黑料不打烊

Witold Gombrowicz wrote in A Kind of Testament: 鈥淲hat is Poland? This is a country between the East and the West, where Europe starts to draw to an end, a border country where East and West soften each other鈥�.

This transitionality is particularly strongly discernible in the eastern part of Poland where Bia艂ystok and Lublin are situated.  The history of these cities was created by many nations, the traces of which can be found in their material fabric as well as in the awareness of today鈥檚 inhabitants.  It is hard to call these cities 鈥渆astern鈥� but undoubtedly they are not also 鈥渨estern鈥�, even though they aspire to be such. Only 50 km to the east of Bia艂ystok there is a border with Bielarus and about 100 km from Lublin 鈥� a border with Ukraine. Up to 1991 it had been a border with one totalitarian state 鈥� USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the border experienced the revival of contacts between the border countries, especially with regards to trade. It became decidedly less 鈥渢ight鈥� and more 鈥減ermeable鈥�. It was also a new chapter 鈥� stepping up relations between Poland and Poles with their eastern neighbours. It lasted barely several years. Poland鈥檚 accession to the European Union and the Schengen Area shortly thereafter opened our country to Western Europe, closing it off the East. Our eastern border has become an external border of the Community, which in consequence led to a necessity imposed by Brussels to strengthen it and implement many new restrictions for the border traffic. Most importantly, this has created a new iron curtain, a new wall dividing Europe into two parts. This division is equally artificial as the one from before 1991. However, the border is as real as it gets.