WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are so glad 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:04.559 to have you with us. Today we are opening up 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:07.139 a file that, honestly, it feels less like reading 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:10.900 a biography and more like opening a very old, 00:00:11.019 --> 00:00:13.800 very heavy jewelry box. Okay, I like it. You 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.019 know the kind I mean. You expect to find, I don't 00:00:16.019 --> 00:00:17.879 know, a lot of costume jewelry, maybe some tangled 00:00:17.879 --> 00:00:21.039 chains, big flashy things. But instead, you find 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:24.710 these very small, very sharp, very... Precise 00:00:24.710 --> 00:00:27.129 diamonds. That is a surprisingly poetic metaphor 00:00:27.129 --> 00:00:29.750 to start us off. I have to say a very accurate 00:00:29.750 --> 00:00:32.770 one. I try my best. But seriously, we are talking 00:00:32.770 --> 00:00:35.869 about a figure today who is, well, she's a massive 00:00:35.869 --> 00:00:38.530 paradox. She is a giant of world literature, 00:00:38.649 --> 00:00:41.789 a Nobel Prize winner. And yet, if you look at 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:44.729 the sheer volume of her work, it's tiny. It really 00:00:44.729 --> 00:00:47.509 is. We're talking about fewer than 350 poems 00:00:47.509 --> 00:00:49.929 published in her entire lifetime. It's a remarkably 00:00:49.929 --> 00:00:52.920 small output for someone of her stature. I mean, 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:54.719 if you do the math on her career, which spanned 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:57.200 over six decades, that averages out to, what, 00:00:57.240 --> 00:00:59.020 roughly five or six poems a year. It's nothing. 00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:02.219 Right. I mean, I know songwriters who write 350 00:01:02.219 --> 00:01:04.439 songs in a bad year. I know people on social 00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:07.519 media who tweet 350 times a week. But today we 00:01:07.519 --> 00:01:11.400 are diving into the life and mind of Wisawa Szymborska. 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:14.829 And that's pronounced Wisawa Szymborska. Thank 00:01:14.829 --> 00:01:17.189 you. I was going to get there. Wisawa Szymborska. 00:01:17.269 --> 00:01:19.030 And here's the thing that hooked me right away, 00:01:19.069 --> 00:01:20.950 before we even get into the history, the politics, 00:01:21.049 --> 00:01:23.670 any of it. When people would ask her, Wisawa, 00:01:23.790 --> 00:01:26.329 you're a Nobel laureate. Why so few poems? Why 00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:28.489 aren't you just churning them out? She had this 00:01:28.489 --> 00:01:32.349 fantastic, simple answer. She said, I have a 00:01:32.349 --> 00:01:35.409 trash can in my home. which is such a perfect, 00:01:35.489 --> 00:01:38.010 perfect encapsulation of her entire character, 00:01:38.189 --> 00:01:41.370 it implies standards. It implies that what we 00:01:41.370 --> 00:01:44.590 see, those 350 or so poems, is only what survived 00:01:44.590 --> 00:01:47.530 a rigorous, almost brutal process of elimination. 00:01:48.010 --> 00:01:50.109 But doesn't that also imply a certain level of... 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:54.040 I don't know, anxiety or even paralysis. If you 00:01:54.040 --> 00:01:55.980 have a trash can that active, aren't you just 00:01:55.980 --> 00:01:57.840 afraid of silencing yourself before you even 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:00.299 start? Well, that's a valid critique. And for 00:02:00.299 --> 00:02:01.959 a lot of writers, that kind of perfectionism 00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:04.480 is paralyzing. But for Zimborska, I don't think 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.180 it was fear. I really think it was respect. Respect 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:09.659 for what? Respect for the reader's time, for 00:02:09.659 --> 00:02:12.439 one. And more importantly, respect for the weight 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:15.199 of words themselves. I mean, she lived through 00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:18.719 an era where words were used to lie, to manipulate, 00:02:18.939 --> 00:02:21.819 to destroy on a massive scale. Right. Propaganda. 00:02:22.039 --> 00:02:24.199 Exactly. So she wasn't going to add to the noise, 00:02:24.219 --> 00:02:26.860 to the chatter, unless she was absolutely certain 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:28.939 that the words were necessary, that they were 00:02:28.939 --> 00:02:31.699 true. That distinction between fear and respect. 00:02:32.189 --> 00:02:34.310 That's crucial because we aren't just talking 00:02:34.310 --> 00:02:36.710 about a perfectionist poet today. We are talking 00:02:36.710 --> 00:02:39.090 about a woman who lived through the absolute 00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:41.710 meat grinder of the 20th century in Poland. And 00:02:41.710 --> 00:02:44.009 that is the context we cannot, cannot ignore. 00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:46.349 We're looking at a life that spans World War 00:02:46.349 --> 00:02:49.310 II, the Stalinist era, the Cold War, the Solidarity 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:51.550 Movement, and then the final transition to democracy. 00:02:51.770 --> 00:02:54.169 It's the whole story. And she navigated all of 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:56.310 this not with shouting or grand speeches, but 00:02:56.310 --> 00:02:58.949 with what the Nobel Committee eventually called 00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:02.060 ironic precision. I love that phrase. It's so 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:05.039 good. Ironic precision. We're going to unpack 00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:08.080 that today. And we have to mention the stat because 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:09.800 it just blows my mind, especially for anyone 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:12.620 out there who thinks. Poetry is dead or nobody 00:03:12.620 --> 00:03:16.120 reads poetry. In Poland, her books, her collections 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:20.259 of poetry, sold with numbers that rivaled prominent 00:03:20.259 --> 00:03:23.659 prose authors. We're talking pop fiction, thrillers. 00:03:23.659 --> 00:03:26.520 She was a bestseller. Which she found quite amusing 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.460 and probably a bit baffling, considering she 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:31.620 also wrote a famous poem called Some Like Poetry, 00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:34.159 where she estimated that statistically only two 00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:36.500 in a thousand people actually like poetry. So 00:03:36.500 --> 00:03:39.300 either her math was wrong or she was the massive 00:03:39.300 --> 00:03:41.889 exception to the rule. I think she was the exception. 00:03:42.030 --> 00:03:44.689 She managed to bridge that gap between, you know, 00:03:44.689 --> 00:03:47.569 high art and the common reader in a way that 00:03:47.569 --> 00:03:49.949 very, very few people ever do. So here's our 00:03:49.949 --> 00:03:52.710 mission for this deep dive. We want to understand 00:03:52.710 --> 00:03:56.810 how this incredibly quiet, private person used 00:03:56.810 --> 00:04:00.129 these tiny fragments of human reality, a beetle, 00:04:00.310 --> 00:04:03.830 a cat, a grain of sand, to illuminate massive 00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:06.110 historical and biological forces. And we have 00:04:06.110 --> 00:04:08.330 to look at her political arc, which is, let's 00:04:08.330 --> 00:04:10.840 just say, it's complicated. Deeply complicated. 00:04:11.099 --> 00:04:13.419 I mean, it is a journey from being a true believer 00:04:13.419 --> 00:04:16.560 in socialist realism, literally writing poems 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.360 for the regime, to becoming a dissident voice. 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.060 It is not a straight line and it's not a comfortable 00:04:22.060 --> 00:04:24.540 story to tell. No, it isn't. And then we're going 00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:27.160 to look at her pop culture footprint, which is 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:31.060 surprisingly huge. Jazz albums, rock songs, major 00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:33.639 motion pictures. She's kind of everywhere. And 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:35.779 because we have to bring it into the modern world, 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:38.120 we need to touch upon a controversy that just 00:04:38.120 --> 00:04:42.310 happened. in 2024 involving her voice and artificial 00:04:42.310 --> 00:04:44.910 intelligence. Yeah, that story is a wild coda 00:04:44.910 --> 00:04:46.870 to her life. It brings the whole discussion full 00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:49.189 circle. It really challenges everything she stood 00:04:49.189 --> 00:04:51.670 for regarding that trash can and the biological 00:04:51.670 --> 00:04:54.050 reality of being a human. Exactly. But let's 00:04:54.050 --> 00:04:55.910 rewind. Let's go all the way back. Let's go back 00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:58.389 to the world that created her. Because to understand 00:04:58.389 --> 00:05:00.329 that trash can, you first have to understand 00:05:00.329 --> 00:05:02.610 the history she was trying so hard to filter. 00:05:02.750 --> 00:05:04.769 To understand Szymborska, you have to understand 00:05:04.769 --> 00:05:07.389 where she came from. She was born on July 2, 00:05:07.550 --> 00:05:10.860 1923. So the Roaring Twenties. But this is Poland, 00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:13.420 which is what, just a few years after regaining 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:15.259 its independence, after being wiped off the map 00:05:15.259 --> 00:05:18.639 for over a century? For 123 years, yeah. So it 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:21.120 was a time of immense national optimism, but 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:23.920 also incredible fragility. She was born in a 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:25.860 place called Prowent, which is now part of a 00:05:25.860 --> 00:05:28.660 town called Kornik in western Poland. And her 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:31.079 start in life wasn't, I mean, it wasn't aristocracy, 00:05:31.259 --> 00:05:33.500 but it wasn't exactly humble peasantry either, 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:35.899 right? It was a very specific social stratum. 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:38.860 That's a great way to put it. Her father... Winsony 00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:42.220 Cymborski was the steward to a count. Count Wydysa 00:05:42.220 --> 00:05:45.279 Zamoyski. Yes, a very well -known Polish patriot 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:48.100 and a charitable patron. So Cymborska grew up 00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:50.949 in this environment of... Let's call it managed 00:05:50.949 --> 00:05:54.009 gentility. Her father managed this huge estate. 00:05:54.189 --> 00:05:55.829 It was an intellectual household. They valued 00:05:55.829 --> 00:05:58.529 education. They were somewhat insulated from 00:05:58.529 --> 00:06:00.990 the harshest realities of the time, but also 00:06:00.990 --> 00:06:03.970 deeply connected to this old world idea of service 00:06:03.970 --> 00:06:06.209 and patriotism. But that world, the whole world 00:06:06.209 --> 00:06:08.790 of counts and stewards and grand estates was 00:06:08.790 --> 00:06:11.709 about to just completely vanish. It was already 00:06:11.709 --> 00:06:14.870 vanishing. The count died in 1924 when we saw 00:06:14.870 --> 00:06:17.850 it was just a baby, just one year old. The family 00:06:17.850 --> 00:06:20.040 had to move. First, they went to a city called 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:23.860 Toru, and then in 1931, they landed in Krakow. 00:06:23.939 --> 00:06:27.079 And Krakow is the key, right? I mean, every biography, 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:29.500 every piece of analysis, it emphasizes this. 00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:32.319 Krakow is the backdrop. It's the stage for her 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:34.759 entire life. She lived and worked there until 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:37.540 she died in 2012. You really cannot separate 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:39.639 Szymborska from Krakow. What's so special about 00:06:39.639 --> 00:06:42.079 it? Well, it feels very different from, say, 00:06:42.199 --> 00:06:44.790 Warsaw. Warsaw was almost completely destroyed 00:06:44.790 --> 00:06:46.829 in the war and then rebuilt. It has this frantic, 00:06:46.850 --> 00:06:50.449 modern, sometimes chaotic energy. Krakow was 00:06:50.449 --> 00:06:52.569 physically spared much of that destruction. So 00:06:52.569 --> 00:06:54.750 it kept its history. It retained its medieval 00:06:54.750 --> 00:06:56.509 architecture, its old university atmosphere, 00:06:56.829 --> 00:07:00.430 its slow coffeehouse intellectualism. It's a 00:07:00.430 --> 00:07:02.629 city of thought, of history, of quiet corners. 00:07:02.790 --> 00:07:04.910 And that's very much her personality. So she's 00:07:04.910 --> 00:07:07.329 a teenager in Krakow living this relatively normal 00:07:07.329 --> 00:07:09.689 intellectual life. She's reading. She's maybe 00:07:09.689 --> 00:07:12.290 starting to write a little. And then 1939 hits, 00:07:12.410 --> 00:07:14.910 September 1st. World War II breaks out, Nazi 00:07:14.910 --> 00:07:17.529 occupation. She's 16 years old. A pivotal age. 00:07:17.730 --> 00:07:19.970 16 is when you were just forming your worldview, 00:07:20.189 --> 00:07:23.370 your sense of self. And suddenly, your world 00:07:23.370 --> 00:07:25.930 is occupied. And one of the very first things 00:07:25.930 --> 00:07:28.509 the occupiers did was target Polish culture, 00:07:28.610 --> 00:07:32.100 and specifically... So education just stopped. 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:34.480 Higher education for Poles was forbidden under 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:37.259 the occupation. The Nazis wanted a workforce, 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:39.980 a population of servants, not an intelligentsia. 00:07:40.100 --> 00:07:42.139 So secondary schools and universities were just 00:07:42.139 --> 00:07:45.439 shut down. For a girl like Simborska, who valued 00:07:45.439 --> 00:07:48.339 learning above almost anything else, this was 00:07:48.339 --> 00:07:51.540 a direct attack on her future, on her very being. 00:07:51.740 --> 00:07:53.500 So what did she do? What did any of them do? 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:56.439 Did they just stop learning? No, she went underground. 00:07:56.759 --> 00:07:58.439 When we say underground, we don't necessarily 00:07:58.439 --> 00:08:00.779 mean physically in a bunker, though I'm sure 00:08:00.779 --> 00:08:02.959 it felt like that sometimes. We mean secret education. 00:08:04.219 --> 00:08:07.579 This is such a wild concept to me. The idea of 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:10.199 classes being held in secret, in private apartments, 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:12.980 risking arrest, just to learn about literature 00:08:12.980 --> 00:08:16.199 and history. Precisely. Imagine walking to a 00:08:16.199 --> 00:08:18.740 friend's house, hiding your textbooks under your 00:08:18.740 --> 00:08:21.639 coat, knowing that if a patrol stops and searches 00:08:21.639 --> 00:08:24.740 you, not only are you in serious trouble, but 00:08:24.740 --> 00:08:27.579 the teacher hosting the class is in mortal danger. 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:30.899 That must create a bond, a kind of sacredness 00:08:30.899 --> 00:08:33.340 around the idea of education that we probably 00:08:33.340 --> 00:08:36.019 can't fully grasp today. It absolutely does. 00:08:36.139 --> 00:08:38.480 It shows a commitment to the life of the mind 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:40.940 that starts very, very early for her. It wasn't 00:08:40.940 --> 00:08:43.460 a chore. It was an act of defiance. But you can't 00:08:43.460 --> 00:08:45.259 just study when there's a war on. I mean, you 00:08:45.259 --> 00:08:47.500 need to eat. You need to not get arrested or 00:08:47.500 --> 00:08:49.779 deported. Yeah. And I found this detail about 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:52.519 her day job during the war absolutely fascinating. 00:08:52.860 --> 00:08:56.840 Yes. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee. 00:08:57.240 --> 00:08:59.399 A railroad employee. I'm just picturing this 00:08:59.399 --> 00:09:01.340 future Nobel Prize winner walking the tracks 00:09:01.340 --> 00:09:03.620 or checking tickets. It was likely clerical work, 00:09:03.740 --> 00:09:05.919 dealing with schedules, cargo manifest, that 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:08.740 sort of thing. But we have to pause on the significance 00:09:08.740 --> 00:09:11.519 of this. This job wasn't about the paycheck. 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:14.600 It was about the paperwork. You mean the Osweys, 00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:17.539 the official ID card. Exactly. Having that official 00:09:17.539 --> 00:09:20.120 job with the railway. which was essential infrastructure 00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:22.720 for the Germans, was what prevented her from 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:25.000 being deported to Germany as a forced laborer. 00:09:25.059 --> 00:09:26.919 I really want to dwell on that for a second. 00:09:27.019 --> 00:09:29.100 Forced labor wasn't just, you know, hard work. 00:09:29.159 --> 00:09:31.899 This was abduction. This was starvation. It was 00:09:31.899 --> 00:09:35.259 slavery. It's that simple. Hundreds of thousands 00:09:35.259 --> 00:09:37.879 of Poles were rounded up on the streets in what 00:09:37.879 --> 00:09:40.220 they called the Opanka and shipped to the Reich 00:09:40.220 --> 00:09:42.919 to work in factories or on farms, often under 00:09:42.919 --> 00:09:45.799 horrific, deadly conditions. Many never returned. 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:49.080 So Simborska sitting in that railroad office 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:52.159 stamping papers, that wasn't a career. That was 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:54.700 a lifeline. That was her survival strategy. It 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:56.840 really highlights the precarious nature of survival 00:09:56.840 --> 00:09:59.220 for that generation, the randomness of it all. 00:09:59.379 --> 00:10:02.200 One different stamp on your ID card, one wrong 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:04.720 turn on a street corner, and your life goes in 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:07.789 a completely different and likely tragic... And 00:10:07.789 --> 00:10:10.809 that idea of chance. Of luck, of randomness in 00:10:10.809 --> 00:10:13.070 who survives and who doesn't. That becomes a 00:10:13.070 --> 00:10:15.529 massive, massive theme in her poetry later on. 00:10:15.710 --> 00:10:18.750 She knew deep down that her survival wasn't because 00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:21.429 she was special or chosen. It was because of 00:10:21.429 --> 00:10:24.649 a railway pass. And amidst all this fear and 00:10:24.649 --> 00:10:27.120 railroad paperwork, she starts making art. which 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:29.480 seems almost impossible under those conditions. 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:31.860 It's the human instinct, isn't it? She started 00:10:31.860 --> 00:10:34.200 illustrating. She illustrated an English -language 00:10:34.200 --> 00:10:36.940 textbook, of all things, and she began writing 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:39.940 stories and occasional poems. It was a way to 00:10:39.940 --> 00:10:42.799 maintain an inner world, a private space, when 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.809 the outer world was collapsing into chaos. So 00:10:45.809 --> 00:10:49.629 the war ends, 1945. The Germans retreat. The 00:10:49.629 --> 00:10:52.629 Soviets arrive. Poland is in ruins, but it's 00:10:52.629 --> 00:10:55.110 beginning to rebuild. And she goes to university, 00:10:55.549 --> 00:10:58.330 Zagilonian University in Krakow, the big one. 00:10:58.570 --> 00:11:00.809 She starts out studying Polish literature, which 00:11:00.809 --> 00:11:02.629 makes sense. But then she switches to sociology. 00:11:03.090 --> 00:11:05.009 She's trying to figure out how society works, 00:11:05.149 --> 00:11:06.889 perhaps. Trying to understand what on earth just 00:11:06.889 --> 00:11:08.370 happened to the world. And this is where we get 00:11:08.370 --> 00:11:11.389 the public debut, March 1945. The war in Europe 00:11:11.389 --> 00:11:13.590 isn't even officially over yet. No, the fighting 00:11:13.590 --> 00:11:15.820 is still happening in the West. But in Krakow, 00:11:15.940 --> 00:11:18.960 life is restarting. She publishes her very first 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:21.940 poem in a daily newspaper, Zanikpolski. It's 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:24.879 called Sukham Suwa. Which means looking for words. 00:11:25.139 --> 00:11:27.539 It's such a fitting title for a debut, isn't 00:11:27.539 --> 00:11:30.509 it? Looking for words. The old words, the old 00:11:30.509 --> 00:11:32.590 language just didn't fit anymore. You couldn't 00:11:32.590 --> 00:11:35.490 use romantic, flowery language to describe gas 00:11:35.490 --> 00:11:38.269 chambers and rubble. She was part of a generation 00:11:38.269 --> 00:11:40.470 that was trying to articulate the post -war reality 00:11:40.470 --> 00:11:43.129 from scratch. But the reality for her personally 00:11:43.129 --> 00:11:45.210 was also one of financial struggle. She actually 00:11:45.210 --> 00:11:47.330 dropped out of university, right? She did in 00:11:47.330 --> 00:11:50.769 1948. She quit her studies without getting a 00:11:50.769 --> 00:11:53.059 degree. Because of poor financial circumstances? 00:11:53.559 --> 00:11:56.679 The currency was unstable. The economy was completely 00:11:56.679 --> 00:11:59.679 wrecked. She just had to work to survive. It's 00:11:59.679 --> 00:12:01.980 really humbling to realize that a future Nobel 00:12:01.980 --> 00:12:04.500 laureate was a college dropout because she couldn't 00:12:04.500 --> 00:12:07.259 afford the tuition or the living costs. It grounds 00:12:07.259 --> 00:12:09.539 her. She was never someone who lived in an ivory 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:11.860 tower. She was always working. She worked as 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:13.799 a secretary for an educational magazine. She 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:16.539 did illustrations to make ends meet. And in 1948, 00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:19.580 she also got married. To Adam Wudeck, another 00:12:19.580 --> 00:12:22.580 poet. A poet. and a pretty prominent figure in 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:24.960 the literary circles of Krakow at the time. They 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:26.700 were young, they were idealistic, they divorced 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:29.980 fairly quickly in 1954, but, and this is very 00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:32.870 Simborska, They remained close friends until 00:12:32.870 --> 00:12:36.730 he died in 1986. No big drama, no public feuds, 00:12:36.730 --> 00:12:39.210 just a quiet shift in the relationship. Okay, 00:12:39.269 --> 00:12:41.710 so she's writing, she's working, she's married. 00:12:41.769 --> 00:12:43.769 She tries to publish her first book, her first 00:12:43.769 --> 00:12:47.490 collection of poems in 1949. And here's where 00:12:47.490 --> 00:12:49.970 we hit the first major wall. The manuscript is 00:12:49.970 --> 00:12:52.669 rejected. Censorship. The state censors deemed 00:12:52.669 --> 00:12:54.549 that it did not meet socialist requirements. 00:12:55.049 --> 00:12:57.029 And this brings us to the most difficult and 00:12:57.029 --> 00:12:58.750 probably the most important part of her story. 00:12:59.759 --> 00:13:02.299 To understand why she became the poet she was, 00:13:02.419 --> 00:13:05.299 the poet of doubt and irony, we have to look 00:13:05.299 --> 00:13:06.940 at the poet she tried to be in the beginning. 00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:09.440 This is the political arc. And it's so tricky 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:11.200 because looking back from today, we think of 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:13.399 her as this beacon of wisdom and skepticism. 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:16.159 But in the late 40s and early 50s, she wasn't 00:13:16.159 --> 00:13:19.279 fighting the system at all. No. She was, to put 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:22.700 it bluntly, part of the machinery. She was. And 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:24.840 we need to be very careful here not to judge 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:28.840 this with 21st century hindsight. Early in her 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:32.139 career, Szymborska adhered to the official ideology 00:13:32.139 --> 00:13:34.820 of the People's Republic of Poland. She was a 00:13:34.820 --> 00:13:37.220 member of the ruling Polish United Workers Party. 00:13:37.379 --> 00:13:40.259 The big question is why? I mean, she was brilliant. 00:13:40.340 --> 00:13:42.899 Couldn't she see that it was a totalitarian setup? 00:13:43.159 --> 00:13:46.019 We have to remember the context of 1945. The 00:13:46.019 --> 00:13:49.019 old world, capitalism, nationalism, the aristocracy, 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:51.320 the church, all that had just resulted in the 00:13:51.320 --> 00:13:54.039 deadliest war in human history. Poland was a 00:13:54.039 --> 00:13:57.779 graveyard. For many young, idealistic intellectuals 00:13:57.779 --> 00:13:59.940 at that time, communism didn't look like tyranny. 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:01.759 What did it look like? It looked like the only 00:14:01.759 --> 00:14:04.419 rational path to rebuilding. It promised equality. 00:14:04.659 --> 00:14:06.740 It promised rapid industrialization. It promised 00:14:06.740 --> 00:14:09.799 education for all. And most of all, it promised 00:14:09.799 --> 00:14:12.580 that never again would fascism rise. It was very 00:14:12.580 --> 00:14:15.059 powerful intellectual seduction. So she was swept 00:14:15.059 --> 00:14:17.200 up in that. She, like many others, wanted to 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:19.039 believe in a better future. And the price of 00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:20.919 that future, the price of being a published author 00:14:20.919 --> 00:14:23.059 in that system, was adhering to the doctrine 00:14:23.059 --> 00:14:25.509 of socialist realism. So let's talk about what 00:14:25.509 --> 00:14:28.429 that work actually looked like. Her debut collection, 00:14:28.730 --> 00:14:31.090 which finally did come out in 1952 after she 00:14:31.090 --> 00:14:33.649 adjusted it to please the censors, was called 00:14:33.649 --> 00:14:36.769 La Tego Ujimi. That is what we were living for. 00:14:36.909 --> 00:14:38.919 And it contained poems that are... While they're 00:14:38.919 --> 00:14:41.360 jarring to read today, there were poems praising 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:43.620 Lenin. There's a very famous one called Mutishuyu 00:14:43.620 --> 00:14:46.960 Budishay Nowohuta to the youth building Nowohuta. 00:14:47.179 --> 00:14:51.059 And Nowohuta is that massive gray socialist industrial 00:14:51.059 --> 00:14:53.720 town they built right next to Krakow. Exactly. 00:14:53.779 --> 00:14:55.799 It was designed to be the model Stalinist city 00:14:55.799 --> 00:14:58.360 built to counterbalance the reactionary intellectualism 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:00.860 of old Krakow. It was all about steel mills, 00:15:00.860 --> 00:15:03.340 concrete, the power of the proletariat rising. 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:06.019 And she wrote poetry celebrating its construction. 00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:08.740 It feels like such a betrayal of her later style. 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:10.980 Her later style is all about doubt, about not 00:15:10.980 --> 00:15:13.639 knowing. This early stuff is all about certainty 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:15.980 with a capital C. We are building the future 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:17.960 and we know exactly how to do it. That is the 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:21.200 key distinction. Socialist realism demanded certainty. 00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:24.559 It demanded optimism. It demanded that you view 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:27.480 the world not as it is, with all its messiness 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:30.679 and contradictions, but as it should be, according 00:15:30.679 --> 00:15:33.620 to the party line. There was no room for ambiguity. 00:15:34.190 --> 00:15:36.590 And then there's the 1953 petition. This is probably 00:15:36.590 --> 00:15:38.730 the most controversial single act in her entire 00:15:38.730 --> 00:15:41.809 biography. It's the skeleton in the closet. It 00:15:41.809 --> 00:15:43.889 is a difficult historical fact, but we absolutely 00:15:43.889 --> 00:15:46.629 must face it. In 1953, the Stalinist terror in 00:15:46.629 --> 00:15:49.450 Poland was at its absolute peak. The authorities 00:15:49.450 --> 00:15:52.690 launched a fierce anti -religious campaign, and 00:15:52.690 --> 00:15:55.429 there was a show trial in Krakow of several Polish 00:15:55.429 --> 00:15:58.250 priests accused of treason of working for American 00:15:58.250 --> 00:16:00.190 intelligence. That's sort of complete fabrication. 00:16:00.570 --> 00:16:03.679 And these trials were? They were shams. Complete 00:16:03.679 --> 00:16:06.320 shams. Total fabrications designed to intimidate 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:08.639 the church. But the verdict was death for three 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:11.139 of them. And a party mobilized the Writers' Union 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.460 to publicly support the verdict to show a united 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:15.879 front. And Szymborska signed a political petition 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:18.720 condemning those priests. She did. She, along 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:21.259 with 52 other prominent Krakow intellectuals, 00:16:21.259 --> 00:16:24.289 signed it. So this wasn't just, you know. writing 00:16:24.289 --> 00:16:27.029 a bad poem about a tractor this was her lending 00:16:27.029 --> 00:16:29.649 her name her moral authority to the state's prosecution 00:16:29.649 --> 00:16:32.529 and potential execution of innocent people yes 00:16:32.529 --> 00:16:36.149 now as it happened the priests were not actually 00:16:36.149 --> 00:16:38.610 executed their sentences were commuted to life 00:16:38.610 --> 00:16:40.970 in prison but she didn't know that at the time 00:16:40.970 --> 00:16:43.970 she signed it was it out of fear if she didn't 00:16:43.970 --> 00:16:46.720 sign would she be next Was it out of true belief 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:49.460 that the church was an enemy of progress? It 00:16:49.460 --> 00:16:52.200 was likely a toxic mix of immense peer pressure, 00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:55.980 genuine fear, and a lingering ideological commitment. 00:16:56.159 --> 00:16:57.940 It's heavy. It's a real stain on her legacy. 00:16:58.179 --> 00:17:00.559 It is. And she knew it. She never tried to erase 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:02.580 it from her history, but she spent the rest of 00:17:02.580 --> 00:17:05.660 her life, in a way, trying to atone for that 00:17:05.660 --> 00:17:07.319 moment of certainty. Because that's the pivot 00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:09.839 point, isn't it? This ideological fervor didn't 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:13.339 last. No. Stalin dies in 1953, the same year 00:17:13.339 --> 00:17:17.019 as the petition. Then in 1956, Khrushchev gives 00:17:17.019 --> 00:17:19.599 the secret speech, denouncing Stalin's crimes. 00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:22.680 There's a period known as the Saw. And for true 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:24.680 believers like Simborska, this was a psychological 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:27.140 earthquake. They realized they hadn't been building 00:17:27.140 --> 00:17:29.440 a utopia. They had been supporting a brutal police 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.680 state. She woke up. She became estranged. She 00:17:32.680 --> 00:17:34.940 later renounced all that early political work. 00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:38.069 She called it an illness of youth. But unlike 00:17:38.069 --> 00:17:40.170 some who just quietly changed their coats and 00:17:40.170 --> 00:17:42.390 pretended nothing had happened, she really seemed 00:17:42.390 --> 00:17:44.349 to engage with the question of why she had been 00:17:44.349 --> 00:17:46.450 so wrong. And she officially left the Communist 00:17:46.450 --> 00:17:49.950 Party in 1966. But the drift away from the ideology, 00:17:50.170 --> 00:17:53.150 that started much earlier. Much earlier. By 1957, 00:17:53.450 --> 00:17:56.109 she was already in contact with Jerzy Giedroyk. 00:17:56.210 --> 00:17:58.529 We need to explain who he is, because for a Polish 00:17:58.529 --> 00:18:01.319 listener, that name is like thunder. But for 00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:03.259 our global listeners, he might not be as well 00:18:03.259 --> 00:18:05.799 known. Imagine, if you will, the most prestigious 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:08.759 political and literary journal in your country. 00:18:09.370 --> 00:18:11.769 Now imagine it's illegal, it's published in Paris, 00:18:11.930 --> 00:18:13.910 and it has to be smuggled back into your country 00:18:13.910 --> 00:18:16.650 in backpacks and false bottom suitcases. That 00:18:16.650 --> 00:18:19.789 was Kultura, the journal Giedroyk ran. It was 00:18:19.789 --> 00:18:22.150 the intellectual lifeline of free Polish thought 00:18:22.150 --> 00:18:25.410 during the Cold War. It was anti -totalitarian, 00:18:25.569 --> 00:18:28.210 pro -democracy. So for her to be befriending 00:18:28.210 --> 00:18:30.829 him and contributing to Kultura as early as 1957, 00:18:31.250 --> 00:18:34.119 that is a very risky move. It's a huge risk. 00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:36.200 It shows that her mind was already moving toward 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:38.420 dissent. She was establishing contact with the 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:41.119 other side long before she formally broke with 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:43.039 the party. And then we start to see her taking 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:46.059 more public stands. In 1964, there was a protest 00:18:46.059 --> 00:18:48.619 organized by the communists against independent 00:18:48.619 --> 00:18:51.420 intellectuals, a letter they wanted to send to 00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:54.079 The Times in London. The party wanted prominent 00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:56.019 writers to sign it to basically say everything 00:18:56.019 --> 00:18:58.160 is fine here in Poland. There is no censorship. 00:18:58.809 --> 00:19:01.269 And she refused. Yeah. She actively opposed it. 00:19:01.309 --> 00:19:04.109 And instead, she signed a counter letter, the 00:19:04.109 --> 00:19:06.609 letter of the 34, which demanded freedom of speech. 00:19:06.950 --> 00:19:10.250 That is a bold move in 1964. That is putting 00:19:10.250 --> 00:19:13.230 a real target on your back. And by the 1980s, 00:19:13.230 --> 00:19:15.329 with the rise of the Solidarity Movement, she's 00:19:15.329 --> 00:19:17.829 fully in the opposition camp. Completely. She 00:19:17.829 --> 00:19:19.769 was contributing to the underground press, the 00:19:19.769 --> 00:19:22.619 Samizdat. She wrote for a periodical called Arca 00:19:22.619 --> 00:19:25.900 under a pseudonym. It is a brilliant, brilliant 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:28.900 pseudonym. Stachik was the famous court jester 00:19:28.900 --> 00:19:30.960 in Polish history. You might know the famous 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:33.880 painting of him by Jan Matejko, where he's looking 00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:35.880 sad and thoughtful while the court party is in 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:38.319 the background. Right. He was the one person 00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:40.599 allowed to tell the truth to the king. Usually 00:19:40.599 --> 00:19:43.880 through humor or irony. So for her to call herself 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:46.650 Stachikona. which means daughter of the jester, 00:19:46.809 --> 00:19:50.230 is just perfect. She's the ironic jester telling 00:19:50.230 --> 00:19:52.450 the truth to the powerful totalitarian regime. 00:19:52.630 --> 00:19:54.410 That fits her perfectly. It's who she became. 00:19:54.589 --> 00:19:56.829 And she continued this political engagement into 00:19:56.829 --> 00:20:00.009 the 90s. Even after the fall of communism, she 00:20:00.009 --> 00:20:02.150 didn't just retire from public life. When the 00:20:02.150 --> 00:20:04.250 first non -communist government fell in a vote 00:20:04.250 --> 00:20:06.470 of no confidence and former communists came back 00:20:06.470 --> 00:20:09.430 to power, she published a poem in Gazeta Weiborza 00:20:09.430 --> 00:20:12.450 supporting that vote of no confidence. she stayed 00:20:12.450 --> 00:20:15.509 engaged. So she went from writing poems for Lenin 00:20:15.509 --> 00:20:18.170 to writing poems that criticized democratically 00:20:18.170 --> 00:20:20.269 elected governments. It's a complete journey 00:20:20.269 --> 00:20:22.809 of conscience. And I think that regret, maybe 00:20:22.809 --> 00:20:25.269 even the shame over her early years, especially 00:20:25.269 --> 00:20:28.329 that 1953 petition, is what fueled the incredible 00:20:28.329 --> 00:20:30.869 precision and the deep skepticism in all of her 00:20:30.869 --> 00:20:33.430 later work. She knew firsthand how dangerous 00:20:33.430 --> 00:20:36.190 absolute truths could be. She had been drunk 00:20:36.190 --> 00:20:38.829 on an absolute truth once, and it left a terrible 00:20:38.829 --> 00:20:41.880 lifelong hangover. Which leads us perfectly into 00:20:41.880 --> 00:20:45.140 the work itself. Because if socialist realism 00:20:45.140 --> 00:20:48.259 was about shouting, I know the way, her mature 00:20:48.259 --> 00:20:51.140 poetry is all about whispering, I'm not sure. 00:20:51.579 --> 00:20:54.099 Exactly. Let's go back to that trash can philosophy 00:20:54.099 --> 00:20:57.480 we started with. Fewer than 350 poems. It implies 00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:00.180 that she threw away anything that felt dishonest 00:21:00.180 --> 00:21:02.779 or bloated or overly sentimental. Anything that 00:21:02.779 --> 00:21:05.220 sounded even remotely like a slogan. So what's 00:21:05.220 --> 00:21:07.940 left? After all that filtering, what characterizes 00:21:07.940 --> 00:21:11.140 a Zimborska poem? The Nobel citation really hit 00:21:11.140 --> 00:21:14.319 the nail on the head. They said her poetry allows 00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:16.859 the historical and biological context to come 00:21:16.859 --> 00:21:20.079 to light in fragments of human reality. Fragments 00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:22.359 of human reality. That sounds lovely, but what 00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:24.380 does it actually mean in practice? It means she 00:21:24.380 --> 00:21:27.400 doesn't write about war with a capital W. She 00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:29.779 doesn't write about the nation or history. She 00:21:29.779 --> 00:21:32.279 writes about a specific moment, a specific object, 00:21:32.519 --> 00:21:35.200 a single telling detail. Can we look at the cat? 00:21:35.299 --> 00:21:36.720 I feel like we have to talk about the cat. We 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:38.680 absolutely have to talk about the cat. This is 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:40.900 one of her most famous concepts from the poem 00:21:40.900 --> 00:21:44.259 Cat in an Empty Apartment. It was written after 00:21:44.259 --> 00:21:46.380 the death of her longtime partner, the writer 00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:50.339 Kornel Filipovich. It's a poem about grief. Now, 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:52.299 think about how most poets write about grief. 00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:55.119 They write about their own tears, their own emptiness, 00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:57.920 the silence of the house. It's very human -centric, 00:21:58.019 --> 00:22:01.359 very internal. But Simborska, she writes it from 00:22:01.359 --> 00:22:04.160 the perspective of the cat. Yes. The poem starts 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:07.720 with the absolutely arresting line. Die? You 00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:09.920 can't do that to a cat. Which is just such a 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:12.359 gut punch of an opening. The cat doesn't understand 00:22:12.359 --> 00:22:15.259 death as an abstract concept. The cat just understands 00:22:15.259 --> 00:22:17.480 that the routine is broken. The bowls aren't 00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:19.720 full. The familiar footsteps aren't on the stairs. 00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:22.559 The hand isn't there to pick it up. The poem 00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:24.880 describes the cat prowling around the empty apartment, 00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:28.359 confused, offended. Someone has been here and 00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:30.500 been here and then suddenly disappeared and now 00:22:30.500 --> 00:22:32.819 is stubbornly absent. It's just devastating. 00:22:33.019 --> 00:22:35.809 It's more devastating than a human crying. Because 00:22:35.809 --> 00:22:38.490 the cat is innocent, and its confusion perfectly 00:22:38.490 --> 00:22:41.430 mirrors our own raw primal confusion in the face 00:22:41.430 --> 00:22:43.670 of death. We don't really understand it either. 00:22:43.950 --> 00:22:47.569 By using the biological context, the cat's simple, 00:22:47.769 --> 00:22:51.069 instinctual need for routine, she illuminates 00:22:51.069 --> 00:22:54.150 the human reality of loss more powerfully than 00:22:54.150 --> 00:22:56.930 any direct lamentation could. That is the unusual 00:22:56.930 --> 00:22:58.869 point of view she was so famous for. And she 00:22:58.869 --> 00:23:00.910 did it with everything. She wrote a poem from 00:23:00.910 --> 00:23:02.690 the perspective of a grain of sand that doesn't 00:23:02.690 --> 00:23:04.529 care what we call it. That's from View with a 00:23:04.529 --> 00:23:06.910 Grain of Sand. Ah. She says the window has a 00:23:06.910 --> 00:23:09.609 beautiful view of the lake, but the lake doesn't 00:23:09.609 --> 00:23:11.890 know it's a lake. The rock doesn't know it's 00:23:11.890 --> 00:23:13.150 a rock. They don't know they're beautiful. They 00:23:13.150 --> 00:23:16.500 just exist. It's this radical objectivity. She 00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:18.980 strips away all the human ego, all our projections. 00:23:19.299 --> 00:23:22.460 We think the world revolves around us, but Simborska 00:23:22.460 --> 00:23:24.480 gently reminds us that the stone, the cloud, 00:23:24.579 --> 00:23:27.339 and the beetle really don't care about our politics 00:23:27.339 --> 00:23:30.819 or our wars. It's humbling. It is. And in a strange 00:23:30.819 --> 00:23:32.839 way, it's liberating. She also had this deep 00:23:32.839 --> 00:23:35.319 philosophical obsession with the idea of not 00:23:35.319 --> 00:23:39.500 knowing. Yes. In her Nobel lecture, which is 00:23:39.500 --> 00:23:41.160 a masterpiece, by the way, everyone should read 00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:43.539 it, she talked about the phrase, I don't know. 00:23:44.059 --> 00:23:47.000 She said, those three words, I don't know, are 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:49.059 three of the most important, powerful words a 00:23:49.059 --> 00:23:52.200 human can say. Why? Why is that so important? 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:56.180 Because fanatics always know. Hitler knew. Stalin 00:23:56.180 --> 00:23:59.339 knew. Terrorists know. They're absolutely certain 00:23:59.339 --> 00:24:02.140 of their truth. And that certainty is what allows 00:24:02.140 --> 00:24:04.839 them to do terrible things. Poets, at least poets 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:06.880 like her, are the ones who admit they don't know. 00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:09.299 They're the ones who keep exploring, who keep 00:24:09.299 --> 00:24:11.880 asking questions. She said inspiration itself 00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:15.200 is born from a continuous, I don't know. Now, 00:24:15.220 --> 00:24:16.640 she wasn't just sitting around contemplating 00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:19.059 the void. She had a day job for most of her life. 00:24:19.140 --> 00:24:21.599 She was an editor. A very dedicated one. She 00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:23.819 was on the staff of the weekly magazine Ishii 00:24:23.819 --> 00:24:27.079 Literaki, which means literary life, from 1953 00:24:27.079 --> 00:24:30.160 all the way to 1981. That is a massive chunk 00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:32.420 of her life, 28 years. And she ran a book review 00:24:32.420 --> 00:24:34.180 column there that I find absolutely delightful. 00:24:34.380 --> 00:24:37.339 It was called Lecturee Naraboiskoe. Non -required 00:24:37.339 --> 00:24:39.740 reading. This column is legendary in Poland. 00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:42.940 You know, most literary editors, they want to 00:24:42.940 --> 00:24:45.420 review the serious new novels, the big philosophical 00:24:45.420 --> 00:24:48.759 treatises. Szymborska, she would review the books 00:24:48.759 --> 00:24:51.079 that nobody else would touch. Like what? Give 00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:54.039 me some examples. A History of Buttons, A Guide 00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:56.700 to Birdwatching, A Handbook on How to Repair 00:24:56.700 --> 00:25:00.319 Vacuum Cleaners, Gardening Almanacs, Biographies 00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:03.500 of Obscure Opera Singers. Why? Was she mocking 00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:06.829 them? Was it ironic? No. That is the absolute 00:25:06.829 --> 00:25:09.990 beauty of it. She loved them. She was endlessly, 00:25:10.029 --> 00:25:12.710 genuinely curious. She believed that a guide 00:25:12.710 --> 00:25:14.750 to plumbing tells us just as much about human 00:25:14.750 --> 00:25:17.410 nature, our need to fix things, our constant 00:25:17.410 --> 00:25:20.009 struggle against entropy, as a great novel does. 00:25:20.230 --> 00:25:22.490 She could find poetry and profound insight in 00:25:22.490 --> 00:25:24.509 the instruction manual for a toaster. It connects 00:25:24.509 --> 00:25:26.130 back to that idea of fragments, doesn't it? You 00:25:26.130 --> 00:25:28.509 can find the entire universe in a button. Exactly. 00:25:29.099 --> 00:25:30.720 Many of these essays were later published as 00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:32.980 books, and they are funny, insightful, and incredibly 00:25:32.980 --> 00:25:35.680 warm. They show a mind that is interested in 00:25:35.680 --> 00:25:38.240 everything. Nothing human is alien to her. She 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:40.720 was also a translator, right? Yes, primarily 00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:43.460 from French. She translated French Baroque poetry, 00:25:43.660 --> 00:25:46.880 particularly Agrippa d 'Aubigné. Which is heavy, 00:25:46.900 --> 00:25:49.240 difficult stuff. Baroque poetry is incredibly 00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:53.160 complex, structural, rigid. Very intricate, very 00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:55.799 formal, which probably honed her own skills and 00:25:55.799 --> 00:25:57.910 precision. If you can successfully translate 00:25:57.910 --> 00:26:00.529 Baroque French poetry into Polish, you learn 00:26:00.529 --> 00:26:02.670 how to weigh every single syllable, every comma. 00:26:02.849 --> 00:26:06.069 So for decades, she is this respected, slightly 00:26:06.069 --> 00:26:10.210 eccentric, very private editor and poet in Krakow. 00:26:10.289 --> 00:26:12.549 She's well known in Poland, certainly, but she 00:26:12.549 --> 00:26:16.069 isn't a global superstar. And then 1996 happens. 00:26:16.250 --> 00:26:19.809 The big one. The phone call from Stockholm. The 00:26:19.809 --> 00:26:22.369 Nobel Prize in Literature. How does she react 00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:24.269 to that? Because this is a woman who famously 00:26:24.269 --> 00:26:26.190 cut the cord on her telephone so she wouldn't 00:26:26.190 --> 00:26:27.750 have to talk to people she didn't know. Well, 00:26:27.789 --> 00:26:30.049 for a private person who values her quiet time 00:26:30.049 --> 00:26:33.049 in her trash can, above all else, it was a catastrophe. 00:26:33.450 --> 00:26:35.829 She famously called it the Stockholm Tragedy. 00:26:35.849 --> 00:26:38.730 She was joking, but only half joking. It completely 00:26:38.730 --> 00:26:41.529 disrupted her life. Suddenly, the entire world 00:26:41.529 --> 00:26:43.670 wanted a piece of her. Journalists were camping 00:26:43.670 --> 00:26:46.410 out on her doorstep. Her phone, when she finally 00:26:46.410 --> 00:26:50.000 plugged it back in, never stopped ringing. She 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.680 hated the fuss. But the work, the work suddenly 00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:55.700 went global. That is the immense upside of the 00:26:55.700 --> 00:26:58.420 tragedy. Her work was translated into Arabic, 00:26:58.539 --> 00:27:02.099 Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Chinese, but essentially 00:27:02.099 --> 00:27:05.119 every major European language. People in Tokyo 00:27:05.119 --> 00:27:07.359 and Tehran and New York were suddenly reading 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:10.019 about that cat in the empty apartment in Krakow. 00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:13.299 It's amazing how universal her very specific, 00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:15.750 very Polish irony. turned out to be. Because 00:27:15.750 --> 00:27:18.250 at its core, she deals with human nature, not 00:27:18.250 --> 00:27:20.690 just Polish nature. Loss is loss, love is love, 00:27:20.849 --> 00:27:22.609 doubt is doubt, no matter what language you speak. 00:27:22.789 --> 00:27:25.009 She got other major awards, too. The Goethe Prize 00:27:25.009 --> 00:27:28.849 in 1991, the Herder Prize in 1995. And in 2011, 00:27:29.250 --> 00:27:31.710 near the end of her life, she received the Order 00:27:31.710 --> 00:27:33.490 of the White Eagle. That's the biggest one in 00:27:33.490 --> 00:27:35.130 Poland. It's the highest state order in the country. 00:27:35.250 --> 00:27:37.650 A huge honor. And she was made an honorary citizen 00:27:37.650 --> 00:27:40.289 of Krakow, which probably meant just as much 00:27:40.289 --> 00:27:42.230 to her. Let's look at the books that got her 00:27:42.230 --> 00:27:45.029 there. If a listener today wants to pick up Simborska, 00:27:45.150 --> 00:27:46.970 what are the key titles they're going to see? 00:27:47.289 --> 00:27:49.410 Well, you'd probably skip the early socialist 00:27:49.410 --> 00:27:52.809 stuff unless you're a scholar. The real Simborska 00:27:52.809 --> 00:27:55.750 voice, that voice of ironic precision, begins 00:27:55.750 --> 00:27:59.190 to emerge in her 1957 collection, Calling Out 00:27:59.190 --> 00:28:01.369 to Yeti. Calling Out to Yeti. I just love that 00:28:01.369 --> 00:28:03.789 title. It feels so futile. You're yelling at 00:28:03.789 --> 00:28:05.750 a monster that might not even exist. Exactly. 00:28:05.750 --> 00:28:07.769 It's a perfect metaphor for her break from the 00:28:07.769 --> 00:28:11.059 certainty of Stalinism. Then you have salt in 00:28:11.059 --> 00:28:15.519 1962, a great tidal basic essential stinging. 00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:19.960 Then people on the bridge in 1986. Many critics 00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:22.599 consider that her masterpiece. And then The End 00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:25.420 and the Beginning in 1993. Which deals with the 00:28:25.420 --> 00:28:27.299 aftermath of the Cold War, the feeling of what 00:28:27.299 --> 00:28:29.759 now? And then View with a Grain of Sand came 00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:33.079 out around the time of the Nobel in 1996. That's 00:28:33.079 --> 00:28:34.880 the collection most English speakers start with. 00:28:35.039 --> 00:28:37.400 And we shouldn't forget, colon -like, The Punctuation 00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:39.839 Mark, which was published in 2005. Yes, colon. 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:42.559 Another brilliant title. It implies that something 00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:44.980 is coming next. It implies the list isn't finished, 00:28:45.099 --> 00:28:47.460 the thought isn't complete. And it was voted 00:28:47.460 --> 00:28:50.440 the best book of 2006 by the readers of Gazzetta 00:28:50.440 --> 00:28:53.900 Waborza. So even in her 80s, she isn't just winning 00:28:53.900 --> 00:28:56.440 lifetime achievement awards. She's winning best 00:28:56.440 --> 00:28:59.019 book of the year against all comers. She never 00:28:59.019 --> 00:29:01.519 lost her touch. She never became an old master 00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:04.019 who just repeated herself. She stayed fresh, 00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:07.009 curious and sharp. right to the very end now 00:29:07.009 --> 00:29:08.910 here is where it gets really interesting for 00:29:08.910 --> 00:29:11.009 me because usually when we talk about nobel winning 00:29:11.009 --> 00:29:14.309 poets we think of dusty libraries silence maybe 00:29:14.309 --> 00:29:16.650 a very serious reading in a university lecture 00:29:16.650 --> 00:29:20.490 hall but cymborska is well she's kind of pop 00:29:20.490 --> 00:29:23.349 she is surprisingly and wonderfully embedded 00:29:23.349 --> 00:29:26.150 in pop culture let's start with the music there 00:29:26.150 --> 00:29:30.710 is a poem called nothing twice Nothing happens 00:29:30.710 --> 00:29:33.289 twice. It's a beautiful philosophical musing 00:29:33.289 --> 00:29:35.450 on Heraclitus. You can't step in the same river 00:29:35.450 --> 00:29:42.869 twice. The poem says things like, But it's also 00:29:42.869 --> 00:29:44.930 a banger. I mean, can I say that? It's a genuine 00:29:44.930 --> 00:29:47.890 hit song in Poland. It's a standard. It was first 00:29:47.890 --> 00:29:50.170 performed by a singer named Uksa Prus way back 00:29:50.170 --> 00:29:55.130 in 1965 as a kind of jazzy ballad. Then the legendary 00:29:55.130 --> 00:29:57.420 Polish rock band Manim... think of them like 00:29:57.420 --> 00:30:00.420 the Polish Rolling Stones or Blondie, did a massive 00:30:00.420 --> 00:30:03.660 rock version on their 1994 album Ruwa. A hard 00:30:03.660 --> 00:30:06.359 rock version of a poem by a future Nobel laureate. 00:30:06.460 --> 00:30:09.019 It's aggressive, it's loud, it has a killer guitar 00:30:09.019 --> 00:30:11.559 riff, and it works perfectly. And then, very 00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:14.980 recently, in 2022, the artist Sana adapted it. 00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:17.579 Now, Sana is huge. She is the current pop princess 00:30:17.579 --> 00:30:19.839 of Poland. She did a whole project called Sana 00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:23.049 Spio Poesia, Sana Sings Poetry. That is like 00:30:23.049 --> 00:30:25.509 Taylor Swift releasing an album of T .S. Eliot 00:30:25.509 --> 00:30:28.109 covers. In terms of popularity and cultural impact, 00:30:28.329 --> 00:30:31.029 yes. It's a testament to the fact that her lyrics, 00:30:31.150 --> 00:30:33.970 her poems, have a natural rhythm and a universality 00:30:33.970 --> 00:30:36.410 that just works as a pop song. They aren't elitist 00:30:36.410 --> 00:30:38.630 or overly academic. And then there are the movies. 00:30:38.690 --> 00:30:41.269 Yes. Her poem, Love at First Sight, has been 00:30:41.269 --> 00:30:43.109 the engine behind some major films. Like Turn 00:30:43.109 --> 00:30:45.740 Left, Turn Right. Exactly. The famous Asian film 00:30:45.740 --> 00:30:48.839 starring Takeshi Kaneshiro. The entire plot is 00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:51.079 based on the central idea of that poem. Two people 00:30:51.079 --> 00:30:53.700 who live side by side, who pass each other constantly, 00:30:53.900 --> 00:30:55.980 but who never meet, even though they're destined 00:30:55.980 --> 00:30:58.279 for each other. And Krzysztof Kieślowski, the 00:30:58.279 --> 00:31:01.579 absolute master of cinema. His final film, The 00:31:01.579 --> 00:31:05.460 Masterpiece, Three Colors. Red. He said publicly 00:31:05.460 --> 00:31:07.640 that it was deeply inspired by love at first 00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:10.210 sight. The whole film is about chance, about 00:31:10.210 --> 00:31:12.950 misconnections, about the almosts and what -ifs 00:31:12.950 --> 00:31:15.589 of life, which is the core of that poem. It's 00:31:15.589 --> 00:31:18.170 just wild to me that a short poem about two people 00:31:18.170 --> 00:31:21.470 passing each other on the street can spawn multiple 00:31:21.470 --> 00:31:23.950 feature films. It speaks to the incredible visual 00:31:23.950 --> 00:31:26.569 nature of her writing. She sets a scene, she 00:31:26.569 --> 00:31:28.369 directs the camera of your mind with just a few 00:31:28.369 --> 00:31:30.509 precise words. And we have to mention the jazz 00:31:30.509 --> 00:31:33.210 connection. Yes. In her last year, she collaborated 00:31:33.210 --> 00:31:36.079 with the great trumpeter Tomás Daco. A giant 00:31:36.079 --> 00:31:39.619 of European jazz. A true legend. He was so inspired 00:31:39.619 --> 00:31:42.019 by their collaboration and by her poetry that 00:31:42.019 --> 00:31:45.240 after she died, he dedicated his next album on 00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:48.160 the prestigious ECM label to her memory. It was 00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:51.440 called Wisawa, released in 2013. Jazz feels like 00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:54.019 the right genre for her. It's improvisational, 00:31:54.160 --> 00:31:57.200 but within a structure. It's precise, but also 00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:00.220 a little smoky and mysterious. I completely agree. 00:32:00.339 --> 00:32:02.579 It fits her rhythm perfectly. So she passed away 00:32:02.579 --> 00:32:07.839 in 2012. February 1st, 2012. At home in her apartment 00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:11.539 in Krakow. Was it peaceful? Yes. By all accounts, 00:32:11.579 --> 00:32:14.799 it was. She died in her sleep. She had been battling 00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:17.319 lung cancer. She was a famous lifelong smoker. 00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:19.980 But she died surrounded by friends and relatives. 00:32:20.240 --> 00:32:22.420 And true to form, she was working right up until 00:32:22.420 --> 00:32:24.980 the end. She was. She was working on new poetry. 00:32:25.319 --> 00:32:27.720 She didn't have the strength to arrange the final 00:32:27.720 --> 00:32:29.880 order of the poems for the collection, but they 00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:31.920 were published posthumously later that year in 00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:34.759 a book called Weestersey. Which means... Enough. 00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:37.299 Enough. What a perfect, powerful final word. 00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:39.200 It's like she's telling us, OK, that's it. Stop 00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:41.720 looking for more. This is enough. And in 2013, 00:32:41.980 --> 00:32:44.039 the Wizeroso -Symborska Award was established 00:32:44.039 --> 00:32:46.460 to honor her legacy. It's now one of the most 00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:50.599 important literary prizes in Poland. But. The 00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:52.240 story doesn't quite end there, does it? And this 00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:54.500 is where we have to talk about 2024. Because 00:32:54.500 --> 00:32:56.920 if Szymborska's entire life was about the human 00:32:56.920 --> 00:32:59.440 touch, the personal filter, the trash can, and 00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:01.880 the uncertainty of existence, what happened in 00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:05.640 2024 feels like a battle for her soul. The AI 00:33:05.640 --> 00:33:08.220 controversy. It's a bizarre final chapter. Set 00:33:08.220 --> 00:33:10.460 the scene for us. What exactly happened? Okay, 00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:13.220 so in 2024, the president of the Wasara Szymborska 00:33:13.220 --> 00:33:16.750 Foundation, a man named Mikaj Ruzanek, who, by 00:33:16.750 --> 00:33:18.269 the way, was her personal secretary for many 00:33:18.269 --> 00:33:19.970 years and has seriously protected her legacy, 00:33:20.289 --> 00:33:22.710 he signed an agreement with a local radio station, 00:33:23.109 --> 00:33:26.349 Polsky Radio's OOF Radio Krakow. And what was 00:33:26.349 --> 00:33:29.009 this agreement for? To let the station use archival 00:33:29.009 --> 00:33:31.849 voice recordings of Simborska to train an artificial 00:33:31.849 --> 00:33:34.230 intelligence model. They created a synthetic 00:33:34.230 --> 00:33:36.809 Simborska, a vocal deepfake. A deepfake poet. 00:33:36.990 --> 00:33:38.630 And what did they do with it? They used it for 00:33:38.630 --> 00:33:41.349 an interview -like program. They had an AI Simborska 00:33:41.349 --> 00:33:43.910 commenting on current events, answering questions 00:33:43.910 --> 00:33:46.180 that she was never asked in her life. Oh boy, 00:33:46.380 --> 00:33:48.559 I can see where this is going. How did that go 00:33:48.559 --> 00:33:51.359 down? Not well. It was broadcast on October 29, 00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:54.619 2024, and it was swiftly and roundly condemned. 00:33:55.059 --> 00:33:58.000 Polish audiences hated it. Media producers, other 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:00.480 writers, they all hated it. It caused a massive 00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:03.079 public backlash against the foundation and the 00:34:03.079 --> 00:34:05.240 radio station. Why do you think the reaction 00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:07.599 was so visceral? I mean, we see AI being used 00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:09.800 everywhere now. Why did this specific instance 00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:12.739 strike such a raw nerve? Think about everything 00:34:12.739 --> 00:34:15.360 we have just discussed for the last hour. Think 00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:18.460 about the central metaphor of her life, the trash 00:34:18.460 --> 00:34:21.460 can. The trash can represents editing. It represents 00:34:21.460 --> 00:34:25.099 choice. Human judgment. Exactly. Szymborska published 00:34:25.099 --> 00:34:28.619 350 poems because she threw away thousands. She 00:34:28.619 --> 00:34:31.480 filtered. She agonized over every single word. 00:34:31.579 --> 00:34:33.719 And AI doesn't have a trash can. It doesn't have 00:34:33.719 --> 00:34:35.800 taste. It doesn't have doubt. It just generates 00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:38.099 content based on probability patterns. So to 00:34:38.099 --> 00:34:40.099 put new words in her mouth. is a fundamental 00:34:40.099 --> 00:34:42.699 violation of her silence. She was a woman who 00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:45.179 carefully, deliberately chose when to speak and 00:34:45.179 --> 00:34:47.400 when not to speak. To have a robot endlessly 00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:50.139 generating chatter in her voice is the absolute 00:34:50.139 --> 00:34:53.639 antithesis of who she was. And there's the biological 00:34:53.639 --> 00:34:56.099 context that the Nobel Committee mentioned. Yes. 00:34:56.460 --> 00:34:59.260 Her poetry was always grounded in the fragility 00:34:59.260 --> 00:35:02.079 and the reality of the human body. The cat that 00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:04.679 needs to eat, the lungs that breathe smoke, the 00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:08.630 heart that stops beating. An AI has no biological 00:35:08.630 --> 00:35:12.150 context. It cannot understand death. It can only 00:35:12.150 --> 00:35:14.610 simulate the language of death. It has no body, 00:35:14.630 --> 00:35:18.030 no pain, no joy. It is the ultimate irony. It 00:35:18.030 --> 00:35:21.769 is. And not the good kind of irony. Not the Zimborska 00:35:21.769 --> 00:35:24.389 kind that reveals a deeper truth. This was a 00:35:24.389 --> 00:35:26.829 shallow irony that obscured it. It treated her 00:35:26.829 --> 00:35:30.550 unique human voice as a brand asset to be exploited, 00:35:30.730 --> 00:35:33.269 rather than the authentic expression of a human 00:35:33.269 --> 00:35:35.969 soul. It raises such huge, troubling questions 00:35:35.969 --> 00:35:38.550 about legacy. Just because we can bring her voice 00:35:38.550 --> 00:35:40.449 back with technology, does that mean we should? 00:35:40.670 --> 00:35:42.530 I think the Polish public's answer to that was 00:35:42.530 --> 00:35:44.949 a resounding no. And I can't help but think she 00:35:44.949 --> 00:35:46.949 would have written a brilliant, devastating poem 00:35:46.949 --> 00:35:48.690 about this. Oh, absolutely. I can almost hear 00:35:48.690 --> 00:35:51.210 it. The robot in the empty studio or the algorithm's 00:35:51.210 --> 00:35:52.949 dream of consciousness. She would have found 00:35:52.949 --> 00:35:55.769 it darkly funny, but also terrifying. I think 00:35:55.769 --> 00:35:57.610 she would have pitied the robot for having all 00:35:57.610 --> 00:35:59.469 the words, but none of the meaning. I agree. 00:35:59.710 --> 00:36:02.309 So let's bring this deep dive in for a landing. 00:36:02.940 --> 00:36:05.309 We've looked at the girl from Prowant. The railroad 00:36:05.309 --> 00:36:09.030 worker stamping ID cards to survive. The socialist 00:36:09.030 --> 00:36:12.849 realist true believer. The disillusioned dissident. 00:36:12.909 --> 00:36:16.170 The Nobel winner who hid from the press. And 00:36:16.170 --> 00:36:19.190 the unlikely pop culture icon. She was a woman 00:36:19.190 --> 00:36:22.010 of so many contradictions. A socialist who became 00:36:22.010 --> 00:36:25.070 a symbol of intellectual freedom. A recluse who 00:36:25.070 --> 00:36:28.150 became a global celebrity. A writer of very few 00:36:28.150 --> 00:36:30.849 words who inspired endless conversation and art. 00:36:31.050 --> 00:36:32.989 For our listeners, for the learners out there, 00:36:33.050 --> 00:36:34.610 I think the big takeaway for me. is about the 00:36:34.610 --> 00:36:36.989 power of those fragments. You don't need to write 00:36:36.989 --> 00:36:39.250 the 1 ,000 -page history of the war to explain 00:36:39.250 --> 00:36:41.190 the war. Sometimes you just need to describe 00:36:41.190 --> 00:36:43.269 the cat in the empty apartment. And the importance 00:36:43.269 --> 00:36:46.190 of the trash can. In a world of information overload, 00:36:46.530 --> 00:36:49.050 where we are just bombarded with content, AI 00:36:49.050 --> 00:36:51.690 -generated or otherwise, there is immense value 00:36:51.690 --> 00:36:54.289 in editing, in silence, in waiting until you 00:36:54.289 --> 00:36:56.710 have the right word, not just any word. And also, 00:36:56.750 --> 00:36:59.869 just the power... of acknowledging that you might 00:36:59.869 --> 00:37:02.690 have been wrong in the past her political journey 00:37:02.690 --> 00:37:04.929 shows that you can change your mind you can grow 00:37:04.929 --> 00:37:07.389 you could have the courage to say i was wrong 00:37:07.389 --> 00:37:09.710 or to say i don't know the courage to admit that 00:37:09.710 --> 00:37:12.530 is what leads to true wisdom i want to leave 00:37:12.530 --> 00:37:14.489 you all with a final thought today we talked 00:37:14.489 --> 00:37:16.949 about her poem some like poetry where she says 00:37:16.949 --> 00:37:19.920 maybe Two in a thousand people really like poetry. 00:37:20.380 --> 00:37:23.179 But then we see her selling out bookstores, inspiring 00:37:23.179 --> 00:37:25.920 rock concerts, and having her poems turned into 00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:28.519 blockbuster movies. The data seems to contradict 00:37:28.519 --> 00:37:31.179 the hypothesis. It totally does. So here's the 00:37:31.179 --> 00:37:34.840 question. Are the barriers to art real? Or do 00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:37.800 we just build them up in our heads? Maybe two 00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:40.900 in a thousand like poetry with a capital P, the 00:37:40.900 --> 00:37:42.920 kind they force you to memorize and analyze in 00:37:42.920 --> 00:37:45.380 school. But maybe millions of people like the 00:37:45.380 --> 00:37:47.400 truth when it's told with irony and precision. 00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:51.659 Or, to bring it all back to 2024, if an AI can 00:37:51.659 --> 00:37:53.699 mimic her voice perfectly, does it matter if 00:37:53.699 --> 00:37:55.940 the soul isn't there? Would Simborska herself 00:37:55.940 --> 00:37:58.480 have viewed a robot mimicking her voice as the 00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:01.820 ultimate chilling ironic precision? Or the final 00:38:01.820 --> 00:38:04.260 tragic victory of the biological context being 00:38:04.260 --> 00:38:06.579 erased forever? That is a question she has left 00:38:06.579 --> 00:38:08.119 for us to answer. Thanks for diving deep with 00:38:08.119 --> 00:38:09.480 us. We'll see you on the next one. Boop -bop.