Pretty and overcrowded, Gdańsk is a port city in the north of Poland. It is a conurbation formed with two other cities, Sopot and Gdynia. You do not really live in Gdańsk. You come here for a day or two so as to taste fish and walk along the sea coast and the numerous canals cutting through the old town. Sometimes the amount of tourists gets a little overbearing and you have to join a queue to simply get to the other side of the famous Dluga Street. None of this, however, should bother you the moment you decide to get away from the centre and walk a little to the north. The European Solidarity Centre is located in a place completely untroubled by random visitors.
The design of the building was created in 2007 and the intention was to make you think of the hulls of ships built in a local shipyard. It is monumental architecture, modern but not excessively so. Later, after walking along the temporary fence honouring the events in Belarus in 2020, you enter the huge hall which seems both welcoming and slightly overwhelming. And then, with a ticket in your pocket and an audioguide around your neck, you begin. Speaking of the audioguide, you have to take it. With an immersive experience like that, the immersion has to be complete. Deprived of oxygen, you have to be flopping about like a scared child.
The museum (the Centre also contains a library) is a detailed story of the Solidarity movement in Poland which started in early 80s and ended just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In actual fact, though, the beginning could be traced to the protests in the 70s and even the brief uprising in March '68. The Gdańsk shipyard was the focal point, and through powerful images and creative installations (these include interrogation rooms, police vehicles and old-fashioned printing machines) you get to see how everything unfurled. You start with a nonchalant shipyard interior that stirs little emotion and you end up in tears watching the victorious speech of Lech Wałęsa.
It is an unforgettable story, and it unfolds like a great book. The grim triumphalism can be forgiven (as well as the inevitable appearance of the Pope). After all, Poland was the first satellite state of the USSR that became truly independent, and that has to count for something. Still, I remember how Christopher Hitchens described his visit to Warsaw in the 80s: downtrodden people, sullen faces, and Hitchens clutching onto his British passport like his most prized possession. Because really - like in any meaningful political struggle, moments of euphoria are mixed with despair and self-defeatism.
For us today, the events in Poland in the 80s are an inspiration and a reality check. It is the latter because the martial law and the brutal force did quench the spirited movement that seemed invincible at the start of the decade. And yet it is always the former because in the end Poland did persevere. The uncomfortable question remains, however, and it keeps nagging at me as I am walking on the roof terrace of the Centre surveying the whole city spread out around me like a bed quilt. The question disturbs me and yet I cannot shake it off. The question is this: could they do it if the Soviet Union did not begin to crumble in 1986 or thereabouts? Could they really pull it off on their own? It is a question that means all the world to me, and it is a question that I dare not answer.
