Beast from the East - Debates on Europe
1
I was born in 1973 in Lithuania. More pre- cisely, in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union. We weren’t 100 per cent accepted in this empire and were often viewed with suspicion. The Russians repeatedly asked me, “Where were your grandfathers when mine fought against fascism, liberated Europe and took Berlin?” I answered that mine had liberated Rome. It always sounded unconvin- cing. Even a little unreal. Because there was simply no such episode in the heroic history of the Soviet people. I should mention here that I am not a pure- blooded Lithuanian. My Belarusian grandpar- ents on my mother’s side were deported in 1930 to the Arkhangelsk region, from where they returned only in 1949. The family of my Belaru- sian grandmother on my father’s side was also dispossessed and sent to Central Asia, in 1940. My grandmother was the only one left behind because at that time she was no longer living in the village and was studying in Vilnius. Meanwhile her entire family – her father (her mother was dead), her brothers and sisters – all ended up in Kazakhstan. And then the Second World War, with all its cruelty, came to the USSR; the country was saved only by the complete dispensability of human life – Nazi tanks and guns were halted by the flesh and bones of Soviet soldiers. Only now are the true losses of the USSR in this war – about 40 million – becoming clear. Unimaginable numbers, an unimaginable tragedy. And those dead soldiers had to be replaced with live ones. Then came the plan to form another army of Poles – an army made up of tens of thousands of prisoners of war held in Soviet camps. But by that time the nucleus of the Polish army had already been murdered in Katyn, their corpses bulldozed into the ground. This new army was therefore made up of those Poles who had been deported to Cen- tral Asia. More precisely, Polish-speaking inhabitants of eastern Poland, south-eastern Lithuania, western Ukraine and Belarus, who, before the invasion of Poland by the USSR in 1939, had Polish citizenship. My grand- mother’s family fell into this category and, thus, got a chance to break free from the prison of exile. Everyone, even Grandma’s father, would have escaped, but as he got on the train, he suddenly changed his mind. “Go,” he told his children. “I’ll catch up with you.” No one saw him again or heard anything about him. Even the whereabouts of his grave are unclear. Meanwhile, the train with my grandmother’s sisters and brothers on board went to Iran. From there, to Iraq, and then Palestine. They were trained to fight along the way. Under the leader- ship of the Polish general Wladyslaw Anders, they guarded oil wells near Mosul from the Nazis and carried out other tasks. But this army’s main battle took place in Italy, near Monte Cassino. It was a battle for Rome. For four months, the Allies (British, Americans, Canadians and others) tried unsuccessfully to break through the Gustav Line, a network of Nazi fortifications, and force them out of a large fortress set on a high hill in the monastery. Three major battles had already taken place – three unsuccessful attempts to knock the enemy off those hills, thus opening the way to the Eter- nal City. Anders’s army entered the fourth bat- tle and won. After that, the Allied forces entered Rome without interference. A couple of years ago, family sentiment led me to visit Monte Cassino. It is a place of extraordinary beauty, roughly halfway between Rome and Naples. On a magnificent hill with breathtaking views stands the monas- tery founded in the sixth century by St Benedict, the patron saint of Europe. His tomb is also there. And just below, the graves of those who died in those battles. The largest of them is where the Poles from Anders’s army are buried. My relatives survived. One of my grand- mother’s brothers was an infantryman, the other a tankman. His name was Boleslov – Bolek for short. He is now dead, but I still man- aged to visit him (when he was ninety) in a retirement town between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. His wife, Alexandra – Olia – ten years younger than him, was chattering incessantly while he sat and smiled, looking at me – the fruit of another branch of the same tree. Olia told me about how she visited Rome for the first and only time in her life ten years ago. She went to the Vatican, and there were crowds of tourists and also this nightmare heat. She was so disappointed with Rome. Bolek, listening to her, still smiled. Then he said: “When I was there, there were no tourists. We drove to Rome on our tank ...” Then he pulled out an old photo of their squad of young uniformed tankers standing in two rows in front of St Peter’s Basilica. “No tourists”, he repeated. I don’t know what Bolek felt about the Sovi- ets or the Nazis – he must have hated both. But I still remember that smirk on his face that said, “It was as it should have been, and could not be otherwise”. It was his father who made one decision himself: he resisted destiny and dis- appeared forever. At that time, Bolek and his brothers were simply carried along by a power- ful stream of terror and war, where they had the simple task of staying alive for as long as poss- ible. This force pulled him out of his Belarusian village, took him in a circle across the Asian continent and threw him back into Europe, only this time at the helm of a British tank. He said it had been scary. It was so scary that he was pray- ing in front of a rosary which he had taken from home, hanging at eye level, which the shaking tank threw in different directions, like a pendu- lum. Then they fought for Ancona and liberated Bologna. After the war they were denied nor- mal veteran status: they were relocated to the UK, placed in barracks deep in the English countryside without the right to move freely. The locals looked on them as enemies, traitors: the war is over and they don’t want to go home, apparently can’t because they are criminals, Nazi collaborators. They really could not return: 4,000 Anders army veterans did so and ended up in the Irkutsk gulag. That’s how inhumanly cruel our country was to its people. And such was the victory for the Anders army soldiers – they became ordinary refugees. They liberated Rome and had a photo as a memory. And there was a bear with them. I asked Bolek if he remembered the bear. “No”, he said. “I didn’t see him. We knew that somebody had that bear, but the army was big, almost 100,000 people – impossible to know everyone.” And that bear had been acquired by some of the soldiers when they were still in Iran. A Persian boy had been holding it so they exchanged it for canned food and chocolate. They named him Wojtek, in honour of the war. He slept in the tent with the soldiers, and wres- tled with them: he and five men against him. Somehow he managed not to hurt people. The soldiers even taught him to smoke. Apparently, he didn’t smoke, but he kept papyros in his mouth and thereby made everyone laugh. When the army was due to cross the Mediterranean, a problem arose: beasts were not allowed on board warships. So they officially made him a soldier – Anders Army regular Vojcech Pers. He became more and more human: he was trained not only to drink beer with the others, which he especially loved, but also to give mili- tary greetings to the seniors in rank. And in the battle for Monte Cassino, a miracle took place: at its height, the bear ran to the truck with artil- MARIUS IVA S KEVI C IUS Statue of Wojtek the Bear, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh Beast from the East lery shells and began to unload these shells together with the other soldiers. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a legend, it’s hard to believe this last episode, but this is the legendary bear Woj- tek, so it could be true. After the war he was transported to the UK and ended up in Edin- burgh Zoo. There he fell ill, walking sadly, rub- bing his sides against the sides of the cage, and only came to life when veterans of the Anders army approached his cage. The men jumped over the fence, pushed him in a friendly way, and then they all sat down to smoke. And once more the bear smoked with them. And was happy. Everyone in that cage was happy. It was the biggest attraction for visitors to Edinburgh Zoo: “Where are those wild people from? And why does this predator let them in?” These were the liberators of Rome, victorious warriors stuck in this foreign country. And so, on V-E Day, they ran to their Wojtek, the only bear in the world who had fought in the war, who knew best what kind of meat grinder they had sur- vived, what victory had brought them and how they felt after that. He had also been given ref- uge here. Without the right to move freely around the country. This beast became human at a time when millions of people had become beasts. And today, I feel a bit like him. Just thirty years ago, I stepped out of that Soviet cage from which there seemed to be no hope of escape. I went out of there semi-wild and entered the feast of humanity, when the walls collapsed, everyone embraced and everyone’s eyes burnt with the hope that it would be forever. After that the euphoria subsided. The celebrations of Euro- pean victory were overshadowed by everyday life as everyone sank into their problems. We began to look at each other again with suspi- cion: Western Europeans were tired of the flood of poor Eastern Europeans, and Eastern Euro- peans were tired of being second-rate in Europe. We went halfway to overcoming our economic differences, but did not overcome the other half. And to justify this fatigue, we began to argue that it was not about economic differences but civilizational differences. Which means we are all too different to be united. I was invited here because of my innate optimism. Because of an essay I wrote several years ago. It had the title “In love with Europe”. After its publication in several Euro- pean newspapers, the largest Lithuanian portal wanted to reprint it. But only on one condition: the title should not contain the word “Europe”. Because it turns out that readers in Lithuania do not want to read articles with the word “Europe” in the title; they find it boring. I dis- agreed and they kept the original title. But they were right: this essay is the least-read of all the writings I have published in Lithuania. What does this mean? It means that Europe has become boring for people. Just like demo- cracy, peace and the like. And I am very sad about that, just as Wojtek was sad in his cage. Because I, like him, still remember that eupho- ria of unity, I still live with it when others forgot it long ago. But on the other hand, my innate optimism also says that I should be happy about this. Because boring is stable. When Europe is in real danger, we, the beasts and the citizens of the continent, will once again feel united. Of course, it’s a pity that the feast cannot last forever. And each new rise requires a corresponding decline. ———————————————— This is the text of a talk given at the Borders conference in Belfast on September 15.
Transcript of Beast from the East - Debates on Europe
Iwas born in 1973 in Lithuania. More pre-cisely, in the Lithuanian Soviet SocialistRepublic, one of the fifteen republics of
the Soviet Union. We weren’t 100 per centaccepted in this empire and were often viewedwith suspicion. The Russians repeatedly askedme, “Where were your grandfathers whenmine fought against fascism, liberated Europeand took Berlin?” I answered that mine hadliberated Rome. It always sounded unconvin-cing. Even a little unreal. Because there wassimply no such episode in the heroic history ofthe Soviet people.
I should mention here that I am not a pure-blooded Lithuanian. My Belarusian grandpar-ents on my mother’s side were deported in 1930to the Arkhangelsk region, from where theyreturned only in 1949. The family of my Belaru-sian grandmother on my father’s side was alsodispossessed and sent to Central Asia, in 1940.My grandmother was the only one left behindbecause at that time she was no longer living inthe village and was studying in Vilnius.
Meanwhile her entire family – her father(her mother was dead), her brothers and sisters– all ended up in Kazakhstan. And then theSecond World War, with all its cruelty, cameto the USSR; the country was saved only bythe complete dispensability of human life –Nazi tanks and guns were halted by the fleshand bones of Soviet soldiers. Only now are thetrue losses of the USSR in this war – about 40million – becoming clear. Unimaginablenumbers, an unimaginable tragedy. And thosedead soldiers had to be replaced with liveones. Then came the plan to form anotherarmy of Poles – an army made up of tens ofthousands of prisoners of war held in Sovietcamps. But by that time the nucleus of thePolish army had already been murdered inKatyn, their corpses bulldozed into theground. This new army was therefore made upof those Poles who had been deported to Cen-tral Asia. More precisely, Polish-speakinginhabitants of eastern Poland, south-easternLithuania, western Ukraine and Belarus, who,before the invasion of Poland by the USSR in
1939, had Polish citizenship. My grand-mother’s family fell into this category and,thus, got a chance to break free from the prisonof exile. Everyone, even Grandma’s father,would have escaped, but as he got on the train,he suddenly changed his mind.
“Go,” he told his children. “I’ll catch upwith you.”
No one saw him again or heard anythingabout him. Even the whereabouts of his graveare unclear.
Meanwhile, the train with my grandmother’ssisters and brothers on board went to Iran. Fromthere, to Iraq, and then Palestine. They were trained to fight along the way. Under the leader-ship of the Polish general Wladyslaw Anders, they guarded oil wells near Mosul from the Nazis and carried out other tasks. But this army’s main battle took place in Italy, near Monte Cassino. It was a battle for Rome. Forfour months, the Allies (British, Americans, Canadians and others) tried unsuccessfully to break through the Gustav Line, a network of Nazi fortifications, and force them out of a largefortress set on a high hill in the monastery. Three major battles had already taken place – three unsuccessful attempts to knock the enemyoff those hills, thus opening the way to the Eter-nal City. Anders’s army entered the fourth bat-tle and won. After that, the Allied forces enteredRome without interference.
A couple of years ago, family sentimentled me to visit Monte Cassino. It is a placeof extraordinary beauty, roughly halfway between Rome and Naples. On a magnificenthill with breathtaking views stands the monas-tery founded in the sixth century by St Benedict,the patron saint of Europe. His tomb is alsothere. And just below, the graves of those whodied in those battles. The largest of them iswhere the Poles from Anders’s army are buried.
My relatives survived. One of my grand-mother’s brothers was an infantryman, theother a tankman. His name was Boleslov –Bolek for short. He is now dead, but I still man-
aged to visit him (when he was ninety) in aretirement town between Los Angeles andSanta Barbara. His wife, Alexandra – Olia –ten years younger than him, was chatteringincessantly while he sat and smiled, looking atme – the fruit of another branch of the sametree. Olia told me about how she visited Romefor the first and only time in her life ten yearsago. She went to the Vatican, and there werecrowds of tourists and also this nightmare heat.She was so disappointed with Rome. Bolek,listening to her, still smiled. Then he said:
“When I was there, there were no tourists.We drove to Rome on our tank ...”
Then he pulled out an old photo of theirsquad of young uniformed tankers standing intwo rows in front of St Peter’s Basilica.
“No tourists”, he repeated.I don’t know what Bolek felt about the Sovi-
ets or the Nazis – he must have hated both. ButI still remember that smirk on his face that said,“It was as it should have been, and could not beotherwise”. It was his father who made one decision himself: he resisted destiny and dis-appeared forever. At that time, Bolek and his brothers were simply carried along by a power-ful stream of terror and war, where they had thesimple task of staying alive for as long as poss-ible. This force pulled him out of his Belarusianvillage, took him in a circle across the Asiancontinent and threw him back into Europe, onlythis time at the helm of a British tank. He said ithad been scary. It was so scary that he was pray-ing in front of a rosary which he had taken fromhome, hanging at eye level, which the shaking tank threw in different directions, like a pendu-lum. Then they fought for Ancona and liberatedBologna. After the war they were denied nor-mal veteran status: they were relocated to the UK, placed in barracks deep in the English countryside without the right to move freely. The locals looked on them as enemies, traitors:the war is over and they don’t want to go home,apparently can’t because they are criminals, Nazi collaborators. They really could notreturn: 4,000 Anders army veterans didso and ended up in the Irkutsk gulag. That’s howinhumanly cruel our country was to its people.And such was the victory for the Anders armysoldiers – they became ordinary refugees. Theyliberated Rome and had a photo as a memory.
And there was a bear with them. I askedBolek if he remembered the bear.
“No”, he said. “I didn’t see him. We knewthat somebody had that bear, but the army wasbig, almost 100,000 people – impossible toknow everyone.”
And that bear had been acquired by someof the soldiers when they were still in Iran. APersian boy had been holding it so they exchanged it for canned food and chocolate. They named him Wojtek, in honour of the war.He slept in the tent with the soldiers, and wres-tled with them: he and five men against him.Somehow he managed not to hurt people. The soldiers even taught him to smoke. Apparently,he didn’t smoke, but he kept papyros in hismouth and thereby made everyone laugh. Whenthe army was due to cross the Mediterranean, aproblem arose: beasts were not allowed onboard warships. So they officially made him asoldier – Anders Army regular Vojcech Pers.He became more and more human: he was trained not only to drink beer with the others,which he especially loved, but also to give mili-tary greetings to the seniors in rank. And in thebattle for Monte Cassino, a miracle took place:at its height, the bear ran to the truck with artil-
MARIUS IVASKEVIC IUS
Statue of Wojtek the Bear, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
Beast from the East
lery shells and began to unload these shells together with the other soldiers. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a legend, it’s hard to believe thislast episode, but this is the legendary bear Woj-tek, so it could be true. After the war he wastransported to the UK and ended up in Edin-burgh Zoo. There he fell ill, walking sadly, rub-bing his sides against the sides of the cage, andonly came to life when veterans of the Anders army approached his cage. The men jumped over the fence, pushed him in a friendly way, and then they all sat down to smoke. And oncemore the bear smoked with them. And was happy. Everyone in that cage was happy. It wasthe biggest attraction for visitors to Edinburgh Zoo: “Where are those wild people from? Andwhy does this predator let them in?” These werethe liberators of Rome, victorious warriors stuck in this foreign country. And so, on V-EDay, they ran to their Wojtek, the only bear in the world who had fought in the war, who knewbest what kind of meat grinder they had sur-vived, what victory had brought them and howthey felt after that. He had also been given ref-uge here. Without the right to move freelyaround the country.
This beast became human at a time whenmillions of people had become beasts. Andtoday, I feel a bit like him. Just thirty years ago,I stepped out of that Soviet cage from which there seemed to be no hope of escape. I went outof there semi-wild and entered the feast of humanity, when the walls collapsed, everyone embraced and everyone’s eyes burnt with thehope that it would be forever. After that theeuphoria subsided. The celebrations of Euro-pean victory were overshadowed by everyday life as everyone sank into their problems. We began to look at each other again with suspi-cion: Western Europeans were tired of the floodof poor Eastern Europeans, and Eastern Euro-peans were tired of being second-rate in Europe.We went halfway to overcoming our economicdifferences, but did not overcome the other half.And to justify this fatigue, we began to arguethat it was not about economic differences but civilizational differences. Which means we areall too different to be united.
I was invited here because of my innateoptimism. Because of an essay I wrote severalyears ago. It had the title “In love withEurope”. After its publication in several Euro-pean newspapers, the largest Lithuanian portalwanted to reprint it. But only on one condition:the title should not contain the word “Europe”.Because it turns out that readers in Lithuaniado not want to read articles with the word“Europe” in the title; they find it boring. I dis-agreed and they kept the original title. But theywere right: this essay is the least-read of all thewritings I have published in Lithuania.
What does this mean? It means that Europehas become boring for people. Just like demo-cracy, peace and the like. And I am very sadabout that, just as Wojtek was sad in his cage. Because I, like him, still remember that eupho-ria of unity, I still live with it when others forgotit long ago. But on the other hand, my innate optimism also says that I should be happy aboutthis. Because boring is stable. When Europe isin real danger, we, the beasts and the citizens ofthe continent, will once again feel united.
Of course, it’s a pity that the feast cannotlast forever. And each new rise requires acorresponding decline.
————————————————This is the text of a talk given at the Bordersconference in Belfast on September 15.
