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22 The Polish Connection
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22 THE POLISH CONNECTION For many Russian intellectuals, the Polish (or translated into Polish) literature in the social sciences and humanities was a kind of window to the West. — -, Polish sociologist In , I made a get-acquainted call on Moscow’s newly established Institute of Applied Sociological Research. Sociology had been banned in communist countries during the Stalin years, but the Soviet Union’s new leaders soon learned that sociological research, if closely controlled, could be useful in revealing the failures as well as the achievements of Soviet society. As the counselor for cultural affairs at the American Embassy, I was received coolly but correctly and was given a briefing on the work of the new institute.1 At the conclusion of the meeting, the Russian briefer, in response to my questioning, acknowledged that the new Soviet sociology owed much to the work of Polish and Yugoslav sociologists who had studied in the United States and Western Europe during the s and s as Ford Foundation Fellows. Eastern Europe has a long history of serving as remote Russia’s window on the West, a tradition which continued through the Soviet period. Soviet citizens could travel more freely to Eastern Europe than to Western Europe, and scholars and scientists could more easily attend conferences in Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague than New York, London, or Paris. The editorial office of the international communist journal, Problems of Peace and Socialism, was located in Prague, and East European newspapers, journals, books, and films were readily available in the Soviet Union. Eastern Europe, moreover, was more open to exchanges with the West than the Soviet Union, and much of what the East Europeans learned through exchanges, especially those funded by the Ford Foundation, eventually found its way into the Soviet Union. Ford, in , began providing fellowships to Poles and Yugoslavs for study in the United States and Western Europe, and in subsequent years extended its programs to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and other East European countries. IUCTG and IREX also had exchange programs in all the East European countries, . During a two-year tour of duty at the American Embassy in Moscow (–), I called on a variety of Soviet institutes where no U.S. diplomat had previously visited. The appointments were made by telephone, and a visit was never refused. as did, eventually, the Fulbright Program. Here, Poland will be cited as an example of Russia’s “Window on the West.” The idea of Poland as Russia’s Window on the West dates back to the late s, when Poland was partitioned between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Russia acquired by far the largest share, and with it, some of Catholic Poland’s European culture, a situation that lasted until the end of World War I when Poland was reconstituted as an independent state. Poland’s independence, however, lasted only through the interwar period, and at the end of World War II, when it came under Russian dominance, it became one of the Soviet satellite states and found itself behind Stalin’s Iron Curtain and cut off from its Western cultural roots. But when Poland’s “October Revolution” of replaced a Stalinist regime with one of national communism that sought cultural and scientific contacts with the West, Poland again began to serve as a channel for Western ideas to Russia. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations established fellowship programs for Polish scholars, scientists, writers, and other cultural figures to study in Western Europe and the United States. And in , as cultural officer at the American Embassy Warsaw, I was able to establish, with Fulbright funding, a U.S.-Polish exchange of graduate students, senior scholars, and university lecturers.2 In the following years hundreds of Poles studied in the United States and Western Europe, and much of what they learned there eventually found its way into the Soviet Union. Another channel for the transmission of Western ideas to the Soviet Union was Lithuania and its intellectually vibrant capital Vilnius. Lithuania and Poland were joined in a dynastic union in and remained united for some four hundred years until the Polish partitions, when Lithuania also became a part of Russia. Like Poland, Lithuania was independent in the interwar period, but in the Soviet Union annexed it and, after World War II, imposed a communist regime. Polish cultural influence in Lithuania, however, remained strong, especially in Vilnius, as a result of the common history and Catholic heritage of the two countries. Tomas Venclova, the internationally renowned poet and Yale University professor...