Tag: Polish

Regarding the Polish victories over the Bolsheviks

More propaganda than cartoon, this image was published during the Polish-Soviet war of 1920: “Rejoice, Europe! It’s true that because of the Polish victories you have missed the deliveries of tea and caviar, but you have also avoided the visitation of the four Russian witches: anarchy, plague, cholera, and typhus.”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1920)

Polish plague cholera typhus cartoon

A new disease precursor of cholera

“And godmother dear, how’s your man?”
“How’s he doing? … well, fine, because the poor devil has died.”
“And what did he die from?”
“From disinfection.”
“What kind of disease is that?”
“The one that comes before cholera… people are more afraid of it than cholera itself.”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1886)
See also these miasmatic contemporary images of disinfection measures at Paris train stations (and again in 1892).

Polish cholera cartoon

At the sickbed

Hospital ward: Polish treasury. Patient: The Polish mark.
Doctor Biliński [the Polish finance minister with his austerity elixir]: “Isn’t it strange that my famous decoction is not helping the patient?”
Polish woman: “No wonder! Until the doctor removes the leeches [bureaucratism, dilettantism, bribery] that constantly drink the patient’s blood, no medicine will put him on his feet.”
(Mucha, Warsaw, 1919)

Polish currency cartoon

Quarantine

And now for something completely different. This playful poem on the solemn subject of cholera quarantine was published in the Polish humor magazine Mucha in 1886. Once again we see contagion metaphors giving expression to economic anxieties, in this case related to the persistently tepid European economic growth in the years following the Vienna stock exchange crash of 1873, all amid the fourth great cholera pandemic. Although the agrarian Polish economy was much less vulnerable to speculative bubbles, the author seizes upon quarantine as a way to make isolation from “the West” into a virtue.

The rhyme scheme is ABBA ABAB AABB and so forth, but I have only translated as literally as my limited Polish skills permit. Editorial suggestions welcome.
(Mucha, 1886)

Rejoice, elders, lads and ladies,
No longer do all evils come from abroad!
Matters have come to a head:
We are going to have quarantine here.
In this place I can say boldly, sincerely,
That such thoughts have long troubled me:
If cholera can easily be remedied,
Wouldn’t it be possible to subject other “goods,”
From what is constantly flowing from abroad,
To strict and lengthy quarantine?
And namely stagnation is fashionable in the west,
May it be stopped at the border;
Then bankruptcies will no longer be in vogue,
Bailiffs will also fall out of use.
May the hoarse old sirens of stagnation
Dry out like cinnamon on quarantine,
May they stop plaguing us on the guitar
And collecting bundles of money from us.
Because we have enough beggars.
May the ever hungry and ragged Italians
Not besiege almost every gate,
That is what this author asks for.
May stagnation also be a vain, foreign sham,
Let it be subject to quarantine,
(In Poland it is indeed still increasing,
Day and night we have it in excess).
If all this happens, dear brothers,
We will be able to call out: tralala!
Stagnation will escape to the woods
And all poverty will disappear in an instant.
So rejoice: elders, lads and ladies,
No longer do all evils come from abroad,
Matters have come to a head:
Here we will have quarantine!