‘Russia is big and Poland is a small country’
Fr Zbigniew Suchy
The title is not mine. These words, spoken by the NKWD General Anodina, were repeated by Colonel Klich. Here is a fragment of the interview, ‘The Polish official Edmund Klich accredited to the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) admitted that during the works conducted by MAK with its head Tatiana Anodina, ‘These were talks in the presence of Mr. Morozov, rarely with the participation of my councillors. I had no consent to do that. I do not remember the details of these talks but I remembered one sentence, «Russia is big and Poland is a small country». I do not know why these words were uttered. I was wondering because there should be balance in this matter and not reflection on who is greater.’
Nine months of disrespect for the dead and the communiqué of 12 January 2011 that announces it, officially adding that the drunken general was the whole Polish evil. The next day the world agencies, basing on this one-sided Russian communiqué, repeated the lie. And no wonder that the foreign correspondents drew from this source of information. The Polish Prime Minister, depending on Putin like on Zawisza, was skiing in the Alps. After Poland’s honour had been treated into the Smolensk mud the Prime Minister took off his skis in public and crushed he decided to return to the country. Nobody, unfortunately, did not ask him ‘what for?’
And let us add the words spoken by the one who was most deeply touched – General Blasik’s wife, ‘Here I want to stress firmly that in the available and known documentary proof there is no prerequisite about some amount of alcohol in my husband’s blood at the moment of the crash. There is no evidence that would confirm that my husband exerted any indirect or direct influence on the pilots […] He was to fulfil a personal mission there: to receive Holy Communion in the intention of the grandfather of his sister-in-law who was a soldier of Haller’s Army, a policeman murdered in the fortress of Tver. That’s why he did experience this flight so solemnly. That’s why he himself reported to the President that the plane was ready to take off, and it is not possible that he drank alcohol. My husband was a man of honour. Today there is an attempt to deprive us of this honour in the eyes of the whole world. The Polish government should defend the dignity of Polish officers, including the dignity of my husband. The government should defend them especially in the situation when they cannot do that themselves.’
The media presented the spectacular performance of the Prime Minister as a gesture of a man crushed with concern. The natural sorrow of the wife, woman whose husband was discredited, was recognised as a case of hysteria of those who wanted to continue the conspiratorial theory of history. And again poor, not only small but with dwarfish honour, Poland will have to dig out the truth about those who lost their lives in the crash on their way to Katyn from the Smolensk mud in the next decades.
A sad song of Wajdelota about dirty honour. Why does it happen? Why is the fragment of the confession of Fr Robak so valid today? I leave the reflection on this fragment to the personal sensitivity of each of us.
‘The Muscovites would gain me partisan;/ They gave to the Soplicas a large share/ Of the deceased man's lands; and later on/ Of the deceased man's lands; and later on/ The Targowica traitors/ wished to honour/ Me with an office. If I then had willed/ To Russianise myself, which Satan counselled,/ I had by now most rich and powerful grown./ Magnates had sought my favour, even my brother/ Nobles, and even the commonality,/ Who do so readily despise their own./ Forgive those happier who serve Muscovy!/ I knew all that – but yet – I could not!’
"Niedziela" 5/2011