| PP: While getting ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the unveiling of the monument of Sir Paul Edmund Strzelecki, we are hereby reprinting an article from the archives of The Sydney Morning Herald, published in September 1988. Courtesy of Mr Marian Gierak.
On a summer morn in early 1840 a Polish explorer found himself suddenly overwhelmed by emotion as he gazed at the peak of what turned out to be the highest mountain in Australia.
So moved was Paul (later Sir Paul de) Strzelecki that his grasp of the finer points of Polish spelling apparently deserted him – he made a historic error in the name he gave the mountain.
The particular configuration of this eminence, Strzelecki recorded in his journal, struck me so forcibly by the similarity it bears to a tumulus elevated in Krakow over the tomb of the patriot Tadeusz Kosciusko, although in a foreign country and on foreign ground but amongst free people who appreciate freedom and its votaries, that I could not refrain from giving the name of Mount Kosciusko.
Twice in one sentence, and so it has remained – Kosciusko and not Kosciuszko. We are perhaps fortunate that Strzelecki didn’t attempt to name the peak after Kosciuszko’s birthplace – a small Polish town by the name Mereczowszczyzna.
At a reception last night to mark the second coming of Strzelecki – in the form of a four-metre bronze statue – spelling was a topic for debate.
The Polish Consul-General, Mr Kazimierz Ciaś, was polite enough not to mention it as he handed over the statue to Australia’s Strzelecki Committee, which will oversee the statue’s journey to its final resting place above Lake Jindabyne.
But the guests who met aboard the Polish Ocean Lines vessel “Katowice II”, which delivered Poland’s Bicentennial gift to Australia, discussed whether any Pole realy could have stumbled over the name of the nation’s most famous son.Looked at this way, the thesis seemed thin indeed. How many Australians would stuff up “Beadman”?
And Kosciuszko really does enjoy a reputation of at least that stature. Where Australians eulogise cricketers, the Poles remember revolutionaries and patriots, and Kosciuszko was a master at both. He took leading roles in the American Revolution, from 1776 to 1784, in an uprising at home, in 1792, and another one at home, in 1794. He is particularly noted for having led a victorious army of scythe-bearing peasants against the troops of the three occupying powers – Austria, Prussia and Russia.
“Made a mistake with his name? It’s just not possible”,were the concluding words of Stan Kaye, a Polish-Australian guest.
According to a spokesman for the Geographical Names Board, the years have seen a great deal of debate on the subject of Mt Kosciusko’s spelling. Gough Whitlam is only one of hundreds who have begged the Minister for Planning for a correction. Reluctance to do so has apparently turned on the inconvenience caused to thousands of atlas, map and encyclopaedia writers across the world.
A ministerial letter of reply, from 1986, sums up the official position: “To alter the spelling now would be at variance with history”. Another victory for the bureaucrats.
Wanda Jamrozik
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