PAHA bestows a number of awards at each annual meeting. These awards for distinction in Polish American scholarship, arts, and civic service range from the prestigious Mieczyslaw Haiman Medal to the Oskar Halecki Prize. Nominations and inquiries regarding awards should be sent to PAHA's Second Vice President (See Board Member List).
Award Criteria
Ø PAHA Confers the annual Mieczyslaw Haiman Award for sustained scholarly effort in the field of Polish American Studies.
Ø PAHA Awards the annual Oskar Halecki Prize for the best book on a Polish American topic.
Ø PAHA Awards the annual Joseph Swastek Prize for the best article appearing in Polish American Studies.
Ø PAHA Awards the annual Distinguished Service Award to a PAHA Member whose career has rendered distinguished service to the Association or to the advancement of Polish American history.
Ø PAHA Awards the annual Creative Arts Award for a creative work of literature or the performing arts.
Ø PAHA Awards the annual Kulczycki Award for an outstanding doctoral dissertation in the liberal arts based on original research into Polish American society or culture.
Ø PAHA Awards the Amicus Poloniae to recognize the work of a scholar or community leader from outside the Polish American community whose work has furthered the understanding of Polonian history and issues in the lager American community.
Ø PAHA Awards the Civic Achievement Award for accomplishments which have benefited the history and culture of Polonia.
**********
2006 Recipient Award List
HAIMAN AWARD The Mieczyslaw Haiman award is offered annually to an American scholar for sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans. The award was established in 1969 in honor of the late Mieczyslaw Haiman (1888-1949), a co-founder and charter member of the Polish American Historical Association, curator of the Polish Museum of America in Chicago, and pioneer in the compilation of Polish American history.Mary Patrice Erdmans. Dr. Erdmans is Professor of Sociology at Central Connecticut State University, with specialties in race and ethnic relations, social movements, field studies, and Polish and Polish American studies. She is a two-time recipient of the PAHA Halecki Prize for her books Opposite Poles (1998) and The Grasinski Girls (2005). She served as PAHA President 2003-2007. She is cited for the extent, quality, and influence of her scholarship, largely on significant issues having received little attention from previous researchers. In this way, Dr. Erdmans has produced work of interest not only to Polonia specialists, but to a broader audience of scholars in the fields of immigration and ethnicity.
HALECKI PRIZE This award recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States. Eligibility is limited to works of historical and/or cultural interest, including those from related fields in the social sciences or humanities, published in 2005 or 2006. The prize honors Oskar Halecki (1891-1973), eminent Polish-born historian who was also a co-founder and charter member of PAHA.
John Radzilowski, Poles in Minnesota, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005. Dr. Radzilowski is a senior fellow at the Piast Institute, Detroit, and president of the Polish American Cultural Institute of Minnesota. He is as well a two-time winner of the PAHA Swastek Prize. Poles in Minnesota is honored as a highly readable account of the Polish Americans who created and sustained community institutions in that state. Filled with intriguing details, the book shows how Polish Americans established their own cultural identity within Minnesota.
CREATIVE ARTS PRIZE This award recognizes contributions in the field of creative arts by individuals or groups who have promoted an awareness of the Polish experience in the Americas.
Ann Hetzel Gunkel. Dr. Gunkel is Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies at Columbia College, Chicago. A specialist in urban cultural studies, she is widely regarded as the leading scholar of polka in the United States. A previous recipient of the PAHA Swastek Prize, Dr. Gunkel is honored with the Creative Arts Prize in recognition of her body of scholarly work focusing on Polish American culture.
STANLEY AND SOPHIE KULCZYCKI PRIZE The Kulczycki Prize is granted occasionally in recognition of an important dissertation on the Polish experience in the United States offered to a graduate student or younger scholar.Iwona Drag Korga, “Dzialalnosc propagandowa rzadu RP na uchodzstwie wobec spoleczenstwo amerykanskiego (1939-1945,” Akademia Pedagogiczna im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej, Kraków, 2004. Dr. Korga is Executive Director/Treasurer of the Joseph Pilsudski Institute of America, New York. Her dissertation is an accomplished and professional study of the propaganda activity of the Polish Government in Exile within American society during the Second World War.
SWASTEK PRIZE The Swastek Prize is awarded annually for the best article published in a given volume of Polish American Studies, the journal of the Polish American Historical Association. This award is named in honor of Rev. Joseph V. Swastek (1913-1977), editor of Polish American Studies for many years, and past president of the Polish American Historical Association.
Adam Walaszek, “Tomasz Siemiradzki: An Intellectual in Ethnic Politics,” Polish American Studies 62, Autumn 2005. Adam Walaszek is Professor of History at the Instytut Amerykanistyki I Studiów Polonijnych, Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Kraków, and 2004 recipient of the PAHA Haiman Award. His article is cited as an excellent biography of a major Polonia figure based on extensive original research that makes a strong contribution to Polish American history.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD This award is given occasional to a member of PAHA who has rendered valuable and sustained service to the organization.
Joseph Wieczerzak and Theodore Zawistowski. Joseph Wieczerzak is Professor Emeritus of History, Bronx College, CUNY. He has served two terms as PAHA president, is a past recipient of the organization’s Haiman Award, and is a current member of the PAHA Board. He is now editor of The Polish Review. Theodore Zawistowski has taught college courses in the fields of Sociology and Psychology, and has served as a consultant on history and archives to the Commission of the Polish National Catholic Church. He has edited PNCC Studies, The Polish Review, and the PAHA Newsletter. In addition, he has contributed greatly to the annual PNCC conferences.
AMICUS POLONIAE AWARD The Amicus Poloniae Award recognizes significant contributions enhancing knowledge of the Polish and Polish American heritage by individuals not belonging to the Polish American community.
Joel Wurl. Now a Senior Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C., Joel Wurl is recognized for his longtime service at the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. While at IHRC he filled various positions, including Head of Research Collections and Associate Director. Due to his initiatives, many priceless manuscript collections produced by Polish American organizations were acquired by IHRC and made available to researchers. His nominator states that “anybody who has ever done research at the IHRC can attest to Joel Wurl’s invaluable assistance.”
CIVIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS The Civic Achievement Awards honor individuals or groups who advance PAHA’s goals of promoting research on and awareness of the Polish experience in the Americas.
Elzbieta and Krzysztof Krawczynski. Holders of both MD and PhD degrees, the Drs. Krawczynski have resided in Atlanta since 1984. They have organized many Polish cultural events, and are active in the Polish Catholic Apostolate in the Archdiocese of Atlanta. In 1940 Elzbieta, her mother, and grandmother were deported to Kazachstan; in 2006 she received the Siberian Cross from the government of the Republic of Poland.
Dorota Lato Folkert. Born and educated in Poland, Ms. Lato immigrated to the United States. Since settling in the Atlanta area, she and her husband, Piotr Folkert, have contributed greatly to Polish musical and cultural events, notably in connection with the 1996 Olympics. They are co-founders of the Chopin Society of Atlanta, a musical series developing a national reputation.
Lee J. Meyer. Mr. Meyer is a prominent Savannah architect, associated with the firm of Meyer and Heitmann. He served as co-chair of the Savannah Pulaski Committee at the time of the Pulaski reinterment ceremonies in 2005.
Edward Pinkowski. A noted authority on Polish American history, Edward Pinkowski holds the dual distinction of having discovered the Kosciuszko residence in Philadelphia and the grave of General Pulaski near Savannah. He is a recipient of numerous honors, including the 1989 PAHA Haiman Award.
Bozena Zaremba. A resident of the Atlanta area since 1999, Ms. Zaremba has served the Polish community in the metropolitan area in diverse ways ever since. Notable among her activities, she initiated Bajecznik, a weekly get-together for Polish speaking pre-school children and their mothers.
2005 Recipient Award List
HAIMAN AWARD
The Mieczylsaw Haiman award is offered annually to an American scholar
for sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans. The award
was established in 1969 in honor of the late Mieczyslaw Haiman
[1888-1949], a co-founder and charter member of the Polish American
Historical Association, curator of the Polish Museum of America in
Chicago, and pioneer in the compilation of Polish American history.Donald and Angela Pienkos. Donald Pienkos is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and President of the Wisconsin Division of the Polish American Congress. He has held national office in the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and the Polish National Alliance, and served as President of PAHA in 2002-2003. Dr. Angela Pienkos has held the posts of Executive Director of the Polish Center of Wisconsin and, in 1980, President of PAHA. They have authored or edited numerous books and articles, sometimes in collaboration, including studies in Polish American themes.
HALECKI PRIZE
This award recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish
experience in the United States. Eligibility is limited to works of
historical and/or cultural interest, including those from related fields
in the social sciences or humanities, published in 2002 and 2003. The
prize honors Oskar Halecki [1891-1973], eminent Polish-born historian
who was also a co-founder and charter member of PAHA.Mary Patrice Erdmans, The Grasinski Girls: The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made, Ohio University Press. Mary Patrice Erdmans is Professor of Sociology at Central Connecticut State University, and current President of PAHA. The Grasinski Girls is a study of working class Americans of Polish descent, born in the 1920s and 1930s. The book has been praised by reviewers as “very original,” “refreshingly written,” and “remarkably [successful] on all levels.” Professor Erdmans is a two time winner of the Halecki Prize, having been honored for her Opposite Poles in 1998.
CREATIVE ARTS PRIZE
This award recognizes the contributions in the field of creative arts
by individuals or groups who have promoted an awareness of the Polish
experience in the Americas.Marek Czarnecki. Marek Czarnecki is an iconographer, the director of Seraphic Restorations in Meriden, Connecticut. The son of Polish immigrants, he enjoys a national reputation, and is held in particularly high esteem in New England, where he has painted and restored many icons for local Polish churches. He also has written on the subject of sacramental art in Catholic churches in the United States.
STANLEY AND SOPHIE KULCZYCKI PRIZE
The Kulczycki Prize is granted occasionally in recognition of an important
dissertation on the Polish experience in the United States offered to a
graduate student or younger scholar.\Brian McCook, “The Borders of Integration: Polish Migrant Workers in the Ruhr Valley of Germany and the Pennsylvania Anthracite Regions of the United States, 1870-1924,” University of California-Berkeley, 2004. Dr. McCook is a member of the PAHA Council, and current holder of the Thyssen-Heidelberg Postdoctoral Fellowship of the University of Cologne, His doctoral dissertation is a very successful comparative project exploring why distinctive patterns of minority inclusion and exclusion emerged in Germany and the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
SWASTEK PRIZE
The Swastek prize is awarded annually for the best article published in
a given volume of Polish American Studies, the journal of the Polish
American Historical Association. This award is named in honor of Rev.
Joseph V. Swastek [1913-1977], editor of Polish American Studies for
many years and past president of the Polish American Historical
Association.Neal Pease, “The Kosciuszko Reds, 1909-1919: Kings of the Milwaukee Sandlots,” Polish American Studies v. 61, Spring 2004. Neal Pease is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Second Vice President of PAHA. His article explores the significance of a local semiprofessional baseball team in the life of the Polish American community of Milwaukee shortly after the turn of the 20th century.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
Mark Kulikowski. Mark Kulikowski is Associate Professor of History at State University of New York-Oswego, with expertise in modern Russian and U.S. diplomatic history. Among other works, he has written the well known Bibliography of Slavic Mythology (1989). Professor Kulikowski has been a longtime member of the editorial board of Polish American Studies, as well as a frequent contributor.
AMICUS POLONIAE AWARD
The Amicus Poloniae Award recognizes significant contributions enhancing
knowledge of the Polish and Polish American heritage by individuals not
belonging to the Polish American community.Gillian Berchowitz. Gillian Berchowitz is senior editor and assistant director of Ohio University Press, having worked with the firm more than 20 years. She is a native of Capetown, South Africa, of Latvian/Jewish background. She helped develop and has been essential to the success of OUP’s Polish and Polish-American Studies Series, which has produced numerous award winning volumes.
CIVIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
The Civic Achievement Awards honor individuals or groups who advance
PAHA's goals of promoting research on and awareness of the Polish
experience in the Americas.Michael Blichasz. Michael Blichasz is President of the Eastern Pennsylvania State Division of the Polish American Congress, and President of the Polish Cultural Center in Philadelphia. Each October, he chairs the national celebration of Polish American Heritage Month.
Feliks Bruks. Feliks Bruks was a longtime Polonia leader on the east coast, and was active in many organizations. Born in Poland, he was President of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi and Soviet Concentration Camps, and in 2004 received the second highest civilian award bestowed by the Third Polish Republic. Mr. Bruks died in June 2005.
Hilary Czaplicki. Hilary Czaplicki has been active in Polonia affairs for more than forty years. He has served as National Censor of the Polish National Alliance since 1975, and as an officer of the Polish American Congress. For 12 years, he was a member of the Board of Alliance College.
Eugene Golomb. Eugene Golomb is President of the Polonia Civic Center in Rochester, New York, which he has served for over three decades in various capacities. Aside from his activities on behalf of Polish and Polish American culture, he was instrumental in developing partnerships between Rochester and Krakow in the fields of medicine and business.
Regina Gorzkowska-Rossi. Regina Gorzkowska-Rossi is Philadelphia correspondent for Nowy Dziennik, and a prominent figure in Polish literary and artistic affairs in the Philadelphia area. She is President and founder of Pro Arte Associates, an artistic and literary agency. She is currently promoting the work of her husband, Jacques Rossi, as a Gulag artist.
Michael Leach. Michael Leach is Chair of the Krakow-Rochester Sister Cities Committee. He has been active in local Rochester Polonia circles since the early 1980s. Since that time he has given generously of his time to support everything from academic courses to polka fests in the Rochester community.
Deborah Majka. Deborah Majka of Philadelphia is Vice President for Cultural Affairs of the Polish American Congress. She is President of the American Council for Polish Culture, founded in 1948 to coordinate a network of Polish cultural organizations in the United States.
Frederic Skalny. Frederic Skalny is President of the Polish Heritage Society of Rochester. A founder, guiding light, and financial backer of this organization, through it he helped bring together several groups on the verge of extinction into a single viable association to promote Polish and Polish American history, culture, and the arts in the Rochester area.
2004 Recipients
OSKAR HALECKI PRIZE
Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchman, The Exile Mission: The Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939-1956, Ohio University Press, 2004
Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchman's monograph takes on several large issues: the relationship between an established ethnic community and new arrivals, debates over the distinction between economic immigrant and political refugee, the evolving relationship between an ethnic community and the politics of the homeland, and the continual re-construction of ethnic identity with new waves of immigration. She crafts a readable master narrative that draws on memoirs, ethnic organization records, government documents and interviews. She puts these sources into a framework drawn from wide-ranging research into secondary sources from several disciplines including sociology, diplomatic history and international law. Prof. Kirchman clarifies the spectrum of ideological positions in post-World War II American Polonia and shows the impact of an "exile mission," first articulated in Europe, on the interaction between the exiles and the established Polish American community.
MIECZYSLAW HAIMAN AWARD
Adam Walaszek
Over the past twenty years, Adam Walaszek helped to re-invent the study of Polish Americans with his original work on return-migration, labor, local community studies and the family. Mentored by prominent historians of the first generation of scholars in Poland to seriously investigate Polish American culture -- including Andrzej Brozek and Miroslaw Francic -- Adam Walaszek was one of the first Polish historians to be equally at home with cutting-edge American scholarship as well as the newest work by young Polish scholars. This is amply documented by his voluminous, widely-ranging footnotes to scholarship published in American (as well as French, British and Australian) journals and his regular participation in international scholarly conferences (averaging out to nearly three a year for the past twenty years).
Since earning his doctorate at the Jagiellonian University in 1981, Prof. Walaszek has made outstanding contributions toward the study of American Polonia. He is currently a full professor of history and chair of the History Department at the Institute of Polish Diaspora and Ethnic Studies of the Jagiellonian Univerrsity where he teaches courses on the history of international migrations, World diasporas, the history of the Polish ethnic group in the United States, and United States social history. He is a member of the editorial board of Przeglad Polonijny and editor-in-chief of the Prace Polonijne series published by the Jagiellonian University. He also serves as an officer of scholarly societies devoted to migration studies in Slovenia and Luxemburg.Since 1981 he has contributed papers and comments at more than sixty conferences in Poland, Italy, Finland, France, Croatia, Canada, Germany, England, Belgium, Slovenia, Austria, Sweden, Luxemburg, Holland, Norway, Northern Ireland, Portugal, and Australia. A dozen of his papers were delivered at conferences in the United States including papers at the annual meetings of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1993 and 2003 , the Social Science History Association in 1989, and the AAASS in 2000. He contributed papers to PAHA conferences in 1988 and 1994. In 1994 he also won the Joseph Swastek Award for best article appearing in Polish American Studies.
He is the author of three ground-breaking monographs on Polish American history: Reemigracja ze Stanów Zjednoczonych do Polski po I wojnie swiatowej, 1919 1924 [Return Migration from the United States to Poland after the First World War, 1919-1924 ] (1983); Polscy robotnicy, praca i zwiazki zawodowe w Stanach Zjednoczonych Ameryki, 1880 1922 [Polish workers, work and the labor movement in the USA, 1880-1922] (1988), and Swiaty imigrantów. Tworzenie polonijnego Cleveland, 1880-1930 [Immigrant Worlds: The Making of Polish-American Cleveland 1880-1929] (Nomos, 1994). He co-edited (with T. Gladsky, and M. Wawrykiewicz) the anthology: Ethnicity, Culture and City: Polish Americans in the USA. Cultural Aspects of Urban Life, 1870-1950 (1998); and he is sole editor of the new anthology Polska diaspora. Leksykon historyczny, (2001). He has published over eighty articles in scholarly journals and anthologies in both Polish and English and nearly ninety book reviews.
His scholarly career has been punctuated by frequent periods of extended residency in the United States for research and teaching, including entire semesters in 1979, 1980, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002. He has been awarded research grants by the Kosciuszko Foundation, the Immigration History Research Center, the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Skalny Foundation. He has taught courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Rochester and Central Connecticut State University.
A long time member of the Polish American Historical Association, Prof. Walaszek also served as a board member from 1993 through 1998. He currently serves on the editorial board for the Polish and Polish American Studies Series of Ohio University Press.
JOSEPH V. SWASTEK PRIZE
Ann Hetzel Gunkel, "The Sacred in the City: Polonian Street Processions as Countercultural Practice," PAS vol. 60. no. 2 (2003 Autumn)
Ann Hetzel Gunkel's article on Good Friday processions brings a new disciplinary approach to Polish American Studies. With good ethnographic skills, she documents outdoor processions with her own photographs and careful eye-witness description. Given how little evidence remains of similar processions and parades from past decades, this alone is a worthwhile contribution to Polish American scholarship. More importantly, in her article, she draws on theoretical perspectives from anthropology, ethnography, literary criticism, aesthetics, and liturgical studies to present a new argument about the layers of meaning embedded in these ceremonies.
THE CREATIVE ARTS AWARD
Keith Mallard - Clarinet Polka, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003
The Clarinet Polka was discussed enthusiastically in several presentations at the January 2004 PAHA Annual Meeting. The buzz continued into the June 2004 Conference, "One Hundred and Fifty Years of Polonia in North America" in New Britain, CT. The repeated refrain was, "he got it right."
The protaganist of the Clarinet Polka, Jimmy Dobrowski, returns from military duty, to a fictional West Virginia steel town in 1969. Avoiding sentimental and patronizing portrayals of working-class ethnicity, Maillard shows Jimmy emerging from an alienated, numb state by connecting to a homegrown, and vital local polka culture. The book manages to convince the reader that Jimmy expands his experience not by fleeing parochial roots (his first impulse upon discharge from the military) but by deeper insight into those roots. In this novel, the only college-educated member of the family, Jimmy's sister Linda (who majored in Music in Morgantown over her father's objections), is the one who re-introduces her self-conscious, alienated peers to polka and to the best in themselves. These characters are not enbalmed in an ethnographic diorama. They are open to all themusic, politics, and aspirations of the 1970s. This book reminds us that while working-class baby boomers struggled, as their middle-class cohorts did, with political cynicism and alienation in the 1970s, some found meaning in a different place: celebrating and re-inventing an ethnic heritage they had initially scorned.
AMICUS POLONIAE AWARD
Catholic University of America Press
CIVIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
The Civic Achievement Awards honor individuals or groups who advance
PAHA's goals of promoting research on and awareness of the Polish
experience in the Americas.Tom Podl -- Ten years ago Tom Podl explained to a reporter for the Seattle Intelligencer, how he regards his world-class collection of Polish art. "It is not owned by me," he said. "This art was owned by many other people. To say it's mine would be selfish. It belongs to the artists."
Born in Chicago, Tom Podl, completed an engineering degree at the prestigious Illinois Institute of Technology. After an intense and successful professional career, including establishing his own business, Tom Podl turned to a new source of satisfaction, assembling a collection of over 200 paintings by Polish artists. With careful research, working through private connections, dealers, and auction houses on both sides of the Atlantic, Tom Podl has brought together a group of paintings that now have so much more meaning than than the orphaned canvasses they once were. Mr. Podl has used his collection to introduce others to Polish culture and the historical context in which the artists worked. His passion for sharing the beauty and insights in this art extends to all sorts of audiences, from local neighborhood exhibitions (in restaurants and at ethnic events) to the Frye Museum, and the Polish Museum of America in Chicago. The collection includes works by major Polish artists such as Jacek Malczewski, Aleksander Kotsis, Olga Boznanska, Josef Pankiewicz, Wojciech Weiss and Jozef Chelmonski as well as dozens of other nineteenth and twentieth century artists. One indication of the value of this collection for art historians is that the curators of the National Museum in Krakow arranged for a major exhibit of the paintings in Poland in 2001. Tom Podl continues to travel, research and build his collection and to make it available to raise appreciation for Polish culture across the language barrier.
Ron and Martha Golubiec are proof that a love of one's own homeland culture and an appreciation for local community is compatible with an outgoing, open-minded, global perspective. They are at once the most modern of American citizens, living in a port city open to the world and protectors of precious Old World traditions that give texture and meaning to daily life.Ron was raised in a multicultural setting, by Polish parents in Riga, Latvia. Martha was nurtured in the mountains of Stary Sacz. Both experienced the shock of war and dislocation, but fortunately made their separate ways to Chicago where they met and married. Both completed college degrees (Ron in business at Northwestern University and Martha in Political Science at Loyola University) and then spent nearly six years in the Pacific while Ron completed his Navy service. Later Ron and Martha would live and work as professionals in Seattle, Germany, and Iran, networking with local Polish residents in all those places. By the 1980s they had re-settled in Seattle where they generously directed their energies, language skills, international experience and professional talents to the community around them. Thus it is no surprise that they took a leading role in raising public awareness of the Solidarity movement in the 1980s and later in creating the Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Association. Martha has served as the president of the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce which received, during her tenure, an "Urban Neighborhoods That Work" award from the city of Seattle. She is an articulate advocate for pedestrian-friendly communities with personality, the kind of communities where old traditions can be passed on and new traditions can be nurtured. She and Ron bring those same values to their work for the Polish Home. Both have taken leadership roles at times, Ron serving as president of the Polish Home and Martha leading the Ladies Auxiliary. But there is no year in which they have not actively supported the fundraising, cultural and educational initiatives of the Polish Home. And there is no job too small for them, from cutting vegetables to handling scheduling details for Polish scout field trips. Their lives are a good example of the ways that Polish American community and the great American mosaic, that the local and global, energize each other.
The Polish Home, Seattle http://www.polishhome.org/
When the Poles of Seattle opened the Polish Home in 1920, their initial intention was to provide a comfortable space for meetings and social events. However, the needs of World War I refugees and the dramatic impact of the Great Depression meant the the Polish Home took on additional, pressing responsibilties. It cooperated with the American Red Cross to organize relief, and at times provided employment for indigent Polish Americans. By 1937, when the building was damaged by fire, the community rallied to rebuild and soon added a new Immigration Committee, just in time to aid refugees from World War II. By 1983, the Polish Home expanded its mandate once again to host the Solidarity Association which supported the Solidarity movement. When arsonists struck in 1993, the building was, again, restored. The Polish Home hosts a the Polish School in Seattle (Szkola Polska im. Juliusza Slowackiego) which offers weekly classes in Polish language, history, and geography in small age-appropriate groups. Other projects supported by the Polish Home include Radio Wisla, the Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Committee and the UW Polish Studies Fund. In addition to the fund-raising efforts of the Polish Home Foundation, popular Friday night dinners and an active Ladies Auxiliary have been important in underwriting the activities of the Polish Home into the twenty first century.
***************
2003 Recipients
MIECZYSLAW HAIMAN AWARD
Mieczyslaw S. Biskupski The Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in
Polish and Polish American Studies at CCSU. The author of nine books and
numerous prestigious journal articles and other commentary on Polish
history and culture, Professor Biskupski is a specialist in modern
Central Europe, particularly Poland. Before his appointment at CCSU,
Dr. Biskupski was Professor of History and Graduate Professor of
International Studies at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY. He
earned his doctorate at Yale, where he was a student of Piotr Wandycz,
and he has held Visiting Professorships at the University of Rochester,
served as Fulbright Research Professor at the University of Warsaw, and,
in 1997, he was a Fellow of the Central European University of Budapest.
Bolek is the recipient of many academic and national awards, including
the Honor Roll of Polish Science by the Polish Ministry of Education,
and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Polish Institute of Arts
and Sciences, and a past president of PAHA.
OSKAR HALECKI PRIZETraitor and True Poles: Narrating a Polish American Identity, 1880-1939
by Karen Majewski, published by Ohio University Press
Majewski's work is the first extended look at Polish-language fiction written by turn-of-the-century immigrants. Addressing a blind spot in our understanding of immigrant and ethnic identity and culture, Traitors and True Poles challenges
perceptions of a silent and passive Polish immigration. Polish-American
immigrant writers used their work to define and consolidate an essentially transnational ethnic identity that was both tied to Poland and independent of it. In Traitors and True Poles, Majewski illustrates how immigrants manipulated often difficult economic, social, and political realities to provide a place for and a sense of themselves. What emerges is a fuller picture of American literature, one vital to the creation of an ethnic consciousness. Madeline Levine of UNC wrote in her review of the book: "She shows how the detective stories, comic
narratives, romantic tale, and realist novels not only entertained a
not-yet-assimilated and not very well-educated readership but also expressed a range of contented definitions of Polishness." The book was chosen as one of Choice's top academic books of 2003.
Karen Majewski is Special Collections Librarian for the Polish Collection at the Orchard Lake Schools, in Orchard Lake, Michigan.
C. THE CREATIVE ARTS AWARDAnthony Bukoski, Time Between Trains (Southern Methodist University
Press)The 13 stories in Time Between Trains represent Tony Bukoski's
fourth collection of short stories set in his hometown of Superior,
Wisconsin. The stories have been described by reviewers as "beautifully
written" and successfully "portraying the overwhelming smallness of his
world." In the title story, a Jewish train track inspector discovers a
magical place in the fecund garden behind the house of a lonely Polish
schoolteacher. Suzanne Strempek Shea writes these stories are "a stark,
honest, and poignant time capsule of a Lake Superior Polish enclave" and
Leslie Pietrzyk notes that the stories represent a "beautifully rendered
community of proud people." Excerpts from Time Between Trains have been
read on Wisconsin Public Radio which broadcasts to 300,000 listeners, and
on Feb 4th, Broadway actor Liev Schrieber will read the cover story in
Manhattan at Symphony Spaces, which will be rebroadcast on National
Public Radio. In addition, Booklist, the magazine of the American
Library Association, designated Time Between Trains as one of the best
books in 2003. Tony's work introduces non-Polonians to Polonia, and
allows Polish Americans the pleasure of reading about their everyday
lives in American literature.Anthony Bukoski teaches English at the University of Wisconsin in
Superior where his Polish immigrant grandparents settled.
D. JOSEPH V. SWASTEK PRIZEFor the best article published in Polish American Studies, in 2002, the
prize is awarded posthumously to Stanislaus Blejwas for his article
"Polonia's response the Wrzesznia School Strike."
E. CIVIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
The Civic Achievement Awards honor individuals or groups who advance
PAHA's goals of promoting research on and awareness of the Polish
experience in the Americas.Leonard Baldyga (703 524 2479 home)Mr. Baldyga is a former Senior U.S.
Foreign Service officer. He is also active in various Polish and
international organizations including being a member of the Executive
committee, a board member of the National Polish American Jewish
Council; a board member of International Research and Exchange Board, a
US-based nonprofit organization committed to international education in
academic research. He is also on the board of the PIASA, and the Public
Diplomacy Institute. Col. Casimir Lenard (202 296 6955 PAC office)
Casimir Lenard is a war veteran, a seasoned lobbyist and a long-time
Polish community leader from the Washington metropolitan area. He became
the first National Executive Director of the Polish America Congress,
Washington D.C. Office in July 1970; he continued to with his wife Mryra
Lenard in the office during the 1980s, and after her death he was again
appointed the director.Dr. John Leczowski
Dr. John Leczowski is a strong anti-communist activist. He is the
Director of the Institute of World Politics and his prior positions
include Director of European and Soviet Affairs for the National
Security Council and Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs. His areas of expertise include communism, foreign
policy and international relations.
Ted & Irena Mirecki
Ted and Irena Mirecki are prominent leaders of the Polish American
Congress, Washington Metropolitan Area Division. Ted is the President of
the Executive Committee, and Irena is the Corresponding Secretary.
Together they are editors of the popular email newsletter of the PAC
Washington Metro Division.Dr. Estelle Wachtel von Torres, MD
Dr. Wachtel von Torres is a long-time activist in Polonia. She is
presently the President of the Polish American Arts Association of
Washington, DC and former director of the American Council of Polish
CultureMarcin Zmudzki
Mr. Zmudzki is an interpreter and translator as well as editor of the
popular email newsletter Polish Global Village. He is also the regional
editor of the PolOrg.com Web site, and webmaster of the Polish
Washington.com - the home page for the Polish community of the
Washington metropolitan area.Joseph Furgal : Mr. Furgal is a retired teacher who has been active in
Polonia affairs in central New York. An officer in numerous Polish
civic, religious, and veterans societies, he has played a leading role
particularly in the continued existence of the Gen. Casimir Pulaski
Society and the Kopernik Memorial Association. In addition, Mr. Furgal
donated to Utica College a substantial endowment specifically for Polish
studies to be used to obtain books, sponsor events, and support a
scholarly exchange with Poland.
F. DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARDThe Distinguished Service Award is given occasionally to a member of
PAHA who has rendered valuable and sustained service to the
organization.Tom Napierkowski : Dr. Napierkowski is a professor of English at the
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. His area of specialization is
medieval English literature, with particular emphasis on the works of
Geoffrey Chaucer and the fifteenth century. Tom has also worked and
published in the fields of Slavic literature and Eastern and Central
European Culture and Politics.To has served as PAHA president twice, which required that he organize
two national conferences. He has been a board member for numerous years,
he helped to recruit the Kulczycki monies ($20,000+) for what is now
the Kulczycki scholarship which is offered every other year to a
graduate student or younger scholar to assist in the publication of a
book or monograph. The prize consists of $2,000 payable to the
publisher of the recipient's manuscript upon the signing of a contract
for publication. In addition, Tom has also helped to broaden the scope
of PAHA by including Polish-American literature.
G. AMICUS POLONIAE AWARDProf. Rudolph Vecoli of the Immigration History Research Center at the
University of Minnesota. The Immigration History Research Center has
provided international leadership in documenting, preserving and
promoting United States immigration history, including Polish American
history. As their own flyer reads, "No one person has contributed more
than Professor Rudolph J. Vecoli, longtime director, scholar
extraordinaire, caretaker, listener, and activist." For Polish
Americans, Rudy has been instrumental in promoting The Polish American
Studies Fund to support the Polish American Collection. The IHRC holds
the nation's most extensive resource for the study of Polish American
history including more than 4,000 monographs written by, for, and about
Polish immigrants and their descendants pertaining to virtually all
facets of the Polish American experience. The Collection also contains
more than 500 newspaper and serial titles published by Polish
organizations and institutions throughout the country, dating back to
the late 1800s as well as unpublished records and documents from Polish
American organizations and individuals. As director of the Immigration
History and Research Center, Dr. Vecoli has graciously hosted two of
PAHA's midyear meetings, supported numerous researchers from the US,
Poland and other countries of the Polish diaspora undertaking research
on Polonia, and sponsored many publications as well as presentations on
Polonia's archival materials.
2003 Award Recipients
Dr. Thomas Gladsky, Mieczyslaw Haiman Award
Dr. Joseph Bigott and to Dr. Stephen Leahy, Oskar Halecki Awards
Dr. Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, Joseph Swastek Award
Ms. Lucyna Migala, Creative Arts Award
Dr. Karen Majewski, Distinguished Service Award
Laurie Winters, Amicus Poloniae Award
Victor and Irena Barczyk, Civic Achievement Award
Maria Chwojko, Civic Achievement Award
Zygmunt Dyrkacz, Civic Achievement Award
Atty. Christopher Kurczaba, Civic Achievement Award
Atty. Leszek Kuczynski, Civic Achievement Award
Jan Lorys, Civic Achievement Award
Msgr. Stanley Milewski, Civic Achievement Award
Dr. Joseph Zurawski, Civic Achievement Award
Past Award Recipients
For a full list of past PAHA award recipients,
