POLAND WITHOUT THE CROSS?
WOJCIECH DUDKIEWICZ
The advertisement spot ordered by the Foreign Ministry, was to promote Poland, but became the subject of a controversy. Poland is shown without Christian elements, including the cross. The advertisement spot lasts a minute. A boy tells his friend about his journey to Poland, where his parents showed him Gdańsk, Cracow and Warsaw. In Gdańsk he saw a stadium PGE Arena which must have been taken out of the sea, because it looks like amber. In a street in Warsaw he saw, among the others, a battle, and in the background – brave Polish knights in scenes from a picture of Matejko, presenting the battle at Grunwald. Later he saw Cracow and Dragon at Wawel, and, finally, the Giewont mountain.
However, in the advertisement spot no single cross is seen, although it should appear in the presented scenes and places. In the motif of the battle at Grunwald and on the Giewont mountain, the crosses were removed. As Samuel Pereir, a journalist of ‘Gazeta Polska’ and ‘Fronda’ noted on Facebook, on such occasions it is good to recall historic events, but on one condition: removing the cross. ‘Even if we copy the picture by Matejko, we remember to remove the cross from the Crusades, as well as the cross from the visor of prince Witold’ – he wrote.
Promoting spots created by Polish governmental institutions have been causing a lot of controversy in the recent time. It started with a film, which on the occasion of 10th anniversary of Poland existence in the European Union, was produced for big money to the order of the Prime Minister’s Office. As we have written recently – business organizations have spent money on creating a completely unclear logo of Poland, in the form of a spring.
AA
„Niedziela” 45/2014