On Thursday, June 11th, HIA fellows joined thousands of worshippers in downtown Warsaw for the observance of the Corpus Christi holiday. The event was a concrete example of the confluence of Catholicism and the Polish nation.
Catholicism plays a central role in Polish national identity. According to the national mythology, the country ‘began’ as a coherent political entity with the Baptism of Poland in 966, when Mieszko I unified the Poles under the banner of Roman Catholicism. As the nexus of opposition to the Communist regime a millennium later, the Catholic Church reinforced its position in modern Polish society.
For Thursday’s celebration, the multitudes gathered in Pilsudski square, named for the man deemed responsible for securing Poland’s independence in 1918 after over a century of partition between European powers. A procession of priests and nuns, people in traditional Polish folk dress, and various military personnel recited prayers en masse as they walked a short distance to the square, upon which, in view of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, had been erected a large cross and a stage surrounded by birch trees. At the end of the service, worshippers tore token branches of the trees and carried them home.
The birch tree has no religious significance in the ceremony. It is a secular, nostalgic symbol of the central European forest and an agrarian Poland from a simpler time. Before the partition. Before the war, and the Shoah, and all that followed.
Like in any symbolic national holiday there is an inherent contradiction in the Corpus Christi celebration. As Poles celebrate their independence from totalitarianism and honor all those who suffered, many of whom were no doubt at the square that day, the gathering itself was a symbol of the terrible legacy of Poland’s oppression, and uncertain future the newly homogeneous state.
A population that was once comprised up to 40 percent by minority groups is today over 95 percent ethnically Polish Roman Catholic (Roman Catholicism being an important component to Polish ethnicity). The mass murder of Poland’s Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime decimated that once sizeable minority. Stalin's attempts to create ethnically homogeneous states through mass deportation devastated the other minority populations that made up the population of a once diverse Poland.
Twenty-first century social engineering left Poland almost exclusively Polish, and in so doing changed Poland as at had always been before. When Poles collected the branches of birch trees after the Corpus Christi celebration they were not celebrating the homogeneity of modern Poland, nor were they longing for a mythologised homogeneous past. They were celebrating a history of ethnic and religious diversity that was essential to the Poland of old. Incongruous as it may seem with the image of soldiers and priests in a national religious service, the Polish people, on that holiday celebrating the body of Christ, in one sense remembered the diverse Poland that was lost.
Later that afternoon, the fellows took a trip out of town to Otwock, where they visited a Jewish cemetery, which, without a community to care for it, is being reclaimed by the forest.
The fellows then met at the home of a Senior Fellow for a cookout, reflecting on the day’s events over grilled sausage and vegetables, strawberries and cookies. Through games and team building exercises they reflected on the social dynamic within the group and shared a great many laughs.
At a closing meeting the Senior Fellows discussed their own experiences in the HIA Core Program. The group discussed the challenges of working on team research projects that will soon begin, as well as strategies for effectively working with a team to produce a well researched piece by deadline.
One Senior Fellow advised the incoming fellows to take every opportunity to soak up the life in the streets of Warsaw.
“History is speaking here,” she said.
Indeed, it is. With its conspicuously tiny minority populations, and its architecture, almost all built after the city was razed by the Nazis, Warsaw truly is, as some call it, the phoenix city, risen from ashes. Poland today is a legacy to the horrors of totalitarianism and state-sponsored hate, and a testament to the resilience of a people determined to carry on. We hope that as Poland moves forward it will honor its legacy of diversity, and respect the space for minorities in Polish society that has always existed before.
For Thursday’s celebration, the multitudes gathered in Pilsudski square, named for the man deemed responsible for securing 
The birch tree has no religious significance in the ceremony. It is a secular, nostalgic symbol of the central European forest and an agrarian 
Later that afternoon, the fellows took a trip out of town to Otwock, where they visited a Jewish cemetery, which, without a community to care for it, is being reclaimed by the forest. 
