Miss Polonia, 2007, as metaphor?

By Peter Gentle

Twenty three year old Barbara Tatara from Lodz, central Poland, was crowned Miss Polonia 2007 last Saturday night at the Congress Hall in the center of Warsaw.

Barbara, a brunette, is a language student and her vital statistics are (in centimeters) 86-66-85 and is 176 centimeters tall.

That’s what the press release said, anyway. I love that expression – ‘vital statistics’ I wonder what Miss Polonia’s ‘non-vital statistics’ are: her IQ, perhaps?

But Miss Polonia should not be confused – as I did – with Miss Poland – who is a completely different ‘Miss’ in a completely different, rival contest.

The winner of Miss Polonia contest goes on to compete for the Miss Universe contest – which is basically an American run competition owned these days by none other than Donald Trump.

The winner of Miss Poland, on the other hand, goes on to compete for the Miss World contest – which is a British based organization.

Last year’s Miss World contest, you may remember – if you have an interest in this sort of thing – was held in Warsaw. The Warsaw authorities took the whole thing very seriously, as I remember, even claiming that putting on such a worldwide event like Miss World would show Planet Earth that Poland was capable of staging such a huge event.

Like the Euro 2012, one presumes – which will be held in Poland and Ukraine in 2012. So far the preperations have been, well a bit of an own goal so far, as it is generally thought that Poland has fallen behind with the planning of the massive infrastructure work that needs to be in place in only five years.

But back to Miss Universe

Quite why the Miss Universe contest is always won by a female from Planet Earth has always been a mystery. Maybe it’s just a case of interstellar discrimination? What about widening out the contest - make it more ‘accessible’ and ‘inclusive’, and include, well, young ladies from other galaxies?

But I digress. Barbara Tatara from Lodz, (vital statistics 86-66-85…etc…) is the latest in a long line of winners going back to 1929, when the first Miss Polonia contest took place. The winner way back then was one Miss Władysława Kostakówna (photo).

I can find no records of her vital statistics …etc… but I have a photograph which I am looking at now. A real 1920s looker was our Władysława: Big dark eyes, tiny red mouth with a slightly curly bob haircut. And she was apparently the daughter of a countess, no less.

The contest ran from 1929 until 1937. And then there was a long break.

During the war there was no contest for obvious reasons.

But, interestingly, the communists who took over in Poland after the war weren’t interested in the Miss Polonia contest either.

Until that is, 1957, when the contest started up again. 1957, is of course, the year after 1956 – the year historians usually mark the end of Stalinism in Poland, Krushchev’s letter etc.

Perhaps, then, that anti-Miss Polonia – ism is in fact a facet of Stalinism? Stalinists didn’t like beauty contests for maybe two reasons. They were:

a) against the goal of social equality and homogeneity, etc, and

b) an affront to Socialist Realism in all art and culture. And if the architecture of the time is anything to go by, then Stalinism was a friend of the ugly, and contests with beautiful people walking up and down catwalks would be certainly not be in the Stalinist style book.

But the new Miss Polonia only survived three years of the Stalinist thaw – and from the beginning of the 1960s to 1982 there was no Miss Polonia contest once again.

But why? What had the new communist authorities got against Miss Polonia?

I have no idea. But maybe it was that every time they put the crown on these women’s heads – and it happens in all beauty contests all over the world - and they lead them to the microphones to say a few words, the new beauty queens always say the same thing, tearfully, when asked what they want to do in the next 365 days of their reign.

“I want to travel the world and..[sob] …do lots of work for charity.”

Every year they say same the thing.

Well, in communist Poland, they wouldn’t be allowed to say that. Because

a) they couldn’t do any work for charity as, in communist times, there were no charities and officially there was no need to have any: and

b) they could only travel the world if they could get a visa. Maybe ‘travel the old Soviet bloc’ might have been a more realistic ambition.

So the communists back then probably banned the contest to stop any young ladies getting any funny ideas: travel the world, do work for charity…

Notice, however, that year the contest started up yet again - in 1983 - was just after the end of martial law in Poland.

So did they start Miss Polonia up again as a sop to the workers? You can understand the thinking back then: communist authorities preside over an economy that has collapsed. They can’t buy off the workers any longer with cheap credits from abroad, like they did for a brief time in the 1970s. So what had they got left?

Well, Miss Polonia, of course. ‘That will put an end to the militant discontent of the Solidarity movement’, you can here them thinking.

Except it didn’t, of course. Which takes us into the current day when Barbara Tatara from Lodz, - vital statistics 86-66-85…etc…, was crowned Miss Polonia 2007 last Saturday night at the Congress Hall – the Stalinist, socialist realist structure that dominates the center of Warsaw.

Source: Polskie Radio