The Club invites new members to discuss books in Polish. The book for the meeting is Przewóz by Andrzej Stasiuk, published in 2021 by Wyd. Czarne. The book is set in 1941 in the Polish countryside at the Podlasie border between the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on the eve of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. This is Stasiuk’s first book after twelve years and is universally praised by critics for its outstanding
The Kosciuszko Foundation Online Programs present the webinar Poland-Ukraine, From conflict and rivalry to neighborliness by Prof. Norman Davies and Prof. Frank Sysyn. The lecture is part of the Studying Poland Today – talk series presented jointly by the Kosciuszko Foundation and the Project on Poland Past and Present (PPPP). The purpose of the series is, in general, to raise the level of expert knowledge about Poland in foreign countries and, in particular, to strengthen Polish Studies in the universities
The Kosciuszko Foundation Online Programs and the Polish Program at the CUNY Hunter College present the webinar Witold Gombrowicz: The Drama of Form by Jaroslaw Anders. Witold Gombrowicz, an ironist, and intellectual provocateur is one of the most important figures in Polish literary modernism and, according to some, a precursor of what came to be known as postmodernism. Elusive, protean, and full of contradictions in his work as well as in his life, he is
The Seattle Polish Film Festival presents a special screening at SIFF Cinema of the movie The Wedding Day / Wesele (2021), directed by Wojtek Smarzowski and starring Robert Więckiewicz, Agata Kulesza, Andrzej Chyra and Arkadiusz Jakubik. The movie takes on some fundamental issues related to the Polish national character and skeletons in the closet, both in the subject matter and in the symbolism. The Polish title Wesele is of course loaded, as it is the
The Club invites new members to discuss books in Polish. The book for the meeting is Wymazana granica, Śladami II Rzeczpospolitej by Tomasz Grzywaczewski, published in 2020 by Wyd. Czarne. The book traces the non-existing borders of Poland from before WWII, both inside of the country now (in Kaszuby, Greater Poland, Silesia …) and outside (in Czechia, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania …). The author has found and interviewed interesting people who remember the old border
The Kosciuszko Foundation Online Programs and the Jagiellonian Law Society present the lecture Lemkos and Ukrainians by Prof. Jan Pisuliński. This lecture is part of the series Ethnic Minorities in Polish Lands. The lecture focuses on Lemkos (Łemkowie), a minority group in south-eastern Poland and also in the neighboring Slovakia, and also on Polish-Ukrainian relations. Professor dr. hab. Jan Pisuliński is a Polish historian and currently an assistant professor at the University of Rzeszow, Poland.
The Kosciuszko Foundation Online Programs present the lecture The Crisis of Democracy in Interwar Poland, The Obstacles to the Establishment of a Democratic and Pluralistic Polish State, focusing on the political system in Poland between the WWI and the WWII, by Prof. Antony Polonsky. The First World War was widely seen as a victory for democracy over autocracy. Yet almost none of the new states which emerged in East-Central Europe after 1918 were able successfully
The Holocaust Museum LA with collaboration of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in LA presents a webinar How a Polish Diplomat Saved Jewish Lives. Ellen Meth never knew the name of the man who saved her life. She was just a child when she and her father, Jewish refugees who had fled to Turkey in 1940, were declared “Catholic” by a diplomat at the Polish Consulate in Istanbul, allowing them safe passage
The Polish Cultural Center presents the chamber music concert Music of Polish-Jewish Composers, that includes works of four composers: Roman Ryterband (1914-1979), Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996), Simon Laks (1901-1983) and Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948). The concert featuring Magdalena Molendowska (soprano) and Julia Samojło (piano) has the following program: Roman Ryterband: Three Hebrew Songs (1938) Mieczysław Weinberg: Gypsy Bible / Biblia Cygańska – songs to poems by Julian Tuwim op. 57 (1950s) Roman Ryterband: Variations on a folk song for piano solo (selection,
The Kosciuszko Foundation online programs present a webinar in the Studying Poland Today series Poland: Where the World War II Began by Roger Moorhouse. The lecture will examine Poland’s fate in the opening two years of World War Two – from the signature of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939, to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. It will cover the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in September 1939 and
The Polish Cultural Center and the Seattle Polish Film Festival present the movie Battle of Warsaw 1920 / 1920 Bitwa Warszawska (115′), directed by Jerzy Hoffman and starring Daniel Olbrychski as Józef Piłsudski. In Polish with English subtitles. This 2011 film depicts the pivotal moment of the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1918-1921. After initial Polish successes, the Red Army got the upper hand in Ukraine and Belarus and invaded newly independent Poland. The country seemed on
The Ethnic Heritage Council and University of Washington Libraries with the Greater Kent Historical Society, the 4Culture Foundation, and City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture present a free workshop Preserving the Cultural and Historical Records of Your Ethnic Community, Organizations, and Families This is another We Are History Keepers Workshop with the following program MORNING SESSIONS / Presented by University of Washington Archivists and Librarians Researching Family and Local History Using Archives and Special Collections
The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) presents a lecture America, Exiles and Ways to Rally Global Support for the Case of Captive Nations during the Cold War by Anna Mazurkiewicz. The webinar discusses the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN) – an umbrella organization and a quasi-East European parliament in exile, composed of formerly prominent statesmen who strove to maintain the case of liberation of Eastern Europe from the Soviet yoke on the agenda of
The UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee presents the lecture Mighty Son of Poland: Zbyszko, Polish Americans and Sports in the 20th Century by prof. Neal Pease about the famous Polish world champion wrestler, intellectual and a Hollywood star, Stanisław Cyganiewicz (1881-1967). Sport has played a significant role in the history of the Polish diaspora in the United States, serving both as an element of ethnic pride, and as an indicator of the acculturation of Polish
Polish Public Television TVP and its U.S. film distribution partner, Fathom, present a nationwide screening of the 2019 documentary movie Of Animals And Men directed by Łukasz Czajka. Fandango shows that the film is available at multiple cinema theaters in Seattle, on Eastside and other local cities and towns on June 22, 2021. Of Animals and Men tells the true story behind the 2017 feature film, The Zookeeper’s Wife. This fascinating documentary sheds new light on the story from that
The Club invites new members to discuss books in Polish. The book for the meeting is Rowerem przez II RP by Bernard Newman, published in 2021 by Znak Horyzont. Filled with countless anecdotes, photos and personal observations, the book recounts Bernard Newman’s 3,000km route from Gdańsk to Kraków in 1934. Significant part of the journey traversed the regions that are not Polish anymore, such as the eastern wall legs that included Stanisławów, Lwów, Równe, Pińsk,
The We Are The History Keepers! workshop on preserving history, both for families and organizations, runs in 2-hour monthly sessions, each tackling a single topics. These are all online interactive sessions on a Saturday before noon. This is the last session in the series. The organizers describe content of this session, Caring for and Digitizing Legacy Audio-Visual Materials, as follows: This session will cover the basics of managing and preserving your organization’s records. Topics include
The Kosciuszko Foundation online programs presents a meet-the-author talk Barbara & Augustus – A Renaissance Love Story and the Upheaval It Caused by Jeffrey Prince. He will talk about his recently completed manuscript In the Matter of the King’s Marriage, which brings the Golden Age of Poland to life for an American audience. The Renaissance in Poland generated fascinating tales of love and intrigue that have been retold and reinterpreted in each succeeding age—but almost always
The UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee presents the lecture Katarzyna Kobro Composing Space by Marek Wieczorek. Dr. Wieczorek is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Washington in Seattle, specializing in early 20th- century avant-garde art with focus on abstraction. Katarzyna Kobro (1898-1951) was an abstract sculptor who studied with and was influenced by Kazimir Malevich and was active in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s. Known for her radical
The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) presents a webinar A Builder of Polish American Identity: How Victor Cordella of Krakow Shaped Church Architecture in Minnesota by Geoffrey Gyrisco, Mark Dillon, and Michael Retka. They will share their research on the Polish-American architect whose churches can be found across Minnesota. The project and its authors have received the 2019 Skalny Award. More: PAHA website This is a free webinar available to the public; to register click