Cracovians Spin In Walesa Spiral
A Cracovian publisher has been ordered to pay damages to Lech Wałesa's daughter, Anna Dominska, after a court ruled that a biography of the Solidarity hero is slanderous. Mrs Dominska claims that she was offended by allegations that her father was "intellectually impoverished" and that he had been an informer to the communists in the 70s.
However, the relatively moderate sum that must be paid - 5000 zl - suggests that Polish courts are not entirely confident in the matter.
Walesa was technically cleared of allegations of collaboration by a court in 2000. Nevertheless, the official Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) felt justified in publishing a vast tome in 2008, refuting that ruling.
That book was followed by the subject of the current case. Lech Walesa: Idea and Reality, by Pawel Zyzak, was the offshoot of a masters dissertation by a 25 year old graduate of Krakow's Jagiellonian University. It was published by Arcana press, a private firm owned by Professor Andrzej Nowak, a respected historian who supervised Mr Zyzak's original dissertation. Once again, the ghost of collaboration reared its head, along with the allegation that Walesa had fathered a child out of wedlock.
A 2008 poll revealed that a majority of Poles felt that even if Wałęsa had served briefly as a collaborator in the seventies, his later achievements as the leader of Solidarity outweighed his alleged mistakes.
A spokesperson for Arcana has announced that it will appeal against the ruling.