Hana Kraus and Walter Beer were young middle-class Jews who lived in the Central European state of Czechoslovakia when National Socialist Germany invaded their country in 1939. In the following years, the new genocide regime deprived them of family and community, but they survived and came to the United States, where they married and started a family.
Hana and Walter were my maternal grandparents. I wasn’t mature enough to hear their stories when I was young, but in my senior year of high school, a newspaper job let me research the Holocaust and its own reports. Given a better understanding of part of my family’s history – my father’s grandparents on my father’s side were Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Germany in 1908 – I yearned for more stories from people in Central and Eastern Europe, a region rich in culture that the West often overlooked. I found a deeper connection to my past through an unlikely source: The Witcher Saga.
Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski published his first witcher short story in 1986, a few years before the Communist Party fell from power in Poland. His novels, which follow the monster hunter Geralt von Rivia in search of his missing adoptive daughter Ciri in a war-torn country, were published in the 1990s, but were very well received after CD Projekt Red adapted them for video games in the late 2000s years. Now a new audience has stumbled across the continent with the release of Netflix’s The Witcher, but while staying true to the books, the series deviates from the historical context from which the source material emerged 30 years ago.
Only Sapkowski can say exactly what was going through his mind as he wrote his stories – the kingdoms, characters, and political groups in the Witcher lore don’t exactly correlate with real-world counterparts – but there are parallels to those in the fantasy stories complicated history of ethnic conflict and resistance to oppression in Central and Eastern Europe. Fighting monsters is terrifying, but Geralt’s survival in a brutal moment that reflects the real international conflict speaks greater truths.
Photo: Katalin Vermes / Netflix
The age of migration brings diversity and war
The Witcher’s fantasy world is similar to medieval Central Europe. The first sentient beings that populated the continent – millennia before Geralt’s birth – were gnomes, then dwarves, according to a report by Dwarf Yarpen Zigrin to Ciri in Blood of Elves, the first witch novel. (Much of the tradition in the witcher books is vague, filtered through personal prejudice, and questionable.) Elves later came to the continent from elsewhere and fought against its other non-human residents. A mysterious calamity called “conjunction of the spheres” finally brought parallel areas into line with the unnamed world on which the continent exists. As a result, people have migrated to this planet after destroying their homeworld, says an elf Geralt in Sapkowski’s fourth book of witches, the Swallow’s Tower.
These newly arrived people waged war against elves and other nonhumans and eventually founded the northern kingdoms. People built cities over elven ruins. The Nilfgaardian Empire rose to the south. At the beginning of The Witcher story, many nonhumans in the northern kingdoms integrated themselves into human society, even though they live in ghettos and are treated as an underclass. Some nonhumans live in the wild to escape human control. Elves, dwarves and halflings who rebel against humans form the Scoia Tael guerrilla units who commit violent acts of terrorism.
The witcher’s setting (and the complicated conflict that tears it apart) is reminiscent of the basic history of Central and Eastern Europe. The part of Europe that stretches from the German eastern border to the interior of Russia has been exposed to migration and invasion from the west, the Middle East and Asia, although the area’s history is incomplete and unclear. Until the end of the 10th century, Slavs, Huns, the Turkish-speaking (but also multi-ethnic and multi-faith) Khazar-Khaganat, Germanic Franks, Magyars, the Kievan Rus and others were located here.
Sapkowski grew up in a country that is aware of its history, and The Witcher’s story has a deep connection with the past. The disputes between nonhumans and humans reflect real disputes about territory and citizenship that differ in race, nationality, or ethnicity. This has happened frequently in Poland. The fact is, however, that Poland has a heritage of diversity that goes back at least to the Middle Ages.
The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, but some historians believe that its origins as a state date back to the Christianization of Poland and the baptism of Duke Mieszko I in 966. The Mongols crossed the Russian steppes from Central Asia, plundered Kiev and then raided Poland in the mid-13th century. In 1264, Duke Bolesław the Pious adopted the Kalisz Statute, which granted Jews in the Greater Poland region special rights because Western Christian states persecuted them. His successors ratified and expanded the law to cover the whole of Poland. Muslim Tatars settled in the allied Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century and have lived in Polish countries for centuries. In the 15th century, the Roma people in Poland (sometimes called “gypsies” by Europeans, although many today call this term offensive) were documented in Poland.
Photo: Katalin Vermes / Netflix
The Witcher reflects the complexity of the story
Regardless of the Polish history of diversity, the decision to turn people into Netflix’s Witcher series in color caused a backlash online, especially after some contested the view that Geralt’s adopted daughter Ciri could be played by someone who wasn’t white. (The production ended up with British actress Freya Allan, who is white). However, the overall cast that plays people and non-people is different. Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich paused on Twitter for the internet controversy, but commented on her casting decisions when she returned.
“The books are Polish and full of Slavic vibes,” she tweeted on July 26. ( .) The sorcerer is REALLY interesting when it comes to portraying racism, because it’s about species, not skin color. What makes characters “different” is the shape of their ears, their size, etc. In the books, nobody pays attention to the color of their skin. In the series . nobody does either. Period.”
The northern kingdoms of the Witcher continent are also complex societies where discrimination is associated with reluctant living and occasional collaboration. Elf sages helped people control magic before their relationship got angry and broke out into violence. While interspecies romances flow into the tradition, Sapkowski shows that some elves despise people and those who assimilate with them. Some dwarves serve as bankers for humans or agents of human kings, but are at risk of doing so and not joining the non-human uprising. Nonhumans are stereotypical and are targeted in propaganda. Attacks on nonhumans are common and are called pogroms. This is a Russian word used to describe mob violence against Jews and other ethnic groups in Central and Eastern Europe. Witches, magically and chemically constructed mutants, were massacred by pogroms before the series began.
The ethnic tensions that shape everyday life in the northern empires seem to be heavily inspired by the history of ethnic relations in Poland, which was fluid and complicated. In medieval Poland, Christian anti-Semitism led to outbreaks of violence against Jews. During the settlement of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, formalized in 1569, the Jews enjoyed considerable religious freedom. However, the development of the Jewish communities in Poland led to a certain estrangement from the Christians. When the Commonwealth faded, anti-Semitism worsened. The Roma were stereotyped, discriminated against, marginalized and persecuted throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and thereafter. Poland passed anti-Roma laws in the 16th century, but there is evidence that some people ignored the rules. Some Roma settled in the Commonwealth and found employment, from farmers to artisans to horse dealers.
A game of thrones leads to genocide
War breaks out frequently on the continent. The conquest by Nilfgaard depicted in the Netflix series is just one of the conflicts that people in the northern kingdoms experience during the course of the saga (and throughout Sapkowski’s documented history). The individual kingdoms often fight among themselves. Rulers of the North and those trying to seize them sometimes seek political alliances with Geralt because of his skills as a fighter and monster hunter. But Geralt is aware of the political corruption, oppression and discrimination that is widespread in the northern kingdoms and refuses to be involved through an alliance with a ruler.
Poland is also no stranger to war and oppression. From 1772 and until the end of the 18th century, Russia, Prussia and Austria invaded the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in three divisions and robbed Poland of independence for 123 years. Poland regained its statehood in 1918, but its sovereignty did not last long: Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and occupied the western half of the country, which exiled the Polish government. The Soviet army passed over and occupied Eastern Poland in the same month. The division of Poland is seen by many as the result of a secret clause in a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany. The Nazis set up ghettos to imprison Jews in their area and ran concentration and extermination camps, including Auschwitz.
The witcher’s nonhumans are often active and reactive victims. The elves and dwarves Scoia’tael defy human rule through armed conflict and cunning. Some elves are planning political plans to safeguard the rights of the elves or to protect their inheritance. Geralt is offered the opportunity to help the rebels, but runs the risk of being used for political reasons that could lead to violence.
The desperate efforts of non-people in The Witcher to fight oppression are reminiscent of the drastic measures that oppressed people in the real world have sometimes taken to protect themselves. The Nazis used millennia of ethnic and religious tension to justify the submission and mass murder of Jews, Roma and members of the LGBTQ community. However, the ethnic groups addressed resisted despite the potential serious consequences. Jews in partisan associations in Poland and Eastern Europe carried out guerrilla struggles against the Nazis. During the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, imprisoned Jews fought against deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp operated by the Nazis. When SS guards armed with machine guns transported the residents of the “Gypsy Camp” in Auschwitz to gas chambers, the Roma were caught armed with everything they could find or make capable of defending themselves. Their resistance forced the Nazis to postpone the camp’s closure until August. The Poles, whom the Nazis considered inferior, rebelled against the Nazis in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
Photo: Katalin Vermes / Netflix
Things get (more) complicated
The Witcher books show the Scoia uprising and the resistance of the northern kingdoms to Nilfgaard in shades of gray. Resistance and advocacy movements enable oppressed people to secure their rights and independence. But sometimes the movements can be falsified or exploited.
In the second war, the Nilfgaardian Empire secretly supported and used the Scoia’tael uprising to destabilize the northern kingdoms and pave the way for Nilfgaard’s invasion. Nilfgaard promises the elves the return of Dol Blathanna’s old elf territory to the northern kingdoms as payment for the cooperation. The rulers of the northern kingdoms used the fear of a non-human uprising to support nationalism in their areas. In Blood of Elves, a king even uses non-human allies to trap Scoia’tael. People fear that a non-humanly governed Dol Blathanna could become a puppet state for Nilfgaard.
Ciri’s dwarf friend Yarpen Zigrin, who remains loyal to a northern king, questions the motivation and tactics of Scoia’tael in Blood of Elves. He considers them misguided and is convinced that Nilfgaard will support them before this is confirmed as a fact. Many people in Central and Eastern Europe supported this kind of skepticism when the communist parties came to power there. The defeat of the Allies against the National Socialists freed the oppressed from a genocide regime, but exposed them to manipulation. During the struggle against the Nazis, the centralized Soviet Union liberated the Jews from Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. It took over Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other areas during the Second World War and for decades afterwards supported the communist governments, which they kept as USSR member states, until they achieved independence.
Socialist and communist parties praising governments that would treat everyone equally gained supremacy in many satellite states influenced by the Soviet Union, such as Poland and Czechoslovakia. Many were skeptical and opposed the emerging communist parties. (Yugoslavia separated from the Soviet Union and formed its own socialist system before it finally split into separate states in the early 1990s.) In Blood of Elves, Yarpen Zigrin Ciri says that most nonhumans do not support the Scoia’tael and cohabitation people prefer them to insurrection. And in the course of the series, some Scoia’tael question their alliance with Nilfgaard.
The Cold War communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe have not only far missed the egalitarian ideals they have touted. They often resorted to repression. The ruling Communist Party in Poland forced the nomadic Roma to settle in settled communities in 1964, but presented this as an extension of an assimilation campaign. In 1968, during a complicated political crisis, the communist regime in Poland freed masses of Jews from its ranks and forced at least 13,000 Jews or Poles of Jewish descent to emigrate from the state. NATO supported resistance groups and tried to form independent democratic states around the world. The conflict between the USSR and NATO triggered the Cold War, which brought about conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Nilfgaard’s use of the Scoi’atael to fight war reflects how real-world uprisings were co-opted to fight proxy battles.
NATO’s victories led to the rise of new democratic governments and post-colonial states, but their campaigns also sometimes destabilized developing countries and created new political divisions in them. Ethnic relationships deteriorated for some communities. In a twist in which fiction reflects reality again, the war between Nilfgaard and the northern empires changes the political landscape of the continent, creates new political divisions and exacerbates ethnic divisions.
Politics are getting ugly
After the collapse of the communist regimes and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the democratic, independent governments in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as throughout Central and Eastern Europe, came to power. However, the ethnic tensions of the past remain, as do pogroms and discrimination aimed at nonhumans that continue to pose a threat throughout The Witcher’s chronicle.
Sapkowski suggests that these problems will outlast the conflicts from which they have arisen. This seems to be the case in Eastern Europe. People inside and outside the region are concerned about an obvious revival of anti-Semitism and anti-Romanesque and anti-Muslim sentiment. An increase in nationalism has led conservative governments to crack down on immigration. Add to that xenophobia, compounded by historical fear of invasion and a runaway social media landscape that can be used to disguise hostile political agendas like the propaganda used in The Witcher. The Polish government was also accused of trying to shape the memory of the Holocaust in Poland. These types of problems are not unique to this region. They have raised their heads all over the world, including here in the United States. Fear and hatred of being different are ongoing problems that tear apart the world of The Witcher as they threaten our world.
Converting a series of books that many fans consider to be a valued example of Polish literature into a television series for the whole world is a challenge that can keep Geralt busy. Polygon asked Hissrich how she had stayed true to The Witcher’s Polish roots.
“Poland itself has historically been taken over by other countries and has been dominated by politics for so long, and that influenced the people who live there and obviously also influenced Sapkowski,” said Hissrich. “The most important thing I found out is that many of the Polish people I met have a really interesting and engaging aspect and they want to keep going, and that’s something I really find great about them characters. In the middle of a tragedy, in the midst of the worst shit in the world, the characters on our show continue to put one foot in front of the other and keep going through things. “
The so-called sorcerer’s code, according to which Geralt acts, gives him an excuse not to get involved in politics when the world around him collapses. He refuses to formally ally with any political faction or political kingdom. The sorcerer only chases monsters for gold. He feels familiar with the loss of nonhumans by humans, but will not join the Scoi’atael rebellion. He will do paid watch duties for rulers, but he won’t sign up for an army or commit a political assassination. He is often criticized for his resistance and his apolitical decisions often have very real consequences.
But he’s also the guy who runs the risk of protecting nonhuman friends from a pogrom.
Freedom of expression is a powerful weapon. My grandparents later used theirs to provide evidence of documenting the Holocaust, hoping to prevent future genocide. The Witcher channels history to create an action-packed drama that depicts the war and its costs.
Alex Tiegen is a journalist, researcher and information specialist. If he doesn’t delve deep into corporate history and mergers and acquisitions, he’s looking for the obscure and overlooked stories that shed light on the past and diversity of our modern world. He also created the first video game catalog from his local library. You can find his work in local and regional newspapers and in executive offices around the world. Contact him at @AlexTiegen.
