November 4, 2021 • 25 mins
The second episode of the series explores the most dreadful experience of Stanislaw Lem’s life. He and his parents survived the second world war and the holocaust, but they lost close relatives and had to leave their home city – Lviv. How had those dramatic events influenced Lem’s writing and life is the primary part of the episode’s plot.
Professor Agnieszka Gajewska of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, the author of Stanisław Lem’s biography (2021), guides us in discovering and comprehending this sensitive, complex, and important topic.
Sources:
Agnieszka Gajewska, “Wypędzony z Wysokiego Zamku”, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2021, https://www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl/produkt/3972/stanislaw-lem-wypedzony-z-wysokiego-zamku
Wojciech Orliński, „Lem. Życie nie z tej ziemi” (2021), https://czarne.com.pl/katalog/ksiazki/lem
Episode Host: Maciej Makulski
Voice over: Alicja Baczyńska
Professor Agnieszka Gajewska of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, the author of Stanisław Lem’s biography (2021), guides us in discovering and comprehending this sensitive, complex, and important topic.
Sources:
Agnieszka Gajewska, “Wypędzony z Wysokiego Zamku”, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2021, https://www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl/produkt/3972/stanislaw-lem-wypedzony-z-wysokiego-zamku
Wojciech Orliński, „Lem. Życie nie z tej ziemi” (2021), https://czarne.com.pl/katalog/ksiazki/lem
Episode Host: Maciej Makulski
Voice over: Alicja Baczyńska
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to a special podcast series titledExploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy preport and
produced by Toggist and Europe. Thislimited podcast series is being conducted in conjunction
with the Year of Stannis with Lambtwenty twenty one, a special commemoration being
(00:23):
held in Poland. Throughout this series, we will discover, together with experts
and writers, the impact that Stannisof Lamb has had in Poland and abroad.
We will learn more about them's story, his philosophy and some controversist Along
the way, we will also lookat contemporary literature and bring to light some
(00:44):
new Polish authors following in Lamb's footsteps. We invite you to join us on
this journey exploring Polish science fiction andFantasy. Welcome back to the Exploring Polish
(01:12):
Science Fiction and Fantasy series. Myname is Matchie mc kurski and in this
episode we feature a discussion on thebiography of Stunnies of Lem. Some basic
facts about Lamb were discussed in thefirst episode and this time will focus mainly
on the period of the Second WorldWar and its consequences for Lamb's for the
(01:32):
life, the war and the Holocaustsdid not spur the Lamb's family, and
these were the events that left theirmark on Stunnies of Lem. He tried
to refer to these events several timesin his books and interviews, but on
the other hand, he often hitcertain information and to this day people dealing
(01:53):
with Lamb tried to explain some untoldor concealed aspects of his biography. To
learn mourn about Leam, his earlylife and the impact of the past on
his writing. We met with AknishkaKayevska, a professor of literary studies at
Adamitzkivich University in Poulsna Paul. She'sthe author of biography of stanisof lam which
(02:16):
was recently published by Polish literary pressthe Daphnis Fliterasky based in Krakow, which
in the past was also a publisherof stannisof Lamb's books. We started the
conversation with Anishka Kayevska with a slightlymore personal thread and the question of how
(02:36):
she took up stannisof Leam and whather first contact with Lamb was like.
I took up Stanisam already in thethird year of my studies, when I
was writing a paper on fantasy andfuturology. Lamb interested me first and foremost
as a philosopher of science and assomeone who had ideas on how to deal
(03:00):
with global problems, which I wasvery interested in at that time. While
preparing my master's thesis on communication inthe prose of Staniswa Flem, I had
the feeling that apart from this philosophicallayer of discussions with the greatest philosophers in
his science fiction prose, there wasalso a large dose of certain grotesque scenes
which I was not able to interpretor deal with at the time. The
(03:25):
scene from his master's voice, forexample, ridiculing Jews begging to be rescued
in Yiddish, remained in my memoryfor a long time since writing my master's
thesis. In fact, I sentsome of my m a thesis to Staniswa
Flem back then, and I recentlyfound the letter I wrote him, and
when I read it again, Inearly fainted. The letter began with me
(03:46):
saying that I had never really beenan enthusiast of science fiction and that this
kind of writing was not my cupof tea. This disrespect of mine was
typical for people who think that whenthey are writing their Master's thesis, they
are reaching their intellectual peak. Buthe wrote back to the stutter very quickly,
that is votch Zamk, Lem's secretarywrote back. Lemb dictated his answer
(04:09):
to Zamek because Lem did not writeon a computer, and probably the fact
that he was interested in me asa philosopher of science somehow swayed him in
favor of my research. I laterbecame more interested in Lem when I was
preparing the project of my following book, and I wanted to write about post
colonial threads in Lem's work about feminism, about how he describes gender, and
(04:30):
only the archival research with which Istarted changed the trajectory of my research of
Miniban's new book is titled Banished fromthe High Castle. This title refers to
studies of Lem's High Castle, whichmany perceived as the most out of biographical
(04:56):
of his books. Before she attemptedto write Lamb's biography, Gayevskav wrote a
book about the role of the pastin Lamb's writings. As she underlines,
one of her aims was to learnwhat Lam himself did not tell about his
experience during the Second War in hisbooks and any public appearances. Some of
(05:19):
his secrets he had not shot,even with his loved ones. Badayan indeed
already collecting archival materials for the bookHolocaust and the Stars, The Past and
the Prose of staniswa Fleam. Ialso collected a lot of material about him
and his family, and I alreadyknew then that this material should be used
(05:42):
for something more. I did notwant it to end up as such an
extensive, nearly seven hundred page biography, so I did try to get as
close to the historical context as possiblein order to fill in the gaps where
Lamb does not tell us everything thathappened in his life. What I have
in mind here, above all,is what he did not say in the
extended interview publications, one with stanisavBerdesch and the other with Tomashvylkovsky, which
(06:06):
were done in the last phases ofhis life and function as narratives about the
life of Lem. On the otherhand, I confronted it with the historical
context and used documents more than whatLem himself said about his life. The
title of my new biography, Banishedfrom the High Castle, of course,
refers to both his autobiographical essay visokizamkor High Castle, as well as a
(06:30):
reference to Leviv and the past whichLem left behind when he left the city
with his parents, and this experienceactually divides Lem's life into two parts.
Lem himself mentions it several times inhis columns or in various magazine interviews,
stating that his life was crushed byStalin's and Hitler's tanks. It is also
very symbolic since the first German bombson Leiv were dropped on his eighteenth birthday.
(06:55):
On that very day, Leviv wasbombed and for the first time the
troops reached the Lem himself was reluctantto go back to this past, and
he did not even talk about itto his son, to whom he recommended
reading The High Castle. So thistitle also refers to what is left unsaid
in The High Castle, Lem's autobiographicalessay. So after the Second World War,
(07:26):
Stanisovlam moved to Krakow in Poland withhis parents. He had to start
a new life there and as aperson of a huge intellectual potential, he
considered different paths for his professional career. As we know, as a science
fiction writer, he achieved enormous successalready in his lifetime, but not all
(07:46):
his ideas had turned out to bepure successes Para. I tried to describe
the various stages of Lem's life andfirst show how he wanted to become a
scientist and a biology student, planswhich fell through for various reasons, which
I also try to explain. Thebook Leader shows that he wanted to be
(08:09):
an author at all costs, andhe put a lot of effort into it.
The following stage of his life isthe return to his passion for science,
which we can see in his SummaTechnologia and all the essays that arose
around this venture. It was atthis time when he wrote extensive essays in
the field of science, which hepractically did for the rest of his life,
(08:31):
only later in the form of opinionpieces. I go on to show
his following stage, which is relatedto the fact that he believed that he
could become a philosopher. So Lemis a writer, scientist and philosopher,
and this was the trajectory portrayed inthe biography. I also described Lem's unsuccessful
(08:52):
career, that is how he neverbecame a screenwriter. He wrote a lot
of scripts. He started out withvery socialist realist style films made in collaboration
with his friends. He tried veryhard to become a screenwriter, also because
he was aware that back then,in order to earn money for a living
that was enough to not have toshare a flat with several families, it
(09:13):
was necessary to become involved with filmor television. It's a good way to
earn a living nowadays as well.Although Lamb did not gone down in history
(09:33):
as a brilliant screenwriter, some ofhis works from this period have survived and
can be accessed in the archives.Ark considers to what extent Lamb's experience as
a screenwriter influenced his rather critical perceptionof the film adaptations of his books.
(09:56):
He also wrote screenplays for his novels, some of which were published. I
discovered and saw cartoons drawn on thebasis of his script featuring the music of
Shusto Panderetski. So this is probablya lesser known thread that could also shed
some light on why he was socritical of all adaptations and screenings of his
novels, because it shows that hehad different visions. For example, Russian
(10:18):
filmmaker Andre Tarkovski said, after anargument they had over the adaptation of Solaris.
The lemb did not understand artistic cinema, which was why he put up
resistance towards various interpretations of his owntexts. One of Lem's cartoons is a
parody which begins with the adventures ofsomeone who flies into space and who looks
(10:39):
a bit like a caricature of Lemfrom thee Chakrii magazine. I tried to
interpret it and show his exact thoughtprocess. These cartoons seemed to be his
best written scripts apart from Layer Cake, but the script itself did not survive
and we can only recreate it basedon what has been filmed. I was
wonder if Lem could have become afamous screenwriter if sort of Netflix had existed
(11:05):
in his lifetime. But it occursthat Lem may ultimately find a way to
appear on Netflix in the future,and the City Project game developer widely known
for such games as The Witcher orCyberpunk twenty seventy seven my play a role
here. Yes, probably, butperhaps the game Invincible, produced by City
(11:28):
Project the creators of The Witcher Lemmwill be able to get on Netflix,
as was the case with The Witcher. The fact that Invincible has not been
adapted for the screen until today isa mystery to me. Problem coming back
(11:48):
to history and the problem of thepast. In Lamb's writings, it occurs
that lem had tried to deal withit, not only in his autobiographical High
Castle, but also in his earlywritings, which he wrote in another convention.
Arguably, one might say that hehad tried different techniques to tell the
(12:09):
difficult story, and perhaps it wasa way for him to overcome personal trauma.
Surprised me the most when writing Holocaustin the Stars is how much Lamb
tried to put across Since nineteen fortysix, that is, when he published
his first articles in magazines and waswriting Hospital of the Transfiguration, he adopted
(12:33):
a realistic convention recreating the context andhistory through which he lived. Of course,
you could not use the proper nameof Relief due to the Communist policy
at the time. The censorship wouldsimply block this type of reflection on the
Polish past of relief, or thefact that it is not so obvious which
side of the water Leviev should beon. In nineteen forty six, however,
(12:54):
Lamb published several stories that relate tothe history of the ghetto and describe
a hideout there, and also abouta frontline battle, which is an allusion
to the Nuremberg Trials, which wereclosely followed at that time, especially by
the survivors. So he really triedfor a long time to convey this in
the form of realistic writing, whichwas the easiest method for reconstructing the past
(13:16):
and writing on history. In fact, many such books which reconstructed these events
were published then in time, notLost, which Lem wrote at the end
of the nineteen forties. He describedin detail in two chapters the history of
the ghetto in Leif. Indeed,many historians have devoted less time to this
(13:37):
issue than he did. By examiningthese threads carefully, it was easier for
me to see wherein Lem's science fictionhe refers to this topography of the ghetto,
the topography of Leif. But Ithink that if he had not left
these traces and realistic prose, itwould have been much more difficult to see
it in the context of his sciencefiction. And that's how I start Externation
(14:00):
and the Stars, that is,with this realistic prose, I quickly move
on to his master's voice, whichis a strongly essayistic style. Book,
and which includes a scene from thepogrom Enbryitki. The scene is quite accurately
reconstructed, except that there is adifferent date and there is no leaf topography.
(14:22):
Instead, the story is set somewherein Central Europe. In nineteen forty
two, Lem's wife Barbara sent meLem's written testimony, which she wrote down
herself and which confirms that the twostories overlap. Also, Lem's published correspondence
with playwright Stanny Swaft Mrozek features theinformation that the character Hogarth is the author
(14:43):
himself, but another protagonist, Rapaport, is also him and his memories.
So the account of this pogrom,alongside recollections from memoirs penned by other survivors,
made me realize how much of ashock it was for someone who had
not yet seen riots against Jews onsuch a scale, nor experienced such violence
(15:05):
in the biography which I've just written. It was interesting to me why Lem
decided to write about the pogrom inBurgiki and to reconstruct the most tragic chapter
of his life in a book hewrote in nineteen sixty seven, that is,
after the Six Day War and whenthe anti Semitic campaign in Poland was
at its apex. This was averitable denunciation of himself at that time,
(15:28):
despite the fact that he really triedto do everything not to be expelled from
Poland. Yet clearly despite the factthat he was a victim of Nazi policies,
he was also a witness. Andit seems to me that every time
anti Semitic sentiments were on the rise, he, like many other writers who
(15:48):
had similar life experiences or similar originswhatever that might mean, responded to anti
Semitic rhetoric by speaking up. Hecould not keep quiet. In my opinion,
this approach is prevalent in Lamb's prose, and perhaps it also stemmed from
(16:10):
his writing technique. After the SecondWorld War, the formerly polished city of
Lviv had become part of the Ukrainiansof its Socialist republic. The issue that
interests me when I read about Lamb'sexperienced during the Holocaust was his attitude towards
Ukraine and Alviv at the latest stagesof his life. It was quite shocking
to me and at the same timeunderstandable that he had never visited his place
(16:34):
of origin after he left it inninety five. I've recently returned from Lviv,
where for four days I talked aboutwhy Lamb never returned to Ukraine and
Leviv after nineteen forty five, despitenumerous invitations. Of course, there are
(16:59):
many different answers to these questions.Lem himself said that the remnants of the
past were not enough to make himcome back. At the same time,
I found out from one letter thatLem and his wife once went to Premish
for their holidays, and topographically Premishreminded Lem of Leviev, and he was
shocked to such an extent that hecanceled a visit to Leviv, which had
(17:21):
already planned. He said it wouldbe too difficult. In addition, Premish
was a transfer point to the Germanside of the war zone, to which
his wife, Barbara Lem, wastransferred, and unfortunately, on this trip
to Premish, she also experienced suchemotional turmoil that it seems that both of
them were astounded that such intense emotionscould return so long after the war.
(17:45):
Lem wrote to a friend of histhat he would not go to Leviv because
he thought it would be too muchfor him. In fact, while walking
around Premish, Lem knew that hisfamily from his mother's side had also died
in the Lviv ghetto, which ofcourse he would not disclose to anyone,
and we do not know anything aboutit, or very little at best.
(18:06):
So it seems that his reluctance toreturn to his hometown was due to the
fact that it was just too difficultfor him, and therefore he chose not
to talk about it, and thatseems to be the main reason. However,
there were certainly other grounds as well. He wrote about one of his
reasons in one of his last columns, though he knew it would be politically
(18:26):
incorrect, is the fact that hewas unable to accept that Leviv is a
Ukrainian city. He could not lookat a city map with street names in
Ukrainian. That was very painful tohim. At the same time, as
he was a meticulous researcher and writer, he tried to read as much as
possible. In the essays written towardsthe end of his life, lem rather
(18:51):
sided with the political ideas presented bythe Paris based emigra magazine Cultura, in
line with which it was in Poland'sinterest to support an independent Ukraine. This
holds such an important message for me, because perhaps it will allow us to
have some sort of dialogue and avoidmethodological nationalism that is unfortunately present in historical
(19:11):
research. Having lived through what hehad experienced, a pogrom orchestrated by the
Germans but carried out by his Polishand Ukrainian colleagues and neighbors, Lem said
at the end of his life thatdespite the fact that he could not forget
it, one could try to starttalking about it differently with one another,
overcome one's own path, and recollectionsone's memory for the sake of the future.
(19:37):
And this is a message that,even in the case of many witnesses,
is not always evident. And thiswas also the subject of my talks
and vif perhaps these family stories andthe emotional charge they generate sometimes obscure a
message that could perhaps be conveyed if, for example, we wrote a Polish
Ukrainian textbook on the history of thetwentieth century and which would allow us to
(20:00):
reflect on how politics and history influencethe behavior of individual social groups, it
is possible, in my opinion,there are still many memorial sites that evoke
strong and vivid emotions among many people, especially among the victims of pogroms.
Because historians from all sides probably agreethat the Holocaust and this part of Europe
(20:22):
would not have happened on such ascale had it not been for the cooperation
of the neighbors who were Polish,Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, because only
they knew where to hide. Forme, it is really important that despite
the fact that Lambs sometimes expressed theseviews in a very politically incorrect way,
(20:44):
his longing for view would never subside. He was never able to come to
terms with the fact that it isno longer a Polish city and that he
was forced to leave it. Therefore, the title of the biography I wrote
contains the word expelled, because Lambsaid that in Krakau he felt like a
political asylum seeker. He was thrownout of his home. It was important
(21:06):
for me to reconstruct the history ofLamb's family, his father Samuel and his
mother Sabina, so as to portraythe whole setting in which he grew up
and to show how much they actuallylost. The question that traces, especially
(21:29):
during the year of Lamb in Polandis how them might still inspire writers,
creators, philosophers or scientists. Also, what role could his intellectual output play
in our contemporary discussions about the presentand the future. In the end,
shares with us her plans for furtherwork and studies with Lamb's heritage. I
(22:00):
would like to write some interpretations ofLem's novels now. However, it seems
to me that in today's globalized world, we need the genre of science fiction
because we have to think up adifferent future. If not a book,
I would like to write some articleson Lem's perspective on the threat of global
warming and overpopulation. Environmental themes remainedso far largely unexplored in terms of Lem's
(22:23):
outlook and ideas. Recently, Ieven had a discussion during my master's seminar
on how in the nineteen seventies wewere warned about climate change. Lem was
one of several philosophical authors who tookinto account the challenges we are facing now
and how because of censorship, noinformation about ecological disasters could penetrate into daily
(22:47):
newspapers and the psychological awareness was quitelow. I also wrote a book about
feminist science fiction, because to me, thinking about the future is an indication
of where we are headed and whatfuture lies before us, a future that
we imagine to be perfect or acceptable. It seems to me that what the
(23:11):
modern posthumanist philosophers and Lem have incommon is the basic assumption that we should
come up with a more palatable policyand be less cruel to each other.
You can find this in Lem's writingsand included in the ongoing discussion and get
the younger generation interested in these aspectsof his work because he meets many contemporary
(23:32):
philosophers, mainly because he knew Darwin'swritings very well, and this philosopher is
the forerunner of other critical approaches towhat we would today call environmental activities.
It seems that Lem had very intriguingideas and also so dangers and threats of
using labels, and on the otherhand he favored all sorts of eco terrorists,
(23:56):
and you can see it in hiscolumns. Earlier I dealt with literature,
and now I focus more in history, because biography is a genre of
historical writing, not historical literary writing. So my goal was to write a
historical textbook of the twentieth century,something that I absolutely would not have undertaken
(24:17):
if I had known a few yearsago that things would have unfolded this way.
And going back to literature is alwaysinteresting because there's more out there.
Len didn't have to be consistent inthis respect. He could encourage our reflections
to meander in many directions and notfind any solution, so it was even
more captivating than reading his essays aboutit. Thank you for listening to this
(24:53):
episode of exploring Polish science fiction andFantasy. The podcast is prepared, researched,
recorded, and produced by Adam Reichertand Matchemakuski of Talk Eastern Europe.
The series is supported by a grantfrom the Polish Ministry of Culture, National
Heritage and Sport under the grant ProgramPromotion of Polish Culture Abroad. If you
(25:14):
would like to learn more about NewEastern Europe podcasts, visit www dot New
Eastern Europe dot eu.
Welcome to a special podcast series titledExploring Polish Science Fiction and Fantasy preport and
produced by Toggist and Europe. Thislimited podcast series is being conducted in conjunction
with the Year of Stannis with Lambtwenty twenty one, a special commemoration being
(00:23):
held in Poland. Throughout this series, we will discover, together with experts
and writers, the impact that Stannisof Lamb has had in Poland and abroad.
We will learn more about them's story, his philosophy and some controversist Along
the way, we will also lookat contemporary literature and bring to light some
(00:44):
new Polish authors following in Lamb's footsteps. We invite you to join us on
this journey exploring Polish science fiction andFantasy. Welcome back to the Exploring Polish
(01:12):
Science Fiction and Fantasy series. Myname is Matchie mc kurski and in this
episode we feature a discussion on thebiography of Stunnies of Lem. Some basic
facts about Lamb were discussed in thefirst episode and this time will focus mainly
on the period of the Second WorldWar and its consequences for Lamb's for the
(01:32):
life, the war and the Holocaustsdid not spur the Lamb's family, and
these were the events that left theirmark on Stunnies of Lem. He tried
to refer to these events several timesin his books and interviews, but on
the other hand, he often hitcertain information and to this day people dealing
(01:53):
with Lamb tried to explain some untoldor concealed aspects of his biography. To
learn mourn about Leam, his earlylife and the impact of the past on
his writing. We met with AknishkaKayevska, a professor of literary studies at
Adamitzkivich University in Poulsna Paul. She'sthe author of biography of stanisof lam which
(02:16):
was recently published by Polish literary pressthe Daphnis Fliterasky based in Krakow, which
in the past was also a publisherof stannisof Lamb's books. We started the
conversation with Anishka Kayevska with a slightlymore personal thread and the question of how
(02:36):
she took up stannisof Leam and whather first contact with Lamb was like.
I took up Stanisam already in thethird year of my studies, when I
was writing a paper on fantasy andfuturology. Lamb interested me first and foremost
as a philosopher of science and assomeone who had ideas on how to deal
(03:00):
with global problems, which I wasvery interested in at that time. While
preparing my master's thesis on communication inthe prose of Staniswa Flem, I had
the feeling that apart from this philosophicallayer of discussions with the greatest philosophers in
his science fiction prose, there wasalso a large dose of certain grotesque scenes
which I was not able to interpretor deal with at the time. The
(03:25):
scene from his master's voice, forexample, ridiculing Jews begging to be rescued
in Yiddish, remained in my memoryfor a long time since writing my master's
thesis. In fact, I sentsome of my m a thesis to Staniswa
Flem back then, and I recentlyfound the letter I wrote him, and
when I read it again, Inearly fainted. The letter began with me
(03:46):
saying that I had never really beenan enthusiast of science fiction and that this
kind of writing was not my cupof tea. This disrespect of mine was
typical for people who think that whenthey are writing their Master's thesis, they
are reaching their intellectual peak. Buthe wrote back to the stutter very quickly,
that is votch Zamk, Lem's secretarywrote back. Lemb dictated his answer
(04:09):
to Zamek because Lem did not writeon a computer, and probably the fact
that he was interested in me asa philosopher of science somehow swayed him in
favor of my research. I laterbecame more interested in Lem when I was
preparing the project of my following book, and I wanted to write about post
colonial threads in Lem's work about feminism, about how he describes gender, and
(04:30):
only the archival research with which Istarted changed the trajectory of my research of
Miniban's new book is titled Banished fromthe High Castle. This title refers to
studies of Lem's High Castle, whichmany perceived as the most out of biographical
(04:56):
of his books. Before she attemptedto write Lamb's biography, Gayevskav wrote a
book about the role of the pastin Lamb's writings. As she underlines,
one of her aims was to learnwhat Lam himself did not tell about his
experience during the Second War in hisbooks and any public appearances. Some of
(05:19):
his secrets he had not shot,even with his loved ones. Badayan indeed
already collecting archival materials for the bookHolocaust and the Stars, The Past and
the Prose of staniswa Fleam. Ialso collected a lot of material about him
and his family, and I alreadyknew then that this material should be used
(05:42):
for something more. I did notwant it to end up as such an
extensive, nearly seven hundred page biography, so I did try to get as
close to the historical context as possiblein order to fill in the gaps where
Lamb does not tell us everything thathappened in his life. What I have
in mind here, above all,is what he did not say in the
extended interview publications, one with stanisavBerdesch and the other with Tomashvylkovsky, which
(06:06):
were done in the last phases ofhis life and function as narratives about the
life of Lem. On the otherhand, I confronted it with the historical
context and used documents more than whatLem himself said about his life. The
title of my new biography, Banishedfrom the High Castle, of course,
refers to both his autobiographical essay visokizamkor High Castle, as well as a
(06:30):
reference to Leviv and the past whichLem left behind when he left the city
with his parents, and this experienceactually divides Lem's life into two parts.
Lem himself mentions it several times inhis columns or in various magazine interviews,
stating that his life was crushed byStalin's and Hitler's tanks. It is also
very symbolic since the first German bombson Leiv were dropped on his eighteenth birthday.
(06:55):
On that very day, Leviv wasbombed and for the first time the
troops reached the Lem himself was reluctantto go back to this past, and
he did not even talk about itto his son, to whom he recommended
reading The High Castle. So thistitle also refers to what is left unsaid
in The High Castle, Lem's autobiographicalessay. So after the Second World War,
(07:26):
Stanisovlam moved to Krakow in Poland withhis parents. He had to start
a new life there and as aperson of a huge intellectual potential, he
considered different paths for his professional career. As we know, as a science
fiction writer, he achieved enormous successalready in his lifetime, but not all
(07:46):
his ideas had turned out to bepure successes Para. I tried to describe
the various stages of Lem's life andfirst show how he wanted to become a
scientist and a biology student, planswhich fell through for various reasons, which
I also try to explain. Thebook Leader shows that he wanted to be
(08:09):
an author at all costs, andhe put a lot of effort into it.
The following stage of his life isthe return to his passion for science,
which we can see in his SummaTechnologia and all the essays that arose
around this venture. It was atthis time when he wrote extensive essays in
the field of science, which hepractically did for the rest of his life,
(08:31):
only later in the form of opinionpieces. I go on to show
his following stage, which is relatedto the fact that he believed that he
could become a philosopher. So Lemis a writer, scientist and philosopher,
and this was the trajectory portrayed inthe biography. I also described Lem's unsuccessful
(08:52):
career, that is how he neverbecame a screenwriter. He wrote a lot
of scripts. He started out withvery socialist realist style films made in collaboration
with his friends. He tried veryhard to become a screenwriter, also because
he was aware that back then,in order to earn money for a living
that was enough to not have toshare a flat with several families, it
(09:13):
was necessary to become involved with filmor television. It's a good way to
earn a living nowadays as well.Although Lamb did not gone down in history
(09:33):
as a brilliant screenwriter, some ofhis works from this period have survived and
can be accessed in the archives.Ark considers to what extent Lamb's experience as
a screenwriter influenced his rather critical perceptionof the film adaptations of his books.
(09:56):
He also wrote screenplays for his novels, some of which were published. I
discovered and saw cartoons drawn on thebasis of his script featuring the music of
Shusto Panderetski. So this is probablya lesser known thread that could also shed
some light on why he was socritical of all adaptations and screenings of his
novels, because it shows that hehad different visions. For example, Russian
(10:18):
filmmaker Andre Tarkovski said, after anargument they had over the adaptation of Solaris.
The lemb did not understand artistic cinema, which was why he put up
resistance towards various interpretations of his owntexts. One of Lem's cartoons is a
parody which begins with the adventures ofsomeone who flies into space and who looks
(10:39):
a bit like a caricature of Lemfrom thee Chakrii magazine. I tried to
interpret it and show his exact thoughtprocess. These cartoons seemed to be his
best written scripts apart from Layer Cake, but the script itself did not survive
and we can only recreate it basedon what has been filmed. I was
wonder if Lem could have become afamous screenwriter if sort of Netflix had existed
(11:05):
in his lifetime. But it occursthat Lem may ultimately find a way to
appear on Netflix in the future,and the City Project game developer widely known
for such games as The Witcher orCyberpunk twenty seventy seven my play a role
here. Yes, probably, butperhaps the game Invincible, produced by City
(11:28):
Project the creators of The Witcher Lemmwill be able to get on Netflix,
as was the case with The Witcher. The fact that Invincible has not been
adapted for the screen until today isa mystery to me. Problem coming back
(11:48):
to history and the problem of thepast. In Lamb's writings, it occurs
that lem had tried to deal withit, not only in his autobiographical High
Castle, but also in his earlywritings, which he wrote in another convention.
Arguably, one might say that hehad tried different techniques to tell the
(12:09):
difficult story, and perhaps it wasa way for him to overcome personal trauma.
Surprised me the most when writing Holocaustin the Stars is how much Lamb
tried to put across Since nineteen fortysix, that is, when he published
his first articles in magazines and waswriting Hospital of the Transfiguration, he adopted
(12:33):
a realistic convention recreating the context andhistory through which he lived. Of course,
you could not use the proper nameof Relief due to the Communist policy
at the time. The censorship wouldsimply block this type of reflection on the
Polish past of relief, or thefact that it is not so obvious which
side of the water Leviev should beon. In nineteen forty six, however,
(12:54):
Lamb published several stories that relate tothe history of the ghetto and describe
a hideout there, and also abouta frontline battle, which is an allusion
to the Nuremberg Trials, which wereclosely followed at that time, especially by
the survivors. So he really triedfor a long time to convey this in
the form of realistic writing, whichwas the easiest method for reconstructing the past
(13:16):
and writing on history. In fact, many such books which reconstructed these events
were published then in time, notLost, which Lem wrote at the end
of the nineteen forties. He describedin detail in two chapters the history of
the ghetto in Leif. Indeed,many historians have devoted less time to this
(13:37):
issue than he did. By examiningthese threads carefully, it was easier for
me to see wherein Lem's science fictionhe refers to this topography of the ghetto,
the topography of Leif. But Ithink that if he had not left
these traces and realistic prose, itwould have been much more difficult to see
it in the context of his sciencefiction. And that's how I start Externation
(14:00):
and the Stars, that is,with this realistic prose, I quickly move
on to his master's voice, whichis a strongly essayistic style. Book,
and which includes a scene from thepogrom Enbryitki. The scene is quite accurately
reconstructed, except that there is adifferent date and there is no leaf topography.
(14:22):
Instead, the story is set somewherein Central Europe. In nineteen forty
two, Lem's wife Barbara sent meLem's written testimony, which she wrote down
herself and which confirms that the twostories overlap. Also, Lem's published correspondence
with playwright Stanny Swaft Mrozek features theinformation that the character Hogarth is the author
(14:43):
himself, but another protagonist, Rapaport, is also him and his memories.
So the account of this pogrom,alongside recollections from memoirs penned by other survivors,
made me realize how much of ashock it was for someone who had
not yet seen riots against Jews onsuch a scale, nor experienced such violence
(15:05):
in the biography which I've just written. It was interesting to me why Lem
decided to write about the pogrom inBurgiki and to reconstruct the most tragic chapter
of his life in a book hewrote in nineteen sixty seven, that is,
after the Six Day War and whenthe anti Semitic campaign in Poland was
at its apex. This was averitable denunciation of himself at that time,
(15:28):
despite the fact that he really triedto do everything not to be expelled from
Poland. Yet clearly despite the factthat he was a victim of Nazi policies,
he was also a witness. Andit seems to me that every time
anti Semitic sentiments were on the rise, he, like many other writers who
(15:48):
had similar life experiences or similar originswhatever that might mean, responded to anti
Semitic rhetoric by speaking up. Hecould not keep quiet. In my opinion,
this approach is prevalent in Lamb's prose, and perhaps it also stemmed from
(16:10):
his writing technique. After the SecondWorld War, the formerly polished city of
Lviv had become part of the Ukrainiansof its Socialist republic. The issue that
interests me when I read about Lamb'sexperienced during the Holocaust was his attitude towards
Ukraine and Alviv at the latest stagesof his life. It was quite shocking
to me and at the same timeunderstandable that he had never visited his place
(16:34):
of origin after he left it inninety five. I've recently returned from Lviv,
where for four days I talked aboutwhy Lamb never returned to Ukraine and
Leviv after nineteen forty five, despitenumerous invitations. Of course, there are
(16:59):
many different answers to these questions.Lem himself said that the remnants of the
past were not enough to make himcome back. At the same time,
I found out from one letter thatLem and his wife once went to Premish
for their holidays, and topographically Premishreminded Lem of Leviev, and he was
shocked to such an extent that hecanceled a visit to Leviv, which had
(17:21):
already planned. He said it wouldbe too difficult. In addition, Premish
was a transfer point to the Germanside of the war zone, to which
his wife, Barbara Lem, wastransferred, and unfortunately, on this trip
to Premish, she also experienced suchemotional turmoil that it seems that both of
them were astounded that such intense emotionscould return so long after the war.
(17:45):
Lem wrote to a friend of histhat he would not go to Leviv because
he thought it would be too muchfor him. In fact, while walking
around Premish, Lem knew that hisfamily from his mother's side had also died
in the Lviv ghetto, which ofcourse he would not disclose to anyone,
and we do not know anything aboutit, or very little at best.
(18:06):
So it seems that his reluctance toreturn to his hometown was due to the
fact that it was just too difficultfor him, and therefore he chose not
to talk about it, and thatseems to be the main reason. However,
there were certainly other grounds as well. He wrote about one of his
reasons in one of his last columns, though he knew it would be politically
(18:26):
incorrect, is the fact that hewas unable to accept that Leviv is a
Ukrainian city. He could not lookat a city map with street names in
Ukrainian. That was very painful tohim. At the same time, as
he was a meticulous researcher and writer, he tried to read as much as
possible. In the essays written towardsthe end of his life, lem rather
(18:51):
sided with the political ideas presented bythe Paris based emigra magazine Cultura, in
line with which it was in Poland'sinterest to support an independent Ukraine. This
holds such an important message for me, because perhaps it will allow us to
have some sort of dialogue and avoidmethodological nationalism that is unfortunately present in historical
(19:11):
research. Having lived through what hehad experienced, a pogrom orchestrated by the
Germans but carried out by his Polishand Ukrainian colleagues and neighbors, Lem said
at the end of his life thatdespite the fact that he could not forget
it, one could try to starttalking about it differently with one another,
overcome one's own path, and recollectionsone's memory for the sake of the future.
(19:37):
And this is a message that,even in the case of many witnesses,
is not always evident. And thiswas also the subject of my talks
and vif perhaps these family stories andthe emotional charge they generate sometimes obscure a
message that could perhaps be conveyed if, for example, we wrote a Polish
Ukrainian textbook on the history of thetwentieth century and which would allow us to
(20:00):
reflect on how politics and history influencethe behavior of individual social groups, it
is possible, in my opinion,there are still many memorial sites that evoke
strong and vivid emotions among many people, especially among the victims of pogroms.
Because historians from all sides probably agreethat the Holocaust and this part of Europe
(20:22):
would not have happened on such ascale had it not been for the cooperation
of the neighbors who were Polish,Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, because only
they knew where to hide. Forme, it is really important that despite
the fact that Lambs sometimes expressed theseviews in a very politically incorrect way,
(20:44):
his longing for view would never subside. He was never able to come to
terms with the fact that it isno longer a Polish city and that he
was forced to leave it. Therefore, the title of the biography I wrote
contains the word expelled, because Lambsaid that in Krakau he felt like a
political asylum seeker. He was thrownout of his home. It was important
(21:06):
for me to reconstruct the history ofLamb's family, his father Samuel and his
mother Sabina, so as to portraythe whole setting in which he grew up
and to show how much they actuallylost. The question that traces, especially
(21:29):
during the year of Lamb in Polandis how them might still inspire writers,
creators, philosophers or scientists. Also, what role could his intellectual output play
in our contemporary discussions about the presentand the future. In the end,
shares with us her plans for furtherwork and studies with Lamb's heritage. I
(22:00):
would like to write some interpretations ofLem's novels now. However, it seems
to me that in today's globalized world, we need the genre of science fiction
because we have to think up adifferent future. If not a book,
I would like to write some articleson Lem's perspective on the threat of global
warming and overpopulation. Environmental themes remainedso far largely unexplored in terms of Lem's
(22:23):
outlook and ideas. Recently, Ieven had a discussion during my master's seminar
on how in the nineteen seventies wewere warned about climate change. Lem was
one of several philosophical authors who tookinto account the challenges we are facing now
and how because of censorship, noinformation about ecological disasters could penetrate into daily
(22:47):
newspapers and the psychological awareness was quitelow. I also wrote a book about
feminist science fiction, because to me, thinking about the future is an indication
of where we are headed and whatfuture lies before us, a future that
we imagine to be perfect or acceptable. It seems to me that what the
(23:11):
modern posthumanist philosophers and Lem have incommon is the basic assumption that we should
come up with a more palatable policyand be less cruel to each other.
You can find this in Lem's writingsand included in the ongoing discussion and get
the younger generation interested in these aspectsof his work because he meets many contemporary
(23:32):
philosophers, mainly because he knew Darwin'swritings very well, and this philosopher is
the forerunner of other critical approaches towhat we would today call environmental activities.
It seems that Lem had very intriguingideas and also so dangers and threats of
using labels, and on the otherhand he favored all sorts of eco terrorists,
(23:56):
and you can see it in hiscolumns. Earlier I dealt with literature,
and now I focus more in history, because biography is a genre of
historical writing, not historical literary writing. So my goal was to write a
historical textbook of the twentieth century,something that I absolutely would not have undertaken
(24:17):
if I had known a few yearsago that things would have unfolded this way.
And going back to literature is alwaysinteresting because there's more out there.
Len didn't have to be consistent inthis respect. He could encourage our reflections
to meander in many directions and notfind any solution, so it was even
more captivating than reading his essays aboutit. Thank you for listening to this
(24:53):
episode of exploring Polish science fiction andFantasy. The podcast is prepared, researched,
recorded, and produced by Adam Reichertand Matchemakuski of Talk Eastern Europe.
The series is supported by a grantfrom the Polish Ministry of Culture, National
Heritage and Sport under the grant ProgramPromotion of Polish Culture Abroad. If you
(25:14):
would like to learn more about NewEastern Europe podcasts, visit www dot New
Eastern Europe dot eu.
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