OPINION: A Modern Pole's Open Letter to "Eternal" Russia in its Current Putinist Guise

I have found that writing letters sometimes helps. I recommend it. Try writing a letter to someone you love, someone you hate, a country, a person. It's cathartic. Write a letter to your relative who is being held hostage, or to their captor. I know it's just an intellectual exercise, but it works wonders, believe me.

Here's my take on it.

Alexander Pushkin wrote that Polish-Russian enmity was just "an age-old quarrel between relatives" I would like to answer Russia as a Pole.

Hello Russia, this is a Pole. For as long as I can remember, they've been saying: Russia bad, Russia sad, Russia red. You claim we are Slavic brothers. You claim we are family. If we are, then you are the crazy uncle everyone warned us about. The uncle who comes to parties uninvited and drunk and wants to beat everyone up and walks around with a grenade threatening to blow up the whole damn show. The uncle who doesn't understand the words" "You're not invited, man, stay out, you're drunk."

Yes, that ungrateful, pesky Pole who betrayed your imperial ambitions and doesn't want anything to do with you because what you call help and liberation, we Poles call death and destruction.

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The Pole who managed to occupy the Kremlin for two years [1610-12], only to be pushed out. Congrats. I guess that made you feel insecure and inferior, and you have been stalking us Poles for four hundred years or more. Yeah, more. You claim that we don't matter to you. Yet, you keep bothering us, attacking us, enslaving us, exploiting us, exterminating us. You lie, you project, you deflect. Your intentions are rarely, if ever, positive. 

And you hate that we Poles see right through your games. Well, we are experts because we had to learn how to deal with you. We know you, Russia. You can fool many foreigners and their leaders, but you can't fool us, Poles. We aren't Russophobic. We pity you because we know that you are lashing out because it's you who has no real identity; it is you who has nothing to offer apart from despotism and expansionism.

I saw your poverty, and it just made me sad. Polish poverty isn't nearly as bad. You've convinced famous useful idiot journalists you aren't an expansionist state. Congratulations. But it pains you; it makes you so mad that you can't fool us, Poles. You want to kill us again and again, russify us, but we're still here, and you hate us for it. If we can't be Russified, then it's best to kill us, da? We're a thorn in your side and always will be. Even if you launch nukes at us, we'll be on the horizon like spectres, coming to get you, Russia. We'll haunt you in your homes and make you go crazy. Dugin, even the best exorcist won't help you.

10 million Americans have some degree of Polish heritage; do you know why? Cause we Poles just want to be as far away from you as possible, in a country powerful enough to stand up to you and your wicked ways. It doesn't mean we think America is perfect, far from it. But guess what – who do most Poles want to side with? Hint. It's not Russia. Again, Russia, it's not Russophobia. Apart from imperial boasting and one statue on horseback in St. Petersburg, you just have nothing to offer. Okay, sputnik, I'll give you that. And the cosmonauts. Alright, Russia, I'll admit we Poles could use some of your imperial hubris. Just some. It would serve us well.

To be fair, we Poles sometimes made it easier for you to come here and occupy us. Our romanticism, our messianism, and our collective naivety caused the deaths of so many of our elites, making it so much easier for you to invade and take control of these beautiful Polish lands. 

Aleksander Dugin, forget about Poland ever joining Russia. Sure, some of us might as individuals for whatever strange reason (a Pole – Dzierżyński – needed to set up your security services more than a hundred years ago because you couldn't do it yourselves). Still, most of us would rather die, or get as far away from you as possible rather than be forced to join the rotten Russkiy mir.

And if you keep pushing, if you keep threatening, no matter how many Poles say," not our war," now, if you keep testing our patience, you're going to discover just what Poles can do when you decide it's time to attack us openly. And it's going to end very badly for you. Yes, you have nuclear weapons, congratulations, "molodtsi!" but don't think for a second we won't find a way around it to get to you if you leave us no choice. Attack us openly, and Russia will never know peace. We will make sure of that.

And we won't be asking anyone for permission. Look at your history, Russia. You know Poles can mess things up for you badly. We know how you think. A Polish-Jewish-Soviet psychic called Wolf Messing walked into Stalin's office and startled him. Legend has it Stalin was afraid of him. Messing had planted a mental suggestion in the guards' minds that he was Beria, or so the story goes.

Russia, why are you so obsessed with us?  What do you want from us, Poles?  Don't you have enough territory? Or is it because you loved us, wanted to be us, and we rejected you, made you feel inferior, and now you're lashing out like a jilted lover?

Be careful, Russia; too many Poles are going to rip your so-called empire apart with our non-conformism and scheming. Maybe you need us to breathe new life into that terrible construct you call a nation. Or perhaps you don't even know what you want. Maybe you want to turn Poland into a giant mass grave. You'd love that, wouldn't you, Dugin? You won't say that openly. You're not stupid. Or maybe you are, and I'm overestimating your intelligence. You won't get to snap selfies in front of mass graves near Warsaw just yet.

Russia, do you see yourself as an older brother who needs to protect other Slavs? Then you're doing a terrible job. Just ask Ukrainians. It would be best if you took a look in the mirror and realized you're not the older brother here. But, of course, just like a spoiled know-it-all-brat, you won't do it. Russia, you're attacking your origins. Attacking Ukraine is one of the dumbest things you've done in your existence.

So, call us podle polskie sabaki [sneaky Polish dogs], Solovyov, but you can't scare us, Poles. Imposing your political system by trickery and threats. Matryoshka doubles. Deportations to Siberia. Mass killings. Stealing stuff. Destroying infrastructure. Trying to russify us for more than a century. We know your game. Your pathetic explanations that Bucha is fake because it sounds like "butcher" in British English, so it must be a British psyop… Lord have mercy.

We know what you are and what you're capable of, Russia. And you don't impress us. And do you know what? Hating you is pointless; you don't even deserve that much attention.

Adam Borowski.

This is an abridged version of an article by the author, which first appeared in The Times of Israel on July 18, 2024, and is reprinted with his permission. 

See the original here.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.