Georgia loses its “best friend”

As the world was rocked by the tragic death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 94 others including his wife and several prominent Polish political, military and business leaders in a plane crash Saturday, the sorrow in Georgia was surprisingly acute.

Mountains of flowers piled up at the steps of the Polish embassy in Tbilisi, and the Georgian version of The Financial ran with the front page headline “Georgia lost its best friend.”

April 11 was declared a national Day of Mourning for Georgia,  and people gathered for “mourning rallies” across the country as flags were lowered at government buildings.

I have several Polish friends and acquaintances here and a good Georgian friend who is currently living in Poland, but I was surprised that the rest of the country felt such a deep link to the event.

It was an emotional reminder that small countries never forget leaders that stick their necks out for them — and Kaczynski certainly had.

Immediately after hostilities ended in Georgia’s August 2008 war with Russia, Kaczynski flew to Tbilisi with presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to speak in a rally in support of Georgia on the steps of the Parliament.

“We are here to take up the fight. For the first time in years our eastern neighbors show their true face that we have known for hundreds of years,” Kaczynski said to the crowd.

A conservative from the Law and Justice party, Kaczynski was wary of Russia throughout his political career, working hard to establish the American Missile Shield in his country and was one of the most outspoken supporters of Georgia and denouncers of Russia following the August war.

Thus, it is with tragic irony that he and his delegation were killed en route to an event which would help to improve Poland’s rocky relationship with its eastern neighbor.

In an encouraging sign of increasing openness and acceptance of past wrongs, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin invited the Polish delegation to commemorate the massacre of an estimated 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in a forest near Smolensk, Russia in 1940 under the brutal rule of Joseph Stalin.

It didn’t take long for Georgians to begin suspecting Russian foul play in the tragedy. Nearly all of my students told me they felt there was a strong chance Kaczynski and his colleagues were murdered by the Russians on the site of the past massacre — a sentiment apparently echoed by their parents.

But in actuality, the shocking crash seems to have brought Poland and Russia closer together.

“I don’t know if there is a political breakthrough because we have many contradictory issues with Russia, but we have an emotional breakthrough,” [Polish Foreign Minister] Radoslaw Sikorski said Monday on Radio TOK FM.

Not only did Russia react with unusual openness and cooperation when the plane went down, Russian state television broadcast “Katyn,” a Oscar-nominated Polish film about the 1940 massacre — the kind of act that is extremely rare in a modern Russia that has consistently avoided facing its past atrocities.

Who knows what it will mean for long term Polish-Russian relations, but if this tragedy can be a catalyst for greater understanding, everyone — except perhaps Georgia — can find some solace in it.