5x Putin is skiing in Legnica and a discussion with Mirosław Jasiński

As part of the “Provocative Theatre in Visegrad” project, we visited the Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Jana Heweliusza in Legnica. And it was a challenging, intense, and fulfilling experience! Once again, we were reminded of how meaningful it is to perform for schools. In five performances over three days, we provided nearly 500 students with an experience that was somewhat unusual and uncomfortable for them, yet, based on their reactions, an inspiring one. This took place in our military tent, which was set up right in the school’s gymnasium. After each performance, there was a spontaneous debate with the students led by the dissident and member of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity movement, Grzegorz Majewski, who also took care of us throughout and helped with everything. After the final performance, we had a discussion with city representatives and diplomat and dissident Mirosław Jasiński, which moved from the tent to a meeting room, continuing over coffee and a delightful little cake with white marzipan icing.

It’s worth noting the excellent borscht with pampushki, vareniki, nalysnyky, pelmeni… and those divine cakes filled with blueberry cream – all washed down with wine and compote! This feast was provided to us by Viktoria and the other women from the Legnica hostel, where we, along with mothers and children from Ukraine, also found shelter. The place also reminded us that even though we’ve been performing our play about the birth of a murderer for the past fifteen years, the consequences of the events we portray on stage still accompany us in our daily reality and affect not only our lives.

Enriched by human, professional, and culinary experiences, we thank everyone and look forward to the next meeting.

We thank Grzegorz Majewski for his willingness to take part in the project, for all his help and support throughout our visit, and we thank the headmaster of the liceum, Piotr Niemiec, for allowing us to perform directly at the school. Thanks also to Pavel Novák for facilitating the contact.

An article about our visit was also published – the student editorial team conducted an interview with us for the local media, Portal Lca.pl.

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Mirosław Stanisław Jasiński is a Polish dissident, diplomat, screenwriter, and director. From 2021 to 2022, he served as Poland’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, and from 2001 to 2006, he was the director of the Polish Institute in Prague.

He was a co-founder of the Independent Students’ Association at Wrocław University (1980) and of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity movement.