The controversial decision to award the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Austrian writer Peter Handke sparked much criticism of the Swedish Academy’s choice. Due to the postponement of the 2018 ceremony, Handke was awarded alongside the 2018 laureate, Polish author, activist, and committed proponent of tolerance, Olga Tokarczuk. Handke’s win was widely denounced around the world, and especially in the Balkans, because of his support for Slobodan Milošević. Whilst Tokarczuk’s win was lauded, many Bosnian writers and journalists, all genocide survivors, expressed disappointment in both her acceptance of the prize in his presence and, above all, in her silence. In this essay, Bosnian writer Kenan Efendić discusses Tokarczuk’s position in this Nobel controversy and considers the writer’s role in speaking out against injustice.
In the poem “The Power of Taste,” Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert disassembles and simplifies the intellectual ethics of serving a regime and pandering to the majority. This master of irony cut down the whole dialectics of intellectual autonomy, higher goals, comfort, and ethics—to a matter of taste.
The poem is dedicated to Izydora Dąmbska, a philosopher and professor, whose scientific and academic career would be marked and obstructed by her decision not to accept the Marxist religion and to demand the autonomy of teaching philosophy in (then) communist Poland. This happened twice: first, immediately after WWII when the country was de facto ruled by the Soviets; second, in the 1960s, when the home-brewed communist elite had already come into power. Another typical story from the totalitarian universe of the twentieth century by its form—yet a particular and unique act when measured by the courage and taste of a personal decision.
One such scientific view, which evolved into a rigorous ethic (as Danilo Kiš would say) continued to act as morale for future generations and as inspiration for brothers in arms. One among them was Zbigniew Herbert, Dąmbska’s younger compatriot from the city of Lviv, the capital of the lost Polish South-Eastern Borderlands.
A stubborn and inexorable fighter for the autonomy of literature and reason, who never expressed his engagement in the vulgar manner of a commissar, he intentionally dedicated the poem to a woman, a creature expected to be weaker according to the logic of both the party and the patriarchal male mind. It was a message to all those slicked and tedious professors, versemongers, and graphomaniacs whom Herbert despised. Moreover, he published the poem in the 1980s, at a time when Dąmbska was seen as a thing of the past. It was a reminder to contemporaries that although the lure and comfort of serving a ruling elite change form, they still persist throughout different eras and regimes.
The first six lines of “The Power of Taste” carry the main message and repeat, somewhat altered, in the final stanza, one line longer. I quote them here in English, as translated by John and Bogdana Carpenter.
(first verse)
It didn’t require great character at all
our refusal disagreement and resistance
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste
Yes taste
in which there are fibers of the soul the cartilage of conscience(last verse)
It did not require great character at all
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste
Yes taste
that commands us to get out to make a wry face draw out a sneer
even if for this the precious capital of the body the head
must fall
***
“I also want to have the right to celebrate this award given to me and to the literature to which I dedicated my whole life. It is not my fault that the Nobel was given at the same time to another person,” stated Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018, on December 9, 2019, one day before the official ceremony and two days after the laureate lecture.
I am not familiar with Tokarczuk’s body of work—but it is not relevant for this discussion. Friends and critics whose opinion and taste I value speak of an extraordinary storyteller, author of a rare, almost extinct power of building a fictional world. Besides, she is very loud and socially engaged, like many other Polish contemporary intellectuals—opposing the rightist government which is not unfamiliar with autocratic methods of controlling the judiciary and media. She is very sensitive to limiting liberal legacies, and always ready to voice her dissent from female oppression. She herself has been a target of media campaigns, accused of a lack of Polishness, the surplus of Liberalism, which is threatening the patriotism of a great nation. Some have even questioned and diminished her Nobel Prize on such grounds, spreading conspiracy theories that she was awarded with a secret purpose to encourage the alleged left Poland.
Another Person is Peter Handke, the Austrian writer infamous not only because of his literature but because of glorifying war crimes committed by Serb armies in the 1990s, and because of the servile zeal in support of Slobodan Milošević, a South-East European forerunner of what is today labelled an “autocrat” in Central Europe. I will not deliberate too much on his non-literary and literary persistence to depreciate the victims of the Srebrenica Genocide, even mock them with a wry face. He is a default trope of the once marginal, and now louder, course of the Western-European modern thought and stance towards evil. By bestowing the Nobel Prize on him, the Swedish Academy gave him the chance to leave the margins and enter the canon of intellectual and political values. For further reading, I recommend a series of extraordinary investigative work by Peter Maass, as well as texts by Emir Suljagić (on the meaning of the prize for remembering the Genocide), Adnan Delalić (on the mechanisms of denying the Holocaust and genocide) and Mirnes Sokolović (on literary and quasi-literary work by another person in the context of crime and evil).
I remember I was delighted when they announced they would award Tokarczuk. I remembered Czesław Miłosz, another Polish literature giant, who also won the Nobel. During the war and the Siege, he dedicated a poem to Sarajevo.
I love Polish literature. Through a combination of circumstances and personal decisions, I have learned the language of some of the best twentieth-century poetry, the poetry of heroic resistance to stupidity, shallowness, and crime.
Almost in the same way that I was shaped by the Quranic insistence on justice, I am also guided by “The Envoy of Mr. Cogito” or “Report From The Besieged City” by Zbigniew Herbert. A neutral observer could have expected Tokarczuk to show at least a minimum of social and intellectual responsibility. I was expecting something much, much more powerful: because Polish literature is inseparable from the role and the power its writers always had, being able to elevate and dignify their society; because it is a culture in which, as a rule, intellectuals are braver than the mediocre, obliged by a stronger taste. I was most certainly not expecting her to refuse the prize. I agree with a part of her statement, and I understand the vanity. The joy is apparent to me; she expected and obviously deserved the prize.
It is maybe too unrealistic to expect a move of such a great character—as shown by Jean-Paul Sartre who did not accept the Nobel Prize in Literature—in our times, when everything is relative and when denying genocide is a matter of opinion and pluralism, as the Swedish Academy explained in a letter to the victims. I agree with the compromises. I was not expecting Tokarczuk to attack another person with a fierce righteousness, or to make a scandal unfit for the pre-modern royal ceremonials of the Swedish Royal Family and Academy. Maybe she sees it as inappropriate. She has a right to do so.
But, the scandal had already happened: Is there anything else more scandalous than awarding a coward who mocks the pain of mothers still looking for the bones of their sons scattered across the mass graves throughout eastern Bosnia? Can a sentence of condemnation at the press conference present a bigger scandal than legitimizing a writer who visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996, while bulldozers were still ploughing mass graves to dismantle bodies and hide evidence? The writer who, in Srebrenica and Višegrad (the places of the worst atrocities), took joyful photos at the bank of the Drina River (a flowing mass grave itself). The writer who took photos at the places where war criminals gave victorious statements to the media a couple of months ago, and made toasts with officials of a party that organized killing. Moreover, he does not give up, outrageous and arrogant as he is, on such a legacy even today.
I was not expecting Tokarczuk or her associates to read hundreds of pages written by journalists, scholars, and other writers explaining responsibly why such a career of dishonour cannot be awarded such a prize. Especially not today. Because the freedom and diversity of the Old Continent are today endangered precisely by those whom Another Person values. I was not expecting Tokarczuk to understand that if a type of ruler valued by Another Person wins, people like her will end up in detention. It is too much to ask of a person so excited by such a prize.
Nevertheless, I was expecting her to say something: because writers do write, but they also speak. Especially when given an opportunity to give a lecture. The quoted statement is a piece of evidence that the laureate knows something is not right—that Another Person, whom she does not want to even name, causes controversies. She would have named him if everything were business as usual. Furthermore, two Nobel Prize Committee members had already resigned, with one of them openly stating she was doing so because of Another Person.
In the weeks before the award ceremony, both liberal and conservative UK-, US-, and German-speaking press had been writing, deliberating, and begging the Academy not to award Another Person. For the canonization of Another Person concerns the future of Europe and not only the future of an atypical, small South-European ethnic group: Bosniaks. In the manner of a canonical Serb nationalist, Another Person would reduce them to Serb Muslims, not giving up the stigma, the humiliation, or the mockery. He was there with a wry face for victims, not those in power. That is an attribute of scamps and cowards. Finally, the Polish media also carried short but clear reports on something happening with Another Person.
In her laureate lecture, Tokarczuk did, or tried to, speak. However, cheap allegories about the genocide against Native Americans bear witness to the lack of taste regarding the place and time of speaking, when there are current genocides. The allegory is, above all, an ordinary trope used by anti-globalists who love Another Person very much. One such anti-globalist, the director Emir Kusturica, an aficionado of the Reign and Rulers, came to the ceremony as an emissary of one obscure local politician, who also openly mocks others’ dead sons.
I remembered Herbert’s poem when I saw Tokarczuk applauding Another Person after he gave the laureate lecture. I realized that I was—as a child who survived the war and, only thanks to destiny, my year of birth, and geography, avoided ending up in one of the mass graves—in the desperation of a Polish literature lover expecting her at least not to applaud. Such a small power of taste. A silent disdain.
Tokarczuk—as her quoted statement, given to Swedish press after the laureate lecture, shows —did not want anything to spoil her celebratory mood. She did not want to be rude in front of the intellectual nobility of the Kingdom of Sweden. A woman from the Central (or Eastern?) Europe did not want to insult cynical older men of Northern Europe who are handing out prizes and recognitions. Legitimizing a rightist male from the West and a leftist female from the East. A pluralistic balance of relativization.
The celebratory mood was evident during the official ceremony. Tokarczuk didn’t hide her joyful smile; she was almost the only one there smiling, next to the grim face of Another Person, surrounded by pensive faces of chemists, physicists, and economists.
Just as her compatriot from the last century, the aforementioned Dąmbska, decided not to desecrate philosophy by the religion of Marxism, Tokarczuk decided to imprint the substance of Another Person into her career in the memory of one part of the global public.
Just as another of her compatriot’s, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the United Nations envoy to BiH, persistently reported on war crimes with zero diplomatic balance, which other Western and North European diplomats, all those lords and stoltenbergs, used too much. In the end, Mazowiecki resigned in protest because of the Srebrenica Genocide. Such a decision was not a matter of job description, rather a matter of taste. His UN colleague Yasushi Akashi, for instance, decided to help war criminals commit the genocide because he believed, like some other diplomats, that killing a couple of thousand of people would speed up a political resolution of the war. That was a matter of taste as well.
I will admit that it was not Tokarczuk’s fault that she had to share the stage with Another Person. But it was her fault that she said nothing. Let’s leave aside our insistence on truth. Let’s forget the Mothers of Srebrenica, the women whose magnificent fight for truth Tokarczuk refuses to see. Let’s break everything down, as Herbert did, to . . . taste. Olga Tokarczuk showed bad taste.
Before the lecture, she attended the press conference, when Another Person was complacently and thuggishly ridiculing a journalist. Why did taste not kick in then, when Another Person was telling a journalist (who politely asked an unpleasant question) that he prefers a message written in shit to the question. Why did taste not kick in on the level of principles: does Tokarczuk approve of such treatment of journalists in her homeland?
It is evident: my desperation is never-ending and I am resorting to logistical details. I am desperate because awarding Another Person is a sign (among many other political and ideological trends in the most recent years) that we are about to face a world that we are not yet familiar with or understand. If it will ever be possible, because time is approaching us too fast. A world in which hard-laboured, court-attested facts about killing children and raping women are more important than the quasi-literary raving of a coward is about to vanish. A world in which the West had a shred of necessary accountability to condemn the killing of the innocent and not to celebrate those who mock crimes and not to accept glorification of war criminals— that world is about to vanish as well. The world in which Polish literature giants preferred taste to glory is about to vanish.
In the mentioned article, Tokarczuk stated—it was hard for me to believe—that she “never evaluated the work of colleagues” because there are “critics and the public” to do it.
“I never judged someone else’s life choices, such as the life choices of some Poles during WWII to join Germans in committing some crimes against Jews.” Would Olga Tokarczuk ever say this sentence? No. She is very vocal in her efforts not to allow the Polish public to forget its small yet shameful historical episode. Some would say she is too vocal, even unnecessarily loud. However, that kind of courage is not making her leave her comfort zone. Moreover, it helps her build her own image within the national literary canon and market. That does not require a great character.
A great character, in the end, is not a must-have for being able to say something. Some better taste, however, is a must-have.
At the end of this joyless essay by a desperate man—who wants his child to grow up in a world in which cowards praising war criminals are not be awarded—I still want to believe that one part of Polish literary and intellectual public has taste. I want to believe that someone will publicly, in the upcoming weeks, explain that a civilisation principle is more important than national pride.
Furthermore, I can only—apart from this outburst of disappointment—translate the poem written by the great poet. It has been already translated into the languages my people (still) understand. The great Petar Vujičić, a Serb from Belgrade, has been masterly translating Herbert for years. Nevertheless, I will—here and now, as I am writing the text—translate the poem again, into the Bosnian language, whose mere existence is also denied by all those Handke-lovers. I will translate it again, as a message of persistence, as an expression of a refusal disagreement and resistance. Also, I will translate it because, today, this poem is gaining new meaning.
This act of translation is one fibre of the spite of all of us who survived, for all those who make wry faces to victims instead of headsmen. It shall remain as a reminder of the Power of Taste, of the poem which—apart from the introductory and final lines—describes the choice by Olga Tokarczuk so clearly.
Moć ukusa
Profesorici Izydori Dąmbskoj
To uopće nije zahtijevalo veliki karakter
naše odbijanje neslaganje upornost
imali smo trunku nužne hrabrosti
ali u suštini bila je to stvar ukusa
Da ukusa
u kojem su vlakna duše i hrskavica savjestiKo zna da nas se bolje i ljepše iskušavalo
da nam se slalo žene rumene ravne poput hostije
ili fantastična stvorenja iz slika Hieronymusa Boscha
ipak kakav je u to doba pakao bio
mokra jama uličica ubicā baraka
zvana palata pravde
Mefistoles kućne izrade u lenjinovskoj jakni
slao je na teren Aurorine unučiće
mladiće krompirastih lica
veoma ružne djevojke crvenih rukuOdista im je retorika bila odveć teška
(Marko Tulije prevrtao se u grobu)
lanci tautologije par pojmova poput mlatila
dijalektika dželatā nikakve profinjenosti u rasuđivanju
sintaksa lišena ljepote konjunktivaTako dakle estetika može biti od koristi u životu
ne treba zanemarivati nauku o lijepome
Prije nego obznanimo pristupnicu treba pažljivo ispitati
oblik arhitekture ritam bubnjeva i pištaljki
zvanične boje nedolični obred pogrebaNaše oči i uši odbile su poslušnost
prinčevi naših čula izabrali su ponosno izgnanstvoTo uopće nije zahtijevalo veliki karakter
imali smo trunku neophodne hrabrosti
ali u suštini bila je to stvar ukusa
Da ukusa
koji nalaže izaći iskeziti se iscijediti podsmijeh
ma zbog tog pao i neprocjenjivi kapital tijela
glavaThe Power of Taste
For Professor Izydora Dambska
It didn’t require great character at all
our refusal disagreement and resistance
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste
Yes taste
in which there are fibers of soul the cartilage of conscienceWho knows if we had been better and more attractively tempted
sent rose-skinned women thin as a wafer
or fantastic creatures from the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch
but what kind of hell was there at this time
a wet pit the murderers’ alley the barrack
called a palace of justice
a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket
sent Aurora’s grandchildren out into the field
boys with potato faces
very ugly girls with red handsVerily their rhetoric was made of cheap sacking
(Marcus Tullius kept turning in his grave)
chains of tautologies a couple of concepts like flails
the dialectics of slaughterers no distinctions in reasoning
syntax deprived of beauty of the subjunctiveSo aesthetics can be helpful in life
one should not neglect the study of beautyBefore we declare our consent, we must carefully examine
the shape of the architecture the rhythm of the drums and pipes
official colors the despicable ritual of funeralsOur eyes and ears refused obedience
he princes of our senses proudly chose exileIt did not require great character at all
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste
Yes taste
that commands us to get out to make a wry face draw out a sneer
even if for this the precious capital of the body the head
must fall
Bosnian translation by Kenan Efendić
English translation by John and Bogdana Carpenter
This article was originally published on December 11, 2019, in Bosnian literary magazine sic!.
Kenan Efendić is a media and communications expert based in Sarajevo and one of the founders of the literary magazine sic!. When not working in media in communications, he translates Polish literature.
*****
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