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Solidarity changed Poland. It was founded at the Lenin Shipyard on September 17, 1980, as the first trade union within Eastern Europe not controlled by a communist party. It was, as noted in chapter 16, a young person’s organization, most of its leaders under the age of thirty. At its peak over ten million joined, one-third of the working-age population of Poland. It fought to effect political change, challenging the Red Bourgeoisie (chapter 16), ultimately succeeding when communist control ended in 1990. But unlike in the story, there was no Warsaw Protocol, or at least history has yet to note its existence.
Sturney Castle is a composite of several that exist across northern Slovakia (chapter 4). The torture Jonty Olivier utilizes in chapter 2, with the electrical wire down the throat, is not my invention. Košice, Slovakia, and Zakopane, Poland, are real, as is the Tatra Museum (chapters 23 and 37). The U.S. consulate in Kraków is there (chapter 35). The Wojtyla house museum in Wadowice can be visited (chapter 55).
The monastery at Jasna Góra is Poland’s most sacred religious site (chapters 41, 43, and 45). The Black Madonna and Child have long been associated with miraculous cures. The monks who guide visitors wear white robes and look a lot like a pope. All of the locales within the monastery are faithfully described, including its magnificent library. Finally, the Edgar Allan Poe pen mentioned in chapter 23 is a true collector’s piece, created by Montblanc. Many years ago, I was given one as a gift.
The salt mine at Wieliczka was one of the original twelve places first chosen in 1978 for a World Heritage Site designation. And rightly so. It is a spectacular accomplishment. Seven hundred years of salt extraction has left thousands of chambers and almost two hundred miles of tunnels. The story of Saint Kinga, and how the mine first started, is another tale that is ingrained in the local mythology (chapter 14). There are only nine levels. I created the tenth (chapter 31). Those familiar with the mine will see that the internal geography I used does not fit reality, but it was necessary to make changes.
The vast majority of visitors walk the tourist routes on Levels I and II. Access is through the Danilowicz Shaft and its authentic caged elevators. Those levels are well lit and beautifully designed. There’s everything from a restaurant to a conference center, souvenir kiosks, exhibits, shops, and even a health facility for asthmatics. For the more adventurous there is the miner’s tour with a descent of the Regis Shaft to the much more rustic (though younger) lower levels. There the visitor experiences what it was like all those centuries ago to be a miner. It’s dead silent, and the only light comes from your helmet. I tried to capture that ambience throughout the novel, but if you’re given the opportunity, take the miner’s tour. I’m not a big fan of enclosed spaces, but I had no issues while down there thanks to all of the shafts being properly ventilated. An excellent book on the subject is referenced in the novel (chapter 53). City in Salt, by Andrzej Nowakowski.
Most of the underground chambers are named (chapter 18), and many are supported by wooden cribbing (chapter 31) placed there centuries ago. The salt wall described in chapter 33 is one of countless that exist. I saw one that had been erected in the 18th century. Chapels are scattered across all nine levels, the most magnificent being Saint Kinga’s (chapter 29). My Chapel of St. Francis (chapter 66) is a composite of several. Carvings and sculptures are likewise everywhere, all created by the miners. The image of St. Bobola, described in chapter 56, is my invention.
Outside the mine stands the graduation tower (chapter 59), which makes extensive use of salt brine pumped from underground. That brine is collected in a series of underground lakes (chapters 73–76) that are clear, cold, and artfully illuminated. The concentration of saturated salt is so intense that nothing can sink without an enormous amount of ballast. Tourism in the mine started many centuries ago when the Crown would bring royalty down to show off its wealth. They would eat and dance in the largest chambers, then row across the underwater lagoons. There’s a story the mine guides tell of a time, in the 19th century, when one of the boats capsized, its occupants trapped beneath. Because of the brine, none were able to dive down and swim out from underneath to safety.
They all suffocated.
At its heart, this novel is about Poland, a nation that knows oppression. Invaders have come for centuries. The Swedes, Turks, Cossacks, Russians, Prussians, Austrians, French, and Germans all wreaked havoc. The nation was wiped from the map in 1795, the land divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria, history rewritten to blot out all memory of anything Polish (chapter 12). Eventually Poland reemerged (chapter 16) only to be taken by the Nazis then handed away by the Allies after World War II to Stalin. In 1990, with the fall of communism, the nation came back to life. As is quoted in chapter 16, Poland is indeed the Jesus Christ of nations.
Martial law was imposed in December 1981 (chapter 55). Tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned, the country placed on total lockdown. But, as noted in chapter 55, that horribly oppressive act may have saved the nation. First, it allowed Solidarity time to regroup. Second, it graphically demonstrated to the people the horrors they were living under. Life in Poland then was beyond hard (chapter 22). The government, in a foolish move, began to stock stores with food and merchandise, thinking the populace would be grateful. Instead, all it showed was that the government had been responsible for the shortages all along. Finally, it galvanized the world into action, which placed even more pressure on the communists (all of which I dealt with in my novel The 14th Colony).
But Poland bears some responsibility for its troubled past.
It has a volatile history (chapter 5). The absurdity of electing a king (chapter 34) led to centuries of political chaos. Then the single-man veto, the liberum, crippled government and allowed a few to dominate the many, making it even easier for invaders to triumph. For a long time Poland did not have weak government, it had no government at all, and that ultimately cost them everything.
Today the country is littered with political parties, the PO and PiS the most dominant (chapter 12). They constantly fight and bicker and try to glue together some semblance of a coalition. Sometimes it works, most times not. The Polska Partia Przyjaciól Piwa, Polish Beer-Lovers’ Party (chapter 12), existed and is illustrative of how absurd things can get. Poland continues to struggle to find its place within the European and world communities. Sadly, though, all of the current violence and struggles discussed in chapters 65 and 74 are fact-based. Ronald Reagan said, Poland is not East or West. Poland is the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression. And a few lines from its national anthem say it all:
Poland has not yet perished,
So long as we still live.
What the foreign force has taken from us,
We shall with sabre retrieve.
