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
The Polish Film Festival Miami and the Podkarpackie Film Commission present four documentaries exploring the Podkarpackie region – the south east highland corner of Poland with the Beskidy Mountains and Bieszczdy. Open Range / Wypasionay Raj (2017) by Rafał Gużkowski The Residents of Moczary / Moczarowi mieszkańcy (2016) by Rafał Gużkowski Master and Apprentice / Mistrz i uczeń (2020) by Katarzyna Mazurkiewicz The Armorer Must be a Musician / Płatnerz musi byc muzykiem (2017) by Katarzyna Mazurkiewicz Editor’s note. All these
The Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, City University of New York presents the online conversation A Flight of Tokarczuk Translators that is part of the Translating the Future program. This event will feature 12 of Olga Tokarczuk’s translators bringing her works to English, Japanese, Hindi, Ukrainian, German, Czech, Norwegian, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Romanian readers. They will compare and contrast their experiences working with the challenging and dynamic author over the course of her career. The
Polish Book Club invites to the September meeting on Zoom. The book to discuss is Przenajświętsza Rzeczypospolita by Jacek Piekara published by Fabryka Snów in 2018 (first edition 2006). Piekara, 55 is a fantasy and science-fiction writer, nowadays mostly known due to his fantasy series about wizard Arivald and another one about inquisitor Mortimer Madderdin. The book is a political dystopia set in future Poland ruled by religious fanatics and utterly corrupted elites. This event is in Polish.
The Polish Cultural Center starts a new book club for people who’d like to read and discuss Polish literature in English (yes!), organized by indomitable Paulina Phung. The book to discuss at the first meeting is Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkowa. Szymiczkowa is the pen name of duo 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
The UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee invites you to an online lecture From Ours to Alien: The Journey of Polish OBCY” by Katarzyna Dziwirek. Prof. Dziwirek is the Chair of the UW Dept of Slavic Languages and Literatures; her research focuses on semantics & syntax and especially in expressions of emotion and perception. The presentation traces the history of the Polish word obcy (alien) that originally meant common, mutual, collective and it links it with the emergence of the Polish nobles
The Fountainhead Gallery presents two painters in September: Kaz Poznanski and Bergen Rose; the exhibition includes six oil paintings by Kazimierz Poznanski, from his Flowers of Color abstract realism series. Mr. Poznanski is a painter, poet, writer and a Professor of Economics at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle, with interest in Chinese art. The exhibition at the Fountain Gallery in Seattle i available untill September 26; admission is free, the gallery business hours are Thursday through
While American citizens cannot enter the EU countries, you can fly to Europe on a different passport, such as a Polish one. There are two ways to do it: on regular flights or “rescue” flights. Situation changes, so check your connection to see if you can fly on a regular connection. If regular flights are not allowed, Polish citizens and people who have the right to enter Poland can get on a rescue flight operated
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 local Polish Schools in Bellevue and Seattle are adapting to the difficulties created by the pandemic with their school year starting around mid-September. There is also a recommendation for an online school in Poland. Szkoła Polska im. Ks. J. Twardowskiego w BellevueThe School will have all the classes online, which is the same way the classes where conducted from March to June because of the pandemic. Normally the school accepts children from the kindergarten to
In spring 2020, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles suspended its program of rotating consular visits to different cities such as Seattle and Portland to handle passport applications for Polish citizens due to COVID-19. Update in January 2021. There are still no visits planned for the nearby future. More: the Consulate passport info