose on all the same lifestyles, fashion, ordering a model of contemporary but distant geographically customs, so aimed by Europeanized Jews, prompts many people to long for past years and to argue fashion, or mimicry in space – tradition, or imitation at the time, to keep the old customs, the old way of life, the old forms, and the old beliefs ("And what your devout ancestors believed in..." Ah, the most beautiful holiday, due to the fact that the celebration of souvenirs... Why did you endure the eternally celebrated Dziady? – says Gustav – a traditionalist, to which the priest, looking from a timeless, metaphysical position answers harshly: “This celebration begins from paganism”). Traditions, depending on their scope, can be divided into family, regional, class (more specifically: state) and national. In building a fresh social life, the second have the top value. But what are our national traditions?
In all Pole live his past generations and live the full national past. “The nation,” says Sigismund Vasilewski, is simply a spiritual essence above individuals and generations. It lives the spirits of people who have already come down from the world, those who are now on the earth and those who are not yet born. We take over the work of past from the predecessors and give it to the successors.” But this right view does not require traditionalism, but simply spiritual communication with the nation, not rejection of its affirmative historical achievements. This is perfectly explained by Dmowski in “The Thoughts of a Modern Pole”: “I am a Pole – that means that I belong to the Polish nation throughout its area and throughout its lifetime, both present and in erstwhile and future centuries; that means that I feel my close connection with the full of Poland: with today... and with the 1 who, before the millennium, was only carrying on, focusing close each another the original, devoid of individuality strains, and with the 1 who, in the mediate of the journey, spread wide, threatened its power and walked fast on the way of civilizational progress, and with the 1 who later went down into decline, crammed in civilizational stagnation, preparing for the distribution of national forces and the fall of the state, and with the 1 who later fought unsuccessfully for freedom and sovereign independence; with the future whether it would yet waste the work of erstwhile generations or win its own state, or gain a position in the first set of nations. Everything Polish is mine: I cannot renounce anything. I am allowed to be arrogant of what is large in Poland, but I must accept and humiliate the nation for what is mediocre in it.”
From the great, arrogant traditions, how does he live to this day? 1 only: the tradition of Polish cavalry. From Trout and Grunwald, through Obertyn, Kłuszyn, Kircholm, Vienna, Somosierra there is simply a colorful thread all the way to Rokitna, Krechowce and 1920. another traditions are either dead or trivial or they go back beyond 1 century. This is primarily the case with our uprisings. 1863 inactive lives among us by his last representatives, but the insurgent tradition, so alive for people raised in captivity, young, increasing generations, speaks much less. Today, therefore, the generation that, out of its own experiences, does not even remember 1920, was not an uprising but a war of an independent state. respective decades later, and 1863 will mean small more than the Dzikowska confederation, and surely little than Zbaraż and Częstochowa, unless he finds his Sienkiewicz, which is more than doubtful.
Jan Mosdorf
[1] Leon Chwistek: The issues of spiritual culture in Poland.
for: “Just off the bridge” No 39/1936
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Jan Mosdorf (1904–1943) was a publicist, national activist and philosopher. First associated with the All-Polish Youth (as president of the ultimate Council), the Camp of large Poland (as president of the Young Movement), the National organization (directing the Young Section), yet co-founded and was 1 of the leaders of the National-Radical Camp (ONR). After the split, he led the alleged ONR-ABC. He edited the magazine “The Staff”. Following the sledish repression of ONR by publishing only in “Easy from the Bridge”. He returned to political activity after the war broke out, again in SN. In 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the German Auschwitz Concentration Camp, where he was shot in the fall of 1943.
