Copernicus, Sikorski, Who Might be Next?

The Poles seem to have had a penchant for exhumation lately. National pre-occupation or what?

First there was Copernicus.

He was an astronomer working in Poland in the 1500s and was one of the first to suggest that the earth orbited the sun. But where did his bones go when he had no further use of them? Three or so years ago the skeleton of a man aged about 70 (the age of Copernicus when he died) was dug up near an altar at Frombork Cathedral on the Baltic coast where the astronomer worked. But how could it be proved to be Copernicus?

Firstly DNA samples from the old bones were compared to samples taken from strands of hair said to belong to Copernicus and stored between the pages of a book once owned by him and kept in the library of the University of Uppsala, Sweden. How sad is that? However the DNA matched, so thank you to the Swedish ancient-wispy-hair fetishist after all.

Secondly, and this is like a scene from “Bones”, in which Angela Pearygates Montenegro does her stuff reconstructing faces from fragments of skull. (okay so I watch too much TV.) Technology has indeed done an “Angela” on the skull thought to be that of Copernicus, and hey presto! It is uncannily similar to a portrait of the man done during his life.

Result? It has been proved that this skeleton housed the soul of a certain Mr Copernicus many, many years ago.

Then there was the case of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, war-time Prime Minister of Poland who died in a plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943. Of course his capital, Warsaw, was off-limits at the time so he governed from London, although his body was eventually returned to Krakow for burial alongside monarchs and other national heroes.

Along with a couple of members of the British Parliament he died when the plane they were travelling on crashed shortly after leaving Gibraltar, and that is beyond dispute, but why did the plane crash?

A British investigation cited technical problems, with equipment having jammed, but there were other theories as well. One was (is) that Churchill (war-time British Prime Minister – I know you knew that, but just in case) ordered the Polish Prime Minster’s killing because he was trying to establish the guilt of Russia in the slaying of 20,000 Polish soldiers three years previously. Had Sikorski persisted in his quest it might have unsettled Churchill’s relationship with Stalin and that wouldn’t have done.

Well, it is a theory.

Now the hapless Sikorski has been dug up (in the best possible taste) from his resting place in Krakow cathedral, under the supervision of politicians, Churchmen and scientists. He is to be re-interred later with full honours, and if the Polish establishment has its way, a Communist crime will have been proved.