Dominik Wolacewicz

PIASA Latest News about us MEMBERSHIP CONFERENCES AWARDS PUBLICATIONS CONTACT Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 1 January 2023  The time has come to ring out the old year. For PIASA, as well as for the rest of the world, 2022 was a year of transition into a future of “living with COVID.” This was no more apparent than in our summer hybrid conference in Białystok, which we convened after a two-year hiatus in PIASA’s annual meetings. COVID testing requirements for travelers returning to the United States limited in-person participation as did uncertainties related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, itself immediately preceded by a crisis on Poland’s border with Belarus. Yet in-person outnumbered virtual participants in Białystok, a reflection of the desire of PIASA’s members and friends to engage each other intellectually and socially in a physical space. Thus encouraged, we are holding our first, entirely in-person conference since the outbreak of the pandemic in June 2023 at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain in conjunction with the upcoming 50th anniversary of its Polish Studies program.  Meanwhile, webinars have become and will remain part of PIASA’s activities, which we promote along with other events on a website that was completely revamped in 2022. This year’s webinars on themes ranging from identity in Gdańsk, the politics of history and the war in Ukraine, and designer nuclei were all well received. Particularly during the second half of the year, we began to hold important in-person events in our Manhattan townhouse, including a social hour for Polish Fulbright and other scholars and an 80th anniversary celebration of PIASA’s founding. That event was accompanied by the publication of a beautifully produced commemorative album which documents and illustrates PIASA’s rich history. Unfortunately two individuals associated with that history passed away in 2022, the historian and educator Halina Osysko, and the former long-serving editor-in-chief of The Polish Review, Joseph Wieczerzak.  As we ring in the New Year, we do so with optimism for a continuation of our organization’s momentum, the steady increase in its membership, and the growing international reputation of its journal. May it be one of peace, good health, and accomplishment for all of you! ― Robert Blobaum, PIASA President

PIASA Latest News about us MEMBERSHIP CONFERENCES AWARDS PUBLICATIONS CONTACT Newsletter Vol. 2, No. 4 October 2022 Many of you have embarked upon a new academic year. For PIASA, the “new year” began on July 1. Over the last couple of months we have issued new calls for award nominations and deter-mined the location and dates of our annual conference, which will be hosted by Central Connecticut State University in New Britain from June 9 to 11 of next year. The conference roughly coincides with the 50th anniversary of one of the oldest Polish Studies programs in the country. For that very reason we expect our meeting to be a special one and the first to be held in the United States since the outbreak of the global COVID pandemic. In the meantime, we look confidently toward the future. We are working to develop a new partnership which will add to our awards and expect to make a major announcement in the near future. We will soon present to the general membership a proposal to amend our bylaws by limiting the president’s time in office to a maximum of six years and promoting a smooth transition from one president to another. We continue to nurture and enhance our relationships in Poland and with Polish institutions and scholars, who now contribute regularly to The Polish Review. Finding ways to remain relevant and active during a pandemic with its twists and turns has proved a challenge, but we have learned from it and adapted. Consequently, change is coming to PIASA, positive change, and I for one am excited by it. Please stay tuned! ― Robert Blobaum, PIASA President

PIASA Latest News about us MEMBERSHIP CONFERENCES AWARDS PUBLICATIONS CONTACT Newsletter Vol. 2, No. 3 July 2022 Shortly after returning from our Eighth World Congress in Białystok, I began to look at the first draft of a commemorative album devoted to PIASA’s first eighty years. Most readers of this newsletter are broadly familiar with PIASA’s founding “in America,” but documents retrieved from our archives to illustrate this album reveal some interesting details, as well as a few parallels with PIASA’s present condition. PIASA’s origins in the darkest days of the Second World War as the Polish Academy of Sciences in exile and the personal challenges its founders as immigrants had to overcome to establish themselves as well as an institute of Polish science and culture on American soil, frame a genuinely inspiring story. The outstanding academic credentials of those founders—Bronisław Malinowski, Oskar Halecki, Jan Kucharzewski, Wacław Lednicki, Rafał Taubenschlag and Wojciech Świętosławski—no doubt assisted in securing the confirmation of PIASA’s statutes and leadership by the wartime Polish government in London, the news relayed in a telegram to Halecki by Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski. The day after his presidential address at PIASA’s inauguration at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York on May 15, 1942, Bronisław Malinowski suddenly passed away. One can only imagine the shock experienced by those who had so recently celebrated with him the moment of PIASA’s birth. Flash forward to 2022. PIASA’s Eighth World Congress had to overcome challenges of its own—an unrelenting pandemic, border insecurity created by a troublesome Belarusian neighbor, and a Russian invasion of Ukraine that brought artillery and rocket fire to Poland’s doorstep and millions of refugees through it. Yet we persevered in our determination to renew our academic meetings after a two-year hiatus, we adapted to the un1 Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America Vol. 2, No. 3 July 2022 certain conditions by providing a hybrid format, and we renewed our valued contacts with Polish academicians, scholars, and friends. We received congratulatory messages on our 80th anniversary from the Minister of Culture, Piotr Gliński, and the US Ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski. And as PIASA’s 11th president, I am pleased to report that I safely returned to the United States, genuinely proud to be a small part of the illustrious and on-going history of a Polish Institute no longer in exile, but “of America” and at home in Poland. ― Robert Blobaum, PIASA President