THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish Literature by Anna Blasiak. Who is Joanna Wilengowska’s THE KING OF WARMIA AND SATURN?
Come with me as I enter a flat on the eleventh floor of a high rise apartment building in Olsztyn, a city in east-north of Poland, in the lands of Warmia, a historical and ethnographic region in Poland, once part of Prussia. As we learn from the book, the history of these lands is rather complex (the territories kept changing hands between Prussia and Poland), as is the identity of people living there.
The flat is the ‘royal realm’ of the father, the ‘King of Warmia and Saturn’, whose kingdom is peopled by ghosts of the past; ghosts fuelled by anger and the heavy burden of wrongs and injustice. But in this flat there are also snippets of happy memories. We watch the ‘King’ as he slowly retreats deeper and deeper into his inner domain.
This quasi-documentary auto-fictional essay is the story of the ‘King of Warmia and Saturn’, told by a tender observer and chronicler, the King’s daughter Joanna Wilengowska. She relays it in Polish, German and Warmian dialect. It is a story of now, but also of the past, as the past and present are closely intertwined and mirror each other. It is a story filled with nostalgia and regret but also humour and love. And it is tinged with the feeling of an approaching ending and a rush to capture time before it is too late.
This unusual memoir is also an important voice in the so very relevant public conversation of our days about identity, and the way it is defined, sometimes forcibly. People who identified and identify as Warmians were (and sometimes still are) expected to decide and declare themselves as either Polish or German. As in the case of other smaller ethnic minorities in Poland (and elsewhere) they were/are often pressured to “subscribe” to a mainstream majority.
My father is neither Polish nor German. He is Warmian. It’s important. A mistake could result in getting your head chopped off. My father’s pride can only be matched by his sense of injustice. Which is why he walks slowly, with care. He carries a heavy burden. A crown.
The King of Warmia and Saturn (Wydawnictwo Czarne, 2024) is Joanna Wilengowska’s comeback to the literary scene in Poland after a long break, and what a powerful comeback it is! Poetic language, fragmented structure, the topical subject of identity, the tenderness of the literary portrayal of a parent who is unwell and in the process of a slow departure, the humour balancing the seriousness of the issues described – it all works beautifully in this slim volume. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the book has already gathered nominations and literary awards in Poland. Let’s hope that translations into other languages (including English) will follow and the book will become part of a wider international discussion on identity.
by Anna Blasiak
Read previous posts in The Polka series:
THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish LIterature by Anna Blasiak. The Chameleon that is DANIEL ODIJA
THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish LIterature by Anna Blasiak. MAŁGORZATA LEBDA has it all
THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish LIterature by Anna Blasiak. JOANNA BATOR and her bears
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