25.02.2013
Dear Mr. Georgescu,
I should also say something about the title of the essay - "Mr. Eternity". It's English version probably does not reflects its Polish meaning
and connotation and I'll try to make it clear. The Polish title "Pan od wieczności" is, for ANY educated Polish person, an obvious link to
Zbigniew Herbert's poem "Pan od przyrody" - "The Biology Teacher", which must be considered as one of the most important
masterpieces of Polish poetry of the 20th century.
Here you cn find some fragments of this poem in English:
http://www.robertpeake.com/archives/353-zbigniew-herberts-poignant-hope.html#more-353
The point is, the title uses very specific, Polish way of "titling" the teachers: we traditionally call them "Pan/Pani od ... [some subject]"
where "Pan" is "Mister" or "Sir" and "Pani" is "Ms" - BUT, this is the first problem as it is very specific to Polish "sarmatism" - and the
word "Pan" is not translable accurately as "Sir" or "Mr" and even in the translations of Sienkiewicz's books you can read the English
dialogues where the nobles call themselves "Pan" and not "Sir".
The word "od" is literally "from" or "since" - and "Pan od przyrody" is just a teacher who teaches biology - but also not just biology, but
the "environmetal" subject in the early classes - "przyroda" means, literally, environment, but in the biological meaning only.
So, the title "Pan od przyrody" borrows some naive, pure and innocent "light of childhood" - but in the terrible context of the WW II. "Pan
od przyrody" as a man was some very original, passionate and strange person who has "stamped" his marks deep in the Herbert's mind
and soul. And then, "łobuzy od historii" came from Germany and killed him in the second year of war. And "łobuzy od historii" ("history's
schoolyard bullies") repeat the trick from the title in the most sharp way...
Borrowing the title from Herbert's poem was Michał Mendyk's idea - and that WAS a good idea...
Best regards,
Tom k
This is a letter of Mr. Kaminski. My thanks to the authot for accepting to publish this text.