On April 10, 2010, Poland experienced its worst tragedy in post-war history. The Tupelov-154 plane carrying the Polish presidential couple, Lech and Maria Kaczynski, as well as numerous state officials and dignitaries, crashed into the trees at the Smolensk military airport, killing all 96 passengers aboard. The Polish delegation was on its way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
The country has lost much of its senior leadership. Among the dead was the head of the Polish Central Bank Slawomir Skrzypek, the last Polish president of the government-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski and three Vice-Marshals of the
Sejm (the lower house of the Polish parliament) Krzystof Putra, Krystna Bochenek, and Jerzy Szmajdzinski. The accident also claimed the lives of the head of the National Security Bureau Aleksander Szczyglo, the chief of the Institute of National Rememberance Janusz Kurtyka, the Polish Ombudsman Janusz Kochanowski, the hero of the Solidarnosc movement Anna Walentynowicz, and many others. The Polish Army lost six out of seven high military commanders, leaving only the Minister of Defense.
As always with large-scale transportation accidents, there were several cases of people who had miraculously survived by refraining from travelling or giving up their places. Zofia Kruszynska-Gust, a former opposition member and current Presidential Office employee, allegedly woke up in the middle of the night before the accident and decided to abstain from travelling. Jan Oldakowski, whom President Kaczynski made director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum – one of Kaczynski’s most important domestic projects, said the he had given his place to a colleague, as did Stanislaw elichowski, a former Environment Minister.
This tragic accident is marked with symbolism. 70 years ago, almost to The Day, Poland lost around 22,000 of the country’s elite, including generals, a prince, professors, lawyers, engineers, and artists, in the Soviet-orchestrated massacre aimed at decapitating the Polish nation. Lech Walesa has called the event a second Katyn. In 1943, the leader of the wartime Polish government, Wladyslaw Sikorski, also died in a plane crash, though many Poles believed that his was assassinated for his determination to expose the Katyn massacre (a recent investigation, however, proved that there was no foul play involved).
The most likely cause of the accident was a combination of bad weather, outdated machinery, and human error. Despite calls to switch the route of the flight, the pilot made successive attempts to land. The fourth attempt ended with him clipping the plane’s wings and crashing into the trees before the runway. Although there have been no serious allegations in the media, the fact that such an important Polish delegation perished in unclear circumstances in Russia has raised eyebrows. Vladimir Putin hurriedly responded that a joint investigation by Polish and Russian forces will uncover all the details of the incident.
Poland has had its share of aviation accidents in recent history. Two years ago the country lost 20 high-ranking Air Force officers when their plane crashed upon landing. In 2003, the erstwhile Prime Minister of Poland Leszek Miller barely survived a helicopter accident, which was due to a combination of technical problems and possible human error. In an eerie premonition the Prime Minister criticized the use of machines that had long outlived their period of use, and claimed that the Polish political class would only understand the importance of replacing the aircraft fleet after they would meet together at a delegation’s funeral.
This begs the question of why so many important people were allowed to travel on the same plane, especially one that had a history of technical problems and whose model was responsible for countless tragedies. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, mayor of Warsaw and senior figure of the ruling Civic Platform party, deplored the lack of strict regulation regarding the flights of so many dignitaries in one plane, and announced that new rules would soon be designed and consistently enforced. The plane itself was also meant to be replaced, yet period of use was extended after a failed auction last year.
Despite calls from all political factions of unite in the face of such tragedy the event will certainly affect the Polish political scene. The Polish parliament is filled with the absent places, to be filled with runner-ups from the last elections. Although all the major parties suffered from losses, the current opposition party Law and Justice, to which the President himself belonged, lost the most of its senior members. Moreover, many of the other people on board were affiliated with the staunchly conservative and nationalist grouping. In previous years the members of this grouping were strongly involved in Poland’s assertive foreign policy in the East European region, while at the same time brewing up conflicts with Poland’s historical enemies, Germany and Russia. While the current government is unlikely to change the direction of Poland’s foreign policy, East European countries striving for EU integration and joining NATO have lost many of their most resolved allies.
In the mean time Poland is faced with the need to replace the country’s leadership. The Marshal of the Sejm Bronislaw Komorowski, incidentally the most widely supported presidential candidate, has become Acting President, in accordance with the Polish constitution. He now has until April 24 to set the date of the next presidential elections. These must be held on a weekend within 60 days, making June 20 the latest date available. Meanwhile he has already nominated Gen. Stanislaw Koziej, a politically neutral and highly esteemed specialist, as new head of the National Security Bureau. The replacement of parliamentarians and other political positions has been postponed until after the funeral services. This will be a necessary step in order to confirm the new head of the Polish Central Bank, also to be nominated by the Acting President. Due to the considerable losses experienced by Polish military leadership NATO convened an emergency summit on April 12.
The event has sparked up reactions around the globe. Within hours of the crash, world leaders sent heartfelt condolences. Georgian President Saakashvili awarded Lech Kaczynski with a posthumous Order of the National Hero of Georgia, and announced a day of mourning, as have many other countries, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary and even far off Brazil. The EU has also responded in this manner. Sirens have sounded in European capitals.
Yet it is Russia’s reaction that has moved Poles the most. Soon after the incident President Medevdev presented eloquent condolences to the Polish people. Russian authorities have provided the Poles coming to Moscow to identify their loved ones with hotels, food, and transportation. Shops in the vicinity of the Polish embassy have run out of red and white flowers. All aspects of the investigations are consistently shared with Polish experts.
Just days ago Polish-Russian relations had made a huge step forward, as Prime Ministers Tusk and Putin commemorated the Katyn massacres together. During his speech, Putin deplored the fate of those victims of totalitarianism, and expressed hopes that the two countries would be able to unite around their common tragedies, rather than be divided by them. While this fell short of the apology that many Poles had hoped for, it was a considerable improvement on the decades of official denial during the Soviet period (during which the massacre was blamed on Nazis). In recent years Russian authorities seemed to have backtracked on the admissions of presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin, refusing Polish investigators the right to travel to Moscow. Russian journals published articles once again blaming the murders on Nazis. Yet with blogs, forums, and newspapers filled with letters of sympathy and apologies for yet another tragedy, this now seems far off.
Poland’s official period of mourning will be for a week, though it will be much longer before people come to terms with the tragedy. Meanwhile government structures continue to operate. Despite the calls of some alarmists the Polish economy will not be seriously affected. The currency has hardly dipped, the institutions are strong. The legacy of this horrid accident will be one of pain, and little more. Hopefully it will also serve as a lesson about the importance of safety procedures and prudence.
COMMENTARIES
Dmytro Pavlychko, poet, translator, literary critic, public figure, has served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland and Slovakia;
Roman LUBKIVSKY, poet, translator, culture expert, public figure:
“Katyn is the most horrifying word in Polish history. Seventy years ago, 22,000 Polish officers surrendered to the Soviet army, hoping to join its ranks to fight the Nazis, but were massacred in the Katyn Forest on Stalin’s orders. Katyn is primarily evidence of an inhuman criminal alliance (however brief) of Hitler’s Nazi and Stalin’s Soviet regimes . There are forces in Russia that are still trying to conceal this crime on the part of the “father of all peoples,” Stalin.
“For the Polish nation there is no deeper wound than Katyn. This wound remains unhealed because Poland is still waiting for Russia to apologize for the massacre of the Polish prisoners of war. The Kremlin rulers cannot muster the courage to say the truth about Katyn. The tragic death in a plane crash of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and other Polish dignitaries occurred several kilometers from the grave of those executed in 1940. This death was accidental, it occurred due to technical reasons, but in the eyes of the Polish patriots it was the death of a hero, considering that they all flew there to pay homage to the victims that cannot be forgotten. Thus another wound was inflicted, both identified by the word “Katyn.” The Ukrainian people is keenly aware of these two Polish wounds. We cannot but remember that Lech Kaczynski’s generation helped Ukraine win its freedom while breaking the Stalinist chains asunder. The liberated Ukrainian and Polish peoples are in deep mourning; our thoughts are directed to the underpinning principles of our life, to the unity of our nations that must not be weakened by grief.”
Nina POREMSKA, chairperson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko Society for Polish Culture in Volyn:
“Volyn and neighboring Poland traditionally have common borders and history. Even now there are quite a few ethnic Poles living in Volyn. Apart from our society, there is another society for Polish culture in Lutsk, named after Ewa Felinska. Our societies are a “small Poland” in Volyn. We were all shocked speechless by the tragedy near Smolensk. All Poles in Lutsk are weeping. Never before has the cream of a nation been instantly destroyed. We personally know a number of the victims, among them Andrzej Przewoznik, Secretary General of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites who has repeatedly visited Volyn and explored all cemetaries with the graves of ethnic Poles. Only last fall two thousand icon lamps were sent from Lublin. They were purchased by ordinary Poles who passed the hat around. Our societies, in collaboration with the Polish consulate in Lutsk, placed them on all ethnic Polish graves we knew about, in places of Polish colonies and villages. We have nice Polish memorials in the villages of Pavlivka and Haiove (formerly Przebraze), and we owe them primarily to Andrzej Przewoznik.
“Another person we knew well was Maciej Plazynski, head of the Stowarzyszenie “Wspolnota Polska”. We last met with him at the end of 2009. He took care of Poles who lived outside Poland, and although he occupied that post for a short period of time, he knew us leaders of the polish cultural societies in Ukraine well. We had such big plans! Our cherished dream was the construction of a Polish Home in Lutsk. I think it will come true after his death, in memory of this extraordinary personality. His death is a devastating loss for the Poles who are destined to live outside their Fatherland. We are planning a big Mass for the Dead at Sts. Peter and Paul’s Cathedral in Lutsk today. In fact, it was originally meant to commemorate the Katyn victims, so this time it will also commemorate the victims of the April 10 tragedy (it has already become known as Katyn-2). We the Poles of Volyn say that this tragedy, however painful, may not be coincidental, for it will make it impossible to keep silent about the massacre of thousands of Poles at Katyn (as has been the case for so many decades). The plane crash at Smolensk may be Poland’s great sacrifice that will make known the names of the victims of that massacre and rest their souls.”
