Chopin’s Warsaw is a filmic journey around the city of Warsaw in the company of Frycek. That’s the name that was given to Fryderyk Chopin in his youth by his friends and family. See Warsaw, past and present, through his eyes. Discover the city where Poland’s greatest composer spent his youth. (more…)
A winter walk in Warsaw. Actually, a visit to just one site, but an important one – Plac Józef Piłsudski, or Józef Piłsudski Square.
A colonnade, damaged during the war, rises from the square, a fragment of the fomer Saski Palace. An eternal flame and an honor guard of soldiers stands before it. Every Pole knows that this is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
For several years there has been a custom that young couples come here after their wedding to place their bouquets as an offering to the Unknown Soldier. Such a beautiful patriotic gesture to begin their new lives. (more…)
In the last issue of the Forum, we published the first part of this history of mathematics in Poland. The article below continues the topic with a description of the influence of Polish mathematics on world science.
In any discussion of mathematics in Poland, one has to mention Professor J. Łukasiewicz, who created multi-valued logic. For example, if someone says that when visiting Warsaw, she always goes to the theater, and out of ten visits to Warsaw, she went to the theater seven times, we would say that the „degree of participation” is 0.7. There have long been computers built for „fuzzy” logic” and not only binary logic (there is current „1” – there is no current „0”); they run, for example, the metros in many cities in Japan. (more…)
In the fifties, America became wealthier, and, in addition to money, they discovered free time. Time which they devoted to themselves, their families, and their friends. They bought homes and looked to their neighbors to see what was new in their garden and they bought the same grills, the same patio furniture, the same cars, and the same clothes. And, in their homes, they hung the same pictures on the walls.
But it’s easy to spend money. It was also important to show personality and creativity, especially artistic creativity. And a new fad helped: paint by numbers! The idea was a phenomenon. Entire sets were sold: the picture, paints, and brushes. Everyone could match the color with the number and paint those areas with the same number the same color. In this way they painted their own works of art with their own hands.
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The final voting for the Miss World pageant took place at the end of September this year. On September 30th in Warsaw, the title went to a Czech woman, with a representative from Romania chosen as first runner-up, and a representative from Australia chosen as second runner-up. Throughout all of September the young women, in the company of reporters, photographers, and the event’s organizers, visited Poland. Each year the demands on these young women increase. It’s no longer enough to be beautiful with a flawless figure and long legs; each contestant must also show intelligence and knowledge. Musical, vocal, and physical talents like dancing are also important qualities.
After arriving in Poland, before the final contest, the contestants for Miss World received a version of an English text of a Polish song, composed especially for the occasion. The best renditions of „Beautiful World” would be recorded on teledisk and make their way to other countries, but the words of the song would relate to Warsaw. In this way beauty would not only be seen but also heard.
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There are times at the Center when we sit around thinking about what we can offer our guests. One of our recurring ideas is a film club. For those who weren’t raised in the later years of the PRL (Poland before the “Solidarity”), the initials „DKF” may not mean anything. To learn more about the Dyskusyjne Kluby Filmowe, or the Film Discussion Clubs, read the text below, from Józef Lorski, in Warsaw. (The text has been abbreviated.)
There was a time in Poland when there was a vibrant movement of film discussion clubs. The first clubs arose during the political strife of 1956. Soon thereafter, a nationwide federation of clubs formed, to represent the clubs to the state authorities, giving the clubs a certain status that removed them from the oversight of the local authorities. Every independent initiative in the PRL, not inspired or developed by the party, was in some way or other under the control of a party institution, or at least under suspicion. The clubs were forced to search for their own patrons among different groups, including schools, factories, offices, and cultural centers, and so such sponsorship was necessary. The repertoire – above all, the meetings and discussions after the movie showings – comprised an oasis of freedom in the world of the PRL. There were few other places where it was possible to be so open, to say what you were thinking publicly. Often the films simply became a pretext for conversations about people and everyday situations, about the rules governing social life.
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The columns of Forum introduce the literary profile of Janusz Glowacki, a Polish writer, living first in Warsaw, and now, for the last twenty-one years, in New York. Here is a fragment of the text in which he jokingly writes about his literary beginnings:
“…For a long time I dictated to my mother everything I wrote, using a ball pen, and so she was the first person who read and judged. A variety of good wishing acquaintances knew my mother was an editor in a publishing company, so they talked and assumed that it was impossible for me to write this stuff, since I am a playboy, who walks the streets of Warsaw’s New World in a shirt open down to my belt. And they swore it was my mother’s work, not mine, she did everything for me. Only when I started to write some “dirty” stuff they hesitated, because Mrs. Glowacka would not write this…”
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Even if we don’t like classical music and Chopin is too sentimental for our modern taste, the news about the Chopin Competition always brings back memories. Taking place every five years in Warsaw, the Chopin Competition became a unique national phenomenon. Over a period of several weeks, the music of Chopin flows and reaches out to the people from everywhere, from radio, television, press, from teachers, relatives, and friends. This collective experiencing of the greatest pianistic art becomes engraved in us, becomes our heritage. In many Polish homes, the Chopin Competition is worshiped as a most precious tradition. Strictly forbidden by the Nazis during the war, the music of Chopin contains deep patriotic meaning for the Polish people, while the piano itself is our national instrument.
In October of this year Warsaw once again experienced the excitement of hosting the International Chopin Competition. This year for the first time ever Polonia and music lovers all over the world could follow this historic event live via internet and satellite. And there was so much to follow! (more…)
The 15th Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition will be held in Warsaw on September 23 – October 24, 2005. The competition is one of the oldest and most prestigious music competitions in the world. It belongs to a small group of piano competitions dedicated to the performance of music by just one composer.
The first Chopin Competition was initiated by Jerzy Zurawlew, an outstanding Polish pianist and teacher. It took place on 23-30 January 1927 in the hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic. The next two competitions occurred five years apart, in accordance with the rules of the organizers, up to the start of WWII.
The fourth competition, following the war, took place in the “Roma” concert hall at Nowogrodzka Street, which was the only surviving building capable of serving as a temporary hall for the Warsaw Philharmonic. The year was 1949, the hundredth anniversary of the death of the great composer, and the competition became a culmination of the Chopin’s Year. The next competition was held six years later, in 1955, in the rebuilt hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic, which was promoted to the rank of a national institution. Since 1955, the international competition has taken place in the halls of the National Philharmonic, every five years, without interruption.
The beginnings were quite nightmarish for one of Poland’s most celebrated singers. Irena Jarocka first arrived in the U.S.A. in 1990. Following her husband to this country, Irena Jarocka left behind everything she loved and held dear in Poland. She felt hopelessly lost, as have many of us, when she arrived here. She remembered an active, engaging life of creativity and successful artistic endeavor and longed for her beloved Warsaw. Alienated, she found her new home bleakly devoid of culture – “just a hole, far from civilization” she would often sob in frustration. She didn’t sing at all for a year, falling into pessimism and deep depression. She found it difficult to muster a smiling face for the outside world when she went out.
