Poetry of Milosz Featured at Colombia
By Raymond Rolak
New York — An evening of poetry and remembrance will be held at Columbia Universityon Saturday, October 27, 2011 at 5:30 pm., in the Butler Library. It will be a celebration of the memorabilia and poems of Czeslaw Milosz.
He died in 2004 at the age of 93 and had previously been a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California-Berkley from 1961 to 1998.
Milosz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1980, has an exhibition of artifacts opening at the Butler Library. Controversy always followed him. He refused to categorically identify himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian. He defected to France in 1951 and immigrated to the United States in 1960.
The commemorated author will be honored with comments by Professor Helen Vendler of Harvard University. The event will coincide with other multilingual readings of his poetry by members of the Colombia University community. Also featured will be Colombia’s Alan Timberlake and Dr. Anna Frajlich, who will both do readings.
Another celebration of the centennial of his birth will be the academic poetry conference at Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles, October 19-21. Readings by Polish and American Poets including Piotr Florczyk, Jacek Gutorow and Joanna Treciak will be featured on Thursday, October 20th at 3:00 PM.
The New York State Folklore Society is hosting Legends and Tales on November 12th at Binghamton University. The tentative schedule includes:
The Fabled and the Fabulous: Dawn Saliba of Binghamton University on “Shakespeare, Three Sisters and a Scottish King: The Witchlore of Macbeth as Influenced by King James’s Demonology;” Daniel Irving, of Binghamton University on “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had: Southern Mythology and the Precariousness of Performance;” and, Trisha Cowen of Binghamton University on “A New Perspective on Happily Ever After: Children Dying to Close the Portal Between Worlds.”
Legendary Transformations: Chris MacKowski of Binghamton University on “The Legend of Stonewall Jackson’s Arm;” Nick Hilbourn of Binghamton University on “The Stranger Upstairs: Disability Representation in Urban Horror Legends;” and Bambi Lodell of the State University of New York at Oneonta on “Mythic Elements in the Life and Legend of Lucy Ann/Joseph Israel Lobdell.”
The Keynote Address, “Haunted Halls, Mansions, and Riverbanks: Legends of the Southern Tier” will be delivered by Dr. Elizabeth Tucker.
Other sessions include a reading by Novelist Jaimee Wriston Colbert from her work “Shark Girls,” “Folklore in Practice: Collecting Narratives after Disaster Strikes” with an esteemed panel of folklore professionals, and a closing session focusing on storytelling in performance with Milbre Burch, “Changing Skins: Folktales about Gender, Identity and Humanity.”
Milbre Burch is a grammy-nominated and internationally known storyteller. She is currently a graduate student in theater and folklore at the University of Missouri. Her performance, “Changing Skins” is informed by research on the wealth and persistence of gender-bending folktales and cultural expressions around the world. The tales — adapted from print collections by folklorists, anthropologists, linguists and literary scholars – are interwoven with personal observations of the social construction of gender, and notes on historical and contemporary thinking about the diversity of gender expressions.
The Society will also be presenting “Folk Arts in Education Development, a Workshop for Artists and Teachers” on Friday, October 21st from 8AM till 3:30PM at Celtic Hall, 430 New Karner Road, Albany, NY
The presentation will be led by Arts in Education Specialist Dr. Amanda Dargan of City Lore, Inc. along with featured artist Andes Manta.
Amanda Dargan holds a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Arts in Education Director for City Lore, Inc., a folk arts organization in Manhattan. In a joint effort with the Bank Street College of Education, Amanda Dargan pioneered a program of staff development sessions and seminars for teachers, administrators, and artists on how to integrate cultural studies and the arts into the core curriculum. Through a national initiative, Amanda Dargan and Paddy Bowman of the National Task Force on Folk Arts in Education have offered these trainings on how to effectively and creatively use students’ and communities’ resources in classrooms throughout the United States.
The session provides a forum where teachers may meet traditional artists from a variety of backgrounds, discover resources available for arts in education, make curriculum connections to traditional arts, and enhance local learning possibilities.
The event is free, but registration is required. For further information, contact Lisa at the New York Folklore Society at 518-346-7008.
2011 Summer Community Documentation Program
In the summer of 2011, the New York Folklore Society teamed up with the Schoharie River Center, the Schenectady Job Training Agency and the Schenectady High School to offer a six
week Community Documentation Program. NYFS staff Lisa Overholser and Ellen McHale joined SRC staff John McKeeby, Scott Haddam, and Ben McKeeby in working with nineteen Schenectady teens to document Schenectady’s green spaces and the activities which occur in and around Schenectady’s parks and waterways. The successful program was given special notice by the Schenectady Job Training Agency for its innovation.
Father Major Sławomir Andrew Biliński of the Polish National Catholic Church served as 2011 Pulaski Day Parade Military Marshal.
Polish-born priest and doctor, Father Major Slawomir Andrew Bilinski has a distinguished career of service in military and civilian settings. After arriving in the U.S. as a priest in the Polish National Catholic Church, he was assigned to Holy Mother of Sorrows PNC Church in Dupont, PA, where he served as pastor until 2000. After earning a B.S. in pre-medical studies at Wilkes University, Father Bilinski entered Thomas Jefferson University Medical College in Philadelphia and joined the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant. Upon completion of his medical degree in 2004, he was promoted to Captain and served his internship in Emergency Medicine at Hahnemann University Hospital and residency training at the Underwood Memorial Hospital of Thomas Jefferson University. At that time, Father Bilinski also assisted at St. Valentine’s Church in Philadelphia.
In 2007, Captain Bilinski was transferred to Brooke Army Hospital and Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX, where he served as medical doctor in the Emergency Room, Troop Clinic, and wounded soldiers unit. He was promoted to the rank of Major in October, 2010.
Major Bilinski now serves a triple vocation as U.S. Army officer, priest and physician by caring for our soldiers and their families at Fort Lee, Virginia. When he visits his hometown of Philadelphia, he assists with Father Krzysztof Mendelewski at St. Valentine’s PNC Church on Margaret Street, in the Frankford section of Philadelphia.
The lecture notes of University of Kansas Professor Anna M. Cienciala: Nationalism and Communism in East Central Europe. The notes cover the history of East Central Europe from the partitions of Poland beginning in 1772 through to the post-Communiest period.
Protestant kids from rural Kansas, discovered a Polish Catholic woman who saved Jewish children. Irena Sendler and these students have chosen to repair the world. This web site shares the legacy and life of Irena Sendler, plus her ‘discovery’ for the world.
Editions Bibliotekos announced that Dr. John Guzlowski will participate in a series sponsored by the English Department of St. Francis College on October 11th from 4–6 pm. John’s reading and discussion, entitled War Remembered – Lightning and Ashes: Two Lives Shaped by World War II, will be the third such event initiated by Editions Bibliotekos and hosted by St. Francis. The event will be held in Founders Hall, 180 Remsen St., Brooklyn Heights, NY, and is free and open to the public.
Through interviews and in-depth coverage, get an up-close look at the country in an international context on TV and online.
In 1989, Poland became the first member of the Soviet bloc to establish a non-Communist government.
Since then it has run headlong into the western world with one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. The CIA World Factbook calls Poland a regional success story…
Poland’s multiethnic past is remembered in A Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures. Highlights include the contributions of Poles whose heritage is Jewish or is from the Ruthenian/Byzantine East, Lithuania, Italy, France, Germany, Armenia, the Islamic southeast. This history of Scotts in Poland is not covered, but is also interesting.
James Conroyd Martin recently finished his manuscript focusing on the Polish Insurrection of 1830. He has posted lines from the manuscript on Facebook. Also, check out Morgen Bailey’s interview with James Martin at Morgen Bailey’s Writing Blog
Kanonia Square below was aglow with torches borne by people streaming towards Długa Street. Events had moved fast, much faster than Viktor had imagined. The people had joined the cadets’ insurgency with unexpected enthusiasm and resolve. Russians had always underrated the Poles, just as the Turks had at the Battle of Vienna. Here was more modern proof.
From 1943 to 1946, Colonia Santa Rosa in Guanajuato, Mexico was the site of a US-government sponsored home for Polish refugees. About 240 miles northwest of Mexico City and “10 minutes’ ride by mule-drawn tram from the Leon railway station,” the hacienda included a 39-room ranch house, a flour mill, ten wheat storage warehouses, a chapel and other buildings, as well as several acres for growing crops. By October 1943, almost 1,500 Poles were sheltered at Colonia Santa Rosa.
Their path to Mexico was an unlikely one. Having been removed from their communities by the Soviet military in 1939, they first were put to work in Russia and Siberia. They were resettled in Iran by the Russians, and fell into the care of the British government. The British relocated them to camps in Karachi, then still a part of India, and sought US assistance for their support. An agreement was reached between the British, US and Mexican governments with the provisional Polish government in London to relocate these refugees to Mexico…
Martin Stepek seeks to understand and pass on what he has learned about his family’s life in Poland, and their odyssey to find refuge in Polish Legacy. His grandmother and grandfather died in Poland during World War Two, and his father and two aunts narrowly avoided the same fate.
Two 90-minute film adaptations of Alan Furst’s acclaimed novels will bring to BBC Four a combination of historically located, intelligent narratives, interlaced with flawed, romantic and utterly compelling characters. Furst, widely recognised as the current master of the historical spy novel, evokes a Europe stumbling into a Second World War, his taut and richly atmospheric thrillers grace the bestseller lists right around the globe. They have been described as “Casablanca meets John le Carre”.
Richard Klein, Controller, BBC Four, says: “Alan Furst is one of the world’s finest writers on war and the costs of war on human relationships. It is with great pleasure that I can confirm that BBC Four will be dramatising for television one of his best known novels, Spies Of Warsaw. Furst and Four are a very good fit and I hope our audiences will enjoy the result of this collaboration.”
The characters of Alan Furst’s best-selling spy novels roam the foggy nights and steal across the rainy, cobbled streets of Prague, Berlin, Warsaw, Rome, and Paris. Furst’s protagonists join the ranks of the Resistance in one way or another. They include faded nobility, b-movie filmmakers, newspapermen, ship’s captains and compromised businessmen as well as waiters, shopkeepers, jaded intellectuals, tarnished grand dames, and boozy British secret agents. Together they march in the underground army that seeks to fight back against the Nazi occupiers.
Spanning the decade from 1933 to 1943, as the Germans slowly consolidate their political stranglehold on Europe, Furst’s stories are portraits of subjugated peoples who try to resist the suffocating inevitability of Hitler’s regime. They show the potency and the importance of espionage and pure intelligence in the run up to the war…
Mr. Alda, who has written five screenplays and a carton-full of television scripts, said on Monday that “Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie,” is his first attempt at playwriting. The idea struck him about three years ago when he was planning to organize a reading of excerpts from Curie’s letters for the World Science Festival. “Then I found out her letters were all still radioactive and I switched to Albert Einstein,” said Mr. Alda, who has a passion for science. “But I love Marie Curie and I think her story is so important and dramatic, I wanted to explore it and write a play about it.”
Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1902 – for the theory of radioactivity that she developed with her husband, Pierre – and the first person to receive the award twice. She was awarded her second Nobel in chemistry in 1911 for her discovery of two elements, radium and polonium. There have been several renditions of Curie’s life on stage, television and film, including the 1943 drama starring Greer Garson. Without giving too much of the plot away, Mr. Alda said his play focuses on the period between her first Nobel Prize and her second nine years later. The Nobel committee did not originally want to include Curie in the award and only backed down after pressure from her husband. “But they wouldn’t let her get up and accept the award,” Mr. Alda said. “She had to sit in the audience.” In the intervening years, Pierre Curie died and Marie had to run a gauntlet of setbacks and obstacles, but by 1911, Mr. Alda said, “her work is finally recognized, and she takes full credit for it, even though by now she’s weakened by radiation poisoning.”
“I think she had a kind of cognitive dissonance about it,” Mr. Alda said of the damaging fallout from her experiments. “She didn’t want to believe it was sickening her,” he added. “It’s part of the heroism of science itself. We as a species are just so interested in understanding things that might be dangerous to mess with, but nothing stops us.”
Mr. Alda, a voracious reader of nonfiction, said he did his own research. “All I read is science,” he said, though confessed that the math and chemistry involved still elude him…
A grim-looking farmer with a pitchfork and communist-era industrial cityscapes – such are the images of Poland often presented in modern-day history books in Western Europe, finds a new report.
The backward image of Poland so often presented in history books has been tackled in a report issued on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Ministry by historian Professor Adam Suchoński from Opole University, who looked into the history textbooks used in high schools throughout Europe.
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“These textbooks are still very much in use. Reprinted every couple of years, reinforcing negative stereotype of Poles and their country,” says Professor Suchoński, adding that “[Poles] are depicted as fighters, victims of war, persecution and failed national uprisings.”
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The historian suggests that Poland should prepare an extensive overview of its history, which it should forward to the Georg Eckert Institute, an acclaimed reference center for textbook research in Germany and a Mecca for authors of history books.
Helena Modjeska was born in Krakow, Poland, on October 12, 1840. She received her only formal education while attending the convent run by the Order of the Presentation Sisters. She was seduced at a young age by one of the family guardians, Gustave Sinnmayer. He later fathered her two children, Rudolph and her daughter Marylka, who died in infancy. As the couple traveled with their acting troupe around the provincial towns of Galicia, Gustave used the stage name “Modrzejewski” while Helena adopted the feminine version “Modrzejewska”. Later, when performing abroad, she anglicized her name to “Modjeska”.
Realizing that her impresario could no longer advance her career, Helena left Sinnmayer, taking their son Rudolf, and returned to Krakow. While engaged in the Krakow theatre, she met the Polish nobleman, Karol Bozenta Chlapowski. They married in 1868 and left for Warsaw where she became the most celebrated actress of the Polish national theatre. Her brothers Jozef and Feliks Benda were also respected actors in Poland. The Chlapowski home became the center of the artistic and literary world. Yet, due to the political situation in Poland and its influence on her work, Helena’s life became unbearable.
In 1876, for personal and political reasons, Modjeska and her family emigrated to the United States with a small group of friends. They purchased a ranch in Anaheim, California, forming a Polish colony of intellectuals. The colonists knew very little about farming and the utopian experiment eventually failed.
Modjeska returned to the stage, debuting in San Francisco with an English version of Adrienne Lecouvreur and reprising the Shakespearean roles that she had performed in Poland. Despite her accent and imperfect command of English, Modjeska achieved great success in her thirty-year career in the United States and abroad.
In 1893 Modjeska was invited to speak in a women’s conference at the Chicago World’s Fair. She described the hardships of Polish women in the Russian and Prussian-ruled parts of Poland. The Russian tsar banned her from traveling or performing in Russian territory.
Modjeska became known for her support of charitable causes. She had ignited and influenced the careers of many international artists, such as Sienkiewicz and Paderewski. She advanced and uplifted the profession of acting for women…
The battle in the Polish Corridor was especially intense. It was here that the myth of the Polish cavalry charging German tanks was born. As Gen. Heinz Guderian’s panzer and motorized forces pressed the weaker Polish forces back, a unit of Pomorska Cavalry Brigade slipped through German lines late in the day on Sept. 1 in an effort to counterattack and slow the German advance. The unit happened on a German infantry battalion making camp. The Polish cavalry mounted a saber charge, sending the Germans fleeing at that moment, a group of German armored cars arrived on the scene and opened fire on the cavalry, killing several troopers and forcing the rest to retreat. Nazi propagandists made this into “cavalry charging tanks” and even made a movie to embellish their claims. While historians remembered the propaganda, they forgot that on September 1, Gen. Guderian had to personally intervene to stop the German 20th motorized division from retreating under what it described as “intense cavalry pressure.” This pressure was being applied by the Polish 18th Lancer Regiment, a unit one tenth its size.
George de Wrzalinski, a retired General Services Administration librarian and the scion of an aristocratic Polish family who during World War II was pressed into forced labor in a German aircraft factory, died Aug. 13 at the Powhatan Nursing Home in Falls Church.
He was 85 and died of complications related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure and the effects of a stroke suffered in May, said his executor and friend, Margaret Shannon.
Mr. Wrzalinski (pronounced “Jalinsky”) retired from the GSA in 1997 as chief librarian of the technical division of the National Capital Region. This job included oversight of architectural, engineering and other blueprints for federal buildings in the Washington area, including the White House.
He came to the United States in 1954 and was naturalized as a citizen in 1960. His neighbors said he flew a U.S. flag at his house in Arlington County every day, but he also retained his Polish roots and Old World mannerisms.
“When he greeted me, he always kissed my hand,” said Shannon, who lived next door to Mr. Wrzalinski for 36 years.
Jerzy Ludwik de Wrzalinski was born Jan. 30, 1926, in Poznan, Poland. His father was a colonel in the Polish army and would later become mayor of Gniesno. His mother was a concert pianist, and a grandmother was a Polish princess. A twin sister died at birth.
In 1940, he was a 14-year-old high school student in Gniesno when the occupying Germans shipped him to an aircraft factory near Breslau, where he reinstalled oxygen lines in damaged aircraft. He would later tell friends that he began smoking in those years because laborers who smoked were allowed cigarette breaks. (He quit smoking in 1983.)
Near the end of the war, he was relocated to a forced labor camp at Aschersleben, which was a subcamp of Buchenwald. He was liberated by the British there in April 1945.
After the war, Mr. Wrzalinski lived in displaced persons camps in Germany for several years. He was fluent in German, Polish, English, French and Russian, and he had various translating jobs.
Upon immigrating to the United States, he settled in St. Paul, Minn., where he worked in the personnel office of Remington Rand, the business-machine manufacturer. He had said he was once denied a pay raise there with the explanation that “he can be happy that he’s in America.” He studied English at the University of Minnesota’s extension division.
When he became a U.S. citizen in St. Paul, he changed his first name, Jerzy, to its anglicized version, George.
He moved to the Washington area in the early 1960s and became a cataloguer and analyst for a College Park documentation company. Later he was a documents and information specialist for a NASA contractor. He joined the GSA in 1984 and retired in 1997.
Mr. Wrzalinski never married, and he had no immediate survivors.
In the last years of his life, his neighbors in Fairlington supervised his medical care and helped look after his house, where in addition to the American flag, he flew the Polish flag and the state flags of Maryland and Virginia daily. He had an elaborate and extensive flower garden.
He looked the part of a European aristocrat. On summer days, he wore tennis whites, unwrinkled and pressed immaculately, and he liked to invite friends and neighbors over for drinks in the evening. He frequented the Fairlington community swimming pool, where he befriended the Polish lifeguards.
Marian Wojciechowski, 97, of Las Vegas
Passed away June 5, 2011. Was born April 25, 1914, in Polaniec, Poland.
Marian was a World War II veteran, a platoon leader who fought German forces Sept. 1, 1939 at the Battle of Mokra, considered to be a tactical victory for the Polish cavalry. His regiment, the 21st Pulk Ulanow Nadwislanskich, was later awarded the Virtuti Militari. He continued fighting after Russia attacked Sept. 17, 1939, then joined the Polish underground resistance. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo in Radom, and sent to Auschwitz (Nr. 50333), Gross Rosen, and Leitmeritz concentration camps. In the displaced persons camps of post-war Germany, he met and married Wladyslawa Poniecka, who had survived the Gestapo prison Pawiak in Warsaw, and the concentration camp Ravensbruck (Nr. 7532) north of Berlin. In 1950, they came to America with their daughter, and settled in Toledo, Ohio.
Marian was awarded a master’s degree in economics and business administration from the Warsaw School of Economics in 1937. He worked as auditor for the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives before his arrest in 1942. From 1946-1947, he was an officer in the Polish Civilian Guard under the command of the U.S. Army in the American Zone of West Germany. He also served as chief liaison officer for Polish groups to the International Refugee Organization. Marian was the owner and editor of the Polish-language weekly newspaper “Ameryka Echo” in Toledo until 1961. He worked for many years as urban renewal project administrator with the City of Toledo. From 1980-1994 he was an administrator with the Neighborhood Housing Services of Toledo, finally retiring at the age of 80. Marian moved to Las Vegas in 1998 to be closer to his family.
Marian was a past commander of the Polish Army Veterans Association Post 74 in Toledo for 10 years, a member of American Legion Post 545 in Toledo, and a member of the VFW. He actively participated in many organizations, such as the Polish American Congress and Polish National Alliance. Marian also received many honors and awards during his lifetime, including medals for his military service during World War II and his work in urban development. In 2009, at the age of 95, Marian realized his wish to return to Mokra to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II. He also visited the former Polish Army Cadet Officers Cavalry School in Grudziadz, and even Auschwitz along the way. He was accompanied on this splendid adventure by his grandson Craig with Jodi, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, and Dr. Roman Rozycki of the Las Vegas Polish community.
Born 17 August 1935. Died 14 July 2011. Tadeusz Bociański served as the President of the Modjeska Club from 1983 to 1989. His activities contributed to elevating the Club to its high social status and to establishing its broad scope of cultural activities. With an extraordinarily limited budget, he was able to bring to California the most distinguished Polish politicians, actors and artists. As the owner of a Cultural Agency PolArt he organized performances by famous Polish theaters and cabarets throughout the entire West Coast and the Southwest. He was also active in other social and cultural organizations. On 17 January 1998, he received the Cavalier Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for his achievements in promoting Polish culture abroad.
GRINNELL COLLEGE: Tenure-track position in the Department of English (Ethnic American Literature and Poetry Writing), starting Fall 2012. Assistant Professor (Ph.D.) preferred; Instructor (ABD) or Associate Professor possible. Grinnell College is a highly selective undergraduate liberal arts college whose English department offers courses in a broad range of literary traditions spanning the long history and present multiplicity of writing in English. The College’s curriculum is founded on a strong advising system and close student-faculty interaction, with few college-wide requirements beyond the completion of a major. The teaching schedule of five courses over two semesters will include Literary Analysis, a survey and an advanced seminar in Ethnic American literature, and eventually introductory and advanced courses in poetry writing. Every few years one course will be Tutorial (a writing/critical thinking course for first-year students, oriented toward a special topic of the instructor’s choice).
In letters of application, candidates should discuss their interest in developing as a teacher and scholar in an undergraduate liberal arts college that emphasizes close student-faculty interaction. They also should discuss what they can contribute to efforts to cultivate a wide diversity of people and perspectives, a core value of Grinnell College. To be assured of full consideration, all application materials should be received by November 11, 2011.
Please submit applications online by visiting our application website. Candidates will need to upload a letter of application, curriculum vita, transcripts (copies are acceptable), statement of teaching philosophy, a set of recent teaching evaluations, a writing sample, and also provide email addresses for three references. Questions about this search should be directed to the search chair, Professor Astrid Henry at 641-269-4655.
Grinnell College is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to attracting and retaining highly qualified individuals who collectively reflect the diversity of the nation. No applicant shall be discriminated against on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, religion, creed, or disability.
The July-August issue of the Polish language magazine Polski Partner is available for free, on-line. Click on the “Free Online” button in the upper right hand corner of their website. Archive issues are also available. The magazine covers news from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, and features articles on everything from fitness to history to cooking. Enjoy!
Cogo News is a new online news and commentary service covering Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the English language. Cogo provides short, succinct articles reviewing the key editorial, commentary and opinion pieces in major regional news outlets. Beyond news coverage, Cogo encourages dialogue and creative writing in and about CEE. Cogo encourages contributions of articles, analyses, short stories, photos, poems, comments, and essays.
Stephen Fry narrates a free new audiobook celebrating the extraordinary work of the legendary Polish poet Czesław Miłosz. Available with the Times Literary Supplement on 12th August 2011, and free streaming available online here and here.
Celebrating the life and works of one of Poland’s foremost literary icons, Stephen Fry narrates a new audiobook of selected poems by Miłosz, marking the centenary of his birth.
Stephen Fry commented on his involvement in the project: “It gave me enormous pleasure to read these poems, which I count as amongst the best written in any language since the war. It would give me even more pleasure if I thought that this recording might bring Miłosz and his dazzling mixture of honesty, insight and pure poetic instinct to a wider, English-speaking readership…”
I kveld gråter vi med dem som gråter. — We weep with those who weep.
In these days of sorrow we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Norway, and all members of the Nordic Catholic Church. Know that our prayers and thoughts are with you.
This coming Monday, the Feast of St. James the Greater, Apostle, I will stand with the Very Rev. Roald Flemstad on the occasion of his consecration as bishop in our Lord and Savior’s Holy Catholic Church. The gift once given to the then Rev. Franciszek Hodur, so as to organize the Holy Polish National Catholic Church, is to be passed on to the Holy Nordic Catholic Church. I will stand with them and by my mere presence will offer support and prayer for them, and all the people of Norway.
O merciful God, Father of the Crucified Christ! In every sorrow which awaits us may we look up to Thee without doubt or fear, persuaded that Thy mercy is ever sure. Thou cannot fail us. There is no place or time where Thou art not. Uphold us in our grief and sorrow, and in our darkness visit us with Thy light. We are Thine; help us, we beseech Thee, in life and in death to feel that we are Thine. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. — A Prayer In Time of Sorrow from A Book of Devotions and Prayers According to the Use of the Polish National Catholic Church.
In a press release issued by the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame last week, Ron Urbanczyk of the New Direction Band was named to its class of 2011 inductees. Renowned Western New York Polka musician Ron Urbanczyk is a veteran band leader, musician, promoter and author who works as the concertina player with the New Direction Band. Urbanczyk will be honored along with his fellow inductees at the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame Gala, to be held on October 6th at the Tralf Music Hall.
The Buffalo Music Hall of Fame Class of 2011, will be introduced to the public in downtown Buffalo on Wednesday, July 27th in front of the M&T Plaza at noon.
Ron is only the fifth “polka musician” to be honored by the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame. His nomination was presented to the selection committee in March and after their review and scoring process, Ron was selected.
The BMHOF selection committee judges nominee’s based on their musical talents and tenure, community service activities, professional achievements, career highlights and the performers public visibility on the local and national levels.
Amongst Ron’s musical talents of playing the accordion, bass guitar, concertina and keyboard, his dinner theatre brainchild, Stas and Stella’s Mostly Traditional Polish Wedding, and his song writing abilities, six new originals will be featured on the New Direction’s first CD which they hope to record late this summer, were recognized.
He has played polkas for almost 50 years with the Jolly Jesters, Pole Cats, Steel City Brass, Buffalo Concertina All-Stars, Honky Hoppers, Bedrock Boys and City Side prior to forming the New Direction Band in 2009 with Jim Raczkowski, Bob Krupka, Frank Zeczak and Bill Barnas.
Ron put a trip together after receiving an invitation by the Chemnitz Mueseum of Art & Culture for the Buffalo Concertina Club in 2001. They traveled and performed in Chemnitz and Gruna, Germany, and Krakow and Rzeszow, Poland and visited Prague in the Czech Republic. He found sponsorship from the Deutsche Bank, PUA and Buffalo-Rzeszow Sister Cities Organization to cover the bands expenses.
In conjunction with WXRL 1300, a children’s clothing drive and cash donations for the Children’s Orphanage in Rzeszow was held. Boxes of clothing and $2,000 were collected and given to the Orphanage.
When little Timmy Gusevich was diagnosed with leukemia and Ron found out Greg Gusevich, Tim’s Father had lost his job and health insurance, Ron rounded up fellow Buffalo Polka Musicians at the Potts Banquet Hall to run a benefit dance for Tim, that event earned over $4000.
Ron also brought polka music into venues that were once thought off limits, the New York State Fair, Hamburg Casino, Batavia Casino, Miss Buffalo, town concerts in East Aurora, West Seneca, Orchard Park, Lackawanna and even to Club Lorelei an exclusive German club to name a few.
Ron is an active member of the Buffalo Polka Boosters, United States Polka Association, International Polka Association, Concertina USA, and is responsible for airing It’s Polka Time a one hour polka show on Time Warner Cable outlets in the Suburbs of Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Lockport. Ron and his wife Kathy have also escorted, polka fans from Buffalo on four Caribbean Cruises and to all inclusive vacations at resorts on several Caribbean islands.
Most recently, Ron started as an IJ on the Polka Legacy Network on Tuesday nights from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm. Listen in. Ron’s format features Buffalo Bands and Musicians.
So Ron is well deserving of his induction into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame and we look forward to the October induction ceremony.
