The Polish Literature Club is a new book club in Seattle for people who’d like to read and discuss Polish literature in English (yes!), organized by indomitable Paulina Phung. The book to discuss at this meeting is Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski, a controversial 1948 book about moral dilemmas of anti-communist resistance in 1945 Poland that was made into the world famous movie by Andrzej Wajda in 1958. Andrzejewski (1909-1983) was one of the writers
Polish Cultural Center Dom Polski decided to put a toe in the water and open its dining room and bar with a limited menu on Friday, October 30, 2020 from 5 pm to 10 pm. This is a temporary arrangement with volunteer chefs Teresa and Grazyna caused by the absence of the Polish Cuisine food truck from the Polish Home parking lot starting this Friday. A new permanent chef is expected to take over around
Your help is needed! Polish Festival Seattle, after being forced to sit out the annual showcase at the Seattle Center in July this year, has come up with an exciting proposal for Christmas! There will be a virtual celebration of Polish holiday traditions on Sunday, December 20th from 2 to 5 pm. The exact program is being ironed out, but it should include cooking demos, ornament workshops, music, caroling, videos and more! These are the
The Kosciuszko Foundation Collegium of Eminent Scientists and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) present the webinar honoring Prof. Jack Szostak. Dr. Szostak is the 2009 Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine. He is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard and a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, among other positions. The event will feature the presentation of the PIASA Scientific Awards: The Casimir Funk Natural
Local event Polish women from the Seattle area organize a protest at the Polish Cultural Center parking lot on Tuesday against the new abortion law in Poland. The Constitutional Tribunal in Poland ruled before the weekend that terminating a pregnancy due to a damaged fetus was unconstitutional, nullifying most of the abortion law that has been in force since 1993. The only exemptions left are in case of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s
Polish Food Truck in the Seattle Area Polish Cuisine on Wheels NW provides delicious Polish food at different place in Seattle and other cities of the region. You need to look at the schedule to see where you can catch it. For current locations and times, please check our schedule at Polish Cuisine or visit the Polish Cuisine on Wheels facebook page or call 206-641-1537 for more info. Update as of Nov 10, 2020: The truck is now available daily
The book to discuss is Tajemnica Domu Helclów by Maryla Szymiczkowa published by Znak in 2018. Maryla Szymiczkowa is the pen name of Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczyński. This fin-de-siècle mystery book has been praised by none other than the Nobel prize winner Olga Tokarczuk as “an ingenious marriage of comedy and crime”. This event is in Polish. More: virtual Polish Book Club September meeting (PL), about the book and the author (PL). Please contact Paulina for the Zoom invite or
Update as of October 29 and November 5, 2020: the food truck is not coming to the Polish Cultural Center anymore. Hence, the Polish Home Association decided to open its dining room and bar with a limited menu on Friday nights on temporary basis. Polish Cultural Center Dom Polski is still in a suspended mode in regards to its many functions due to the pandemic, but it opens on limited basis on Fridays nights for
As many local readers are aware, the Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles, a longtime partner of the Seattle Polish Film Festival is on this year. It is happening entirely online from October 23 to 29, 2020. However, the LA festival decided that the streaming of the festival movies will be available only to viewers in California (recognized by the credit card address). More: Polish Film Festival LA website
The UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee invites you to an online lecture (Why) Did Socialism Fail in Poland? by Brian Porter-Szutz. Prof. Porter-Szutz teaches history at the Univ. of Michigan – Ann Arbor and specializes in economic and intellectual history of capitalism and socialism as well as of the Roman Catholicism and Poland. The lecture examines goals and means of the socialist transformation in Poland after WWII and highlights why many Polish economist concluded the system
Dear SPFF followers and fans, Like many of our beloved events and celebrations this year, the Seattle Polish Film Festival will be canceling its 2020 edition. We strongly believe that a film festival is about people coming together, watching cinema together, discussing it together, and meeting the artists behind the work. For this reason we won’t be attempting a virtual festival. Instead, we will put our efforts into planning the best possible event for 2021,
The UW Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures invites you to a discussion of the book Ukraine’s Quest for Identity: Embracing Cultural Hybridity in Literary Imagination, 1991-2011 by Maria Rewakowicz. Dr. Rewakowicz teaches Ukrainian literature at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and is also affiliated with the UW Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. This award winning book examines how the dilemmas of Ukrainian identity manifested themselves in the literature of the first two decades of Ukraine’s
The embassies of the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) in the United States present the 9th edition of the Visegrad 4 Film Series. Each country contributed one outstanding recent movie to the main program described in a separate message above. However, the series also has the Kid Corner with the following children movies that can be screened from the PFF Miami website: Oct 15-28 Bolek and Lolek (1972), 2 episodes from the Wild
The embassies of the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) in the United States present the 9th edition of the Visegrad 4 Film Series. Each country contributed one outstanding recent movie to the program that can be streamed from the PFF Miami website: Oct 15-22 Corpus Christi / Boże Ciało (2019), Poland, 116′, dir. by Jan Komasa Oct 15-22 Amnesty / Amnestie (2019), Slovakia, 130′, dir. by Jonáš Karásek Oct 22-28 Havel (2020), Czechia, 103′, dir. by Slávek Horák
The Seattle Polish Festival invites you to participate in the Virtual Polish Christmas Orchestra, that will be part of the winter edition of the Virtual Polish Holiday Festival happening later this year. The idea is to have local musicians come together and record themselves playing a part of in a Polish Christmas carol. This will be part of a video presented at the virtual Polish Holiday Festival later this year. Sheet music and the musical
Well, it’s not live anymore, because I didn’t notice this in time for the last week news. However, you can still listen to the Chopin Recital performed at the opening of the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition (KFCC) on October 9, 2020, because the Kosciuszko Foundation made it available on YouTube. Krzysztof Jabłoński is one of the best Polish pianists, and the program of his recital was as follows: Nocturne in F-Sharp Major op.15 no.2 Fantasie-Impromptu op.66
Wednesdays at 12:30 This series was originally broadcast on KCTS9 from April to June 2020 – if you missed it, this is your second chance! Flavor of Poland is a culinary-travel PBS television weekly series presenting the country of Poland to American viewers like they’ve never seen it before. Hosted by Aleksandra August, the series shows off not only distinctly Polish dishes (check out the sorrel & crayfish soup recipe!) but also the most beautiful and
The Kosciuszko Foundation Online Programs present the webinar A Polish Mistress of the Brush: Olga Boznańska by Ewa Bobrowska. Dr. Bobrowska is an art historian based in Paris with interest in the 19th c. and the 20th c. Polish artists working abroad. Olga Boznańska (1865-1940) was one of the most renowned Polish women painters, who after her arts studies in Cracow and Munich settled in Paris in 1898 and was active there, especially as a portraitist.
The fall quarter at the University of Washington brings again courses that can draw people interested in Polish culture. As usual, seniors 60+ can register to listen to these course for a token fee (in range of $10) through the UW Access Program. Notable courses in the fall include: Slavic Lands and Peoples by Prof. Bojan Belić; this is a 101 geopolitical and cultural intro course to present-day Slavic nations East European Cinema by Prof. Gordana Crnković, The Cinema