Art versus politics: Polish-Dutch international cultural relationships at the outset of the Cold War (1947–50)

ABSTRACT

This study explores the international cultural relationship between the Netherlands and the Republic of Poland during a period of growing political tensions between the Western world and the Eastern Bloc. Seemingly, both countries did not have any significant cultural ties during this period. However, various archival documents indicate that such ties existed, providing new insights into the history, scale and nature of bilateral artistic and cultural relations between the countries that developed during the early Cold War reality of a divided world – in some cases in spite of political tensions, but frequently also for their sake of political rivalry.

KEYWORDS:

• Poland
• the Netherlands
• international cultural relationships
• cultural diplomacy

Introduction

In February 1945, three powerful men gathered in Yalta to decide on the future of a post-war world. As a result of their deals and bargains, a metaphorical Iron Curtain fell upon the Old Continent which, reinforced by the introduction of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, for years impeded political, personal and cultural relationships and exchanges between the East and the West. In this difficult Cold War reality, music, art, literature, dance and science often created the sole possibility for individuals to cross this dividing line and come into contact with people and cultures from ‘the other side’, as pointed out in a Dutch newspaper from the late 1940s:

There is currently a trend also to include the people into the sharp political discrepancies which have dominated the world, in a way that together with the political systems one also tends to reject the societies that suffer under them. Cultural exchange could become an important bridge here.¹

However, culture was also intentionally used by state governments for political purposes – although cultural diplomacy shaped the international cultural relationships and enhanced mutual understanding, it was deliberately deployed as a weapon: a means of penetration, infiltration and propaganda.² This study analyses how the representatives of two opposing blocs shaped and implemented their cultural diplomatic policies at the outset of the Cold War; this is illustrated using a case study devoted to international cultural relationships between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Poland. I scrutinise the mechanisms of cultural exchange between both countries which, to some extent, was overshadowed by the two superpowers and their growing tensions. I also identify the main actors of this exchange.

Set out in Yalta, Poland came to lie within the sphere of Soviet influence, initially ‘temporarily’ (with the predominantly communist Provisional Government of National Unity that was to carry out the ‘free and fair’ elections promised by Stalin), but after the falsified parliamentary elections of 1947, communist rule was imposed and the process of Stalinisation was accelerated.³ The Netherlands, on the other hand, remained within the Anglo-Saxon sphere and soon adopted a clear pro-American policy. The strategies behind the East-West cultural exchange have been predominantly explored from the bipolar American-Soviet perspective or from the point of view of other major actors in the cultural Cold War.⁴ Analyses based on the superpower dichotomy imply that until Stalin’s death, culture had been politicised along ideological lines to the point that the East-West cultural exchange hardly existed: out of suspicion and fear of propaganda, the Western world refrained from cultural endeavours with the communists, while the Soviet soft power efforts were directed at the consolidation of its control over Central and Eastern Europe.⁵ By analysing the international cultural policies of less pivotal players such as the Netherlands and Poland, however, I wish to verify these assumptions, thereby adding to our understanding of the nature, span and mechanisms of cultural diplomacy implemented in this period by various European governments that, as pointed out by the scholars Martín García and Magnúsdóttir, had their own agendas and often acted in their own political interests, exceeding the ideological restrictions imposed by the macro level conflict between the superpowers.⁶

Bilateral relationships between Poland and the Netherlands have fluctuated throughout history. The two countries might not have been each other’s strategic partners, but at various moments, their cooperation blossomed.⁷ Regarding the Cold War period, the existing literature devoted to Polish-Dutch relations rarely mentions cultural exchange in the first years after the Second World War (mostly limiting it to weak contacts in the field of music or personal mobility); therefore, one might easily assume that their cultural relationships in this period were scarce.⁸ Until 1950, the cultural exchange between Poland and the Netherlands might not have been very intense, especially when compared to other countries such as France and Italy; however, the exchange did occur in various fields and grew gradually. Based on available archival materials and through the lens of the cultural diplomacy, I analyse how works of art and cultural endeavours moved between the East and the West in the first years after the war, often in spite of the political hostility that gradually arose in that period, but not infrequently also because of them.⁹ By identifying the state and non-state actors of this exchange, their underlying motives and policies, as well as the reception of particular events in the target country, this contribution reflects on the intertwinement of the fields of power and culture during periods of growing international tensions. I particularly focus on the soft power strategies adapted by communist authorities who attempted to exert full control on most aspects of international cultural exchange, moving freely and unrestrictedly between propaganda, state-driven cultural diplomacy and other forms of cultural relations.¹⁰

Nederland-Polen as a front organisation of the communist authorities in Poland

Polish migrants and their activities in the Netherlands were an important element of the early post-war cultural relationships between the two countries, as they were the first recipients and target audiences of many cultural endeavours. In the second half of the 1940s, around 8000–10,000 Poles resided in the Netherlands. They were mostly men, working physically in mines, industry and ports, the ranks of whom included a considerable number of Polish soldiers who had earlier fought on the Dutch front.¹¹ The Polish migrants launched or joined various organisations and associations, mostly church-related and anti-communist. Although attempts were made to unite Polish migrants unsupportive of the communist regime in their homeland into one bigger association, they did not come to fruition and various initiatives gradually disappeared, with the exception of Zespół Widowiskowy ‘Polonia’ (‘Polonia’ Artistic Group), which managed to put on about 300 performances in the Netherlands between 1947 and 1989.¹² The leading Polish organisation in the Netherlands at that time was the Nederland-Polen Association, launched in Amsterdam on 8 February 1947. It was led by Siegfried van Praag, an outspoken Dutch communist activist, vividly interested in Polish culture and literature.¹³

Nederland-Polen functioned in close cooperation with the Polish Legation, to a large extent as its front organisation. It was an important vehicle of propaganda and cultural diplomacy for the Polish authorities. The association taught a course on Polish as a foreign language, issued propaganda flyers and published a magazine, which had an outspoken leftist character and (directly or indirectly) supported and praised the communist government in Poland, under the same name.¹⁴ Even though the Legation’s support for Nederland-Polen remained unofficial, the predominantly anti-communist Polish community in the Netherlands distanced itself both from the association and the Legation, and rarely participated in their activities. Reporting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (henceforth the MFA) the Polish envoy Elmer wrote:

The Legation needs to consider the fact that the Association might be attacked for being its organ. Thus from the beginning I do my best […] not to leave any proofs of the Legation subsidising it. […] With time, when the Association’s position on Dutch soil strengthens, the Legation’s official support for this Association might become more apparent.¹⁵

Staying in close cooperation with the Polish Legation, Nederland-Polen attempted to strengthen the cultural, scientific and economic cooperation between both countries. The first issue of Nederland-Polen magazine included an interesting, though rather exaggerated, statement by Milo Anstadt, the editor of Vrij Nederland, who voiced the need to bring the Soviet Union and the Anglo-Saxon world closer to each other, and stipulated that Poland and the Netherlands could be the pillars of such a bridge.¹⁶ The association indeed launched a Cultural Club that aimed to create this cultural connection: it organised film evenings, exhibitions, lectures and concerts, which were often positively covered by leftist journalists from Dutch newspapers such as De Vrije Katheder, De Groene Amsterdammer and Algemeen Handelsblad.¹⁷ This corresponds to the fact that many people active in this context would later join or support the De Derde Weg (The Third Way) peace movement, launched in 1951, which united Dutch intellectuals prioritising European cooperation and harmony above the Cold War’s polarisation.¹⁸

After the Nederland-Polen Association had been established, Dutch public opinion on Poland and its post-war authorities was not entirely negative, which the communist authorities in Warsaw saw as a propagandist success.¹⁹ Many Dutch personalities and dignitaries joined its Committee of Recommendation, including the editors of major Dutch newspapers and broadcasters (Het Parool, De Tijd, Vrij Nederland, Vrije Volk, VARA, AVRO) as well as university professors (slavists, jurists, historians).²⁰ They had most likely been attracted by the idea of cultural cooperation beyond the existing East-West division of the continent, but when they realised that Nederland-Polen was in fact an unofficial organ of the communist propaganda of the Polish government, many of them withdrew from it.²¹ This course of events is laid out in a review of the first issue of the magazine, published in the Catholic weekly De Linie from 21 March 1947:

The magazine [Nederland-Polen, no. 1] produced in fine red as an indisputable symbol of its stance, mentions a Committee of Recommendation that, to our astonishment, includes prominent Netherlanders and names of authorities who, undoubtedly out of their ignorance, let themselves be taken advantage of, which tends to belong to the pride of every fifth column in every west-European country.²²

According to an internal report of the Dutch secret service, some of these individuals were possibly taken in by the association’s statement that drew from the Royal Speech of Queen Wilhelmina from 23 July 1946. She had pleaded for international cooperation that would lead to a peaceful global order.²³ In fact, although Nederland-Polen did not function as an official organ of the communist regime in Poland, its true character soon became obvious and the association swiftly lost credibility. Apart from the intellectuals’ withdrawals, the Dutch newspapers quickly ceased to use materials published in the Nederland-Polen magazine, and foreign diplomats warned each other of the association’s pro-communist character.²⁴ This corresponds to the fact that from 1948 onwards – following the events of the Czechoslovak coup d’état, the Berlin Blockade, the introduction of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan – the Dutch attitude towards the Soviet bloc became more and more rigid, and Poland came to be perceived as part of the enemy camp, which had a major impact on subsequent Dutch cultural policy towards Poland.

The association – like other pro-communist organisations in the Netherlands – was under the constant supervision of Dutch authorities, and its members, donors and subscribers remained on the secret service’s radar.²⁵ The lists of individuals and companies sympathising with the association were constantly updated; the case was the same for those who enrolled for Polish language courses organised by the association. The Dutch authorities were also particularly worried by the fact that Dutch tradesmen who wanted to do business in Poland were ‘advised’ by the Legation to become members of Nederland-Polen in order to get a Polish visa, which otherwise would be more difficult. Notably, those who wanted to become members of the Association needed to sign a written declaration, constraining them from ‘doing anything against the Polish state’. As succinctly expressed by one of the Dutch officials: ‘In the 1930s members of Deutsch-Österreichischer Alpenverein had to sign a similar written declaration of loyalty, and this association played an active role in the [Austrian] Anschluss. The conclusion seems obvious, though it might be erroneous’.²⁶ Fortunately, in this case, the pre-war history did not repeat itself, and the role that Nederland-Polen played in the Netherlands remained limited to cultural and personal exchange, as the examples discussed in this study indicate.

First attempts at exhibition exchange between Poland and the Netherlands

Although in the first years of the Cold War the Dutch authorities remained sceptical and deliberately refrained from organising official cultural events in communist Poland, cultural institutions in the Netherlands, such as museums or concert halls, were more open than the decision makers at The Hague and did not close their doors to Polish cultural events. Among the spectacular and effective forms of international cultural exchange, art exhibitions are probably one of the most important. By 1946, the Polish Legation in the Netherlands had informed Warsaw that it would gladly organise an exhibition of contemporary Polish paintings, and that Willem Sandberg, the director of the renowned Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, had already expressed his interest in holding such an exhibition. Potentially, some of the artworks could also be sold once the exhibition ended.²⁷ One would have to wait until mid-1949 for Polish art to be displayed in the Stedelijk Museum, although the first official exhibition of Polish art in the Netherlands actually took place in The Hague Municipal Museum.²⁸ In July 1948, more than 160 graphic works by nearly 50 artists were exhibited at The Hague, with the exhibition subsequently travelling to Rotterdam, where in September 1948 it was on display in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum. This travelling exhibition had been organised by the Department of International Cooperation (henceforth the DIC) of the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art (henceforth the MCA). It had first toured Czechoslovakia, then East Germany, before it reached the Netherlands and then travelled further to Belgium and Italy.

According to archival documents, it was the Dutch party that initiated this exhibition, and it took place before bilateral tensions between the two countries mounted. In August 1947, one year before the exhibition was opened, a representative of the City Council of The Hague contacted Jadwiga Vuyk, a Polish-Dutch art historian with broad connections within Polish art circles and an active advocate of Polish-Dutch cultural exchange.²⁹ Vuyk was soon to travel to Poland, hence she was asked to make some inquiries and arrangements about organising an exhibition of Polish graphic art in The Hague Municipal Museum, which expressed a desire to be the first to display it.³⁰ Subsequently, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Fine Arts and Sciences (henceforth the MEFAS) contacted the Polish Consulate in Amsterdam about issuing a visa for Vuyk, claiming that such an exhibition would be much appreciated in the Netherlands. In response, the Polish consul-general offered his full support to this idea and expressed his hope that ‘this first post-war exhibition of Polish graphic art in the Netherlands will renew the Polish-Dutch cultural relationships that were so effective before the fierce invasion of Adolf the Crazy’.³¹ The idea was also applauded by the Polish MCA but the exhibition was postponed until mid-1948 because of earlier arrangements.³² It finally opened on 21 July 1948 and received quite good reviews in the Netherlands. Notably, the review in De Nederlander, in a truly Euro-Orientalist manner, pointed out a certain primitivistic robustness in the exhibited works, which did not mean that they lacked technical skill – quite the contrary – but that they ‘did not know the complicatedness of the West-European art-life’, had ‘none of the modern extravaganza’, and were instead somehow naively melancholic and very expressive.³³

Nevertheless, when Vuyk suggested organising a similar exhibition of modern Dutch graphic art in Poland, the Dutch side remained sceptical. Vuyk claimed that such an exhibition would be much appreciated in Poland, where Dutch art was highly valued, emphasising that ‘Poland […] wishes to keep its relationships with the West alive, and even if, forced by its location, it needs to give in politically, it wants to be able to see, learn and experience the Western culture’.³⁴ The Dutch decision makers, however, were not convinced, and had some serious misgivings, judging Vuyk’s perception of the post-war reality in Poland as ‘not critical enough’.³⁵ Nicolaas Vroom, head of the Modern Art Department of the MEFAS wrote to the MFA, emphasising the fact that the political situation in Poland would not guarantee a free organisational process, could bring some potential insurance risks, and an exhibition in Poland would not bring considerable financial profit, as probably very few works would be acquired. Therefore, he was reluctant to send Dutch artworks to Poland, and suggested that other countries be prioritised.³⁶ Interestingly, at that point, the MFA Department of Administration did not see any political reasons against organising such an exhibition in Poland, contrary to the Dutch envoy to Poland, who shared Vroom’s doubts about potential marketing outlets in Poland. The envoy added that numerous other exhibitions of foreign graphic art had recently been organised there, hence holding another one at that moment probably would not have the desired propaganda effect.³⁷

Although the letter from the Dutch MFA indicates that it did not wish to impede cultural exchange with Poland, no official Dutch exhibition was sent there until 1956, unlike artworks from other Western countries. Not only French, but also Belgian art was displayed in 1948–9 in Warsaw, Poznań and Katowice.³⁸ Once the international tensions intensified around 1948, the Netherlands adopted a defined anti-communist policy and refrained from organising large-scale events and exchange with communist countries, limiting it to private visits and initiatives. Polish cultural manifestations in the Netherlands, however, continued, which seems to contradict the following general assumption regarding cultural relationships between the two blocs at the outset of the Cold War: that each side sought to explore the other’s territory while denying access to its own.³⁹ This does not, however, mean that the Polish people had no contact at all with Dutch art in this period. For instance, one of the most important figures among the so-called Gdansk Engravers was the Dutchman Willem Hondius, whose works were repeatedly displayed in various Polish cities. Moreover, among the several exhibitions organised on the occasion of the Second Art Festival in Sopot in 1949, one was dedicated to Dutch maritime paintings. Notably, Dutch figurative art was deliberately used by the Polish authorities for their propaganda of ‘socialist realism’, which became the official national style in 1949. In order to propagate this doctrine among the masses, various travelling exhibitions were organised, including ‘The Seventeenth-Century Realists’ with works by the Dutch masters, which was on display in various holiday resorts in Poland in 1950–1.

The exhibition of graphic art held in 1948 at The Hague and in Rotterdam was the first state-driven post-war exhibition of Polish art held in the Netherlands, and actually the only one in the analysed period that could be considered as politically neutral. It was initiated by the Dutch authorities at a moment of relative tranquillity when the Dutch authorities ‘still assumed that the wartime coalition between the Soviet Union and the Western Allied powers could and should be maintained’, and therefore did not see the Polish-Dutch cultural relations as a threat to its neutrality.⁴⁰ Once the Soviets gained complete and radical domination in Eastern Europe, and the vision of a divided world became a reality, the Netherlands adopted a clear pro-American and anti-communist strategy, which resulted in a rapid decline in its relations with Poland. The Dutch became extremely suspicious of communist governments and refused to play an active role in any mutual exchange with Poland. Organising cultural events of Polish provenance in the Netherlands was, however, not impeded and neither were individual initiatives and visits. The exchange of exhibitions was rather important for the communist authorities; they were perceived as an efficient tool of propaganda that could convey a vision of attractiveness and contentment. As previously elucidated via the example of the Soviet Union, the party apparatus lacked a well-defined strategy in this aspect and were unable to control it properly, hence they often actually ‘made the job easier’ for the capitalist counties.⁴¹ Given this state of affairs, it is possible to come to the conclusion that since Poland too did not shape its international cultural policy in an intentional and purposeful manner until 1956, this aspect of soft power could actually have been of use for the Dutch, had they not discarded it.⁴²

Art for the sake of, or in spite of politics

From 1948 onwards, cultural exchange between Poland and the Netherlands could only take place as it were in spite of the growing Cold War tensions between the East and the West. At the same time, the Polish authorities tried to exploit the field of culture for the sake of its communist propaganda and policy. Through a range of artistic events, they made attempts to build a positive image of Poland in the West, aiming to mitigate the effects of its political decisions and propagate the socialist ideology that supposedly brought equality and welfare in the so-called people’s democracies. These mechanisms are illustrated with a very interesting case study of two large-scale events that were directly related to one another: the 1948 Congress in Wrocław and the 1949 exhibition of Polish folk art in Amsterdam. This study demonstrates how intertwined cultural exchange and Cold War politics was, and what unpredicted courses of action this could take, which were not necessarily to the liking of the communist planners.

The World Congress of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace was organised in August 1948 in Wrocław (previously Breslau). It was part of a larger propagandist programme regarding the so-called ‘Recovered Territories’, launched after the war on Stalin’s initiative and aiming to shape the public discourse around the western and northern parts of post-war Poland (mainly Lower Silesia, Pomerania, Warmia and Mazuria – before 1945 belonging to the German Reich) and the Oder-Neisse Line marking its western borders.⁴³ Its main event was the Recovered Territories Exhibition, held in Wrocław between July and October 1948. The exhibition garnered much attention: between 1.5 and 2 million people visited it, including the participants of the Congress of Intellectuals that united 400 delegates from 46 countries, including Paul Éluard, Julian Huxley, Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso. Among the Dutch representatives were Leendert Braat (sculptor), Theun de Vries (writer), Willem Frederik Wertheim (sociologist), Samuel Davids (journalist) and Jadwiga Vuyk. The Wrocław Congress aimed to portray the communist powers as supporters of peace, and the West as a threat. In 1949, similar congresses were also organised in New York and Paris, and in response to these pro-Soviet events, the anti-communist Congress for Cultural Freedom was founded in West Berlin in 1950. According to the scholar Murawska-Muthesius, the Wrocław Congress was one of the most significant events of the cultural Cold War, which instead of abolishing the East-West binaries, actually helped strengthen them.⁴⁴

The Congress did not have the best press coverage in the Dutch media. For instance, it was criticised in Trouw, which published a long article entitled ‘Rood congres voor vrede predikt in wezen haat’ (‘Red Congress for peace in fact preaches hatred’).⁴⁵ On the other hand, individuals active in the circles of the soon-to-be-launched De Derde Weg movement praised the Congress, seeing it as an expression of their postulates of a united Europe. Wertheim’s, Davids’s and Braat’s enthusiastic reports were published among others in De Groene Amsterdammer, Vrij Nederland and Kroniek van Kunst en Kultuur. In September, they joined a meeting organised by Nederland-Polen which was attended by approximately 325 people. Apart from cordial observations about the Polish hospitality, perseverance and the (supposed) freedom of speech and expression, the speakers pleaded for the intensification of cultural relationships between Poland and the Netherlands. According to Davids, ‘the new Poland strived for intensification of cultural and economic relationships with West-European countries’.⁴⁶ Braat emphasised how impressive the number of art exhibitions in Poland was, with much attention placed on modern art. The speakers were likely to have been fed constant propaganda in Poland, and upon return, they had an idealistic image of the communist system. It is indeed striking, even for Left-oriented and socialist intellectuals, that they had no negative remarks about the communist regime and the Soviet impact on the Polish people. Braat, for instance, praised the alleged Polish solution for the issue of the ‘incomprehensiveness’ of modern art, namely the fact that unqualified workers and peasants were supposedly asked to decide which works of art were ‘understandable’ and which ones were not.⁴⁷ This was also stated in Wrocław while visiting the Recovered Territories Exhibition, but it is doubtful that such a solution had been widely incorporated.⁴⁸ The communist authorities did claim that culture was to be democratic, and that artists and other representatives of the field of culture should get in touch with ‘large masses of the working class’.⁴⁹ The masses were to have impact and participate in the evolution of culture, yet this idea remained purely theoretical and propagandist, even after the introduction of the socialist realism doctrine in Polish art.

At the Congress of Intellectuals and the Recovered Territories Exhibition, the Polish authorities also organised a National Exhibition of Polish Folk Art, which was to convey a message of national cultural unity based on folklore and anti-bourgeois art. The exhibition consisted mainly of wooden sculptures and paintings made by peasants and herdsmen. It was based on a similar exhibition that had been held in Krakow earlier that year. After the Congress, the exhibition travelled across the continent – first to Paris (December 1948–February 1949) and Brussels (February–March 1949), where it gained much appreciation, and subsequently to Amsterdam, London and Manchester.⁵⁰ In October 1948, Willem Sandberg wrote to Stanisław Lorentz, the director of the National Museum in Warsaw, reporting on his recent visit to Paris, where he saw the prepared exhibition that was to be held in the Musée National d’Art Moderne. Sandberg asked Lorentz if it would be possible to hold such an exhibition in the Netherlands as well.⁵¹ The Polish envoy Ksawery Pruszyński, who was very eager to strengthen the Polish-Dutch cultural relationship, actually claimed in his letter to the DIC that he was the one who had persuaded Sandberg to travel to Paris, which resulted in his offer to have the exhibition displayed in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam between mid-May and late-June.⁵²

Finally, the exhibition was held in Amsterdam between 25 May and 3 July 1949 under the name ‘Poolse Christelijke Volkskunst’ (Polish Christian Folk Art). Approximately 100 objects were beautifully displayed in representative rooms on the first floor of the Stedelijk Museum. A large number of notable invitees was present at the vernissage, including the Polish envoy and the mayor of Amsterdam. In his introduction, Ksawery Piwocki, a professor of art history from Warsaw and the exhibition curator, emphasised the support that folk art received from the communist authorities, simultaneously acknowledging the formal evolution noticeable in contemporary artworks that were concerned with the new socio-political reality in post-war Poland. In the Polish version of the catalogue introduction, Piwocki put considerable stress on the Recovered Territories and the objects on display that came from those regions. He emphasised the fact that they did not, in any way, differ from the artefacts produced in other parts of the country, which was meant to strengthen the propagandist discourse of the Recovered Territories and to prove that ethnographically, those regions belonged to Poland. In the Dutch version of the catalogue, however, these passages were much shorter, and their propagandist character was limited.⁵³

The exhibition seemed to repeat its Parisian success. In his letter to the Polish authorities, envoy Pruszyński stressed the potential propagandist effects that it could have in the Netherlands, emphasising the international fame of the Stedelijk Museum and its director.⁵⁴ The exhibition received very good press write-ups: De Volkskrant, for instance, wrote about a ‘touching exhibition of Polish folk art’, while De Tijd called it ‘remarkable’.⁵⁵ Of particular interest is the latter review which ended with a significant reservation: ‘Distinctively, the current Polish government chose Christian folk art for its first representative exhibition abroad. Is it a feigned manoeuvre?’ Furthermore, the local Limburgsch Dagblad from the southern part of the country, pointed out: ‘We have asked ourselves how the government of the communist Poland agreed for an exhibition of religious art to travel across Europe’.⁵⁶ Piwocki’s letters indicate that it was Sandberg who had decided to label the exhibition as ‘Christian’.⁵⁷ Sandberg was an outspoken anti-Fascist and Leftist, yet even though his adversaries accused him of communist sympathies, he did not particularly identify himself with the post-war Soviet version of communism and never joined the Communist Party.⁵⁸ Sandberg’s ideological stance might have been a factor behind his decision to alter the name of the exhibition, so that it would not be seen as a token of support for the political regime in Poland, and would allow him to showcase art from behind the Iron Curtain.

Adding one word to the exhibition name and pairing it with the Third Exhibition of Contemporary Religious Art ‘Pro Arte Christiana’ that was held in the Stedelijk Museum at the same time, allowed Sandberg to channel its narrative in a defined way, much to the disdain of the Polish authorities. As the curator, Piwocki unsuccessfully protested against this name, which misleadingly suggested that showcasing religious art had been the intention of Warsaw. This dissonance was also visible in the exhibition catalogue where words such as ‘God’, ‘Religion’ or ‘Christian’ were nowhere to be found. Instead, Piwocki wrote scornfully about ‘heiligenbeeldjes’ (little images of saints). In the above-mentioned Polish version of the catalogue, Piwocki actually made a concerted effort to secularise Polish folk art, as it were, claiming that its religious spirit was deteriorating and that contemporary artworks had a more individual and lay character.⁵⁹ Although it hardly seems possible to discard the outspoken religious character of folk art, the communist authorities did attempt to do so, implementing Maxim Gorky’s postulate that folklore was the creative work of the labouring masses, the proletariat. According to Zemtsovsky and Kunanbeva, such a doctrine implied that true folklore indeed stood in opposition to religion.⁶⁰ It is probably this way of thinking that allowed Piwocki to proclaim folk art in the post-war Poland secularised, which was not quite in line with the actual facts.

Nevertheless, the communist authorities used vernacular art for its propaganda. The ‘authenticity’ of folk art and folklore was intentionally exploited as a political construct that played a key role in the national unification discourse, and their sacral aspect was purportedly neutralised.⁶¹ The promotion of folk art played a crucial role in the international cultural policy of communist Poland, serving to convey a desired image of the country abroad.⁶² It is visible, for instance, in the article ‘Wielki sukces wystawy polskiej sztuki ludowej w Holandii’ (‘A great success of the Polish folk art exhibition in the Netherlands’) published in one of the official regional outlets, Trybuna Robotnicza, on 20 June 1949.⁶³ Positive reviews of the exhibition in several Dutch newspapers were quoted there, even from those that did not ‘favour’ Poland. Interestingly, the official Polish coverage did not mention the fact the exhibition was labelled as religious folk art, which was one of the key elements of its promotion in the Netherlands. The use of folklore for the sake of the communist propaganda is also perfectly visible in a short article commenting on a fair of Polish folk art and handicrafts held two months earlier in Amsterdam.⁶⁴ The three illustrations accompanying the text had the following descriptions: ‘The Mayor of Amsterdam d’Ailly buys a small chapel from Podhale’, ‘This young Dutch girl likes Polish toys’ and ‘“You can see that Picasso has been to Poland” – say the Dutch at the sight of our beautiful folk ceramics’.⁶⁵ By emphasising how much the Dutch enjoyed traditional Polish craft, or actually suggesting that they saw it as better than their own, it gave a clear message to Polish readers – that of the success and superiority of socialism over the capitalist world. Whether the communist authorities succeeded in conveying such a message in the West, among others in the Netherlands, is doubtful.

Private business caught between a rock and a hard place

In April–May 1950, the exhibition ‘Het kind in Polen’ (‘The child in Poland’) was organised on the premises of the privately owned company Gerzon’s Modemagazijnen in Amsterdam, under the auspices of the Nederland-Polen Association. This case illustrates how delicate and politically charged the issue of East-West cultural exchange in the early years of the Cold War was when it came to non-state actors – in particular for unsuspecting individuals who, in this case, were not sufficiently informed about the profile of Nederland-Polen and unaware of the contents of the exhibition that they had agreed to house. This propagandist exhibition contained mainly photography and graphic works related to the social, medical and cultural upbringing of children aged 7–15 years in post-war Poland. Emphasis, for instance, was placed on health issues, for example, on mass sporting activities for the youth that were to build a healthy Polish nation.⁶⁶ It was opened on 26 April 1950 by the Polish envoy and the mayor of Amsterdam, who apparently had not managed to find a reason not to speak at the opening that he supposedly was not very keen on.⁶⁷ Surprisingly, in his speech, the mayor stated that he had only hoped that children in Poland might grow up in freedom, which caused a certain commotion within the Nederland-Polen Association. Some members interpreted these words as sign of the mayor’s unfriendliness towards the so-called people’s democracies.⁶⁸

The fact that Gerzon’s Modemagazijnen had unknowingly agreed to house an exhibition organised by what turned out to be a pro-communist organisation put the company’s board on the secret service’s radar. The Dutch authorities were aware of the contents of the exhibition, and suspicions of ‘sympathy towards the Soviet policy in Poland’ fell on the company. The secret service was instructed to look into the political background of the company and its workers in order to estimate the potential risk of espionage for the Soviet Union.⁶⁹ Finally, the board of directors were judged ‘politically entirely trustworthy’, without any links to Nederland-Polen. The following was also highlighted:

Each Netherlander, as long as he [or she] is not a communist, and even if he [or she] knows nothing about Nederland-Polen, will still be careful when it comes to making propaganda for systems and working methods from behind the Iron Curtain, unless there are economic interests at stake.⁷⁰

Apparently, this had not been the case of the decision makers at Gerzon’s Modemagazijnen. The company would, therefore, stay under further observation. Its board claimed that the organisation of the exhibition had resulted from a series of misjudgements. They had earlier been approached by the Polish envoy, who had attended one of the previous exhibitions organised on the company’s premises and requested whether a Polish exhibition could take place there as well. According to their statement, the company directors did not find a justification to refuse the Polish request, especially in view of the exhibition topic – children. ‘Although without much enthusiasm’, and after being advised by the city council that ‘Poland was a friendly nation’, consent was given to organise the exhibition on the company’s premises.⁷¹

Source documents indicate, however, that the directors of Gerzon’s Modemagazijnen had not anticipated how loaded the display would be with communist propaganda. According to the Dutch secret service, the company directors claimed that they had not wished to engage in politics and admitted that, in order to protect the image of their company, they decided not to do anything to promote the exhibition and attract visitors. It indeed seems that it did not attract large numbers of visitors and received limited attention in wider Dutch society. Nevertheless, it did receive some interesting press coverage, clearly indicating that the exhibition did not manage to charm its visitors and convey its ‘hidden’ propagandist message. One of the major Dutch newspapers, the Catholic De Volkskrant, published a review of the exhibition under the meaningful title ‘Kindertekeningen zeggen de (treurige) waarheid: “Als ik speel, werkt mijn vader”, maar … mijn moeder is dan evenmin thuis’ (‘Children’s drawings tell the (sad) truth: “When I’m playing, my father’s working”, but … my mother isn’t home either’].⁷² It succinctly summarised the display with the following words: ‘The exhibition reveals the joyless results of the state upbringing and women’s labour’.⁷³ The works were given odd titles and descriptions (supposedly by the Polish children themselves) which were oozing with ‘grown-up’ Marxist labour discourse, revealing the artificiality and coarseness of the display.

Pointing out what was actually not to be seen at the display, De Volkskrant also made a valid comparison between this manipulated exhibition, where absolutely no references were made to the pre-war Polish tradition and religion, and the 1949 exhibition of Polish religious folk art ‘where on each piece of wood, on each piece of cloth and glass painting, the catholic faith bloomed in the most touching religious representations’.⁷⁴ This review can serve as an illustration of the ineptitude of those who shaped Polish public diplomacy at that moment: having entirely subordinated culture to politics and ideology, and lacking a coherent policy, communist soft power became cumbersome and ‘graceless’, contrary to the more subtle and non-coercive Western manner of exercising public diplomacy. What Sandberg had skilfully managed to prevent in 1949 (in fact to the disdain of the Polish authorities), now came to the surface, making it clear to the visitors what the real agenda behind this exhibition was, and thwarting the propaganda efforts of the exhibition organisers and communist policymakers.

Other forms of international cultural exchange and policy

As indicated previously, music was an important vehicle of cultural exchange. In the analysed period, Polish-Dutch musical relationships were quite intense. Almost directly after the war had finished, Polish musicians, such as Ida Haendel or Jan Kiepura, began performing in the Netherlands and received particularly good reviews. Dutch musicians too were interested in playing to Polish audiences. For instance, the flautist Jo van Veen and conductor Nicolas van Gilse van der Pals requested to perform at the Warsaw Philharmonic.⁷⁵ Poland was also well represented at two musical competitions at The Hague and in Amsterdam (1948). Notably, at The Hague, the first prize was given to the Polish-born violinist Michał Schwalbe. The Dutch audience was particularly interested in the Warsaw Chopin Competition, and the concert halls were filled whenever a Polish Chopin pianist – like Barbara Hesse-Bukowska or Halina Czerny-Stefańska, laureates of the first post-war Chopin Competition in 1949 – performed in the Netherlands.⁷⁶ The fact that musical events prevailed in the first years after the war is understandable, as they were easier to organise than art exhibitions, which involved much more cooperation between officials on both sides, as well as more financial support.⁷⁷

When it came to literary translations, the first years after the war were not a period of intense activity, regardless of specific efforts made by both the Polish and the Dutch authorities.⁷⁸ Nevertheless, between 1945 and 1950 several Polish books were translated into Dutch and published in the Netherlands (among others by Cyprian Kamil Norwid and Władysław Anders), as well as poems and short stories published in the Dutch periodicals Apollo and Kroniek van Kunst en Kultuur.⁷⁹ Dutch books translated into Polish in that period include canonical texts as well as works by Dutch communist writers. The choice of Dutch titles to be published in Poland, though, could not have been random. Multatuli’s Max Havelaar and Herman Heijermans’s Op hoop van zegen, for instance, were seen as critical of capitalism and colonialism, hence the decision to reissue them in 1949 might have been politically driven.⁸⁰ Nevertheless, the fact that Dutch editions of Polish books were published in the Netherlands at all (and vice versa) indicates that there was some interest in each other’s literature, even though they did not occupy a prominent place in the literary field of either country.

Soon after the war, there was an increase in student exchange. In 1947, students from the Warsaw and Krakow Academies of Fine Arts visited the Netherlands and Polish students of law and medicine were invited to participate in summer schools organised by the University of Leiden. World Student Relief (an international non-communist Christian student movement, previously known as International Student Service) also played an important role in stimulating student exchange between Poland and the Netherlands. We know of two Dutch students, Jan Smit studying law and Janetta Teengs studying Polish, who visited Poland in 1948; other exchanges to Poland were also planned (for instance, for students of music, art history or museology), but organisational obstacles still prevailed. It was a similar case for Polish Studies in the Netherlands. The University of Amsterdam offered a course in Polish language and literature, which was temporarily given by the former consul Stefan Łubieński, who had no professional training. The slavicist Professor Bruno Becker suggested launching a proper course and asked the Polish authorities for financial support in order to employ a trained lecturer.⁸¹ The consul-general supported Becker’s idea and criticised Łubieński who, apart from his lack of professional training, also did not support the communist authorities in Poland.⁸² One had to wait until 1970, however, for Polish Studies to be launched at the University of Amsterdam.⁸³

In the course of the analysed period, the Polish authorities gradually began focusing their propagandist attention on particular individuals or groups that they thought might be open to becoming mouthpieces to convey the message of an open and prosperous society behind the Iron Curtain. For instance, in May 1947 Dutch journalists were invited to Poland so that they could ‘attempt to understand the situation there’.⁸⁴ What is more, in 1950 four representatives of the Dutch cultural field received their invitations to become acquainted with Polish culture: the director of the Stedelijk Museum Willem Sandberg, the architect Jacobus Bot, the composer Marius Flothuis and the sculptor Leendert Braat. The choice of these individuals could not have been accidental: all four of them had been active in the Dutch resistance movement, and they were outspoken anti-Fascists and Leftists. In addition, they were attached to progressive newspapers and moved in intellectual circles, hence, the Polish authorities must have seen them as potential conduits and facilitators of cultural exchange with the Netherlands. Bot and Braat, members of the Dutch Communist Party, edited Kroniek van Kunst en Kultuur which, among others, had published a positive review of the 1948 Wrocław Congress – the kind of coverage that Warsaw was undoubtedly counting on in the future. The key figure here was most probably Sandberg, with his affinity for East European art, progressive museum policy and growing role in the Dutch cultural field. With time, it became clear that Sandberg was indeed one of the pivotal mediators of the Polish-Dutch cultural exchange.⁸⁵

The trip was organised by the Polish Legation in September 1950, with the Dutch guests spending 10 days in Poland visiting museums, conservatoria and ateliers in Warsaw, Poznań and Krakow.⁸⁶ Their impressions were published in various Polish newspapers, including the Poland Today bulletin issued in New York. According to those accounts, all four guests appreciated their stay and expressed their admiration for the post-war reconstruction works, as well as for cultural life in Poland more generally (for urban planning and music, for example). Sandberg deplored the fact that the Western press paid so little attention to Poland, while Braat, who had been to Poland on the occasion of the Congress of Intellectuals, praised the pace at which the country was developing. The Dutch authorities stayed vigilant when it came to any signs of sympathy towards communist regimes, so the observations made by Braat or Bot (the latter criticised the American intervention in Korea) did not go unnoticed: the Dutch envoy in Warsaw advised the MFA to verify them.⁸⁷

A rather interesting issue related to the Netherlanders’ trip to Poland is highlighted. Before Sandberg left for Poland, the director of the Dutch International Institute for Social History had asked him to intervene with the Polish authorities on the issue of the Dutch archives deported by the Nazis in 1944 that were to return to the Netherlands. (At that particular moment they were housed in Wawel Castle in Krakow.) Their letters indicate that the official diplomatic channels were unable to achieve the return of the archives, but the ‘informal diplomat’ Sandberg – a museum director, visiting Poland for cultural reasons only – agreed to use this opportunity to hold unofficial personal talks with the Polish officials. Sandberg personally discussed this issue with a representative of the Polish MCA during his stay in Zakopane and Krakow.⁸⁸ Due to the difficult Cold War political climate, however, the archives did not return to the Netherlands until 1956–7, when the first thaw in bilateral relations took place.⁸⁹ Sandberg’s example, though, illustrates the function which non-state actors have in public democracy and shows that citizen cultural diplomacy can indeed ‘play a critical role in this process, easing relations when they are strained, re-brokering them for changed times, and establishing fresh links in uncharted waters’.⁹⁰ In fact, throughout the history of diplomacy, apart from state-inspired large-scale cultural manifestations (be it the Books in Translation programme or the jazz tours in communist countries orchestrated by the US State Department), individual representatives of the field of culture have also been engaged to act in particular diplomatic interests, at times as a last resort.⁹¹

Closing remarks

This study explored the nature and span of cultural relationships and exchange between Poland and the Netherlands at the outset of the Cold War, a time of growing international tensions and East-West polarisation. In the analysed period, both countries applied opposing policies regarding cultural mobility across the Iron Curtain. After the implementation of the Truman Doctrine, the Netherlands withdrew from playing an active role in cultural exchange with communist countries and refused to orchestrate cultural events in Poland at the state level. At the same time, individual and non-state initiatives were not impeded, allowing ‘citizen diplomats’, such as Willem Sandberg or Jadwiga Vuyk, to develop cultural links with the Polish art world and to facilitate mutual exchange. Poland, on the other hand, initiated various events, both at official levels and through its front organisation, the Nederland-Polen Association. The communist authorities – attempting to exert full control over international exchange with the West – carefully selected their contents and participants, targeting personal mobility, publications and exhibitions at conveying the communist propaganda abroad.

The case study discussed here adds to our understanding of the mechanism of communist soft power, and sheds light on the general assumption that early Cold War cultural relationships between the two blocs were scarce, since neither of them wanted to give access to its resources, all the while wishing to penetrate the other’s cultural field. As this study illustrates, the decision makers at The Hague adopted an anti-communist policy and refused to actively operate in Poland, but did not discourage Warsaw from launching various cultural activities in the Netherlands and channelling its public diplomacy at Dutch society. Even though Polish-Dutch cultural exchange between 1947 and 1950 was not symmetrical and Polish initiatives prevailed, Polish international cultural policy was not shaped in an intentional manner and did not prove to be very efficient. This can best be exemplified by the 1949 exhibition of folk art in Amsterdam which was meant to strengthen the communist narrative around Polish vernacular art and the so-called Recovered Territories, but because of Sandberg’s skilful intervention, the plan actually backfired. A small but appropriate modification of the exhibition name allowed him to minimise its propagandist effects and to change its narrative radically. On the contrary, ‘unofficial’ agents of the communist authorities such as Nederland-Polen were unable to act in an equally subtle and convincing way, hence, its publications or events such as the 1950 exhibition ‘Het kind in Polen’ did not manage to achieve the desired effects and work for the sake of communist policy. Finally, it is worth emphasising the key roles which particular individuals such as museum curators, art historians and artists themselves played in this complex matter of East-West cultural exchange, not infrequently in spite of international tensions and national politics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre Narodowe Centrum Nauki [grant no. 2018/31/B/HS2/00121].

Notes on contributors

Michał Wenderski

Michał Wenderski, Ph.D. - assistant professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. His research is devoted to cultural mobility between Poland and the Low Countries in the fields of literature, fine arts and architecture. Currently head of a research project devoted to Cold War cultural relationships between Poland and the Netherlands.

Notes

¹ ‘Volkskunst uit Polen’, De Tijd, 10 March 1949, 3. All translations from Dutch, French and Polish are the author’s own.

² Numerous theoretical notions have been applied to studies on cultural relations in times of Cold War, ranging from public and cultural diplomacy to soft and smart power. They are, however, often used vaguely and interchangeably, and their proper definition and application are not always evident – see Melissa Nisbett, ‘Who Holds the Power in Soft Power?’, Arts & International Affairs 1, no. 1 (2016): 110–48; Martina Topić and Cassandra Sciortino, ‘Cultural Diplomacy and Cultural Imperialism: A Framework for the Analysis’, in Cultural Diplomacy or Cultural Imperialism, ed. Martina Topić and Siniša Rodin (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2012), 9–48 for an outline of relevant terms and approaches.

³ Cf. Norman Naimark, ‘The Sovietisation of Eastern Europe, 1944–1953’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War,vol. 1, Origins, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 175–97 for an outline of the process of the sovietisation of Eastern Europe.

⁴ Cf. Walter Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Francis Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War (New York: The New Press, 1999); David Caute, The Dancer Defects: Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Yale Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2003); Gilles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam, The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960 (London: Frank Cass, 2003); Greg Barnihsel, Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).

⁵ Cf. Patryk Babiracki, Soviet Soft Power in Poland: Culture and the Making of Stalin’s New Empire, 1943–1957 (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 2015). The concept of soft power was coined and popularised by Joseph Nye – cf. Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990).

⁶ Oscar Martín García and Rósa Magnúsdóttir, eds., Machineries of Persuasion: European Soft Power and Public Diplomacy during the Cold War (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2019), 1–5. Other studies that go beyond the binary superpower opposition include the following: Antoine Fleury and Lubor Jílek, eds., Une Europe malgré tout, 1945–1990: Contacts et réseaux culturels, intellectuels et scientifiques entre Européens dans la guerre (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009); Peter Romijn, Giles Scott-Smith and Joes Segal, eds., Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012); Kim Christiaens, Frank Gerits, Idesbald Goddeeris and Gilles Scott-Smith, ‘The Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War: Introduction’, Dutch Crossing 39, no. 3 (2015): 221–31; Simo Mikkonen, Gilles Scott-Smith and Jari Parkkinen, eds., Entangled East and West: Cultural Diplomacy and Artistic Interaction during the Cold War (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2019).

⁷ For instance, quite intense trading relationships were developed between both countries during the Hanseatic League; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, religious persecution drove the Dutch Mennonites to seek refuge in Poland, and today Poles are the largest migrant group living in the Netherlands.

⁸ For example, Peter Krug, ‘Culturele en economische betrekkingen tussen Nederland en Polen door de eeuwen heen’, Ons Erfdeel 23 (1981): 495–508; Lucia Thijssen, 1000 jaar Polen en Nederland (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1992); Duco Hellema, ‘The Cold War Years 1945–1975’, in Poland and the Netherlands: a Case Study of European Relations, ed. Duco Hellema, Ryszard Żelichowski and Bert van der Zwan (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters, 2011), 123–40; Anna Sikora-Sabat, Teksty kultury niderlandzkiej w Polsce (1945–1989) (Poznań: WA UAM, 2013); Ryszard Żelichowski, Stosunki polsko-holenderskie w Europie pojałtańskiej (Warsaw: ISP PAN, 2014).

⁹ The source materials have been gathered in the following archives: Archiwum Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych in Warsaw: Departament Prasy i Informacji (PL_AMSZ_DPI) and Departament II (PL_AMSZ_D II); Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw: Ministerstwo Kultury i Sztuki: Biuro Współpracy z Zagranicą (PL_AAN_MKS); Nationaal Archief in The Hague: Ministerie van Onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen: unit 08: Afdeling Kunsten en taakvoorgangers 1945–65 (NL_NA_MOKW); Stadsarchief Amsterdam in Amsterdam: unit 30041: Archief van het Stedelijk Museum (NL_SA_SM), as well as in Het nationaal veiligheidsarchief – Stichting Argus in Utrecht (NL_NVA–SA). I would like to thank Dorota Pawlicka for her help in the collection of relevant archival materials.

¹⁰ Existing analyses devoted to the mechanisms of communist public diplomacy at the outset of the Cold War are scarce. See, for instance: Nigel Gould-Davies, ‘The Logic of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy’, Diplomatic History 27, no. 2 (2003): 193–214; Greg Castillo, Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2010) and Cadra Peterson McDaniel, American–Soviet Cultural Diplomacy: The Bolshoi Ballet’s American Premiere (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014).

¹¹ Wiesława Eder, ‘Polonia w Holandii po II wojnie światowej’, Przegląd Zachodni 1 (1988): 157–8. For an in-depth analysis of the history of Polish veterans in the Netherlands, see Iwona Guść, ‘Maczkowcy w krainie tulipanów: O polskich weteranach w Holandii i o konflikcie pamięci’, Neerlandica Wratislaviensia 25 (2015): 39–55 and Hanneke Verbeek, ‘Poolse bevrijders in dienst van het vaderland’, in Honderd jaar heimwee, ed. Wim Willens and Hanneke Verbeek (Amsterdam: Boom, 2012), 104–35.

¹² Polish associations operating in the Netherlands included: ‘Związek Polaków w Holandii’ [The Union of Poles in the Netherlands], ‘Stowarzyszenie Polskie’ [The Polish Association], ‘Polskie Towarzystwo Katolickie’ [Polish Catholic Association] and ‘Pools Huis/Ognisko Polskie’ [Polish House], as well as a short-lived biweekly, Polak w Holandii [A Pole in the Netherlands] – cf. Eder, ‘Polonia w Holandii’, 160–2 and inv. nr. OD 1500, NL_NVA–SA.

¹³ Van Praag published on the subject and translated several Polish books into Dutch. However, he was not a particularly influential figure in the Netherlands: he was supposedly not regarded with much esteem and was seen as a blabbermouth and ignorant. Cf. inv. nr. 8–61–686, p. 9, PL_AMSZ_D II.

¹⁴ These initiatives were indirectly supported by the Polish envoy, who, for instance, supplied the Association with materials necessary for its publications – cf. Górzyński’s letter to the Ministry of Information and Propaganda from 15 September 1946 (inv. nr. 21–625–43, PL_AMSZ_DPI).

¹⁵ Elmer’s letter to the MFA from 11 February 1947 (inv. nr. 21–625–43, PL_AMSZ_DPI).

¹⁶ Samuel Marek (Milo) Anstadt was a Polish-born Dutch-Jewish leftist journalist, author of several books on Poland, for example, Polen – land, volk, cultuur (1964), Kind in Polen (1982) and Polen en Joden (1989).

¹⁷ Here it must be noted, however, that other Dutch newspapers remained rather critical about the situation in Poland and regularly described the issues of antisemitism, religious persecutions or civil rights violations that took place there. (cf. inv. nrs. 21–610–42, 21–611–42, 21–615–43, PL_AMSZ_DPI).

¹⁸ For more information on De Derde Weg and De Vrije Katheder see: Fenna van den Burg, ‘De koude oorlog en de minderheid’, De Gids 147, no. 1/2 (1984): 55–70.

¹⁹ Żelichowski, Stosunki polsko-holenderskie, 278–9.

²⁰ Letter from secret service agent L–2 (Inlichtingendienst Amsterdam) to Head of CVD (Centrale Veiligheidsdienst) from 29 May 1947 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

²¹ Undated note nr. 64482 [from 1949] (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

²² When necessary I use the gender-neutral term Netherlanders instead of Dutchmen.

²³ Note nr 823–18/50 by secret service agent F2 from 5 June 1950 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA); cf. https://www.troonredes.nl/troonrede–23–juli–1946 (accessed March 24, 2021).

²⁴ Cf. Żelichowski, Stosunki polsko-holenderskie, 275–95.

²⁵ Apart from Nederland-Polen, other similar associations were also kept under surveillance, such as Nederland-U.S.S.R., Nederland-Tsjecho Slowakije or Nederland-Indonesië, as well as other communist initiatives in the Netherlands – cf. NL_NVA–SA. However, it is likely the case that the Dutch secret services did not regard these associations as a serious security threat, but, nonetheless, kept a watchful eye on them.

²⁶ Fock’s letter to Einthoven from 5 March 1947 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

²⁷ Czerniecki’s letter to the MFA from 16 December 1946 (inv. nr. 21–604–42, PL_AMSZ_DPI).

²⁸ There had been local exhibitions organised earlier in the Netherlands, yet they were not officially supported by the Polish state. For instance, the Bulgarian-Polish painter Christo Stefanoff, who lived in Breda between 1945 and 1952, had multiple exhibitions in various Dutch cities in 1947–50. Stefanoff painted, among others, The Triptych of Breda that commemorates the Polish liberation of the town, as well as a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina. In 1948, works by Stefan Mrożewski were also exhibited in Rotterdam, and Polish photography was on display in Amsterdam.

²⁹ Vuyk claimed, for instance, that she had been asked to write a series of articles and a booklet on Polish art to be printed in The Netherlands, as well as to translate Dutch texts on art into Polish and give a series of lectures on Dutch art in various museums in Poland. She also planned to issue a multilingual publication on Veit Stoss’s altarpiece in Krakow. Cf. Vuyk’s letters to Vroom from 28 August 1947 and to Van der Hagen from 16 July 1948 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW), as well as to the MCA from 13 November 1948 (inv. nr. 122, pp. 176–7, PL_AAN_MKS).

³⁰ The first in Western Europe to be precise, since the exhibition had already been held in Prague in May–June 1947. Cf. Hefting’s letter Vuyk from 16 August 1947 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW).

³¹ Letters between the Dutch MEFAS and the Polish General Consulate in Amsterdam from 20 August 1947 and 26 August 1947 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW).

³² Starzyński’s letter to Vuyk from 14 October 1947. Earlier correspondence with the consul-general Gustowski also indicates that they had already considered organising an exhibition of Polish graphic art in Amsterdam, for instance, that of Stefan Mrożewski (inv. nr. 122, pp. 19–20, 27, PL_AAN_MKS).

³³ ‘Poolse grafici in Gemeentemuseum’, De Nederlander, 23 July 1948, 3.

³⁴ Vuyk’s letter to Vroom from 15 May 1498 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW).

³⁵ Flaes’s letter to the MFA from 17 July 1948 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW). Vuyk, on the other hand, repeatedly claimed not to have any affinity for communism.

³⁶ Letter from the MEFAS to the MFA from 15 June 1948 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW). This letter contains an interesting hand-written note, probably by H.J. Reinink, who was one of the most active supporters of Dutch cultural relationships with the Eastern Bloc, with the following – somewhat sarcastic – question: ‘Are we to suspend all cultural exchange with Poland and so forth?’.

³⁷ Letters from the MFA to the MEFAS from 2 August 1948 and from Flaes to the MFA from 17 July 1948 (inv. nr. 273, NL_NA_MOKW).

³⁸ Notably, at the occasion of French painting exhibitions in Poland, works by Vincent van Gogh (or their copies) were also often on display, for instance in 1947, 1949 and 1950.

³⁹ Cf. Gould-Davies, ‘The Logic’, 212.

⁴⁰ Cf. Hellema, ‘The Cold War Years’, 126.

⁴¹ Cf. Gould-Davies, ‘The Logic’, 210–12; and Castillo, Cold War, xxii.

⁴² Adam Koseski and Andrzej Stawarz, eds., Polska dyplomacja kulturalna po roku 1918 (Warsaw: Muzeum Niepodległości, 2006), 117–18.

⁴³ Cf. Peter Polak-Springer, Recovered Territory: A German-Polish Conflict Over Land and Culture 1919–1989 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015).

⁴⁴ Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius, ‘Modernism between Peace and Freedom: Picasso and Others at the Congress of Intellectuals in Wrocław’, in Cold War Modern, ed. David Crowley and Jane Pavitt (London: V&A Publishing, 2008), 36.

⁴⁵ ‘Rood congres voor vrede predikt in wezen haat’, Trouw, 27 August 1948, 3.

⁴⁶ Letter from secret service agent J/Q–4 to Head of CVD, BM (Mayor of Amsterdam) and HC (Amsterdam Police Chief) from 25 September 1948 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA)

⁴⁷ Cf. Braat’s article for Kroniek van Kunst en Kultuur in: inv. nr. 265, PL_AAN_MKS.

⁴⁸ I was unable to find any documents that would support this claim. Moreover, it would not have been possible, for instance, to hold the Exhibition of Modern Art in Krakow in 1948–9 or to re-open Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, with its famous Neoplastic Room, in 1948, should that have depended on the art taste of the working masses. Interestingly, in 1960, the communist authorities issued new regulations regarding public exhibitions of art in Poland which reduced the number of abstract works to 15% (cf. Piotr Piotrowski, Znaczenia modernizmu [Poznań: Rebis, 2011], 72).

⁴⁹ ‘Zagadnienie demokratyzacji kultury’, Rada Narodowa, 11 July 1944, 7–8.

⁵⁰ Barbara Wojciechowska et al., Polskie życie artystyczne w latach 1944–1960. Tom 2 (Warsaw: IS PAN, 2012), 19–22, 189–91, 257–9.

⁵¹ Sandberg’s letter to Lorentz from 27 October 1948 (inv. nr. 3358, NL_SA_SM).

⁵² Pruszyński’s letter to Starszyński from 2 February 1949 (inv. nr. 265, pp. 157–8, PL_AAN_MKS). Pruszyński also made use of the occasion and introduced Wanda Telakowska, head of the Polish Biuro Nadzoru Estetyki Produkcji (Office for the Supervision of Production Aesthetics), to Sandberg, hoping to strengthen the ties between both institutions, see: Pruszyński’s letter to Sandberg from 15 December 1948 (inv. nr. 3358, NL_SA_SM).

⁵³ The Dutch stance on the issue of the ‘Recovered Territories’ and the Oder-Neisse borderline was in fact not evident. According to Hellema, by recognising the Polish provisional communist government in March 1945, the Netherlands actually tacitly accepted the new borders of Poland. There was, on the other hand, no question of official recognition of the Oder-Neisse Line, since it would simultaneously imply the recognition of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, or GDR). Moreover, the Dutch press commented on the issue in a twofold manner – some newspapers actually referred to it as ‘annexation’ (for example, Trouw, 13 January 1949). In the late 1950s/early 1960s the Oder-Neisse Line regained attention in relation to the second Berlin crisis. At that time, the Netherlands was also involved in the West New Guinea Dispute and, as suggested by the Dutch ambassador to Poland, the issue of border recognition could actually have been used as leverage against the Polish support for the Indonesian claims (Hellema, ‘The Cold War Years’, 125–6).

⁵⁴ Pruszyński’s letters to Starszyński from 2 February 1949 and to Jackowski from 21 February 1949 (inv. nr. 265, pp. 105–107, 157–8, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁵⁵ Gabriel Smit, ‘Ontroerende expositie van Poolse kunst’, De Volkskrant, 13 July 1949, 5; M., ‘Poolse religieuze volkskunst. Opmerkelijke tentoonstelling in Amsterdam’, De Tijd, 28 May 1949, 3.

⁵⁶ ‘Begenadigde kunstenaars bij ’t eenvoudige landvolk. Poolse expositie te Amsterdam’, Limburgsch Dagblad, 2 June 1949, 3.

⁵⁷ Piwocki’s letter to the DIC from 26 May 1949 (inv. nr. 265, pp. 4043, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁵⁸ Cf. Max Arian, Zoeken & scheuren: de jonge Sandberg (Huizen: Johannes van Kessel, 2010), 43; Peter Rorink, ‘Sandberg, tussen Stedelijk en Stadhuis’, Kunst en beleid in Nederland 4 (1990): 130.

⁵⁹ At the occasion of the exhibition, Piwocki also delivered talks on Polish architecture and monuments. Most notably, he did not ignore modern architecture which, as he claimed, interested the Dutch public much more than the war damage. In May 1949 he repeatedly wrote to Warsaw asking for materials on modern Polish architecture and suggested, for instance, that the DIC contact Helena Syrkus, who belonged to the most prominent and progressive architects, and at that time was the vice-president of the CIAM organisation. Piwocki’s letters to the DIC from 12 May 1949 and 16 May 1949 (inv. nr. 265, pp. 82–3, 85–6, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁶⁰ Izaly Zemtsovsky and Alma Kunanbaeva, ‘Communism and Folklore’, in Folklore and Traditional Music in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, ed. James Porter (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1997), 4. Gorky presented his views on folklore in his paper ‘Soviet Literature’ delivered at the Soviet Writers Congress in 1934.

⁶¹ Cf. Joanna Kordjak, Poland – a Country of Folklore? (Warsaw: Zachęta, 2016) for a more detailed account on the use of folklore by the communist authorities.

⁶² It must be noted, however, that the overuse of folklore and the self-folklorisation visible in many posters and leaflets aimed at international tourists led to a certain ‘primitivisation’ of the image of Poland. The Polish envoy Wacław Babiński put it scornfully: ‘Not rarely the exaggerated emphasis put on folklore […] gives an impression that Poland is as primitive as the distinctive Caucasian or Afghan tribes’ (quoted in Żelichowski, Stosunki polsko-holenderskie, 341). It also shows how dubious Polish international cultural policy was at that time.

⁶³ ‘Wielki sukces wystawy polskiej sztuki ludowej w Holandii’, Trybuna Robotnicza, 20 June 1949, 3.

⁶⁴ This hybrid event, co-organised by Nederland-Polen, was promoted as an exhibition, but the objects on display (ceramics, wood carvings, dolls, hand-made clothes, wooden necklaces and so on) were actually for sale. Its honorary committee included high-ranking individuals and politicians, including representatives of the MEFAS (Reinink and Vroom), the mayor of Amsterdam (Arnold d’Ailly) and Sandberg.

⁶⁵ ‘Burmistrz na Poziomie’, Przekrój 211 (1949): 11.

⁶⁶ Note nr 85162 from 25 May 1950 by secret service agent E–3 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA). Sport was actually one of the most popular means of propaganda of the Polish communist regime. As voiced by First Secretary Edward Babiuch, ‘individual and team achievements […] give evidence of physical and moral health of the whole society, documenting the evolution in this matter in Poland, and very effectively propagating the policy that has led to this evolution. This is why we believe that Polish sporting achievements are one of the major forms of demonstrating the rules of social policy of a socialist state, and of its great results in this matter’ – Babiuch’s speech from 7 July 1976, quoted in Jakub Ferenc, Sport w służbie polityki (Warsaw: TRIO, 2008), 67.

⁶⁷ Note nr. 1537–’50 from 7 July 1950 by secret service agent E–3 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

⁶⁸ Note from B.St. to HB (Head of Department B) from 9 May 1950 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

⁶⁹ Note from S.T. to BVD (Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst) from 31 May 1950 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

⁷⁰ Report from BSV to HB from 11 July 1950 (inv. nr. OD 618, NL_NVA–SA).

⁷¹ Note nr. 1537–’50.

⁷² Lia Terlingen, ‘Kindertekeningen zeggen de (treurige) waarheid: “Als ik speel, werkt mijn vader”, maar . . . mijn moeder is dan evenmin thuis’, De Volkskrant, 10 May 1950, 5.

⁷³ Ibid.

⁷⁴ A response to this piece was published in De Waarheid on 13 May 1950.

⁷⁵ Maklakiewicz’s letter to the DIC from 4 December 1947 and Nicolas van Gilse van der Pals’s letter from 19 March 1949 (inv. nr. 122, pp. 35, 154, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁷⁶ Hesse-Bukowska was presented as the winner of the Chopin Competition in 1949, while in fact she had received the runner-up prize, which dismayed the Dutch journalist Hans Leerink (‘Poolse pianist speelt Chopin: En maakte misleidende propaganda’, De Telegraaf, 23 December 1949).

⁷⁷ Even though music could serve as a diplomatic tool (see for instance Danielle Fosler-Lussier, Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy [Oakland: California University Press, 2015]; Tomoff Kirill, Virtuosi Abroad: Soviet Music and Imperial Competition during the Early Cold War, 1945–1958 [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015]), it was also easier to stay politically neutral in the case of the events in question.

⁷⁸ For instance, in 1946 the Polish Legation at The Hague offered to have Polish books displayed in the vitrines of two big Dutch publishing houses, which could have some propagandist impact on the Dutch buyers. The Dutch Legation in Warsaw, on the other hand, wrote to the DIC asking for contact details of any association of Polish publishers, in order to facilitate Polish-Dutch literary exchange. As it happened, the Związek Zawodowy Literatów Polskich (Trade Union of Polish Writers) also attempted to build a network of translators and publishers in the Netherlands (cf. inv. nr. 21–604–42, PL_AMSZ_DPI and inv. nr. 122, p. 1, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁷⁹ For a detailed bibliography, see Ronald Pieters et al., ‘Poolse literatuur in Nederlandse vertaling’, Slavica Gandensia 4 (1977): 51–92.

⁸⁰ See Iana Popa, Traduire sous contraintes: Littérature et communisme (1947–1989) (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2010) for a detailed analysis of the mechanisms of literary translations in times of Cold War.

⁸¹ Becker’s letter to Gustowski from 1 February 1948 (inv. nr. 122, p. 80, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁸² Gustowski’s letter to the DIC from 5 February 1948 (inv. nr. 122, pp. 82–3, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁸³ See Jeroen van Dongen, ed., Cold War Science and the Transatlantic Circulation of Knowledge (Leiden: Brill, 2015) for a detailed analysis of Cold War scholarly and scientific mobility and exchange.

⁸⁴ Czerniecki’s letter to Department of Press and Information from 10 June 1947 (inv. nr. 21–611–42, pp. 182–5, PL_AMSZ_DPI). Based on this report, one can conclude that the assumed effects of this initiative were achieved and resulted in a series of rather positive (or at the very least, neutral) articles in the Dutch press devoted to Poland.

⁸⁵ Cf. Ewa Banach and Andrzej Banach, Odkrycie Amsterdamu (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1975), 29–45 for a personal account on Sandberg’s involvement and attitude towards the cultural contacts with Poland. For a more general outline of Sandberg’s cultural diplomatic activities see Claartje Wesselink, ‘De reizende jonkheer. Museumdirecteur Willem Sandberg als cultureel diplomaat’, Virtus 22 (2015): 171–88.

⁸⁶ Unsurprisingly, during the numerous official activities planned by the Polish authorities, the Dutchmen were constantly fed communist propaganda: they were, for instance, familiarised with ‘collective work methods’ or with ‘rules of socialist realism in Polish art’, and meetings with ‘model workers’ were also organised. Cf. trip report from 28 September 1950 (inv. nr. 125, pp. 48–51, PL_AAN_MKS).

⁸⁷ Slotemaker de Bruine’s letter to MFA from 10 November 1950 (inv. nr. OD 1778, NL_NVA–SA).

⁸⁸ Letters between Posthumus and Sandberg from 11 September 1950 and 8 October 1950; Sandberg’s letter to Janczewski from 12 January 1950 (inv. nr. 863, NL_SA_SM).

⁸⁹ Cf. Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis: Archief SDAP.

⁹⁰ Kirsten Bound et al., Cultural Democracy (London: Demos, 2007), 52.

⁹¹ This phenomenon is nothing new and has been observed since antiquity, cf. Andrzej Dudziński, ‘Dionizjusz I i Ateńczycy. Ludzie kultury w służbie dyplomacji’, in Człowiek w świecie antycznym, ed. Sławomir Sprawski (Krakow: Historia Iagellonica, 2012), 57–73.