Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuściński; March 4, 1932 – January 23, 2007) was a Polish reporter, journalist, traveller, photographer, poet and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Widely considered a serious candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature during his lifetime, he is one of the Polish writers most frequently translated into foreign languages...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth4 March 1932
CountryPoland
past self assessment
There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.
past government assessment
In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.
past men vanity
in reference to Persepolis and all palaces, cities and temples of the past: could these wonders have come into being without that suffering? without the overseer's whip, the slave's fear, the ruler's vanity? was not the monumentality of past epochs created by that which is negative and evil in man?
disposal exclusive fly four london president shopping time trips
At that time Uganda had four aircraft, one of which was at the exclusive disposal of Amin. It would fly to London on shopping trips for the president and his entourage. In Uganda there was nothing.
cold context interested people war
People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.
conditions gave rare send somebody
Conditions were so hard. To send the news out, telex was the only means, but telex was very rare in Africa. So if somebody was flying to Europe, we gave him correspondence to send after he arrived.
knowledge readership source
Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people's only source of knowledge about the world.
Be careful: they have arms, and no alternatives.
We have such a mixture now, such a fusion of different genres.
ask came journalism learned newspaper people
I started in journalism in 1950. I was 18, and the newspaper people came to ask me to work. I learned journalism through practice.
began involved technical
Underground literature only began in the '70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle.
both invite kept palace soviet time
Amin managed to invite both the US and Soviet ambassadors to his palace at the very same time and then deliberately kept them together in his waiting room.
hate patriotic differences
There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act.
sea independence world
The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise.