“Each one of us has a responsibility to protect freedom” – MCC Transylvania Lectures About Art, Historical Narratives, and Censorship

“Each one of us has a responsibility to protect freedom and it is not only in theory or through heroic actions in a battlefield”, said Agnieszka Kolek at the MCC center in Kolozsvár/Cluj. She moved to London in 2002 as a young artist. “It seemed to me that if Western societies were free that meant that they appreciated their freedom”, she remembered. She became a curator for the Passion for Freedom London Art Festival in 2010. She worked pro bono and discovered “why being rooted in our own history and tradition is vital for preservation of our freedom.” In the past she has also served as the deputy director at the Ujazdowski Castle, Centre for Contemporary Art, in Warsaw.

She started a project commemorating her childhood in Katowice, and Poland under communist regime. She gathered old objects, revisited stories and even difficult memories from her childhood. She remembered how her father had to work abroad, how the family had to bribe doctors, the rationing of food, the introduction of martial law in Poland, the coalminers’ strike and the deaths of acquaintances, and other hardships of that period. As a university student in London, it was hard to face that Westerners were completely oblivious to the Eastern European history and the reality of the communist regime; some even thought it was fiction. She was also shocked to see banners of Joseph Stalin being carried in central London on the 1^st of May parade.

“I realized that by cutting myself away from my roots I was not getting away from the painful history of my country but actually I was losing the strength and resilience coming from these difficult experiences,” said Agnieszka Kolek. Mara Raţiu added her side of the story to the discussion: in the 90s, she studied philosophy in Paris where she was also shocked of how foreigners considered communism great, and didn’t understand why she was criticizing the regime. ”The elite in the Western world were in love with the idea of an alternate society. They were criticizing capitalism, and thought that an alternate socialist society could lead to a better life.”

Agnieszka Kolek’s opinion is that the romanticization of socialism and communism by Western intellectuals is a major cause of the misinformation among young people. “This, combined with moral relativism helped to avoid any deep moral reckoning after the fall of communism. At the same time, many continued to hold a deeply rooted view that if the ideology was implemented in the right way it would all work. What is more disturbing to know is the fact that many being aware of the crimes and the millions of victims of communism they still thought it was worth it.” This phenomenon influenced history curriculum, books, publications and also popular culture – while the Nazi crimes and Adolf Hitler are widely known in the world, the horrors of communism are rarely talked about.

The speaker presented the case of artist Ignacy Czwartos, whose exhibition was to represent Poland at the Venice Biennale in 2024. It is not clear why the Minister of Culture and National Heritage called off his work. The artist was using archive documents, pictures and cases of real people to show the horrors of World War II, Nazis who committed atrocities in Poland, and Polish soldiers who fought the Soviet Union. The paintings are dramatic and emotionally charged. He received attacks and from the beginning people said that he should abandon the subject for his own good. It was never about the paintings themselves, but the subject, and he was even called anti-European.

Agnieszka Kolek thinks it is concerning that the elite can rewrite history and shape how people think about the past. And why should the subject gain bigger attention in the post-communist regions? The artist says, “As we have never been fully allowed to examine the communist crimes and the Western elites continue to be enamored with them we risk repeating the same mistakes but in a slightly different manner. It is important that we remain vigilant and not only study our own history but also create an environment where artists can freely explore subjects that are rooted in our regions, countries with their specific conditions and history.”

Among the museums, memorials and research centers focused on communism and its victims the speaker mentioned the House of Terror in Budapest; the Museum of the Victims of Communism in Washington D.C.; the Museum of Communism in Prague; the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance in Sighetu Marmației; the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory; and the European Solidarity Centre in Warsaw.