Bulletin of the Józef Piłsudski Institute - April 2009

General Meeting
General Meeting of Institute’s Board of Directors took place on March 14, 2009. The incumbent President, Dr. Magda, Kapuścińska associated with the Institute for 30 years, has been elected for the second term as well as other following members of the Executive Commitee: vice president Dr. Marek Zielinski, executive director and treasurer Dr Iwona Drąg Korga, and secretary to the board Ewa Babiarz.

Currently the Board of Directors has 14 members: Ewa Babiarz, Andrzej Beck, Dr. Boleslaw Biskupski, Dr.Janusz Jachowicz, Ewa Jędruch, Dr. Magda Kapuścińska, Dr Iwona Drąg Korg, Dr. Artur Kowalski, Janusz Krzyzanowski, Piotr Kumelowski, Krzysztof Langowski, Dr. Danuta Piatkowska, Stanislaw Swiderski and dr. Marek Zielinski.

During the meeting the board discussed the most important events of last year and plans for the future. Membership is growing; 40 researches consulted archives in Institute;  100 queries by correspondence were performed; the monthly e-mail newsletter was distributed to over 4 thusand readers. The Institute held eight events and showed six films related to history. In January 2009, the digitization of archives has been launched, partly in a joint project combining the collection of the Polish National Archives and the Institute. In 2008 the Institute hosted a number of well known Polish political and academic figures such as the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski, Executive Director of the State Archives Dr. Slawomir Radon and Director Barbara Berska, Dr Sławomir Cenckiewicz, Father Tadeusz Isakowicz- Zaleski and many others.

The Institute's main goals is to continue the digitization with help of volunteers, continue cataloging of books and photographs  by scholars from Poland and  promotion of Polish cultural heritage through scientific sessions, lectures, exhibitions and film shows. In 2009 scientific sessions are planned, related to such events as the  90th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and the United States, and the history of Polish sites in New York. A gala event is planned for the Fall, where the Institute's medals for achievements in the fields of history, art or politics will be presented.

"Lvov - the city behind the mist. The city on seven hills"
The lecture room was not able to accommodate all those who wanted to listen to talk given by  Dr. Eve Jędruch on 7 March. It was illustrated with beautiful pictures of Lvov. In the introduction the speaker explained the meaning of the: Lvov - the city behind the mist. During the war,  5-year old Ewa and her family were forced to leave their hometown. She was raised in an atmosphere of longing for the city in which several generations of her family lived. She knew the city well from her parents’  stories, photos and other mementos. In her mind she knew the city but as if hidden in the mist. For the next years Ewa could not return to the place of her birth for political reasons, as Poland was under communistic rule. Later, she was afraid that she may be disappointed. It was not until a few months ago that she went to  Lvov. There was no disappointment. Quite the opposite. She admired the city which was familiar to her only from pictures and stories. She took a large number of photos.Her talk was about her impressions from this trip. For more than two hours the audience listened in silence to Ewa's stories. There were many questions after the presentation.

The lectures was accompanied by an exhibition of graphic arts  entitled  "Lvov" made  by the heliogrphic method by Ryszard Sawicki. The curator of the exhibition was the painter,J anusz Skowron.

There are many elderly Poles in Lwow who live in very poor conditions or are in poor health. The Society of Friends of Lwow in Rzeszow assists these people. This organization, headed by Mr Boleslaw Opalek  whose father was the headmaster of the school of Mary Magdalene in Lwow, dispatches a couple of their members twice a year with donations which are then distributed directly to the needy in the church of St Anthony. Ewa Jędruch is planning to travel to Lwow in May and would be happy to take donations for the Poles in Lwow which she would hand over to Mr Opalek for distribution. Anyone  interested in contributing, may send a check (with a note: for Poles in Lwow) to: Mrs Eva Jedruch, 21 Nassau Drive,Summit, New Jersey 07901-1715

Please note that these donations are not tax deductible.

Movie presentation
Two very interesting documentary films were shown at the Institute on March 25 : National Security Force (SB) – Communism’s  Pretorians (second part) and Occupation: Polish Primate (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński). Both films reveal the methods used by SB in communist Poland (PRL).  The films contain operational documents and videos found in the files stored in the Institute of National Remembrance. They show tragic events of these times.


Patriotic Easter Graves
Thanks to the efforts and funding by Dr. Dorota Halicka, the Piłsudski Institute presented a very interesting exhibition of unique photographs, entitled History of patriotic Easter Graves in the Church of St. Anna in Warsaw. Opening of the exhibition and presentation of photographs was held at the Institute on April 1. Dr. Halicka offered a moving introduction. Some photos were presented on a large screen by Bożena Krzyżewska, who brought the exhibition from Warsaw.

The  description of the  photographs was worked out by  Elizabeth Berus - author of a number of exhibitions and publications devoted to recent Polish history. In the notes about the exhibition Mrs. Berus writes the following (translation from Polish):

"In an atmosphere of growing terror from the beginning of the German occupation and  social needs  for cultivating religious traditions, authorities of the Polish Underground State decided to use the customary mass visit Easter Graves of Warsaw, to give the public the raising spirit signal of the existence and activity of the underground organization.

Since 1940 every year in the evening before Good Friday, in the Church of St. Anna in Warsaw, the stage scenery was built, which appeared to be the plastic expression of the most important social and political events during the past twelve months. Presentations were built every year from the 1940 to 1998. The author of the graves was the visual artist Stanisław Tomaszewski. The only memento of these graves are  photographs made by Jerzy Tomaszewski, press photographer of the Warsaw Uprising. "

There was an emotional moment when  two of our guests who lived in Warsaw during the German occupation and were members of the Underground Army spoke about the atmosphere and the danger that people experienced when waiting in long lines to see the graves. Wine and traditional Easter eggs were served after the presentation.
Digital Collections
Archives

Collecting and protecting documents are primary tasks of the archives. There are number of archives around the world  taking their first steps towards digitization of resources. Other organizations use digitization as a method for publication of the most interesting documents, because they lack resources for more complex projects.

National Archives of Australia digitized almost 10%  of their collection, giving access to 1.6 million documents. The National Archives of the United States focused on publishing standards and other publications related to digitization, but they also present  very interesting collections of documents.

Other centers are organized specifically for storing digital documents created in any form, from texts to audio, music, movies, software, etc. Internet Archive stores and gives access to more than a million books, 150 million web pages, 1/4 million records and  many forms of documentation.

OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, has chosen a different form of organization, covering libraries and archives, organized on business principle and selling their services and software.

In general, openly available resources as well as the archive collections are scattered around of the world. They can be located, among others, through IBiblio, one of the largest catalogue of catalogues of freely available materials such as software, music, literature, arts, history, etc.

No doubt, there is still much that needs to be done in the field of digitization of cultural resources of humanity. Fortunately, there are more and more organizations that understand the urgent need for such activities.

The beauty of archival queries
In March, the Institute received the following letter:

"My name is Marek Axentowicz. I am looking for descendants of Halina Korsak. I am connected to the Korsak family through my maternal grandfather - Gracjan Wojtowicz. My mother is half sister of Halina Korsak. With my grandmother, who died during the bolshevik revolution, my grandfather had two children - my mother Halina and a  son, Szymon. My grandfather withhis  two children managed to escape from Russia to the then independent Poland. He held various senior positions in the Polish government. In Poland he married a widow, Wanda Gołębiowska. She had a daughter Halina from her first marriage. Halina married Władysław Korsak, who was Undersecretary of State int the Polish government before World War II. My grandfather Gracjan built a house for whole the  family in Lipki near Warsaw. I spent my  childhood there.

After the outbreak of war the  Korsaks with son Tadeusz emigrated to the United States. After the war we had no contact with the Korsak family except for obtaining a notarized waiver of her inheritance from Granfather Gracjan for my mother. I never had any occasion to thank them  for this generous act.

The grandfather Gracjan’s estate  is now in hands of the fifth generation of the Wojtowicz family. If it were not for the generous gesture of Halina Korsak - "Lipki" would have been  taken over by the government, as occurred with a neighboring adjacent estate belonging to my grandfather's friend- gen.Dowbór-Muśnicki.

I hope that the Pilsudski Institute  will help me in finding the descendants of Halina Korsak. I would like to make contact with them. "

We found the files of Halina and Wladyslaw Korsak and a file of their granddaughter Irene Korsak in the Institute's archives. There was an address for Irene to which immediately a letter was sent, with the attached request from Marek Axentowicz,.  We were happy when an e-mail from Irene came to the Institute. She was looking forward to contacting her family in Poland and asked for their address, telephone and e-mail. We know now that already Irene and Marek are corresponding. In recent days we received a letter of thanks from Marek for the quick and effective assistance to locate the granddaughter of Władysław Korsak. We did our job!

Anniversary Calendar
Helena Modrzejewska  (1840 - 1909)
"Collect all power of the soul  and still go further - and still higher" - Helena Modrzejewska

Talent, beauty and hard work resulted in an extraordinary career and great success of Helena Modrzejewska. For 30 years, the beautiful actress diligently gained public recognition, playing on the stages of Polish, American and British theaters. No success comes easily. This was not an exception. And so was the life of the forgotten, unusual woman.

Helena Modrzejewska died a hundred years ago on April 12, 1909 in Newport Beach, California. She was 69 years old. Her beauty, talent and hard work contributed to her extraordinary career and great success. She came to America in 1876 as an already recognized actress of Krakow and Warsaw theaters. Initially, she did not intend to act. Together with her husband, Karol Chłapowski and 15-year son Rudolf (later a well-known architect of bridges), Henryk Sienkiewicz, Lucjan Sypniewski with his family and Łucjan Paprocki, they tried to realize their dream of a happy life on a farm near Los Angeles in the Santiago Canyon  (now called Modjeska Canyon). However, none of these people had any idea of farming. When the 1877 drought in California destroyed the orange groves and when in addition an economic crisis undercut the U.S. economy, Modrzejewska decided to take the challenge of playing on the American  stage.

At the age of 37, she decided once more in her life to seek an acting career. She overcame the language barrier and although still with a foreign accent, she performed on American stages with great success. She took part in 26 tours in the United States and also played in London, Prague, Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow. Her repertoire included 260 roles, mostly in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Schiller, Victor Hugo, Julius Slowacki. She gained fame and great  popularity. She performed many times in New York and in America, her name – Modjeska, which she has adopted for the stage - was used in advertising dresses, hats, gloves, brooches, etc. Helena Modrzejewska often donated part of her revenue from the performances to local charities.

Helena Modrzejewska was buried in the family grave at the Rakowicki cementery  in Krakow - the city of her birth. A commemorative plaque dedicated to the great actress  was unveiled on 5 April 2009 in the Church of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr on 7th street in Manhattan. It restores the memory of an extraordinary woman, and her relationship with New York and the church.
Quiz

This time the quiz is a historical question: What is the faith of our ancestors?  We are referring to people living a thousand or more years ago on the lands between rivers Oder and  Bug. Note that "pagans" is not the correct answer.

Let's look elsewhere. The ancestors of Greeks and Romans had a whole family of gods and a rich history. Ancestors of Tamils had Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Ancestors of recent Chinese cultivated Taoism and Confucianism, among many others. What about our Polish ancestors?

The result of the quiz from the previous issue. We repeat the question: What is the oldest record of digital information (known today), which uses a numerical system. The oldest record of digital information is the genetic code. Unchanged for a few billion years. The system uses four digits (instead of numbers there are letters A, C, T, G), three characters encode a single letter of the alphabet, for example one of the aminoacids (there are 20 of them). Thus the sequence of letters CAG encodes glutamine. It is the most permanent recorded information among known systems. Some sequences survived unchanged for over one billion years. It is the oldest archive in the world.

The second person who correctly answered the question would remain anonymous.

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The Jozef Pilsudski Institute of America is an independent historical institute, one of the largest Polish archives outside the country, with collections of documents, photographs, paintings, medals and other memorabilia, as well as a library. For more information visit our website www.pilsudski.org. You can read past issues of the Bulletin on the Institute website, where you can also request subscription. If you want to help with the work of the Institute, become its member or volunteer. The Institute as an non-profit organization supported by donations and bequests, and any help is appreciated. We urge you the donate to the Institute family memorabilia, correspondence and other archival collections. The Institute needs volunteers to assist in the activities, development of collections, digitization, queries, etc. The Institute is open daily Monday to Friday. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Wednesdays - 10:00 to 8:00 PM.