From “Saving Private Ryan” to “Inglourious Basterds”, there have been plenty of tales told in our popular culture about the exploits of World War II soldiers, as portrayed by stars such as Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt. Much less well-known is the story of a humble Northeast Ohio witness to the very start of the Second World War, seventy years ago. 96-year-old Jerzy Maciuszko recently shared some of his harrowing experiences with ideastream®’s David C. Barnett, who has produced a sound portrait that captures the fear along the front lines and the joy of playing violin in a prisoner-of-war orchestra.
Listen to this: Dorota Sobieska, co-founder of Cleveland’s Opera Circle, traveled to Bulgaria in June to appear as soprano soloist with the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra under Grigor Palikarov. She sang four Donizetti arias, including “L’amour suo mi fe’ beata…Ah! ritorna qual ti spero” from “Roberto Devereux.” Here’s the remarkable live performance, complete with high G – that’s G above high C! – a Sobieska interpolation.
My fate forever remains bound to the fate of my country. Jan Nowak-Jezioranski has passed away. Our distinguished countryman, true hero, great moral authority, a man entirely dedicated to his country, departed on his final mission on January 20, 2005 at the age of 92. He was buried with honors in his native soil at the Powazki Cemetery in Warsaw.
Jan Nowak-Jeziorański is a representative of the first generation born in a resurrected Poland. He was a graduate of the Adam Mickiewicz Gimnazium in Warsaw. He was a soldier in the September 1939 Defense Campaign and legendary courier of the Main Command of the Home Army. He participated in the Warsaw Uprising. He was director of the Polish Section of Radio Free Europe. He was a great leader who helped pave the way for Poland into NATO. (more…)
The government of the Republic of Poland has honored Eugene Bak, cofounder and long time President and Executive Director of the Polish-American Cultural Center in Cleveland, with the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. We can read the following about such orders and distinctions in a law of the Sejm from October 16, 1992:
„Article 13. The Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland is an award for distinguished merit in the field of cooperation between nations. The Order is presented to a foreigner or Polish citizen living abroad whose activities have made a significant contribution to international cooperation and cooperation linking Poland with other states and nations.” (more…)
The tragedy of great artists, says Peggy Grant, is that they live only during the time that they work, and when they pass away, their creation dies with them if they have no one to pass on their way of seeing the world. She never wanted this fate to befall her husband, Adam Grant, and therefore she continues his work in her own special way identifying with his creation, presenting it to the world by traveling to various Polish centers to talk about Adam Grant’s life and art. He has remained alive in this way and by her side.
We were fortunate to have been visited by Mrs. Grant in the Cleveland Polish American Cultural Center on January 5, to hear her speak about Adam Grant and view his work in a slide show presentation. (more…)
When I was a little boy the books by Julius Verne allowed me to travel. I went around the world in 80 days, I visited the oceans with captain Nemo, and I even traveled to the moon. A couple of years later came the time of Łajka, Gagarin, and Armstrong. All of a sudden the mankind was on a brink of conquering space. And this is when, for the first time, I saw a book written by Stanisław Lem. For a teenager in Poland, in the fifties, when everything was a “state secret”, his books about robots, astronauts, and space vehicles were like a magical world. Lem opened our eyes; his books moved galaxies and planets closer to us, while the technology became more understandable and accessible. (more…)
“Someone who wants to be Polish. An act of will is more important than a birth certificate. To be a Pole is not to change one’s national loyalty.”
Juliusz Mieroszewski, „Kultura”
If we had to choose the five Poles with the greatest degree of influence on the fate of Poland, and therefore Europe, in the twentieth century, among them would certainly be Jerzy Giedroyc, the creator and editor of Kultura in Paris and the founder of the publishing house Instytut Literacki (Literary Institute).
The work of Jerzy Giedroyc is so associated with the Paris-based journal Kultura that we often forget about his literary and government work during the prewar years. During his studies in law and history at the University of Warsaw, Giedroyc edited two titles, „Bunt Młodych” (Youth Rebellion) and „Politykę” (Politics). In these first years of his work, his numerous talents were already evident: his work ethic, excellent organization, and, most important, his ability to surround himself with excellent people. In addition to his publishing activities, the young Giedroyc was employed in the Ministry of Agriculture and, before the outbreak of war, he was secretary to the Minister of Industry and Trade. (more…)
The history of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci “Lady with a Weasel”, also known as “Lady with an Ermine” is doubly thrilling. One part of this history concerns the complicated life of the painted person; the other involves the dramatic fate of the painting since its purchase by the Czartoryski family.
The search for the identity of the young lady painted by Leonardo da Vinci lasted for a long time. Finally, in 1900, a polish art historian, Jan Boloz-Antoniewicz, described in detail the life of this person. He based his research on earlier discoveries in Italy. The musing girl in the picture was Cecile Gallerani. She lived during the years 1473-1536, and her family descended from Sienna, Italy. Her father, Fazio Gallerani, moved the family to Milan, where he held several political posts. He had seven children, and they all got an appropriate education. One of his daughters, Cecile, was engaged at the age of ten to Stefano Visconti who was fourteen years her elder. Cecile broke the engagement when she was fifteen. At this age she was probably living as a lady-in-waiting at the court of the prince of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, who was called Il Moro. She found herself in his court thanks to her education and many interests. She spoke Latin fluently, wrote poetry, and knew the philosophical and theological issues of the day. (more…)
Those of us who were raised in Communist Poland have much in common. We are direct, act with a characteristic ease, and we tend to pay little attention to manners. The Polish post-war generations stand in direct contrast to the Polish pre-war intelligentsia. To many of us the pre-war intelligentsia is an abstract notion often associated with rigid etiquette and snobbism. When at the end of the eighties I arrived in Cleveland, the first representative of Polonia who reached out to me was Doctor Jerzy Maciuszko, a charming, courteous man full of gentleness, humbleness, politeness, and inherent high culture.
A Warsavian by birth, Jerzy Maciuszko, is a 1936 graduate of the Department of English Language at the University of Warsaw. He began his American career in 1951 as a lecturer of Polish Literature at Alliance College in Pennsylvania. Soon thereafter, he moved to Cleveland where he enrolled in the doctoral program in library sciences at Case Western Reserve University and worked in the department of foreign literature at the Cleveland Public Library. Upon defending his Ph.D. dissertation, Maciuszko was promoted to director of the prestigious John G. White Department at The Cleveland Public Library and continued his academic career teaching Polish literature at Case Western Reserve University. (more…)
