Episode 1: An introduction to Stanisław Lem

Welcome to the special 7-episode podcast series titled “Exploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy – 100 years of Stanisław Lem”.

In this introductory episode, co-hosts and producers - Adam Reichardt and Maciej Makulski – introduce the audience to the aim of this special podcast series and introduce the story of Stanisław Lem – Poland’s best known science fiction writer.

This year, Poland celebrates 100 years since Stanisław Lem’s birth (1921). As part of this commemoration, this podcast series will bring to an international the story of Lem and discuss his influence on Polish society and literature. It will look at the role he played in various fields beyond science fiction including philosophy, science and culture. In addition, we will explore current trends in Polish fictional literature.

Learn more about the "Year of Lem" at: https://roklema.pl/

We hope you enjoy this series and learn more about Polish science fiction and fantasy!

This podcast series is researched, written and produced by Adam Reichardt and Maciej Makulski of Talk Eastern Europe. Additional research was completed by Arkadiusz Zając. The podcast series is supported by a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport under the grant program “Promotion of Polish Culture Abroad”. If you would like to learn more about New Eastern Europe podcasts, visit www.neweasterneurope.eu.

Send feedback to: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to a special podcast series titleExploring Polar Science Fiction and Fantasy, Prepared
and produced by Talk Eastern Europe.This limited podcast series is being conducted in
conjunction with the Year of Stani sUAVLem twenty twenty one, a special commemoration
being held in Poland. Throughout thisseries, we will discover, together with

(00:24):
experts and writers, the impact thatStani sUAV Lem has had in Poland and
abroad. We will learn more aboutLem's story, his philosophy, and some
controversies. Along the way. Wewill also look at contemporary literature and bring
to light some new Polish authors followingin Lem's footsteps. We invite you to
join us on this journey exploring polarscience fiction and fantasy. Welcome everybody to

(01:02):
the very first episode of our specialpodcast series, which is dedicated to exploring
Polish science fiction and fantasy in thecontext of the Year of Stani sUAV Lem.
My name is Adam Reichert. Iam the editor in chief of New
Eastern Europe, but also the cohost of the Talk Eastern Europe podcast series,

(01:23):
which we produce very regularly. Forsome of our listeners who are out
there, they know us, butfor those of you who have not heard
us before, welcome to our podcastseries here and joining me on this series
and who will be the second cohost of this series as well is Machik
Makulski, who is also the cohost of talkased in Europe him Check.

(01:47):
Welcome to the first episode of ourspecial series looking at Polish science fiction and
fantasy. Hello Adam, Hello everyone. Yes, so we have the same
team of co host as our inour regular podcast Talkistan Europe. But this
is something very different than we dousually at Talkistan Europe and it is not

(02:10):
connected to to our previews. Wesimply wanted to try ourselves, if I
may say that, in in somethingnew and this is quite interesting and challenging
experience for me. I don't knowhow how about you, Adam. But
I must underline that that we willtalk a lot about literature culture, about

(02:37):
studies of Lamb. We will introducehim in a while a little bit more.
But you know, we are notexperts on this field, so it's
I would say that our perspective inthis series is rather I would call it
interested recipient and and we we havelearned a lot during preparations of this series,

(02:59):
and I think we can say thatwe want to share what we found
interesting for us with others and discoveredthis this this this world of science fiction
and fantasy for the broader public,for the broader audience outside Poland who might

(03:19):
not be familiar with it. Exactlythis is for us. This is a
journey. So and and I see, I think what we're doing is we're
taking this journey together with you asthe listeners, Um and indeed muche as
for those of you who know us, we are we are political scientists.
We look at political processes, so, but we are also very interested in
culture. And I personally am afan of science fiction. So this is

(03:44):
a really interesting exercise for me toeven get to know Polish the genre of
Polish science fiction and fantasy even better. There's a lot to talk about.
But this, uh, this firstepisode we are going to it's really much
the introductory episode. So we're goingto talk about about the project about Stanni
sUAV Flem, which who will becoming up several times during this whole series.

(04:12):
And I think it's very interesting thatwe look at Lem in the context
of contemporary literature and contemporary culture,because he has certainly had a large impact
not only in Poland but also abroad, so we will we will be also
looking at his impact in the genreof science fiction and literature in general abroad
as well. So much maybe justto let just give an overview of why

(04:36):
we're doing this project beyond our ownkind of personal interests in expanding our understanding
of Polish science fiction and in fantasy. This year, as we mentioned in
the beginning of the podcast, isthe year of Standi swav Lem in Poland.
So according to a resolution that waspassed by the Polish Parliament, the

(04:56):
Polish same, twenty twenty one hasbeen declared Lem's year. This is because
it's the hundredth anniversary of his birthyear. He was born in nineteen twenty
one, so one hundred years ago, and a lot of events are have
been organized to have been taken placearound staniswav Lem and discussions about science fiction,

(05:17):
about culture, about literature, butalso about science, about future,
about predicting the future, because aswe will learn in this program that staniswav
Lem had quite and quite a mindfor predicting the future. And a lot
of the events are taking place inKrakouf, where I live, and it

(05:38):
is also where he lived for mostof his life, and some of them
have already been organized. For example, during the Jewish Culture Festival, there
was the LAMB twenty twenty one festivalcalled I've Seen the Future, as well
as the Bombo Megabitova conference in September, a special concert dedicated to Lem during
the Sacroom Profanum festival in October,among many other events. So this podcast

(06:00):
a series, it's also kind of, let's say, a component of these
events in the framework of the Yearof Them, and we really want to
share this this with a wider audience, with the English speaking audience, so
that we can take some of thediscussions and debates that have emerged during this
year of Them to a wider audience. I don't know, I don't know

(06:26):
how you look at it, butmy personal impression is that this year of
Them is very visible in in inPoland, in in Internet. There are
a lot of events, as yousaid, and you know every year is
a year of of somebody here inyes, yes, but I had I

(06:51):
have I have such impression that withlam it went really big and that a
lot of people talk about it.Maybe it is also because of the pandemic,
which was not that half this summer, and you know, a lot
of people wanted simply to go somewhereto participate in cultural life. But as

(07:15):
you said, a lot of eventstook place in Krako, and it's understandable
because it is the city where hespent a big part of his life.
I agree with you, MacHack thatthe visibility of the Year of lembits quite
high, at least from my perspectivebeing here in Krako, if I see
posters everywhere for all the different events. But also I think, as you

(07:40):
said, because of the pandemic,not just because the people want to participate,
but it's also easier to I mean, all of these events were streamed
life. Yeah, so it wasonline and in person at the same time.
So we have this kind of newapproach of hybrid events, hybrid festivals
and debates where you and go inperson, but you can also watch it

(08:01):
online. And all of these eventswere available online as well. So I
think that maybe it's also another reasonwhy we've seen a lot about it about
about the Year of Lamb. Comingback to our initial idea for this episode,
because we will we want to keepit as a kind of an introduction
to the whole series. But Ithink what we have to do here is

(08:24):
also to discuss shortly Lamb's standardsoft's.Lamb's biography of course is a huge topic.
Yes, there is a huge literatureon Lamb's life. You have many
wonderful specialists on Lamb in Poland.So so what we can do is a

(08:50):
synthesis here just to you know,to say some basic most important facts and
information and you will of course haveoccasion to listen more in other episodes about
LNN. But maybe let's let's startfrom from this, yeah, this this
episode exactly. Stani was born toa Jewish family in Lviv in nineteen twenty

(09:16):
one, and at that time wasYlviv was a Polish city, but after
the Second World War it became apart of Ukraine, and as a young
boy, he enjoyed the construction ofdifferent machines, which reveals, from today's
perspective his long interest in topics suchas technology. And although his early years

(09:41):
was rather a happy time, thewhole period of Lan's life in Lviv is
marked overwhelmingly by the experience of thewar and the Holocaust heugh witnesses Yelviv.
He and his parents luckily survived butthe majority of his relatives and friends had
died, and after the the ward, the lamp family moved to Krakow in

(10:03):
Poland, where studies have spent mostof his life. The tragic experience of
war had an impact on his writingand many scientists and authors today's study actually
how I'm dealt with this difficult pastin his books and public appearances. At

(10:24):
the very beginning of the war,he was just eighteen and it was also
the time when he started his studies. It's very interesting his early life during
the wartime period and moving to toKrakov and not really talking about it his

(10:46):
studies. During his university studies,he actually wanted to study at the technical
university, but at that time inSoviet Viv it was it was impossible due
to his so called bourgeois origin.So his father, due to his connections
his father was a laryngologist, managedto find Lam a place in the medacine

(11:09):
faculty and he started to study innineteen forty in Lviv University at first and
then finished his studies in Krakouf,but he did not finish with a diploma,
so he did he did not wantto become a doctor. It was
shortly after coming and finishing his studies, he worked in between nineteen forty seven
and nineteen fifty at the Scientific Conservatory, which is a forum of discussion at

(11:31):
the Yeglonian University, and then startedto write later on, starting in nineteen
forty six, already so really shortlyafter he arrived in krak he started writing
as well. He Larry. Laterhe married his wife, Barbara Leshniac.
They had one son and named Tomash, who also wrote a book about his

(11:52):
father, which is which is calledTantrum's on the background of the Universal Gravitation.
Interesting insight into the Lamb biography aswell from from his son's point of
view. But really that the career, the career of lem began as when
he started writing and his first workswe were already published in different publications based

(12:13):
in Poland, based in Krakouv,largely such as the Good Poschne Kushnitza,
which was a socialist weekly focused onliterature and society. There was no vis
Fiatsugud, which was a magazine thathad comics in it. Uh In in
nineteen forty six he published their partsof his first novel, The Man from
Mars, and he also published inChekoy, which was a cultural magazine in

(12:39):
Poland. Let me add that theman from Mars, he actually started writing
when he still was during the Germanoccupations. Also probably how how those events
impacted at least this novel. Yeah, and he chose the form of science

(13:03):
fiction in the late nineteen forties whenthe political oppression of Stalinism made open expression
and contemporary novels impossible for him.And perhaps due to this conditioning that the
world presented in Lamb's work differs fromthe reality known in typical science fiction,

(13:26):
and many elements of his reality areconstructed in such a way to create,
let's say, the impression of futurenormality and daily routine. Yeah so so
really, I mean, when wethink of classic science fiction writers from them
Western standpoint at least, and manyof those who are probably listening to us,

(13:46):
you know, you often think ofIsaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clark,
maybe Ray Bradberry. But stanniswav Lamb, I mean, he really should
be on this list of literary gradesof science fiction. But in fact all
science fiction fans might recognize his inputinto this genre. And we had just
talked about, you know, thebeginnings of how he was, how he

(14:09):
escaped Levive and moved to Poland,to Krako, Poland right after the war,
and how it has shaped his thinking. And and I think you know,
later will we will see how howthe reality that was around him also
shaped his thinking. But it wasinteresting to note much like that Lem kept

(14:33):
distant from American science fiction circles duringhis life. He was actually named an
honorary member of the Science Fiction Writersof America in nineteen seventy three, but
this title was revoked three years laterdue to some very strange situations, and
particularly the Outrageous Accusations, which wasnamed by the science fiction author Philip K.

(14:54):
Dick. He had he had accusedLem in the nineteen seventies of being
a Communist agent. He accused Lambfor for promoting Communist propaganda in his books.
So so these you know, obviouslythese accusations were never proven true and
completely were false. But it hasalso impacted Lamb's reputation abroad. And I

(15:16):
think a lot of times, uh, you know, contemporary science fiction enthusiasts
may not recognize Lamb as well becauseof this, this disconnect that was created
between him and Uh. And andkind of the broader science fiction mainstream,
let's say, of Western writers.I think you're right, and what we

(15:39):
know today is that Lamb was neveraffiliated with the Communist Party, so the
accusations you mentioned were baseless and untrue. It seems most likely it had to
do with a disagreement between the twooutdoors in the ninety seventies, which is
which is too bad. As Imentioned earlier, Lem kept distance from American

(16:02):
authors, and I think I evenread that he was not the very you
know, the biggest fan of Americanscience fiction. So it's very interesting in
this case that there was there wasthis kind of situation that developed. Nevertheless,
I think if we look at thebooks that Lamb published, it is
it is safe to say that manyof them were way ahead of their times.
He was very experimental in his writings, and his thinking of the world

(16:26):
went way beyond the boundaries of howhow things were seen during during those times.
What is interesting is that his earlyworks were quite optimistic in their tone,
which could be due to his youngage having somewhat of an idealistic outlook.
But he matured quite quickly as awriter. If you if you read,

(16:48):
you know as as he goes onhe faced the harsh reality of the
time, and I'm sure it hadan impact on his writing. The late
nineteen fifties in early nineteen sixties iswhen he was when he was very prolific
as a writer, and it wasalso a time when the communist system was
consolidating itself. Many had to cometo terms with this fact, including Lem,

(17:11):
who was living here here in Krakoufbehind the Iron curtain. Actually,
there was a period of time whenLem left Poland and for a few years
lived abroad. Yes, yes,between nineteen eighty three and nineteen eighty eight,
he lived in Berlin and Vienna.I am assuming this is related to
the fact that the situation, thesituation in Poland was quite bad. I

(17:33):
mean it was following the harsh periodof martial law, the crackdown on the
solidarity movement. He went to Berlinfor one year and then he was invited
to Vienna and spent five years therewith the Austrian Writers Society. Votinski in
the biographical Book of Rights that indeed, the introduction of martial law in Poland

(17:55):
and the period following it was apainful experience for Lamb and he didn't trust
Polish authorities, and although he wasnot enthusiastic about living abroad, he decided
to move out to ensure safety forhim for his family. But he had

(18:15):
never though applied for a Zylon,which is interesting. I think it was,
as you said, the state basedon the scholarship he like, he
decided that it seemed it could bebetter to keep the option of coming back
Poland open. That is very interestingMagic. I want to come back briefly

(18:36):
to the main period of his activity, during his literary writing, at least
when he was very prolific, asI mentioned earlier, the nineteen fifties,
in the nineteen sixties. What isinteresting to me is that one could say,
and many have made this claim thatwriting about science fiction during the period
during this period could be seen asan escape from the communist reality that we

(18:57):
have been talking about. But whenI think about the books that I'm familiar
with, there's a lot of commentaryon his on his contemporary situation, and
his philosophy which is presented in thebooks is quite sophisticated. So of course,
when we if we think about Lem'smost famous books, we have to

(19:19):
name Solaris at the top of thelist, published in nineteen sixty one.
Solaris is like no other Polish literarywork. We can say, um it's
about It's a novel about contact withaliens, which is you know, of
course typical for science fiction, andthe book itself has been adapted several times

(19:40):
for film, for radio, theater. The most well known adaptations of Solaris's
Andre Tarkowski's nineteen seventy two Russian versionfor the screen, as well as Steven
Soderbergh's two two version, which startsGeorge Clooney. Solaris is about contact with
the un known, with an alienintelligence that is on a different level than

(20:03):
human existence, through a series ofpsychologically driven twists and turns. The main
character's name is Chris Kelvin. He'sunable to comprehend how the life form that
he's in touch with, and he'sable to and he's unable to explain it
with rational means, even though hehimself as a scientist. And then so
the story takes emotional twists and turnswhich drives Kelvin away from logic and science

(20:26):
and provoked by this alien intelligence.And in my opinion, I think,
what what Lamb is really trying todo in this story is is he's highlighting
humanities, he's highlighting its flaws,highlighting how like emotion overtakes, you know,
the scientific mind, or overtakes evenrational rationality through the through the story

(20:47):
of of of Kelvin. As yousaid that Solaris is the most well known
Lamb's book, and probably most peopleask about Lamb will think about Solari first.
But actually, in the ninety sixtieswas very productive and has published a
lot of works which deserves which deservesrecognition. Indeed, you're right, and

(21:14):
I'm certain we will get into moreof Lamb's books in greater details when when
we sit through our experts sit downwith our experts in the series, but
it is worth noting some of hismore famous books here in this first episode.
Absolutely. First of all, itis important to add that Lamb has
been translated into fifty two languages,and the end the Year of Lamb has

(21:41):
counted that around forty one million ofLamb's books have been printed through the decades.
Wow, which means that despite thefact he's maybe not as well known
as some of his American contemporaries youname them before, we cannot say that
Lamb is not known. Yes,and adam, let me add hear his

(22:07):
highly prized Siberia Da or the Cyberiadin English. This book is a series
of short stories which is set inthe world of robots and the first edition
was published in nineteen sixty five andfeatures some stories which were also published in
Fowls for Robots. The collection ofshort stories follows the adventures or misadventures of

(22:32):
Churl and Klaphouse use robots who inmany ways faced the struggles of humanity and
in humorous way. In nineteen sixtyfive, the Polish poet staniswav Grohovac priced
Lamb's writing style and his humor employedin the Cyberiad, and I would like

(22:52):
to quote his words, as Ithink they best describe Lamb's approach. He
wrote that book provides and I quoteonly, delicacies in this cake, a
parody of a philosophical story in theVulture style, a parody, by the
way excellent of a fairy tale forchildren, write an in rim prose,

(23:18):
a parody of a set of philosophicaltreatise, and finally, a masterfully crafted
drawer story in the Eastern style.By tasting all these delicacies, one should
celebrate with admiration for Lemsley literary cultureand technical virtuosity. After all, the

(23:41):
author of the so called entertainment literaturethen put the book between such curiosities and
cure the hiccups for a long time. End quote. Indeed, I think
this is exactly what many at thetime say and we still do today.
About Lamb is that his style wasvery different from his contemporary science fiction writers

(24:07):
in both the East and the West. We can see in other books he
published, such as The Star DiariesJenniki Yazdova in Polish, which is full
of satire and even absurd and absurdsituations like similar to tos as we hear
about the tiber YadA. And inhis Tales of Perks the Pilot, Lamb

(24:27):
again confronts us with the imperfections ofhumanity, and he also looks at the
theme of human versus machines and thatcomes out comes out in many of his
stories as well. Yeah, andhere we could also add Return from the
Stars, which draws on a similarteam alienation, adaptation, loneliness and happiness.

(24:49):
Also, the main character comes backto Earth after a space mission to
a new nearby star. During thewhole time he only aged ten years,
but time on Earth passed by onehundred twenty seven years, and the main
character is forced to deal with theshock of adapting to a so called perfect

(25:14):
world and a perfect utopian society.But we learn nothing is perfect about it.
And the story was written in thenineteen sixty five, and we can
certainly see a critique of ideas aroundbuilding a perfect utopian world and society,

(25:34):
such as the Soviet narratives at thetime. It is interesting for me how
the book was well received in theSoviet Union. Of course, there is
no mention of the world socialism orcommunism, but reading in between the lines,

(25:55):
it was clear understood what the messagewas. Yeah. In fact,
Lamb was quite up during the SovietUnion as well as during the times of
his writings. So this is indeedvery interesting. And we know, as
we already talked about, he wasnot a fan of communism. So there's
some irony here that that Lamb's Lamb'swritings about you know, this kind of

(26:17):
like utopian societies, which you know, we're not utopian in reality. Uh,
you know, we can we canmake the ties of how they were
probably you know, about this ideaof building the perfect society. It's quite
ironic that that his writings were morepopular in the Soviet Union, but it

(26:37):
was probably related to this Soviets interestin space. Lamb was writing about the
same time that the Soviet space programwas was becoming successful. The Juricaga in
Courseman in Space made his trip inabout the same time in nineteen sixty one.
Yes, that that is that istrue. So during the course of

(27:03):
this podcast series, we are goingto go deeper into the lemb biography.
We're going to dig into his philosophy. We're going to learn more about him
as a writer. So I don'tthink we want to give too much away
in this first episode. Yep.I agree. But there's one last thing
I do want to touch upon whichwe have to talk about when we talk
about lem and that's about his foresight, his ability to predict predict the future

(27:29):
in his writings as you as youmentioned in the beginning that he was a
futurologist, which meant he was kindof, you know, someone who spoke
about how they foresaw the future,and this came out in his writing.
I think today he could think aboutthe career also in some research agencies futurology
exactly. And you know, manythings from Lem's books, which is really
this is what for me is alsovery interesting is some of them, a

(27:52):
lot of them have become reality andeven things that we take for granted.
For example, in Return from theStars, the main character you know who
who came back who you know,have lost one hundred and twenty seven years
of history. He came to thefuture in essence, I found out that
books weren't printed anymore. So insteadof books published on paper, they were

(28:15):
saved on some memory crystals which couldbe read on a device which he called
an upton, which is basically youknow, an e reader or a kindle
of today. And people of Lem'sfuture, which was even more interesting,
there was a scene where he findsout that they don't even like to read

(28:36):
the books. They actually prefer tolisten to the stories on devices called lectons.
So this is really audiobooks. Predictionof audiobooks. Yeah, you are,
you are totally right, I think, And this is also you know,
another fascinating layer of of when youread Lem today, it was it

(28:56):
was also interesting to think about allthose things when we we report this series.
And this is also interesting how Lamb'sLAMB explores machine learning and artificial intelligence
also also you know, the topicwhich is hotly debated today. So so
many of things he wrote about featuresome element of AI which we have now

(29:23):
as as as as a part ofour life. And of course we don't
have thinking robots walking around at leastnot yet, not yet. Who who
knows what what the near future willbring, but yeah it indeed it might
not be that far off. Andon one more thing here, Adam Lam

(29:48):
also referred to data storages and memorybanks which were all connected through a network,
basically another way of describing the fromthat. Indeed, Lem was a
visionary and this is one of themany reasons why he's being celebrated throughout this
year in Poland and beyond, includingin this podcast series that we are producing

(30:12):
and developing for you. The cityof Krakouf has announced, as I mentioned
in the beginning, a series ofinternational LAMB events. But it goes beyond
even Poland and that there was eventhe Polish Culture Institute in Lviv, together
with the Publisher's Forum in Leviv,a very very popular forum or discussion on

(30:36):
intellectual and literary issues, has developeda program to also highlight the philosophical side
of stanisuaf Flem. I just wouldlike to say that this episode was hopefully
a foretaste of the topics that we'regoing to cover starting with Lamb looking at

(31:00):
contemporary times and of course, inthe spirit of Lamb, maybe look into
the future and what the future mightbring for us through understanding Lamb better.
Yeah, I hope you will enjoyall episodes within this series. Please let
us not in comments on our messageson social media what you think and how

(31:21):
this series inspired you, if atall, and have a good time with
this series. We look forward toproducing the upcoming episodes and we hope that
you stick with us. Thank youfor listening to this episode of exploring Polish

(31:52):
science fiction and fantasy. The podcastis prepared, research, recorded, and
produced by Adam Rayhart Matchia Mkulski ofTagistan Europe. The series is supported by
a grant from the Polish Ministry ofCulture, National Heritage and Sport under the
Grand Program Promotion of Polish Culture Abroad. You would like to learn more about

(32:14):
Newiston NEWBROP podcasts, visit www dotNewist and Europe That EU