The Dance of the Straw Men

There is a scene in Stanisław Wyspiański’s The Wedding that Polish schoolchildren remember for life. The guests, their souls lulled to sleep after a long night, circle to the music of the chochoł, a straw figure wrapped in roses. The golden horn that was meant to summon them to action has been lost. Only a monotonous tune remains, and a whole nation turns on the spot. I thought of that scene reading what happened in Polish politics on 8 and 9 October. The Sejm voted almost unanimously to restrict the sale of alcohol. In the same twenty-four hours police were checking more than ten thousand schools, while the politicians kept swinging at the same circle of mutual reproach.