After 200 years, we [as Poles] find ourselves in exactly the same place. And either we overcome this, or… the further scenarios become troubling — declared editor Adrian Stankowski during a conference organized to commemorate the Millennium of the Kingdom of Poland. The publicist for Gazeta Polska informed attendees that already in 1831, the periodical’s writers were addressing the very same issues that are relevant to Poles today.
On March 28–29, the conference titled Europe’s Cultural Heritage in the Light of the Millennium of the Kingdom of Poland took place. On the second day of the event, a debate was held under the title The Structure of the State: Lessons from History and the Contemporary State. One of the participants was editor Adrian Stankowski. The Gazeta Polska columnist highlighted the dire state of democracy in Poland.
“We lack a republican community because it has been renounced by the current prime minister. And what lies ahead of us — and I have been saying this since December 2013, because it was already visible then — is the most serious task: the reconstruction of the Republic. Rebuilding the Republic, understood not as the drafting of yet another constitution — because what difference does it make whether we enact this or that constitution, this or that law if no one will obey it? That is precisely the situation we are dealing with today […] These lessons are necessary for us to once again feel ourselves to be a Republic,”
he stated.
He emphasized that “sovereignty is beyond discussion.” He recalled the privilege granted by Władysław II Jagiełło: “No one shall be imprisoned without a court verdict”, which directly guaranteed citizens protection from unjust legal proceedings. “The law is more important than the ruler,” Stankowski pointed out.
“That was when the community of free citizens began to be constituted. Free citizens — free, proud citizens — create a sovereign state […] This is the historical lesson from which we should begin: that personal freedom must be the foundation of the political system. For this personal freedom is under constant threat — including freedom of speech, something we at TV Republika experience daily,”
he declared.
Stankowski also addressed the issue of foreign influence in Poland, which had been raised in an earlier part of the discussion. “We found an archival issue of Gazeta Polska dated January 31, 1831 — the second month of the November Uprising. Guess what our journalistic forebears, whose legacy we wish to uphold, were writing about? They were writing about a commission for combating Russian influence,” he revealed.
“It’s available on Gazeta Polska‘s website — you can look it up. It’s hard to read, as it is written in the language of 200 years ago, but it is worth reading, to realize the moment in which we find ourselves — after 200 years, we are in exactly the same place. And either we overcome it, or… the future scenarios are already troubling,”
he concluded.