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Why I didn't sign the Letter of the 34

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Wine bar skirmish puts an end to the Crooked Circle Club
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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[Q] So what happened in... ‘62?

The club was disbanded in ‘62. The club was disbanded... this had been hanging in the air for some time, all sorts of stories were reaching us that something was going to happen, and so we invited Professor Kotarbiński to a meeting which according to our information was meant to be the last one, and asked him to talk about freedom of speech. But it turned out that this wasn't our last meeting and Professor Szaf spoke at the next one. I'd been hoping that once it turned out after Kotarbiński that the Crooked Circle Club was finished, I'd call Szaf and say to him, ‘Professor, as you see they don't want to let you speak at all’, and the club was disbanded following provocation, typical, stupid provocation by secret agents. One of the people participating in the discussion, who was speaking in defence of Professor Szaf, because he was being attacked by practically everyone else, got clouted on the ear – he was hit in the basement of the Dom Kultury where there was a coffee and wine bar, and this was seen as an attack by the Crooked Circle Club's hit squad, and after that came the suspension, the end. In my case, the break in ‘62 wasn't long because in ‘64, there was the Letter of the 34, so for me, the break was relatively short because nothing exceptional happened to me between ‘62 and ‘64. I was already working in the Institute of Literary Research as I'd been thrown out of PIW [Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy (National Institute of Publishing)] in ‘60 for daring to give a talk once, and then trying to give one a second time, about Bolesław Piasecki and his political history, and that's when it turned out that Bolesław Piasecki has very long arms and I got kicked out. I understand why I was fired because I was going to give the talk, but Aleksander Małachowski was only fired for being the chairman of the Crooked Circle Club – he was the secretary of the editorial team responsible for the Cultural Review, and he also got fired.

[Q] A co się stało w... ’62 roku?

I w ’62 roku klub został rozwiązany. Klub został...zanosiło się już przez pewien czas na jego...na likwidację klubu, myśmy mieli już różne wieści dochodzące, że coś się szykuje w związku z tym zaprosiliśmy profesora Kotarbińskiego na zebranie, które według naszych wiadomości miało być ostatnim, żeby o wolności słowa wygłosił referat. Tymczasem okazało się, że nie jest to ostatnie, tylko jeszcze profesor Szaf wystąpił na następnym zebraniu. A ja miałem takie marzenie, że już jak okaże się, że po Kotarbińskim jest koniec Klubu Krzywego Koła, to ja zadzwonię do Szafa i powiem: „Panie profesorze, no jak Pan widzi, nie chcą Pana do głosu w ogóle dopuścić”. No i klub został rozwiązany po prowokacji – takiej typowej, ubeckiej, głupiej prowokacji – że jeden z uczestników dyskusji, który w obronie profesora Szafa, bo był atakowany przez prawie wszystkich dyskutantów, zabierał głos, dostał w ucho po prostu, został uderzony w piwnicy tego Domu Kultury, gdzie była pijalnia kawy i wina i to zostało potraktowane jako napad bojówki Klubu Krzywego Koła i nastąpiło zawieszenie, koniec. Dla mnie w ’62 roku w związku z tym przerwa była niedługa w rezultacie, bo w ’64 roku był List 34, czyli przerwa dla mnie była niedługa stosunkowo, bo rzeczywiście między ’62 a ‘64 rokiem nic się dla mnie nadzwyczajnego nie działo. Już pracowałem w Instytucie Badań Literackich, bo w ’60 roku mnie z pracy wywalili w PIW-ie w związku z tym, że ośmielałem się raz wygłosić odczyt, a drugi raz próbować wygłosić odczyt o Bolesławie Piaseckim i jego przeszłości politycznej. I okazało się, że Bolesław Piasecki ma długie ręce, z pracy wyleciałem zarówno ja, a to jeszcze rozumiem, bo ja odczyt miałem wygłaszać, ale Aleksander Małachowski tylko za to, że był...był prezesem Klubu, był sekretarzem wtedy redakcji w „Przeglądzie Kulturalnym” i też wyleciał.

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was one of Poland's best known political activists. He was also a writer and a literary critic. As a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1976, following worker protests, he co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). His active opposition to Poland's communist authorities led to his arrest and imprisonment on several occasions. In 1987, he re-established and headed the Polish Socialist Party. Two years later, he was elected to the Polish Senate. He died in 1991 while still in office. For his significant work, Lipski was honoured with the Cross of the Valorous (Krzyż Walecznych), posthumously with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1991) and with the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle (2006).

Listeners: Jacek Petrycki Marcel Łoziński

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Tags: Crooked Circle Club, Dom Kultury, Letter of the 34, Institute of Literary Research, National Institute of Publishing, Cultural Review, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Adam Szaf, Bolesław Piasecki, Aleksander Małachowski

Duration: 2 minutes, 36 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 10 March 2011