For a little more than a decade following the Revolution of 1917, Russia experienced an unparalleled social transformation. Hardly any area of daily existence was left untouched by this juggernaut of change, from social mobility in the villages to the nature of the fine arts in the cities. If the term had not been appropriated by Stalin to describe the process of proletarianization in a somewhat later period, it would perhaps be more accurate to describe the decade of the 1920s in the Soviet Union as a genuine “cultural revolution.” Parallel and independent efforts were made in many areas—politics, economics, philosophy, science, literature, painting, health care—to reconceptualize society in a socialist context.

The Grass of Oblivion, a novel by Valentin Kataev, is a tribute to the Russian writers who were forced to choose their path during the revolution and the civil war. The theme may seem outdated, but the approach to the theme and its literary treatment are amazingly original and modern. In all of Soviet literature it would be difficult to find tragic images comparable to the two poets in this narrative (Bunin and Maiakovskii) who are compelled, finally and irrevocably, either to accept or reject the role offered to them by the new social order. Yet these images are outlined with such grace and elegance, and so tempered with irony, that an ambivalence, an almost diabolic duality is etched into the characters and events. Even the character of the narrator appears split, further complicating the multileveled narrative structure of the novel in which reality is so densely interwoven with fantasy that a third, synthesizing plane of meaning emerges.

In Poland the writing and teaching of history is not merely an academic discipline. In times of adversity history has served as an affirmation of national values. It is therefore not at all surprising that in the fall of 1980, when the movement for free association swept the country from Gdańsk, the liberation of history and historians from political constraints became an integral part of the efforts for renovation. For some thirty-five years the recasting and rewriting of Polish history had been central to the process of imposing and legitimizing Communist rule. Reform of the system in 1980 required, among other things, a coming to grips with the mendacious political mythology the system had spawned in striving to create the appropriate historical antecedents for a People's Poland.

The story of Polish historiography since 1945 demonstrates the tenacity of cultural patterns and habits of mind that have made it impossible to impose an interpretation alien to the national sense of identity and a methodology at odds with the canons of objective scholarship. And the regime failed to reshape the traditional interpretations despite the seemingly overwhelming advantages it enjoyed in terms of power, institutions, and funds.

Spurious documents may not change the course of history. But they do have their consequences—as the history of imperial and Soviet Russia vividly demonstrates. The most notorious modern forgeries spring to mind: “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” “The Sisson Documents,” “The Zinov'ev Letter,” “The Litvinov Journal,” and the oldest and most perdurable of them all, “The 'Testament' of Peter the Great,” his supposed grand plan for Russia to win world domination through conquest of the Near and Middle East. All of these forgeries have had their day and then passed into the lumber room of history—all, that is, except the “Protocols” and the “Testament.” Despite their notoriety, these two forgeries still find proponents today. But it is the most marginal, disreputable, and genocidal elements or states that pass off the “Protocols” as genuine, while some of our most respected officials, scholars, and journalists give credence to the “Testament.”