Hobart and William Smith Colleges

23 July 2014 Ost Returns from Poland Tour

Poland became a capitalist country after 1989, though not many people knew at the time just what they meant, says David Ost, the Joseph DiGangi Professor of Political Science, who spent three weeks in Poland for a series of interviews and presentations at a host of events in connection with the 25^th anniversary of that countrys systemic shift toward democracy and capitalism, as well as the translation into Polish of Osts 1990 book, Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics.

That book examines the evolution of opposition movements in Polands communist era, and explains how and why Solidarity an anti-bureaucratic social movement and the first non-Communist Party controlled trade union in aWarsaw Pactcountry was able to succeed.

In the 1990s, when Ost first began writing about these events, not many Poles believed it, or wanted to believe it, he says. Now, however, as they have experienced crisis (and have, for example, the highest rate of flexible, easily-terminable contracts in Europe, and a very low rate of trade unionism), they increasingly know what this means themselves. They have been interested in talking to me to get an informed outsider perspective on events they have lived through, which adds to their understanding of their own history and their own contemporary world.

Osts next book, The Defeat of Solidarity (2005, 2007 trans. into Polish), looks at the impact of 1989, and the surprising direction the transformation took very different than what had been anticipated at the time, he says. Together with various articles in various other publications, this means that my scholarship as a whole has the transformative moment of 1989 as a central turning point.

With the celebration of the 25^th anniversary of these events, and in connection with the translation of my earlier book, there was a lot of media interest in talking with me, getting my perspective of events, says Ost, who himself spent much of 1989 in Poland and often returns to the country. What Poles find interesting is my outsider perspective on events. Poland is not a country that many foreigners get to know very well. It is not a language that many foreigners get to know very well. I know the language, culture, people, and history extremely well, and have a perspective on events that embraces typical Polish understandings and brings a global, comparative perspective to bear as well.

Just prior to departure for the tour, Ost was interviewed by Adam Leszczynski of the Gazeta Wyborcza, Polands chief national daily; the interview, published in the journals prestigious weekend magazine, is available here in Polish and reprinted in translation below.

Once he arrived in Poland, Ost took part in a May 27 conference on social dialogue in European industrial relations, presenting a paper titled The Growth and Decline of Social Dialogue: Neoliberal Trends in Industrial Relations. That evening, he appeared as a guest on the national TV show, INFOrozmowa, with Jan Ordynski.

The following day, Osts newly translated book was presented with a panel discussion (including Ost, sociologist and translator Sergiusz Kowalski, and philosopher Jacek Koltan) at the Warsaw institute Dom Spotkan z Historia (Institute of Encounters with History).

The morning of May 29, Ost was interviewed on the national radio station WNET and that evening served as a panelist at a public debate, Costs and Assessment of the Polish Transformation, sponsored by the Bronislaw Geremek Foundation. Other panelists were Waldemar Kuczynski, a chief Solidarity economist during the transition, and philosopher Andrzej Leder. On May 30, Ost was interviewed by Tomasz Leszkiewicz for the Historical Journal, www.histmag.org.

The following week, Ost presented a paper, The Political Art of Tough Economic Choices, at the Krakow Economics University conference, 25 Years of Transformation: Achievements and Challenges, at which former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski was a keynote speaker. At the conference, Ost was interviewed at by Elzbieta Cegla, with the interview published in the Krakow daily Dziennik Polski.

Ost also took part at the Polish National Philosophy Symposiums second annual conference (Solidarity, Participation, Independent Culture) in Ciazen, near Poznan, giving a keynote address on The Promises and Limits of Anti-Politics and participating in a panel discussion on his newly translated book.

On June 9, Ost spoke at a meeting of the Research Seminar group titled Solidarity: New Approaches to the Analysis of a Social Movement and later in the week appeared on the national television program No Jokes, with host Eliza Michalik, on the Superstacja channel.He was also interviewed by Jacek Dymek for the journal Krytyka Polityczna.

On June 12, he took part in a panel discussion at the Jacek Kuron Festival in Warsaw, sponsored by the Krytyka Polityczna institute. The panel, titled Social Europe: Answer to the Crisis?, included Jerzy Osiatynski, a chief economic adviser to the first postcommunist government, and Guenther Horzetzky, State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

Ost concluded his tour on June 14, first as a guest on the national radio station RDC, and then participating in a long interview for the journal Kontakt, a left-Catholic journal of social affairs.

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