INTERNATIONAL

Adam Mickiewicz- Polish poet and a hero

-Piotr Rudzki, Polish Embassy, New Delhi,India

In Poland, last year, we celebrated the 200th birth anniversary of Adam Mickiewicz. This was a festival of Polish literature and culture, which was significantly enriched by works, and life of Mickiewicz. The tradition founded by him is still alive among Poles. Although some claim that it should be changed as time passes by and that it is not appropriate to the needs and expectations of the new generation but it lasts. But Polish is not the only nation, which was engaged in this festivity and which treated Mickiewicz as its own artist. Last year, a big function was organized in a city called Novogrodek, in Belarus. Even Belorussian government, including the president of the republic, participated in it.

Mickiewicz was born on 24 December 1798, probably in Zaosie, and he lived in Novogrodek till 1815. Both these cities are situated, nowadays, in Belarus. More than that, Mickiewicz’s family has Belorussian roots. In addition, the most famous play written by Mickiewicz-Dziady- is composed on an old ceremony popular among Belorussian peasants, and the title of play is just a name of this ceremony.

Also Lithuanians consider the poet to be their writer. He used to study at the university in Wilno-Vilnius-, which is currently the capital of Lithuania, during the period of 1815-1819. But one has to remember that Wilno University was one of the best Polish high education institutions of that time.

From 1819 till 1824 Mickiewicz lived and worked in Kowno which is nowadays a Lithuanian city. And last but not least, he began his epic entitled Pan Tadeusz with the line: "Litwo, ojczyzno moja"- Lithuania, my motherland. Jews

Are another nation which claims its rights to Mickiewicz. First of all, because the poet’s mother seemed to be of a Jewish origin. Secondly, because he was married to Celina Szymanowska who was of a Jewish origin from both-mother and father’s sides. As a third comes proof from Mickiewicz’s works. He wrote in a prophetic soliloquy of one of the main characters of his play Forefathers’ Eve part III-Ksiadz Piotr-Priest Peter- that a person who would free Poland would be Polish but "z matki obcej"-his mother would not be of a Polish origin.

If one travels through Europe and some parts of Asia, one will discover statues as well as museums of Mickiewicz in many countries and cities, for example; Paris, Constantinople, Novogrodek, Crimea, Karlovy, Vary, Burgas, Ankara, Rome, Lviv and many more. One city in Turkey was named after his first name-Adampole. As somebody mentioned in one of the articles published on the occasion of the poet’s birth annversary, "we Poles are not afraid that somebody will take away Mickiewicz….Artistes are stretchy, o it will be enough for everybody."

And we have to remember that Poland, starting from XIV century was a multinational and multicultural country. It was the year 1385 when a voluntary personal union of Poland and Lithuania was signed in Krewo. Then in 1386 Grand Duke of Lithuania-Wladislaw Jagiello became a Polish King; it marked the beginning of Jagelonian dynasty, which ruled the country till 1572. The second persoanl union was signed in 1413 in Chorodlo, and the final one, which was not personal but real union-in 1569 in Lublin. Since then it was one state, composed of two integrated parts, and called Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow-Commonwealth of two nations. Moreover, Poland was the country without stakes. In 1573, after Konfederacja Warszawa-Warsaw confederacy- a law was issued, according to which anybody could not be punished for religious beliefs.

The country remained in more or less the same shape till 1792, when the first partition took place. Russia, Prussia and Austria annexed one-third of Poland, which means one-third of her territory and one-third of her population. Before this Poland had a territory of 734,000 square kilometers and population of 14 million. Classicism in Poland, which began in second half of XVIII century, was not the movement against absolute monarchy. Unlike in other European countries, Polish writers and thinkers were concentrated on rebuilding the power of the country. They wanted to rebuild it bit in a democratic way. The culminating point of those efforts was signing Konstytucja 3 Maja-Third May constitution-in 1791. It was the second document of this kind in the world after the constitution of America. Unfortunately, the result was far from what was expected. Russia and Prussia signed the agreement for next partition of Poland. The country lost almost the same number of people and even more territory than during the first partition.

In March 1794 so-called Insurekcja Kosciuszkowska began. That was the first national uprising against invaders headed by Tadeusz Kosciuszko. In this war-mainly against Russia and with participation of Prussian troops-took part Mickiewics’s father.

Mickiewicz recalled all these important events of Polish history in his epic, which is considered as a Polish national epic, Pan Tadeusz realised in 1834 in Paris. But the list of meaningful personages would not be complete without one man whose cult Mickiewicz cultivted almost during whole of his life. That was Napoleon. The reasons for this are obvious. First of all, Napoleon used to fight against invaders of Poland. Secondly, he let Poles create a substitute of Polish State. In 1870 Ksiestwo Warszawskie-the Duchy of Warsaw- was set up in the land taken previously by Prussians. Thirdly, Mickiewicz considered Napoleon to be a democrat, which was proved in the constitution prepared by him for Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. The constitution made all citizens equal in the eyes of law. And fourthly, Mickiewicz remembered Napoleon troops, which entered Nowogrodek in May, 1812 on their way to Moscow. There were Polish soldiers among them. Citizens of Nowogrodel welcomed soldiers and their commander, king of Westphalia Heronimus, very cordially. One of the commanders was Polish Prince Jozef Poniatowski. That time in Poland everybody hoped that Napoleon would defeat Russian army and Poland would regain her independence. Mickiewicz recalled this atmosphere of hope and happiness in last scenes of his epic.

If his positive hero was Napoleon, the negative one was a Russian Tsar. A Mickiewicz’s play Forefathers’ Eve part III is, to some extent an artistic document of a martyrdom of Poles, especially of Polish youth under the Tsar regime. In this mystical and symbolic play Russian Tsar is compared to King Herod the Great who tried to kill the infant Jesus by massacring all the male babies in Bethlehem. He is a part of Devil power on this earth.

Mickiewicz died on 26 November 1855 in Constantinople. He came to Turkey in order to help to form Polish troops which could fight against Russian in so-called Crimean war. That was his second attempt of this kind. In 1848, during so-called People’s Spring, he went to Rome in order to organise Polish Legion which would take part in fights of European people against autocratic monarchies. He wrote a radically democratic program entitled-Sklad zasad for this Legion. The other political activity in which he was involved was a daily Trybuna Luda published by an international team of democrats in Paris in 1849.

Starting from 1824 he was not just an emigrant, he was a pilgrim who was searching his "Jerusalem"’ which for him was democratic Europe as well as free and democratic Poland. "He was a patriot of motherland, which was Poland, and his smaller motherland, which was Lithuania…There is a lot of Mickiewicz, it is enough for everybody. That is better. Let him unite instead divide.

Text courtesy: Poland-Nepal Friendship Association, Warsaw, Poland.

Galileo, the new European Space challenge

Emmanuel THEVENON, France

After the success of the Ariane launcher, Europe is setting up a world system of aid for navigation by satellite, in a market which is likely to experience considerable growth in the coming years.

Thanks to the solo sailors and racing drivers in the Paris-Dakar rally, the initials, GPS, for Global Positioning System, have become very well known. With a constellation of satellites revolving around the earth, GPS makes it able to determine the exact position any moving body, including aircraft, in three dimensions. Glonass, its Russian equivalent, is, at present, its only competitor but economic difficulties in the former Soviet Empire have made it impossible to renew faulty satellites.

GPS, which is made freely available to civilians, is developed and managed exclusively by the Defense Department of the United States. In addition to its obvious military interest, it has experienced considerable economic growth in the civil area over the last few years. In view of the expected development of GPS and concerned at the risks linked to the America monopoly, in 1999 the European Union decided to launch a comparable program called Galileo which could come to use in 2005.

To ensure the coverage of the whole planet, Galileo will comprise a constellation of no fewer than 21 satellites, spread out over different orbits about 24,000 kilometers from the Earth and complemented by installations on the ground. It is expected to outperform GPS. The basic service, which will be free and available to everybody, will have an accuracy of a dozen meters compared with a hundred meters or so for its American equivalent. It will be even more accurate for fee-paying users, with considerably less than a meter thanks to so-called "differential" correction. Together, GPS and Galileo will be completely compatible and inter-operational for the greatest benefit of users.

In all, the cost of the European project is estimated at nearly 3 billion Euro, 800 million of which are intended for space development. It will be financed half-and-half by the EU and by the ESA-European Space Agency- and will be later completed by private partnerships. The importance of the investment is commensurate with the expected economic and macro-economic spin-offs. According to a study by France Development Conseil for the French Space Studies Center-CNES, the annual world market is expected to amount to 40 billion dollars in 2010.

Numerous applications: Thirty to forty applications have already been identified, mainly in the area of transport. GPS and Galileo are able to follow an infinite number of trains, ships and planes in real time. Civil aviation thus helps to be able to manage ever-increasing air-traffic more efficiently and even with greater safety. However, the market share of these three areas will remain modest, barely 1% each whereas road transport alone is expected to account for 77%. In the near future, most motorists will benefit from an on-board navigation system in their cars. Logged into Galileo, the latter will show the fastest route in real time and will enable drivers to avoid accidents, slow-downs, works and demonstrations. The system should make traffic far more fluid while limiting the consumption of fuel and its resulting pollution as well as the number of hours wasted in traffic-jams.

Galileo will accompany the present boom in communications systems, specially the Internet and mobile phones, which require very close synchronization, but it will also revolutionize farming. Thanks to positioning by satellite, accurate and dynamic mapping of areas of cultivated land will make it possible to increase the yield by automatically modifying the amount of fertilizer and pesticide used according to the heterogeneity of the land. Many experts consider that numerous applications, which will perhaps be used everyday in the future, are not yet identifiable today.

Meanwhile, Galileo is gradually taking shape. After a first phase of "definition" which will reach completion at the end of 2000, the development phase, in the proper sense, will begin. The first signals should be emitted in 2005 and the system should be completely operational three years later. Meanwhile, the financing of the first phase has shown just how interested the member states of the ESA are in Galileo. They have already subscribed more than their share, i.e. 58 million Euro, compared with the expected 40 million.