An interview with Jakub Kornhauser, a Kraków-based poet, literary critic and researcher of avant-garde. Interviewer: Grzegorz Nurek

GRZEGORZ NUREK: You are one of the co-founders of the Centre for Avant-Garde Studies at the Jagiellonian University’s Department of Polish Studies. The work of the centre concentrates on avant-garde research, but is it limited to literature?

JAKUB KORNHAUSER: We established our centre a few years ago convinced that there is a need to get the story of avant-garde out of schoolbook charts and definitions. We are all victims of different clichés which are sold to us by school materials, which tend to repeat the same names and works and which are further spiced up by some remote anecdotes, as if avant-garde was a Sumerian phenomenon. Avant-garde is not only a shared name for numerous artistic searches which took place 100 years ago, but also a state of mind, an experimental potential, which can get activated regardless of the historical context.

An interview with Andrzej Franaszek, a biographer of both Zbigniew Herbert and Czesław Miłosz. Interviewer: Grzegorz Nurek

GRZEGORZ NUREK: You have written major biographies about two outstanding Polish poets: Czesław Miłosz and Zbigniew Herbert. Is there a chance that those biographies will be translated into other languages to reach a wider audience, outside of Poland?

ANDRZEJ FRANASZEK: The biography of Czesław Miłosz that I authored was translated into Lithuanian and Belarusian a few years ago. A shortened English version was also released by Harvard University Press and distributed in the United Kingdom and United States. It is difficult for me to say how well it is selling. It had a surprising amount of reviews in the media. When it comes to Zbigniew Herbert’s biography, it has only been recently released in Polish in two large volumes. But I am not sure if any foreign publishing houses would be interested in translating it. Time will tell…

For the first time in 190 years, music has been added to the poetry of Poland’s greatest poet – Adam Mickiewicz. The project is a collaboration between a Ukrainian folk rock band and a contemporary Polish writer.

The album, titled Mickiewicz-Stasiuk-Haydamaky, includes 10 poems put to the music of the Kyiv-based band Haydamaky. Andrzej Stasiuk, a renowned Polish writer, is one of the initiators of the project, and appears in some of the tracks reading Mickiewicz’s poetry. The cross-border collaboration reflects the heritage of the poet himself. “Mickiewicz has it all,” Stasiuk says. “The lyrics, rhythm and energy.”

Many Poles still unfairly overlook the story of Bronisław Piłsudski, who remains in the shadow of his younger brother, the chief of state, Marshall Józef Piłsudski. Yet, Bronisław’s story is as prominent as his sibling’s, albeit with a more tragic ending.

Bronisław Piłsudski was a year older than his brother Józef. He was born in 1866 in the Piłsudski family mansion in Zułow, 60 kilometres outside of Vilnius. Maria Billewiczówna, their mother, gave birth to 12 children. The father, Józef Senior, was involved in the January Uprising of 1863 against the Russian Empire. They raised their children in the spirit of patriotism. In addition to Bronisław and Józef Junior, the couple had two older daughters, Helena and Zofia, and six younger children: Adam, Kazimierz, Maria, Jan, Ludwika, and Kacper. There was also a pair of twins who died shortly after birth.

A conversation with Professor Zdzisław Najder, a historian of literature and expert on Joseph Conrad. Interviewer: Grzegorz Nurek

Andrzej Wajda, an Oscar and Palme d’Or-winning Polish film director, passed away on October 9th 2016. New Eastern Europe interviewed the director for issue 2/2014 "Putin's Powers".

Rok 1989 i lata następne (1989 and the Following Years). By: Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Publisher: Wydawnictwo Prószyński i S-ka, Warsaw 2012. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, now 86 years old, is one of the best known and most respected politicians in Poland. Despite his advanced age, Mazowiecki is still very politically active: he advises the current president of Poland, […]