Aftermath

Why the Country in Mourning is Politically Tearing at the Seems

Tomorrow thousands of Poles and foreigners are expected to crowd Krakow’s large rynek and side streets to catch a glimpse of the enormous state funeral being staged for Poland’s deceased president, Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash last week.  The ceremony, which will be marked by colossal pomp and circumstance to honor the late president, has caused a great rift amongst Poles owing to disagreements as to where Kaczynski and his wife Maria should be laid to rest.

Hundreds of heads of states, prime ministers, royalty, members of parliament, top religious officials, and countless other influential persons from around the world are set to attend the funeral which will be begin at Kościół Mariacki (St. Mary’s Basilica) in Krakow’s city center.  Among those in attendance will be American President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, England’s Prince Charles, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Spain’s King Juan Carlos. 

The funeral will then process along the historical Royal Route to Wawel Castle where Kaczynski and wife Maria will be buried in the cathedral crypt alongside Poland’s most dignified leaders in history including dozens of Polish kings, queens, saints, and national icons—a point that has fundamentally and bitterly divided Poles as of late.

To say that not all Poles liked President Lech Kaczynski’s far right veering and America-courting policies while he was in office would be a vast understatement.  To put it in perspective, just before the fatal plane crash Kaczynski’s approval rating had sunk to less than 30%.  Yet paradoxically, in the week since the tragedy, as grief has struck this already historically pained nation clinging tightly to religious ideals, De mortuis nil nisi bonum has too easily become the rule of the land.

To some Poles, Kaczynski was a martyr for the cause of Polish history—a president who tragically died en route to honor one of Poland’s saddest and most under-acknowledged catastrophes which is often held symbolically as the pinnacle of Poland’s centuries of unheard struggle and strife.  Yet to others, he is simply the worst president Poland has endured since independent democratic elections began in 1990.

History will judge whether the right decision was made to bury Kaczynski in Wawel. But as one Polish friend compared it, tomorrow’s events are as if Americans took President George W. Bush, at his lowest moment of approval, and decided to frame him as a “George Washington” or an “Abraham Lincoln” in the textbooks.  Likewise, Kaczynski, for better or for worse, will receive tomorrow the honor of a ceremony and burial literally fit for a king.