XIII 11th May 1999
The topography of the land dictates changes, which we tackle in a Capability Brown fashion, reorganizing the fields by join- ing them by removal of trees and hedges, or digging deep ditches to create new irrigation or to control water courses from ponds and springs. One is conscious of the fact that much damage was done in Burgundy, where water courses and hedges were destroyed, which affected the soil and vegetation; nevertheless one recognizes that many of the established features in the countryside, whether in Sussex or Mazuria, were at one time or another created by man, so it is part of the story of the land that man puts his hand to it again. We work on principle of undertaking what is clearly agriculturally advantageous and improving the configuration of the land, while watching to preserve the structure of drainage, and of the existing fauna and flora.
Recently we joined two halves of Babcia (granny) field by eliminating a ditch between Dorota pond and the river, replacing it with deeply set plastic drainage pipes and on the other side, by cutting down a number of old trees and filling a ditch between it and Angielski (English) pond our largest water. Both elements were no more than ancient man-made features, and by eliminating them we cleared a bog area adjacent to the rail bank and perhaps returned to a more original configuration. We also dug a deep ditch 400 metres long, along one side of the field, which we named Janʼs ditch, draining the lower part of the field in two directions to the river and to Angielski which improved the whole ecology of the area. It created a generous field of 8 hectares (20 acres)in one piece, of first class soil, which will be easier to work and one hopes will soon be able to produce 50 tons of wheat or barley, or 25 of rapeseed. We also had to cope with flooding adjacent to the highway on the excellent (IIIA) Nadia field, which slopes from the south to a gentle valley rising again in the north. It drains, being the last of a series of fields, a good deal of water under the highway with a deep outlet which was built mistakenly 60 cm too high resulting therefore in holding back the water in the field. Several approaches to highway authorities were without result and in the end we dug a small but deep pool which stores the water which can wait to drain-away without spreading into the field.
The Centre of Europe avenue trees are well established and growing, with a memorial feature sculpted at the crossing and with wide steps rising to it. They arouse considerable interest and I was asked for an interview on local TV to explain how we calculated the position on the map of Europe. The local school has formed a Europe Club and invited me to give an introduction to the children. There is much history in our area and another concept helps to enhance it, though there are no Japanese visitors so far, but what interests us is that the concept of One Europe is promoted. It is startling to look from a now quiet Leszczyn at the events happening in Europe today - this corner itself, in this century, was first Russian, then German, then Polish, Soviet, Polish again, German, Soviet, Polish-Communist and Polish-Capitalist in turn, with the front moving across it every time, with its guns, except the last time when Mr Wałęsa sailed in, with the democracy, on the Round Table. The memories people harbour here, and can tell, make for a rich understanding of our times.
The bombing of Belgrade by NATO forces led by Americans, which started on 25th March, happens to be some 50 years after the cleansing operation carried out in Serbia during the war by Croats together with the Austrians and Germans. Among the photographs from documents abandoned by Germans in 1945, many show the Ustashi, in the best of spirits, sawing off the heads of Serb prisoners. “This happened in a camp on Sava River - as Sebald has noted - where seven hundred thousand men, women and children were killed, in ways that made even Germansʼ hair stand on end. The preferred instruments were saws, axes, hammers and leather fastened blades, fixed on arm for the purpose of cutting throats”. Individual Croats were competing for the number of throats cut in a single night, a winner having 1250. Also shown were “rudimentary cross-bar gallows on which Serbs, Jews and Bosnians were hanged in rows like magpies”.
Yugoslavia has the highest statistic for war dead, with Russia and Poland following; has it to suffer more? The decision for this attack was condemned by Kofi Annan for as it happens bypassing the United Nations. And in Britain to whom Serbia was a loyal ally in two wars there was no one in government to speak against it; only a Tory grandee, Alan Clark, had the courage and honour to raise his voice in Parliament. It is a destruction of a part of our Continent, on account of some misdemeanour by a local strongman, who was perhaps deliberately provoked into it, by terrorism of Albanian Muslims, who in turn were reputedly armed by CIA, as is Taliban in Afghanistan. To see American cruise missiles, guided from centres as far away as Texas, rain for weeks, on Belgrade and Kosovo, killing innocent civilians, is incongruous in this day and age. It reminds one that the last time that Belgrade was bombed it was by the Nazis in 1941 and the last time Kosovo was joined to Albanian Muslim majority it was by Mussolini when incorporated it into Italy also in 1941. Who are these people replaying this history on our continent? I worked there, following the earthquake in Skopje; that fine city on the Vardar, where after much suffering with 5000 killed the reconstruction was led by a chief planning officer who was a Muslim (and promised to name a street of the area I planned with my name) which was undertaken jointly by the two communities, Muslim and Slav in peace and with happy competition to rebuild their city. With Tito and Khrushchev walking freely through the crowded streets, shaking our hands to congratulate and thank all sections of the community as well as foreigners who came to help. Cruises do not solve the tensions which had built up since.
We know from our long and troubled history that there are regions in Europe which have inbuilt instability - Northern Ireland, Basque Country, Catalonia or Corsica, and post-Soviet areas on the borders of Russia, but this does not justify planting wars on them now. Are we to cruise the IRA or Basques? Throughout history Balkans have been a boiling kettle, where the first Great War started and where a bloody invasion preceded the attack on Russia in the Second. Elsewhere the trouble stems from two religions or two nationalities competing, but here there are three religions, five nationalities and three races, in a tradition of struggle reaching into the past, with two wars in this century, during which each group fought on a different side. To begin to resolve such a story one may need a Ghandi or a Martin Luther-King not NATO forces, nor provocative demands garnished with cruise missiles. One may need sanctions and rewards and negotiation, even as Britain is trying to do in Ireland, not Black and Tans. In this wind of imbecility are hidden other, unspoken aims of the outsiders: to destroy European Union, by proxy, using Europeans themselves, to do so once again in this century.
