Janek Wiśniewski
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Janek Wiśniewski is a fictional name given to a real person in the poem Ballad of Janek Wiśniewski.
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[edit] The legend and the real person
The name was invented by the author Krzysztof Dowgiałło to symbolize an 18-year worker killed in the Polish city of Gdynia by the military or police on December 17, 1970, during the Polish 1970 protests. The image of an anonymous young man's body carried on doors through the cordons of police and tanks inspired Dowgiałło to write the poem. Not knowing his name at the time, the author decided to give him a name that is typically Polish. Later it was discovered the man was actually named Zbigniew Godlewski and lived in nearby Elbląg. In 1970 he was shot dead along with some 40 other people.
The legend was popularized in the late 1970s by a song by Mieczysław Cholewa, Pieśń o Janku z Gdyni, and by Jacek Kaczmarski in his Ballada o Janku Wiśniewskim (the song which was performed by Krystyna Janda during the closing credits in the Andrzej Wajda's 1981 movie Man of Iron). After the fall of communism in Poland, a street was named after Zbigniew Godlewski and another after Janek Wiśniewski.
[edit] Ballada o Janku Wiśniewskim
[edit] Original lyricsChłopcy z Grabówka, chłopcy z Chyloni Na drzwiach ponieśli go Świętojańską Huczą petardy, ścielą się gazy Jeden raniony, drugi zabity Krwawy Kociołek to kat Trójmiasta Stoczniowcy Gdyni, stoczniowcy Gdańska Nie płaczcie matki, to nie na darmo |
[edit] English translationBoys from Grabówek, boys from Chylonia On a door we carried him along Świętojańska The bangers sound, the gas spreads One is wounded, another killed Bloody Kociołek is the Tricity's executioner Shipyard workers of Gdynia, workers of Gdańsk Don't cry mothers, it wasn't for naught |
