Where Is Poland? | Poland as Nowhere

Chapter 1

Poland as Nowhere

In February 1885, Georg Brandes takes a train from Vienna to Warsaw, Poland – which is to say, nowhere. The train stops at Granica, a small frontier station near a place called the Three Emperors’ Corner, a local tourist attraction where the borders of three empires meet. But just a hundred years before, there was no border here at all.

Poster for the first performance of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, 1896. Photo: public domain.

Poland - in other words: nowhere

The phrase 'Set in Poland, which is to say nowhere' is one of the opening lines of Ubu Rex, a famous play written in French by Alfred Jarry in 1896. The full title of the piece is Ubu Rex, or The Poles, and it does take place in Poland, loosely based on Polish history and historical figures. The play – especially the above phrase – soon became a classic of the theatre of the absurd, its abstractness effectively blurring the actual origins of its Polish themes.

Yet there are many indications that when the young Alfred Jarry was writing it, he was influenced by the historical reality of his times. The first version of the play – written while he was studying at a lycée in Rennes – was simply the product of tomfoolery on the part of the young writer and his fellow classmates, making fun of one of their teachers, Mr. Hébert. It is not difficult to imagine that the historical land of the Poles, presumably mentioned during Jarry's history lessons, seemed like an exotic, absurd place, indeed even a fascinating subject for bored schoolboys.

At the time when Jarry was learning at school, Poland could no longer be found on any map – it had been carved up by neighbouring empires and removed from the political equation. It was actually and quite literally 'nowhere'.

This first youthful version of Ubu Rex dates from 1888. The very same year saw the publication of the first edition of IIndtryk fra Polen [Impressions from Poland] by Danish writer Georg Brandes. The latter book is an account of Brandes’ journey to the very real and contemporary Poland.

Granica means border

At the time when Brandes arrives in Poland, the whole of Central and Eastern Europe is divided up between three empires: the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the recently united German Empire. These great powers have amassed huge territories under their rule – covering almost two-thirds of the continent, inhabited by numerous peoples (besides the Poles, these include the Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Ruthenians, Lithuanians and Jews). Drawn together by common interests, and since 1873 also by an official pact (called the Three Emperors' Alliance), these countries keep the peace in Europe and their established order seems unshakeable at the moment.

The small town of Granica, the name of which means 'border' in Polish, is located on the Austrian-Russian frontier, along the Warsaw-Vienna railway line. Every traveller, whether arriving or departing from the Russian Empire, has to go through customs here. However, there is one more border not far from here – the German one. This is the so-called Three Emperors’ Corner, a symbolic spot where the borders of three empires meet.