第69章 波瀾N多的波蘭

親愛的小文： 你彈過蕭邦Frederic Francois Chopin（一八一○——一八四九）的作品嗎？ Chopin是波蘭人。只活了三十九歲。 Chopin played the piano in public when only eight years old. He began to compose soon afterward. He studied at the Warsaw Conservatory from 1826 to 1829 before leaving Poland in 1830. He settled in Paris in 1831, and, except for some travel, he lived there the rest of his life.

波蘭夾在德國俄國之間，老是被侵略、被瓜分、被瓜剖豆分（[of a county] to be divided or split like a melon or a bean；to be partitioned）。 Chopin音樂激起波蘭人的愛國心。 The poles also have an insatiable appetite for translations of Moliere and Shaw and for their own 19th-century dramatists who wrote from exile, when their country was partitioned among three neighboring empires.

The plays, novels, and music of this period helped keep the Poles sense of nationhood alive. One composer, in particular, has stirred polish pride through the dark years, He, of course, is Chopin, whose birthplace at Zelazowa Wola, 28 miles west of Warsaw, is a national shrine. here, every Sunday in the spring and summer, the public is invited to a Chopin concert.

波蘭在一七七二、一七九三、一七九五、一九三九年前後被瓜分四次。一九一四年被瓜分了以後，地圖上沒有波蘭了。一九四五年蘇聯（Russia/USSR）分了波蘭東邊，卻把德國東邊補給波蘭。所以波蘭“失之東隅，收之桑榆”（to suffer a loss in one place but make a gain somewhere else）。 蘇聯這種作風，叫“慷他人之慨”（to show generosity or unselfishness by anothers wealth；to be generous at the expense of others）。爸爸在四、六信中跟你談過，英文叫Rob Peter to pay Paul（搶彼得賠保羅）。

波蘭的首都是華沙（Warsaw），Warsaw, Warsaw, Warsaw可真saw了war。二次世界大戰，華沙城全毀，人死了四分之一。 葛單斯克（Gdansk）在德文叫但澤（Danzig），是造船中心，這個城和波蘭走廊（Polish Corridor）過去都是世界大新聞，因為它們老是和德國扯不清。 POLISH CORRIDOR is a historic strip of land that was once the ancient polish province of Pomorze. Poland lost the province to Prussia in 1772. When Prussia become a German state in 1871, the area fell into German control.

After World War I, the Versailles Treaty established the corridor of land to give Poland free access to the Baltic Sea. The corridor separated East Prussia and the port city of Danzig from the rest of Germany. In 1939, Germany regained control of the area when Nazi troops invaded Poland. After World War II, the corridor was returned to Poland.

波蘭成為天主教國家已一千年，Most Poles are Roman Catholics, and religion is important in their lives, Poland has been a Christian country for 1000 years. 波蘭的瓷器很有名，瓷器又叫china，所以，可以說，Poland的china很有名。 小文你還記得爸爸跟你談過的一種豬叫Poland China嗎？ Poland Chinas gain weight rapidly and make excellent meat hogs. Farmers in Ohio developed the Poland China breed.

Krakow是波蘭的文化城，以前是首都（Krakow is the traditional capital of polish culture）波蘭天文學家哥白尼（Copernicus）就是在這個城裡出頭的。 Copernicus skillfully applied this new idea in his masterpiece, Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres（1543）. In this book, Copernicus demonstrated how the earths motions could be used to explain the motions of other heavenly bodies. His theory laid the foundations for the telescopic discoveries of Galileo, the planetary laws of Johannes Kepler, and the gravitation principle of Sir Isaac Newton.

Copernicus was born in the city of Thorn（now Torun, Poland）, and attended the University of Krakow. 波蘭人跑到外國成名的： ①在法國有居里夫人Marie Sklodowska Curie（1867——1934），Polish chemist and physicist in France, wife of Pierre Curie, Madame Curie. 她是做下女出身的，苦學成功。她是唯一一個人得過兩次Noble Prize的科學家。她的大女兒Irene後來也得了Nobel Prize；小女兒Egrave Eve. Her life of her mother, Madame Curie（1937）, had a great and immediate success, as did Among Warriors（1943）．

②在英國有康拉德Joseph Conrad（一八五七——一九二四）。 Joseph Conrad的爸爸和一個叔叔都因為反抗俄國，被俄國人抓去，死在牢裡（exiled to Siberia）。他原跟他爸爸住在Cracow（就是Krakow），不到四歲時，爸爸被抓，他和媽媽也跟著到了俄國的Siberia（西伯利亞）——政治犯可以帶家屬在一起。 他八歲時，媽媽死，十一歲時，爸爸死，他流浪到歐洲，一直做水手。 他二十歲以前不會英文，後果卻變成了英國大文學家。 他最有名的小說是《吉姆老爺》（Lord Jim）和《黑暗的心》（Heart of Dark）。家裡都有。 ③在美國有魯賓斯坦Artur Rubinstein，爸爸跟你談過的大鋼琴家。

波蘭最有名的文學家是顯克維支Henryk Sienkiewicz（一八四六——一九一六），他用Rome的Nero做故事，寫成了《暴君焚城錄》（Quo Vadis，也叫《你往何處去》），這本書和前面居里夫人女兒給她媽媽寫的那本Madame Curie，你都該看。家裡都有。 爸爸 一九七五年十月二十六日