EWA A. ŁUKASZYK
  • Home
  • THEORY
  • EXPERIMENTS
    • POETICS OF THE VOID
    • NON-CULTURAL MORPHOGENESIS
    • INTIMATE MICROSPHERES
    • EROTICISM OF TRACE
    • DESERT
    • PINWHEELS
    • SYMBOLIC MATRIX
  • RESEARCH & PROJECTS
    • CULTURAL THEORY
    • WRITINGS ON ART
    • PLANT & ANIMAL STUDIES
    • COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL LITERARY STUDIES
    • TRANSCOLONIAL & TRANSINDIGENOUS STUDIES
    • TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
    • TRAVEL LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
    • MARITIME HUMANITIES
    • ISLAMIC STUDIES
    • CLASSICAL ARAB LITERATURE
    • ROMANCE MEDIEVAL & EARLY MODERN STUDIES
    • MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
    • MAGHREBIAN STUDIES
    • EURO-MEDITERRANEAN LITERATURE
    • FRENCH & EUROPEAN FRANCOPHONE LITERATURES
    • PORTUGUESE STUDIES
    • LUSOPHONE AFRICAN STUDIES
    • LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
    • VARIA & OCCASIONAL WRITINGS
    • Void in the making (RESEARCH BLOG)
  • TRAVELS & LITERATURE
    • ARCTIC & SCANDINAVIA >
      • GREENLAND
      • ICELAND
      • NORWAY
      • SWEDEN
      • FINLAND
      • DENMARK
    • EASTERN EUROPE >
      • ESTONIA
      • LATVIA
      • LITHUANIA
      • RUSSIA
      • BELARUS
      • UKRAINE
      • CZECH REPUBLIC
      • SLOVAKIA
      • HUNGARY
      • ROMANIA
      • MOLDOVA
      • POLAND
      • Forty Years of Travel in Poland
    • WESTERN EUROPE >
      • AUSTRIA
      • BELGIUM
      • FRANCE
      • GERMANY
      • GREAT BRITAIN
      • SCOTLAND
      • IRELAND
      • ITALY
      • VENICE
      • NETHERLANDS
      • SWITZERLAND
    • IBERIA & ATLANTIC ISLANDS >
      • PORTUGAL
      • SPAIN
      • CATALONIA
      • CANARY ISLANDS
      • CAPE VERDE
    • THE MEDITERRANEAN >
      • SICILY
      • MALTA
      • CYPRUS
    • THE BALKANS >
      • GREECE
      • SLOVENIA
      • ALBANIA
      • BULGARIA
      • NORTH MACEDONIA
      • SERBIA
      • CROATIA
      • MONTENEGRO
      • BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
    • CAUCASUS >
      • GEORGIA
      • ARMENIA
      • AZERBAIJAN
      • CHECHNYA
      • DAGESTAN
      • A Ride across the Caucasus
    • MIDDLE EAST >
      • EGYPT
      • TURKEY
      • CAPPADOCIA
      • LEBANON
      • ISRAEL
      • PALESTINE
      • SYRIA
      • IRAQ
      • KUWAIT
      • JORDAN
      • SAUDI ARABIA
      • QATAR
      • UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
      • BAHRAIN
      • OMAN
      • YEMEN
    • MAGHREB & SAHEL >
      • AL-ANDALUS
      • MOROCCO
      • TUNISIA
      • ALGERIA
      • LIBYA
      • SAHRAWI REPUBLIC
      • THE FULANI WORLD
      • MAURITANIA
      • MALI
      • BURKINA FASO
      • NIGER
      • CHAD
      • SUDAN
    • WEST AFRICA >
      • SENEGAL
      • GAMBIA
      • GUINEA-BISSAU
      • GUINEA
      • CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
      • SIERRA LEONE
      • IVORY COAST
      • GHANA
      • TOGO
      • BENIN
      • NIGERIA
      • SAO TOME & PRINCIPE
      • CAMEROON
      • EQUATORIAL GUINEA
      • GABON
      • CONGO
    • EAST AFRICA >
      • ETHIOPIA
      • SOMALIA
      • ERITREA
      • DJIBOUTI
      • KENYA
      • UGANDA
      • RWANDA
      • BURUNDI
      • TANZANIA
      • SEYCHELLES
      • MALDIVES
    • THE SOUTH OF AFRICA >
      • MALAWI
      • ANGOLA
      • ZAMBIA
      • COMOROS
      • MADAGASCAR
      • MOZAMBIQUE
      • SWAZILAND
      • ZIMBABWE
      • NAMIBIA
      • BOTSWANA
      • SOUTH AFRICA
    • NORTH ASIA >
      • YAKUTIA
      • BURYATIA
      • JAPAN
      • KOREA
      • CHINA
      • TIBET
      • MONGOLIA
      • KAZAKHSTAN
    • IRAN & CENTRAL ASIA >
      • IRAN
      • AFGHANISTAN
      • PAKISTAN
      • UZBEKISTAN
      • TAJIKISTAN
      • KYRGYZSTAN
      • TURKMENISTAN
    • SOUTH EAST ASIA >
      • LAOS
      • VIETNAM
      • CAMBODIA
      • MYANMAR
      • THAILAND
      • MALAYSIA
      • SINGAPORE
      • BRUNEI
      • INDONESIA
      • TIMOR
      • PAPUA NEW GUINEA
      • PHILIPPINES
    • THE INDIAN WORLD >
      • INDIA
      • BANGLADESH
      • BALI
      • SRI LANKA
      • MAURITIUS
      • NEPAL
      • BHUTAN
    • NORTH AMERICA >
      • CANADA
      • UNITED STATES
    • MESOAMERICA & CARIBBEAN >
      • MEXICO
      • GUATEMALA
      • BELIZE
      • EL SALVADOR
      • HONDURAS
      • NICARAGUA
      • COSTA RICA
      • CUBA
      • HAITI
      • JAMAICA
      • PANAMA
    • SOUTH AMERICA >
      • BRAZIL
      • COLOMBIA
      • VENEZUELA
      • TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
      • GUYANA
      • SURINAME
      • ECUADOR
      • PERU
      • BOLIVIA
      • URUGUAY
      • PARAGUAY
      • ARGENTINA
      • CHILE
    • AUSTRALIA & OCEANIA >
      • AUSTRALIA
      • NEW ZEALAND
      • TAHITI
      • SAMOA
      • MARSHALL ISLANDS
      • SOLOMON ISLANDS
      • FIJI
      • TONGA
      • VANUATU
      • KIRIBATI
      • PALAU
    • ANTARCTICA >
      • EXPLORATION
  • AUTOBIOGRAPHICA & MARGINALIA
    • The Four Riders
    • The Flight of the Crimson Angel
    • Becoming undead
    • Transition
    • LIFESTYLE
    • ON LANGUAGES
    • FALCONRY
    • NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY >
      • PLANTS >
        • BOTANIC GARDENS
        • FORESTS
      • BUTTERFLIES
      • AMPHIBIANS & REPTILES
      • BIRDS
      • MAMMALS
      • WATER & AQUATIC LIFE
      • EARTH
      • LIGHT
    • GARDEN & DESERT. Erotic Journal
  • News & Events
  • TEXTS
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN ENGLISH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN FRENCH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN PORTUGUESE & SPANISH
  • ABOUT
  • Contact

GARDEN & DESERT
​
Erotic Journal

The Turn of the Tide

5/5/2019

0 Comments

 
Several months passed by since my last post. The events that caused my hope before turned out to be mere strategic moves in a campaign that risks to bring my country to a really sticky end. Now it seems to me again that I see some symptoms of the turning tide. For no reason in particular. It is just the general morphology of the cultural phenomena, idea to which I am so sorely attached. National colours may fall out of fashion simply because they have been worn so intensely for such a long season. Simply because the human being is greedy of seasonal change.
I remember how it all began, long before the European Union; I was eighteen at the time. In the first free elections in Poland, a certain political adventurer hardly speaking any Polish at all, passing by the name of Stan Tyminski, appeared out of nowhere and was about to become the freely chosen president of the country, against Wałęsa, Mazowiecki and that sort of people. The day was saved in extremis by a handful of intelligentsia representatives who spread the rumour (later on broadcast on the television) that Tyminski used to beat his wife. I read today that he was also accused of being a Libyan terrorist, a Colombian drug dealer, and a mental patient; yet it was the accusation of beating his wife that somehow found its way to the popular Polish awareness, and Wałęsa ended up winning the elections. This is why, during my last trip to Poland, I was not surprised to see, on the front page of a right-wing gazette, the news that Biedroń, the present-day leader of the opposition, beats his mother. The only difference is that, in the meanwhile, it became normal and acceptable to beat one's wife. And the only sensation I had was that of a déjà vu. We are under the realm of the Eternal Return of The Same.
It is my nature to be prepared for all eventualities. Also for the Turn of the Tide. A few months or even weeks ago, I believed it is wise to maintain some academic contacts in Poland, just for the eventuality that I might come back one day, after the Turn of the Tide. In the meantime, I grew more attached to the Netherlands, to Leiden. On several occasions, I had that impulse at the bottom of my brain, put the formal clothes, don't wear that sweater, since you are a scholar at your university. Stick to a minimum of decency your status requires. And I was wearing the sweater only at night, when I was going to the library after the dinner. 
Leiden is like a garden, like some sort of hortus conclusus transformed by the work of generations, complete and perfect, bright mirror of Creation. Verweile doch, du bist so schön, my only worry is to make my present life last. It has been decided already that I stay for another year, and hopefully, after that year, for another five years. And after those five years, for all the remaining years. 
What can the Turn of the Tide do or not do to me? I suppose the decision that remains to be taken is that I won't sell the flat in Kraków yet. If Poland remains in the Schengen. Still waiting to see the result of the elections in the autumn. But how and for what does it serve me now? I suppose it has only a sort of psychological use. For that knowledge that some sort of mediocre stability awaits me there, if one day something happens. Sort of insurance against utmost unpredictability, perhaps against
 an unexpected quitclaim, an unnamed relinquishment. A use, thus, that would have a name only in Spanish: donde caer muerta. 
My life is transforming slowly, but irrevocably. There is no Turn of the Tide in it; I would say my life has a different general morphology as a phenomenon, in comparison to Polish history. A non-tidal morphology; perhaps because my life has no moon. It has an overwhelming logic of Exodus. Leaving closed spaces in favour of larger ones. It is the pattern of diffusion, that the laws of physics prevent from being inverted. This is how I had left my family, the sore limitations of my social class, Lublin, the narrowness of my universities. Now my horizon is truly global, my hobby is to complete the survey of the countries in my "Travel&Literature" section. In Leiden, what I enjoy most is the global ambience, all those people coming from the four corners of the planet, telling me their Bactrian stories during the coffee breaks. Stories that I've never expected to hear from a living mouth.
I came from darkness into light, and I shall not step back from light into darkness. And by darkness I don't mean just the nationalists shouting, at their meetings, that the EU makes the deviants educate our children. By darkness I mean those debates at the University of Warsaw, at the fabulous "A+" faculty where I had spent ten years of my life. There is no conceivable tidal change in this domain; ignorance is stagnant like a pond.
​
Better talk to me of Khorasan, lad. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    blog archives

    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • THEORY
  • EXPERIMENTS
    • POETICS OF THE VOID
    • NON-CULTURAL MORPHOGENESIS
    • INTIMATE MICROSPHERES
    • EROTICISM OF TRACE
    • DESERT
    • PINWHEELS
    • SYMBOLIC MATRIX
  • RESEARCH & PROJECTS
    • CULTURAL THEORY
    • WRITINGS ON ART
    • PLANT & ANIMAL STUDIES
    • COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL LITERARY STUDIES
    • TRANSCOLONIAL & TRANSINDIGENOUS STUDIES
    • TRANSCULTURAL STUDIES
    • TRAVEL LITERATURE
    • GLOBAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
    • MARITIME HUMANITIES
    • ISLAMIC STUDIES
    • CLASSICAL ARAB LITERATURE
    • ROMANCE MEDIEVAL & EARLY MODERN STUDIES
    • MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
    • MAGHREBIAN STUDIES
    • EURO-MEDITERRANEAN LITERATURE
    • FRENCH & EUROPEAN FRANCOPHONE LITERATURES
    • PORTUGUESE STUDIES
    • LUSOPHONE AFRICAN STUDIES
    • LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
    • VARIA & OCCASIONAL WRITINGS
    • Void in the making (RESEARCH BLOG)
  • TRAVELS & LITERATURE
    • ARCTIC & SCANDINAVIA >
      • GREENLAND
      • ICELAND
      • NORWAY
      • SWEDEN
      • FINLAND
      • DENMARK
    • EASTERN EUROPE >
      • ESTONIA
      • LATVIA
      • LITHUANIA
      • RUSSIA
      • BELARUS
      • UKRAINE
      • CZECH REPUBLIC
      • SLOVAKIA
      • HUNGARY
      • ROMANIA
      • MOLDOVA
      • POLAND
      • Forty Years of Travel in Poland
    • WESTERN EUROPE >
      • AUSTRIA
      • BELGIUM
      • FRANCE
      • GERMANY
      • GREAT BRITAIN
      • SCOTLAND
      • IRELAND
      • ITALY
      • VENICE
      • NETHERLANDS
      • SWITZERLAND
    • IBERIA & ATLANTIC ISLANDS >
      • PORTUGAL
      • SPAIN
      • CATALONIA
      • CANARY ISLANDS
      • CAPE VERDE
    • THE MEDITERRANEAN >
      • SICILY
      • MALTA
      • CYPRUS
    • THE BALKANS >
      • GREECE
      • SLOVENIA
      • ALBANIA
      • BULGARIA
      • NORTH MACEDONIA
      • SERBIA
      • CROATIA
      • MONTENEGRO
      • BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
    • CAUCASUS >
      • GEORGIA
      • ARMENIA
      • AZERBAIJAN
      • CHECHNYA
      • DAGESTAN
      • A Ride across the Caucasus
    • MIDDLE EAST >
      • EGYPT
      • TURKEY
      • CAPPADOCIA
      • LEBANON
      • ISRAEL
      • PALESTINE
      • SYRIA
      • IRAQ
      • KUWAIT
      • JORDAN
      • SAUDI ARABIA
      • QATAR
      • UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
      • BAHRAIN
      • OMAN
      • YEMEN
    • MAGHREB & SAHEL >
      • AL-ANDALUS
      • MOROCCO
      • TUNISIA
      • ALGERIA
      • LIBYA
      • SAHRAWI REPUBLIC
      • THE FULANI WORLD
      • MAURITANIA
      • MALI
      • BURKINA FASO
      • NIGER
      • CHAD
      • SUDAN
    • WEST AFRICA >
      • SENEGAL
      • GAMBIA
      • GUINEA-BISSAU
      • GUINEA
      • CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
      • SIERRA LEONE
      • IVORY COAST
      • GHANA
      • TOGO
      • BENIN
      • NIGERIA
      • SAO TOME & PRINCIPE
      • CAMEROON
      • EQUATORIAL GUINEA
      • GABON
      • CONGO
    • EAST AFRICA >
      • ETHIOPIA
      • SOMALIA
      • ERITREA
      • DJIBOUTI
      • KENYA
      • UGANDA
      • RWANDA
      • BURUNDI
      • TANZANIA
      • SEYCHELLES
      • MALDIVES
    • THE SOUTH OF AFRICA >
      • MALAWI
      • ANGOLA
      • ZAMBIA
      • COMOROS
      • MADAGASCAR
      • MOZAMBIQUE
      • SWAZILAND
      • ZIMBABWE
      • NAMIBIA
      • BOTSWANA
      • SOUTH AFRICA
    • NORTH ASIA >
      • YAKUTIA
      • BURYATIA
      • JAPAN
      • KOREA
      • CHINA
      • TIBET
      • MONGOLIA
      • KAZAKHSTAN
    • IRAN & CENTRAL ASIA >
      • IRAN
      • AFGHANISTAN
      • PAKISTAN
      • UZBEKISTAN
      • TAJIKISTAN
      • KYRGYZSTAN
      • TURKMENISTAN
    • SOUTH EAST ASIA >
      • LAOS
      • VIETNAM
      • CAMBODIA
      • MYANMAR
      • THAILAND
      • MALAYSIA
      • SINGAPORE
      • BRUNEI
      • INDONESIA
      • TIMOR
      • PAPUA NEW GUINEA
      • PHILIPPINES
    • THE INDIAN WORLD >
      • INDIA
      • BANGLADESH
      • BALI
      • SRI LANKA
      • MAURITIUS
      • NEPAL
      • BHUTAN
    • NORTH AMERICA >
      • CANADA
      • UNITED STATES
    • MESOAMERICA & CARIBBEAN >
      • MEXICO
      • GUATEMALA
      • BELIZE
      • EL SALVADOR
      • HONDURAS
      • NICARAGUA
      • COSTA RICA
      • CUBA
      • HAITI
      • JAMAICA
      • PANAMA
    • SOUTH AMERICA >
      • BRAZIL
      • COLOMBIA
      • VENEZUELA
      • TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
      • GUYANA
      • SURINAME
      • ECUADOR
      • PERU
      • BOLIVIA
      • URUGUAY
      • PARAGUAY
      • ARGENTINA
      • CHILE
    • AUSTRALIA & OCEANIA >
      • AUSTRALIA
      • NEW ZEALAND
      • TAHITI
      • SAMOA
      • MARSHALL ISLANDS
      • SOLOMON ISLANDS
      • FIJI
      • TONGA
      • VANUATU
      • KIRIBATI
      • PALAU
    • ANTARCTICA >
      • EXPLORATION
  • AUTOBIOGRAPHICA & MARGINALIA
    • The Four Riders
    • The Flight of the Crimson Angel
    • Becoming undead
    • Transition
    • LIFESTYLE
    • ON LANGUAGES
    • FALCONRY
    • NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY >
      • PLANTS >
        • BOTANIC GARDENS
        • FORESTS
      • BUTTERFLIES
      • AMPHIBIANS & REPTILES
      • BIRDS
      • MAMMALS
      • WATER & AQUATIC LIFE
      • EARTH
      • LIGHT
    • GARDEN & DESERT. Erotic Journal
  • News & Events
  • TEXTS
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN ENGLISH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN FRENCH
    • RECENT WRITINGS IN PORTUGUESE & SPANISH
  • ABOUT
  • Contact