Poland in Denmark

Mateusz Mońko, Deputy Head of Mission at the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen: Thank you for accepting our invitation to visit Copenhagen and the Embassy of Poland in Copenhagen. This weekend we will have a big history festival here in Copenhagen. You will be speaking at the festival about the second World War and the history of Poland. What inspired you to focus on modern Polish history and what do you find most rewarding about researching and writing about Poland?

Roger Moorhouse: The inspiration really comes primarily from 1989, so that was for me a very significant year personally, watching the downfall of the communist regime in Europe in 1989. I was about 20 at the time. I found it absolutely fascinating and it motivated me to want to know more about the region, which I then did.

I then went and studied the University of London at the School of Slavonic Studies and studied Central European history. And it was there that I came into contact with Professor Norman Davies, of course, who was then the other great inspiration in my fascination with Polish history. So there are two godfathers of that fascination. Norman Davies and I suppose you would have to say Lech Wałęsa.

What I find particularly interesting about Polish history is I think twofold. The first one is that I like the sense of bringing Polish history to a wider audience because it is, I think, extremely relevant and very much under known, particularly to a Western audience.

So we have this rather very simplistic understanding where we sort of foreground German history, we foreground British history, foreground Russian history even. And the countries in between tend to fall through the cracks. To me Polish history has a lot to say, particularly about those neighboring histories as well. So it has an important contribution to make, and I enjoy trying to make those contributions in the public sphere.

And secondly, I suppose I am a little bit of a contrarian, so I quite like, it sounds rather pompous, being the voice of the voiceless and trying to tell stories that haven't been told before. So particularly for Western audience, Poland falls into that category.

Your field of expertise is the Second World War and the history of Poland. The 20th century saw Poland experience a great deal of upheaval, including two world wars. What do you think are the lasting legacies these events left behind and how did these events impact the way Poland responded to the Russian aggression on Ukraine?

I think modern Poland is acutely aware, perhaps more than even any other country in Europe, of the evils of totalitarianism, of the horrors of the 20th century and of what these misanthropic ideologies were able to inflict on their subject populations. It is acutely aware of all of that, having unusually experienced both totalitarian regimes in full force as they did.

I think Poland and Polish society is sort of much more attuned to reading the sort of signals. And particularly now, you know, Germany, of course, has been now brought back into the fold of European civilization. Russia is the other question. And now we've seen in the last year that Russia is still a threat to European stability, to the security architecture of the Western world.

And Poland has a really important role to play in calling out that aggression and calling out those instances where you can see Russia repeating its old patterns from the Soviet period and beyond in terms of, you know, deportations, these crimes against humanity and executions and atrocities and so on. I think Poland has an instinctive understanding of that history and can be a vital conduit to communicate precisely what's going on in this conflict to the Western world, which is very often ignorant of such things.

At the University of Copenhagen you spoke about the Polish perspective on the Russia's war on Ukraine. What were your key messages to the Danish audience?

I think precisely that it's very important to listen to those voices. And it's not just Poland. I think the Baltic states have also come to the fore very strongly. And others, Slovakia as well. Listen to those voices that understand what's going on at the moment on an instinctive level, because they've experienced it themselves and they're willing to tell it like it is without any sort of diplomatic gloss, which is important.

And as I said, I think to play that role of a bridge in terms of information to the West, that often it is either ignorant of the wider history or is willing to be deceived by the efforts of Russian diplomacy or Russian propaganda.

We need to keep that messaging extremely strong as to precisely what's going on, the historical precedents and what this means. This is a generational threat that we're facing from Russia. It's not just a local conflict. This is much more significant. It's significant, to all of us in in Europe and in the Western world.

And we all have to stand together and resist it. And Poland, because of its history, can play a very important role in keeping that alliance together.

You mentioned the strategic messaging and also the different signals and warnings coming from our region, Poland, Baltic Sea states. Prior to the war, we had been consistently warning about the threat coming from Russia and so many countries did not listen or did not want to listen. Do you think we, the Central and Eastern Europe, were communicating badly or the countries, the partners were not eager to listen?

So I think it's much more the latter rather than the former. I think the messaging from Poland and the others, other concerned states and central Europe was quite coherent and quite effective, and particularly on those really salient issues like Nord Stream 2, for example, was very straightforward. I think the problem was really in the way that messaging was received by our Western European partners.

And I think it comes down ultimately, in my opinion, to this post imperial sort of hangover. Speaking as a Briton, I think we sort of take Germany seriously, we take France seriously, we take the US seriously. And we take Russia seriously, as these sort of great powers.

But to some extent the countries in between are, it's not that they're not taken seriously, but they're not really on the map, they're not really present in the conversation. And I think Poland, this is where I think there has been a shift in the last year, Poland has shouted its way into the conversation and hooray for that. It really has elbowed its way into the conversation and that needed to happen. So I think it was much more about a rather reflexive Western arrogance towards Eastern Europe. And that has changed, is changing and will change.

And here Denmark is an example of a country that responded to the Russia's war on Ukraine very positively, offering financial, humanitarian, political, military assistance. Why do you think this is the case? The Scandinavian countries, you know, have a different history than our region, but still here, when it comes to the threat coming from Russia, they are very sober. They have a sober analysis of the threat and of the possible consequences of critical infrastructure on basically the security environment within the Baltic Sea or even more broadly in the Arctic.

I agree with the premise of your question entirely. I think it's been remarkable to see how the Scandinavian countries have come on side over the last year and to see, you know, Sweden and Finland, both countries that have strong traditions either willingly or unwillingly of neutrality, and now joining NATO, God willing, that's a tremendous turn of events. That's very much to be welcomed.

And you're absolutely right. They do seem to have a sort of instinctive understanding of what is going on in Central and Eastern Europe at the moment. I think in the Danish case, it occurred to me the last time I came to Denmark a few years ago, there is a particular understanding in the Danish case of the fate of the Baltic states in the 20th century because of that, you know, being comparatively proximate to the Baltic states.

It's a history that they're very aware of in the way, for example, that Britain really isn't and other countries of Europe aren't. But Denmark was aware of it. And I think that clarity of understanding of the 20th century predicament of small states living in close proximity to large, aggressive states, you could say the same thing about Denmark and Germany in the 19th century, you could say the same that they faced the same predicament. But there's an instinctive understanding of that problem. And I think that has helped with the Danish understanding of precisely what's going on with Ukraine now, to a great degree.

Thank you so much and have a great stay in Denmark and good luck at the history days festival in Copenhagen and hope to have you here again at the Polish Embassy maybe next year or in the coming years.

I look forward to it. Thank you.