As you surely will have picked up, President Obama has made a trip over to Poland. He has already arrived in Warsaw, been greeted appropriately by Polish President Bronisław Komorowski and held the customary news conference at the presidential palace. He even tried out some Polish to the greeing public on arrival at the airport: dzień dobry or “good day!” – only two words, yes, but harder than you may think.

He comes to Poland at an opportune time given the on-going crisis in Ukraine and Poland’s resulting deep sense of insecurity. The ostensible point of the visit, however, and why it was originally scheduled, is tomorrow, June 4, which is the 25th anniversary of the first post-World War II (partially) free elections in Poland that ushered in a non-Communist government, and that truly constituted the first major crack in the structure of Soviet dominance over Eastern Europe that almost completely collapsed by the end of that year.

All Polish newspapers and twitter-feeds are now awash with Obama news. Yet over in a comparatively obscure corner there is also this, from Polska The Times.

“Duda” is Piotr Duda, current chairman of NSZZ Solidariność – yes, that same “Solidarity” of the 1980s, led then by Lech Wałęsa, that roused the entire nation against the Communist government and even survived a period underground after the imposition of martial law in December, 1981, before emerging again as an important power-broker later that decade.

Duda has written an open letter to the remaining members of Solidarity, which these days is little more than a fairly unimportant political organization. That is in fact the point: no representative from Solidarity has been invited to join Presidents Komorowski and Obama tomorrow at the ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the elections.

[Duda] judged that the omission of [Solidarity] at the ceremonies was entirely a political decision of the current government, in retaliation for its struggle for workers’ and citizens’ rights. “There’s no freedom without solidarity,” he wrote.

The chairman issued a reminder that, just as the greatest triumph of Polish workers was the uprising of the union in 1980, Solidarity’s greatest victory was the elections of 4 June 1989.

There is no mention in this article, but I assume that Lech Wałęsa himself will surely be in attendance tomorrow. While a great subversive leader in subservise times, he turned out to be somewhat of an indifferent Polish president once Poland was truly free (free thanks to his efforts, of course). There have even been rumors of a code-name for him within the old Polish state security “service” (SB), as if he collaborated with the Communist authorities in any meaningful way – obviously a ridiculous idea, given the historical record.

But Wałęsa long ago outgrew his identification with Solidarity – just as in the Czech Republic Václav Havel went on to become President and outgrow his association with the Civic Forum organization which largely guided the “Velvet Revolution” at the end of 1989. For that matter, there’s much less remaining of Civic Forum today than of Solidarity – the latter has fully passed into history, and there’s no one really around (even if still alive, which Havel himself is not) who could even be invited to any ceremonies – such as the 25 anniversaries the Czech Republic will be celebrating come November.

The point, however, is whether there would even be a desire to do so, whether possible or not. There will not be for Civic Forum, I am sure; and there apparently is not for Solidarity. The latter really does show an appalling willingness to ignore history on the part of current Polish authorities. It’s a disturbing obliviousness that finds its further reflection in the national press, in which Duda struggles to find a voice even as one of the two national journalistic pillars – Gazeta Wyborcza, or “election newspaper” – had its origin precisely in those breakthrough, free-ish national polls of 25 years ago.

How do you know when your foreign campaign trip is not going well? When there are headlines like Today Romney visits Poland. Will there be further gaffes?, to be found today atop a piece by Mariusz Zawadzki in Poland’s most preeminent national daily, Gazeta Wyborcza.

In truth, the Poles already have something to gripe about when it comes to Romney, who likes to lambast President Obama for wanting to make America more “European,” which is supposed to mean “where everybody lives off the government,” and the like. Or in Zawadzki’s formulation of Romney’s message: “Obama draws insipiration from the capitals of Europe, [while] we belong to small-town America!”

Warsaw is, of course, among those “capitals of Europe.” Sigh. Once, he recalls, Europe was America’s most important ally, even for Republicans. But that was mainly during the Cold War; now we have international economic crisis instead, with what is now depicted as a decadent, decaying “social Europe” with its scandalous levels of government debt financing health care for all.

None of this past baggage bodes well for Romney’s visit, even as it is his “last hope” for achieving some sort of positive PR accomplishment out of his foreign junket. We’ve already had a furore about “Polish death camps” during WWII, not that long ago and out of the mouth of the President – surely Romney can at least avoid making that same mistake? Then again, he will be meeting in Warsaw with Lech Wałęsa, a figure as prickly as he is historical and world-renowned. That encounter could turn out to be a minefield, even as Wałęsa speaks no English – let’s hope that the translators will be skillful not just in language but in protocol! And that Romney at least remembers the old Solidariność leader’s name, something he failed to do when meeting with British Labour Party leader Ed Milliband!

UPDATE: I’m now made aware that Romney traveled initially to Gdańsk on Monday, 30 July and continued on to Warsaw the following day.

The biggest news reverberating around Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) these days is that of an open letter recently made public, addressed to President Obama and issued in the name of 22 notable political figures from countries of that region, including many ex-presidents and even one Nobel Prize winner (Lech Wałęsa). Nobody who signed this missive currently occupies any actual governmental position, however, but that is perfectly logical in view of its polite but urgent message that any current official would have to be too diplomatic to deliver: America is neglecting NATO in general and the CEE lands in particular.

As vacation season here on the European continent starts to shift into high gear, it’s difficult for any mere man-made initiative like this (as opposed to, say, a natural catastrophe) to create much of a sensation, but the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza at least considered this news so important that it issued two slightly-different articles about it (here and here) from its Washington correspondent, Marcin Bosacki, who notes that there’s never been any sort of letter like this sent since 1989. Also, that newspaper also published on-line the complete letter in its English translation, including a table at the bottom explaining who all those 22 signatories are. (more…)