Who was Saunders Lewis?

Saunders Lewis (1893-1985) was the architect of modern Welsh nationalism and the first president of Plaid Cymru. He is perhaps best known today for the arson attack Tân yn Llŷn and radio address Tynged yr Iaith, both of which transformed the 20th century course of the Welsh language and nation-building. A poet, novelist, historian, and Nobel Prize nominee, he also formulated Perchentyaeth, a program for economic and cultural-linguistic renewal influenced by medieval political thought, Catholic social teaching, and ethnography.

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What are the cultural links between Wales and Poland​?

At first glance, both countries seem to share little in common. While the vitality of the Welsh language is inextricable from its traditional rural strongholds, the same cannot be said of Poland. The Polish language is thriving, and the relationship between land, dialect, and regional cultural identity is considerably less straightforward, given the post-war population transfers and the communist era suppression of regional dialects. However, there are several links which warrant cross-cultural comparison: 

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Disproportionate Impact of Agribusiness Expansion:

Family farming has traditionally been central to both countries' folk culture and national identity, yet both have been disproportionally affected by recent decades' neoliberal restructuring of the countryside. While Wales experiences record farm closures each year, Poland saw the closure of 340,000 small-medium farms in 2010-20 alone. The predominance of smaller farms in both countries has meant that diminishing profit margins, rising production costs and decarbonisation demands have necessitated the rise of economies of scale whereby production-orientated 'Big Ag' corporations and food empires are rapidly displacing smaller farms. 

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The Role of Catholic Social Teaching in Welsh & Polish Nationalisms:

In Wales, Lewis' program of Perchentyaeth was based on the principles of distributism and subsidiarity as articulated in the papal encyclicals of Leo XIII (1891) and Pius XI (1931). Respectively, these are (1) that productive property should be distributed as widely as possible via SMEs and cooperatives; and (2) that decisions about governance should be taken bottom-up at lowest, most local level appropriate to their purpose. These principles, which fundamentally concern the dignity of work and labour, the spiritual significance of work, and the inextricability of culture and economics, were converted by Plaid Cymru into a programme of ‘back to the land’ policies for rural revitalisation. Although their roots are often forgotten today, their legacy can nonetheless be seen in multiple Welsh Government strategies and initiatives such as Welsh 2050, ARFOR, and Gwarchod. 

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In Poland, the influence of CST on Solidarność regarding workers' rights, solidarity, private property, labour and dignity, cannot be overstated. Through their propagation by John Paul II and Józef Tischner, these ideas were primarily transmitted through the churches and became the main source of intellectual guidance for the postulates of Solidarność. As in the case of Wales, the drive for national renewal in Poland was framed as a moral and spiritual renewal founded in CST regarding work, dignity and ownership. Today, the economic and cultural pressures faced by Polish farmers continue to concern their CST-based rights, dignity and intergenerational stewardship of land. The Catholic Church continues to publicly express its solidarity with the farmers in such terms, the Polish countryside remains predominantly Catholic, and Wiejska Solidarność maintains its Catholic identity and outlook. 

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Penrhos Polish Village in Wales

​After WWII, Penrhos was founded for Polish ex-combatants and their families who could not return to Poland. Although it is currently being repurposed, Penrhos is still inhabited by members of the Polish-Welsh community, and has a Polish church with a mural of the baptism of Poland (see image below), shrines of the Czarna Madonna z Częstochowy, and a statue of Wojtek the bear who fought with the 2nd Polish Corps. Penrhos continues to be celebrated as a stronghold of Polish-Welsh friendship and a commemoration of the Polish Armend Forces, and a documentary about it is currently being created by students at the Łódź Film School.

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Remarkably, Penrhos is also the same site where Tân yn Llŷn happened. Here, Saunders Lewis and two other Plaid Cymru founders set fire to an RAF bombing school in 1936, which had been built by the UK government - despite the protests of half a million Welsh people - on the site of Penyberth farmhouse which was demolished in the process. The farmhouse had been home to centuries’ worth of notable patrons and poets, as well as dissident Catholics; so its demolition, coupled with the fact that the construction began on the 400th anniversary of England’s annexation of Wales, was seen in the public eye as a further recurrence of England’s disregard for Wales’ cultural heritage. There is also a Freedom Cross at Penrhos built by Polish veterans in 1947 using stolen materials from the bombing school. Written underneath the cross is the inscription ‘On the way to free Poland’. carved in Polish, Welsh and English. Saunders Lewis was told about this not long before his death in the 1980s and was delighted to learn of it.