Stanislaw Lem - Fiction and Philosophy

Stanislaw Lem (1921 – 2006) born in Lwow, Poland (now Ukranie) was a science fiction, satire and philosophy writer. In 1946 his family moved to Krakow as they didn’t want to become citizens of the USSR.

Same year Lem made his literary debut and published his first science fiction novel was Czlowiek z Marsa (The Man from Mars). While working as a scientific research assistant between 1947 and 1950 he published various poems, short stories and scientific essays, which had to be approved by the communistic regime. Some of his works have been suppressed by the authorities until 1955.

In late 50s and early 60s Lem published his first philosophical books, ‘Dialogi’ (Dialogues) and ‘Summa Technologiae’. In these works he discusses virtual reality and nanotechnology, which were completely science fiction then, but gaining importance today.

Lem gained international fame for ‘The cyberiad’, first published in English in 1974. Since then he became one of the leading representative of Polish science fiction and most translated Polish authors. His best known novels include ‘Solaris’ (1961), which was made into a film twice, ‘His Master’s Voice’ (1968) and ‘Fiasco’ (1987). He often criticised the films based on his work.

‘The New York Times Review of Books’ about Stanislaw Lem:

“The Polish writer Stanislaw Lem is both a polymath and a virtuoso storyteller and stylist. Put them together and they add up to a genius... He has been steadily producing fiction that follows the arcs and depths of his learning and a bewildering labyrinth of moods and attitudes. Like his protagonists, loners virtually to a man, his fiction seems at a distance from the daily cares and passions, and conveys the sense of a mind hovering above the boundaries of the human condition: now mordant, now droll, now arcane, now folksy, now skeptical, now haunted and always paradoxical. Yet his imagination is so powerful and pure that no matter what world he creates it is immediately convincing because of its concreteness and plentitude, the intimacy and authority with which it is occupied... read Lem for yourself. He is a major writer, and one of the deep spirits of our age.”

An interesting Times Online article about Lem from 2006 can be found here.

Sources:

http://magazyn.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_lem_stanislaw
http://solaris.lem.pl/

Ignacy Jan Paderewski - pianist and politician

Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860 – 1941), was a Polish pianist, composer, philanthropist, diplomat, politician and 3^rd Prime Minister of Poland. From an early childhood he was interested in music and at the age of 12 admitted to the Warsaw Conservatorium. He later went to Berlin and Vienna to study music composition. 

His first public appearance was in 1887 and in the following years he gained major success in Paris and London as well as triumphs in the United States where he settled in 1913. 

During World War 1, Paderewski was an active member of the Polish National Committee in Paris. He became their spokesman and also formed other social and political organisations, incl. Polish Relief Fund in London. In 1919 Paderewski became the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign affairs in the newly independent Poland. A year later he resigned and took on the role of Polish League of Nations ambassador. In 1933 he retired from political career to return to the music. 

He toured the whole United States and filled 20.000 seats in Madison Square Garden. The concert raised £37,000 for unemployed American musicians.

Photo: New York Public Library, Performing Arts Division, Paderewski

In 1939 a critic from San Francisco Chronicle wrote in his article: "He is much more than the artist with the right to wear the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, he is the recipient of more medals and awards than one can imagine and a greater number of honorary doctorates than he can count himself.  He is even more than a man who made several fortunes only to give them away for the benefit of others.  But first of all, he is the one who having all compliments, financial rewards, and respect of the whole world at his feet, has not hesitated to push it aside, refusing profits and safety he could obtain easily, to dedicate himself entirely and exclusively to the humanitarian cause.

World has many reasons to recognize such rare today humanism, especially when success of the cause for which Paderewski fought is now in jeopardy.  In this situation what remained, was to pay him a small honor by coming yesterday to listen to him play”.

Soon Paderewski moved to Switzerland and was an active member of the opposition to Sanation rule (Polish political movement).  In 1940 he became the head of the Polish National Council (parliament in exile in London). In the age of 80 Paderewski restarted his Polish Relief Fund and raised money for it by playing several concerts. During this tour he suddenly died in 1941 in New York.

In 1948 on the initiative of the Polish community, the Ignacy Paderewski Foundation was established.

Sources: 

http://www.paderewskiassociation.org/Paderewski_Biography.htm
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/ignace-jan-paderewski/
http://www.paderewskifest.com/about_paderewski.html
http://bn.org.pl/chopin/index.php/en/pianists/bio/20

http://pl.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/persons/text/id/226
San Francisco Chronicle citation taken from: http://www.ijpaderewski.org/20501/16764.html

The magnificent watercolour art by Grzegorz Wrobel

Grzegorz Wrobel, born on March 11th, 1983 studied and graduated architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. His interest in watercolours started at the age of 12 and although using drawings and watercolours at the university he gained his exceptional skills and style from own study. 

By controlling the water his art shows fresh colours, reflections and atmosphere. Grzegorz developed his own precise technique to capture lights, shadows and realistic motions among architecture structures. Check out his impressive style and more artwork here.

Source: WATERart, http://grzegorz-wrobel.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1 (photos used with artists permission)

Czeslaw Niemen

Czeslaw Niemen (1939 - 2004), real name Czeslaw Juliusz Wydrzycki, was born in Stare Wasiliszki, Poland (now Belarus). He made his debut in the early 1960s and soon become one of the most important Polish singer-songwriters, progressive musicians and jazz-rock fusion artists of the last quarter-century. His song, "Dziwny jest ten swiat" (1967) is commonly known as the most important Polish protest song of that era. In 1972 an English version called "Strange is this world" was recorded.

Niemen was a composer and singer. He played guitar, hammond organ, mellotron and moog synthesizers on his records. In the early 1970s, CBS label released three of his records in English language.

Later, Niemen composed film soundtracks and theater music and showed interest in art.

In his career Niemen achieved huge success,
got many awards and the first golden record in
Poland in 1967. He won the Sopot International
Song Festival in 1979. "Legendary actress and singer Marlene Dietrich was so astonished by Niemen's performance while visiting Warsaw in
1964 that she asked him for permission to sing his
song "Czy mnie jeszcze pamietasz" ("Do You Still Remember Me"). It was later re-titled as
"Mutter, hast du mir vergeben". His song
"Pielgrzym" ("The Pilgrim") was re-mixed
and used in  "The Test" by Chemical Brothers."
(IMDB, 2002)



Sources: Czeslaw Niemen - http://niemen.xt.pl , IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0631116/bio

Pola Negri and the Golden Era of Hollywood

Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec (aka Pola Negri) was born in Poland in 1894, although some sources state 1897. She was a Polish film actress who achieved huge international fame in silent films in the most extravagant and glamorous era between 1910s and 1930s.
When she was young she trained to become a ballerina but her delicate health forced her to stop dancing. Later Apolonia attended the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and after two years of study she became a stage actress. By the end of World War I she had established herself as a popular actress in Warsaw, appearing in several films. During that time, she adopted the pseudonym "Pola Negri," after the Italian poetess, Ada Negri. Pola appeared in a variety of films made by the Warsaw film industry, including The Wife (Żona), The Beast (Bestia), Students (Studenci), Street Ruffian's Lover (Kochanka apasza) and the Mysteries of Warsaw series. In 1917, her popularity provided her with an opportunity to move to Berlin, Germany, where she appeared in several successful films for film directors of the UFA agency, including Max Reinhardt and Ernst Lubitsch.

In 1922 she was offered a contract with Hollywood studios and the following year settled in the U.S. Her exotic style of glamour proved popular with audiences during the 1920s and her affairs with such notable actors as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino ensured that she remained in the public eye.
Pola Negri become one of the most popular and richest Hollywood actresses of the movie industry at the time. She started several ladies fashion trends and was a favorite photography subject of Eugene Robert Richee, the famous Hollywood portrait photographer.

Negri caused a media sensation in 1926 after the death of Valentino by announcing that they had planned to marry. She was following the train that carried his body from New York City to Los Angeles, posing for photographers at every stop. In 1928, Negri made her last film for Paramount Pictures entitled The Woman from Moscow, opposite actor Norman Kerry. The film was only Negri's second talkie (the first being Loves of an Actress, also released in 1928) and Paramount declined to renew her contract after audiences allegedly had difficulty understanding her dialog because of her heavy Polish accent.

Pola Negri with Charlie Chaplin

She made only a few films after 1930, and worked mainly in England and Germany, where she acted in several films for the UFA. In 1951, Negri became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Pola Negri has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures. She died in 1987 and left most of her estate to St. Mary’s University in Texas and to Polish nuns of the Seraphic Order.



Sources: Pola Negri Appreciation site - http://www.polanegri.com , IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0624470/bio , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pola_Negri ,

K-202 Minicomputer by Jacek Karpinski 1972

K-202 was a multi-tasking 16-bit, dual bus, modular minicomputer constructed by the Polish pioneer in computer science and engineering Jacek Karpinski in 1972. The fourth generation computer was invented far ahead of its time.
It was the first Polish modular computing system with integrated circuits and first to use the paging technique to increase the memory capacity. The machine was built in co-operation with Polish and English companies but again because of the political situation occurring at that time in Poland, (apart from 30 units that were sold), it was never mass-produced.

Feat.: Multiprogramming: ASSK, BASIC, FORTRAN IV, CSL, BICEPS, CEMMA, MOST -2, COMIT, TRAFOK (a conversational language for algebraic problems),...

 
Multi-user operating system, Multiprocessing, supposed to be able to address up to 8MB of RAM.
For more details please check the original K 202 Handbook by MB Metals Limited, Sussex (scanned by Ryszard Zenker)


Source:
http://www.zenker.poznan.pl/k-202/

Czerwone Gitary - heyday years 1965 - 1970

Czerwone Gitary

Czerwone Gitary - one of the most successful Polish bands from the 1960s. Sometimes referred as the Polish Beatles.

The band was founded in 1965 in Gdansk. Their debut album called "To wlasnie my" (Engl. It's us) was released in 1966. From then every following album up till 1970 sold a record number of units. In that time the band achieved the greatest success.

Czerwone Gitary (Engl. Red Guitars) received various Polish awards, won the 1969 MIDEM trophy based on their record sales and in the same year the "Billboard" magazine award.



Line up in 1966:

• Seweryn Krajewski - vocal / guitar
• Krzysztof Klenczon - guitar / vocal
• Jerzy Kossela - guitar / vocal
• Bernard Dornowski - bass / vocal
• Jerzy Skrzypczyk - drums / vocal

 

NAGRA – analogue audio recorders by Stefan Kudelski

Nagra III + Sela mixer

Stefan Kudelski the creator of professional portable audio recorders NAGRA was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1929. Both of his parents had engineering background. His father’s field of work was in the chemical industry and mother was an anthropologist. In 1939 the family fled Poland to escape German Nazi invasion. They travelled through Romania and Hungary to settle in South France where Stefan continued his education and his father took an active part in French Resistance as an officer. The resistance network fell in 1943 and the Kudelski family escaped to Switzerland. For the contributions and their activities during this period both parents were honoured with French Croix de Guerre.

In Switzerland Stefan Kudelski enrolled in studies at the Ecole Florimont in Geneva and quickly become interested in technology and electronics. He built a small laboratory at home and experimented with high frequency oscillators generating extra high tension. Later invented an instrument for measuring the accuracy of watches. Although no commercial interest was made, he took out several patents of his ideas. From 1948 he studied physics and engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique de I’Universite de Lausanne and at the same time started experimenting with magnetic recording. In 1950 he made the first prototype of a tape recorder with spring motor and miniature tubes and called it NAGRA. The word ‘NAGRA’ comes from Stefan Kudelski’s mother tongue (Polish) and stands for "will record".

Nagra III

A year later Kudelski’s NAGRA participated in The First International amateur Recording Contest in Lausanne and won the first price. The sound quality was good enough for the radio studios, but quite poor compared with modern standards. The recorder was constantly perfected and in 1953 ‘NAGRA II’, an improved version with incorporated mechanical filters was released. The movie industry become interested and ‘NAGRA II’ was used during a shooting to the first full length feature film called ‘Black Orpheus’. In 1957 a transistorised version of ‘NAGRA III’, which allowed synchronized recording (camera + tape) was launched and became a technological revelation. 

The ‘NAGRA’ recorders continued with the series IV-L, 4.2, IV-S, T-Audio, SN, SNN, SNS, SNST, SNST-R, IV STC, D, V all with the reputation for extreme ruggedness and reliability. NAGRA become the standard sound recording systems used by reporters, radio and film studios from the early sixties until the nineties. 

Nagra recorders series

Stefan Kudelski received many awards during his career: Academy Awards (Oscars) in 1965, 1977, 1978 and 1990, two entertainment industry awards an ‘Emmy’, Gold Medals from L. Warner, AES (Audio Engineering Society), Lyra and Eurotechnica. In 2008 during the ‘Polish Film Festival in America' (PFFA) Stefan Kudelski received ‘Wings Award’ for his achievements.

‘Wings Award’ – the award to the artists and film professionals of Polish descent for their outstanding contribution to the art of film beyond Poland.

Sources: http://www.filmsoundsweden.se/backspegel/kudelski.html, http://tripatlas.com/Nagra, http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Kudelski

photo sources: http://www.nagraaudio.com/pro/pages/informationHistory.php, http://p.g.elec.pagespro-orange.fr/Le%20magnetophone.htm, http://www.adhocsound.be/?page_id=8

Art Deco by Tamara de Lempicka

Tamara de Lempicka (1898 – 1980), maiden name: Maria Gorska was the most fashionable and glamour Art Deco portrait painter of her generation. She was born into a wealthy family, her mother was a Polish socialite and her father Jewish with Russian ancestry. She grew up in partitioned Poland, was educated in Switzerland. Her first contact with art was in winter of 1911 in Italy while visiting her grandmother. A year later her parents separated and Maria went to live with her Aunt in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she met her future husband Tadeusz Lempicki. In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, she managed a release of Tadeusz who was arrested and prisoned by the Bolsheviks. They traveled to Copenhagen, London and Paris, where her family had also escaped.

 

The new start in Paris was not easy, the money was short, child was born, so she took painting lessons, changed her name to Tamara de Lempicka and soon became well known fashionable portrait painter. With fame and fortune de Lempicka began to change her lifestyle, she divorced Tadeusz and met Baron Raoul Kuffner, an Austro-Hungarian royal who collected her paintings. They married and as the Second World War was due to begin both moved to Los Angeles where Tamara continued painting. She sponsored her own solo exhibitions, became friends with Hollywood stars and was nicknamed: “The Baroness with a Brush.” In 1943 both moved to New York and Tamara stopped painting and disappeared from the art world. 20 years later she tried again venturing into abstract art, but with no success and her husband’s sudden death, de Lempicka gave up on painting and moved to Houston, Texas to live near her daughter, who moved there in 1941.

De Lempicka art enjoyed a renaissance in the 1970s and her art was rediscovered by the art world, but she moved one more time to Cuernavaca, Mexico and died in her sleep in 1980. Her wish to be cremated and to spread her ashes on the top of the volcano Popocatepetl was fulfilled.

Her style was influenced by avant-garde art movement referred as soft cubism. Her technique was novel, precise, symmetrical and elegant. After her death her work experienced an enormous surge in popularity in 1990s. Famous collectors of her work are: Madonna, Jack Nicholson and Barbara Streisand,.. (In 1994, Barbara Streisand sold the artist's Adam and Eve for $1.8 million, a painting she had purchased in 1984 for $135,000.)

Sources:

“Tamara Łempicka” Malarze.com, website, http://malarze.com/plartysta.php?id=134&biografia=f, "Artist: Tamara de Lempicka," SOHO Art website,http://www.soho-art.com,"Bio: Tamara de Lempicka," CGFA: A Virtual Art Musuem
website,http://cgfa.sunsite.dk , "Tamara de Lempicka (1898 - 1980)," Good Art website,http://www.goodart.org , "Tamara de Lempicka: Biography, History," Art City website,http://www.artcity.com

AKAT-1 - Retro Computer - Made in Poland 1959

AKAT-1 was an analog computer made in Poland. Eng. Jacek Karpinski and Eng. Janusz Tomaszewski constructed this first in the world transistor-based differential analyzer as early as 1959 at the Polish Academy of Science’s Institute of Automatics (IPPT PAN). It was designed to solve complex differential equations in real time and simulate dynamic objects, for instance: thermal flow, aerodynamics, etc.

This retro computer was never mass produced due to the country’s policies at that time.

It now resides in the Museum of Technology (Muzeum Techniki) in Warsaw, Poland

Sources: Sztuka.net - AKAT-1, http://www.sztuka.net/palio/html.run?_Instance=www.sztuka.net.pl&_PageID=855&newsId=13485&callingPageId=854&_CheckSum=-1597474033

Syrena Sport - FSO - 1960

The Polish car industry began in 1948, when National Economic Planning Commission (PKPG) signed a contract to build a car factory Fabryka Samochodow Osobowych (FSO) in Warsaw and negotiated a licence to build Fiat 1400. The progress went well until the cold war intensified and the pressure from the “East” forced the Polish authorities to break the contract with the West. They were offered a free license to build “Pobieda M20”, so in autumn 1949 the agreement with Fiat was called off and in 1950 the proposal from the USSR approved. The building of the car factory finished in autumn 1951 and later that year the first licensed passenger car, called Warszawa M20 was build.

Syrena Sport

In 1953 the decision to design first polish car was made, prototypes constructed and FSO received an official order to develop the vehicle into production. The car was given the name SYRENA (Mermaid) and first official model (100) was released in 1957. Some of the specifications included two-stroke engine of a small capacity, 4-speed manual gearbox, metal body, etc.

There would be nothing exciting about it so far, if there wouldn’t be a Syrena Sport model. This was indeed a spectacular car which was designed and constructed between 1957 and 1960.

A group of FSO engineers fascinated in sport cars from the West spent their spare time to develop a prototype two-seat car on a Syrena chassis. Cezary Nawrot designed a light and stylish low profile fibreglass body. Other parts came from the FSO inventory or were fabricated by the engineers themselves. 

Wladyslaw Skoczynski built a completely new four-stroke engine taking a block of a French Panhard Dyna’s two-cylinder boxer engine and combined it with Polish Junak motorcycle cylinders, cylinder liners and pistons. The result was 750cc with 25HP - called S-16. The tested maximum speed reached 110 km/h.

On 1^st May 1960 Syrena Sport was unveiled to the public. The reactions were astonishing. Photos were taken and reached the West. Syrena Sport was voted the most beautiful car from behind the iron curtain.

Communistic government decided that Syrena Sport was too extravagant and imperialistic and needed to be hidden from the public. The only prototype was locked away for more than ten years. In the early seventies the government rediscovered the car and sent a special commission to destroy it.

Sources:
Wikipedia Syrena - samochod, (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Syrena#Syrena_Sport), Wikipedia Fabryka Samochodow Osobowych, (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabryka_Samochod%C3%B3w_Osobowych), Photos and some of the information: AutoGEN.pl (2007-2010) FSO Syrena Sport, (http://www.autogen.pl/car-521-FSO-Syrena-Sport.html) 
Although all the content is translated, corrected and written by Poland here, AD

Stone Circles at Odry, Poland

Photograph by © Poland here, AD

This place is worth a visit. It is the greatest concentration of stone circles in Poland, located in Tuchola forrest (Bory Tucholskie) between the Brda and Wda rivers, about 2.5 km from the kashebe village Odry.

It contains ten completely preserved and two partially damaged stone circles from the 1st and 2nd century.

Today the archaeological and natural reserve is open to the public. Some people believe in bioenergy or source of cosmic energy surrounding this charismatic place.

Photograph by © Poland here, AD

Facts about the site: 

Paul Stephan (a geodesist from Poznan, 1915) discovered that some of the stone circles were designed to establish a precise calender and others where part of a huge cementary. Jozef Kostrzewski (Poznan University, 1926) correctly dated the stone circles to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

Photograph by © Poland here, AD

"The Odry site is associated with the cultural activities of the peoples who created the Wielbark Culture (German Willenberg-Wielbark Kultur). This archaeological culture, which is attributed to the appearance of Goths and Gepids from Southern Scandinavia, emerged during the early years of the 1st century AD in what are now Eastern Pomerania and the Lower Vistula. They also created several other stone circle sites, including Wesiory, Grzybnica, and Lesno. In the first half of the 3rd century, the people of the Wielbark culture abandoned their settlements in Eastern Pomerania and
migrated or expanded eastwards and southwards." (www.astronomicalheritage.org)

Photograph by © Poland here, AD

Sopot Jazz Festival 1956

Melomani

The first official jazz festival in Sopot was held in August 1956 and welcomed around 50 thousand people. At that time Poland was under communist rule and in many ways cut off from the rest of the world. The public television was controlled by the government and it was rare to hear of see forieign culture from behind the iron curtain. Sopot was known as the window to the world because of  its close proximaty to sea ports where the sailors and tourists brought music like jazz on vinyls, magazines and newspapers from abraod.

People were tired of the Russian music promoted by the state and played on any radio station most of the time. The festival brought a party to the town which was going on 24 hours a day. People felt free, were everywhere on the streets, on the pier and by the thousends on the beaches. Jazz music become a symbol of freedom and joy.

"It is hard not to recognize the meaning of the first jazz festivals, which shaped the culture in the years to come in Poland. Taking jazz music from private places to the public is the main achievement of the Sopot Jazz Festivals. After jazz, there were other events which followed. Although the years of euphoria are long gone, jazz festivals are still one of the attractions Sopot has to offer, and consistently attract a lot of artists and spectators." (sopot.net)

The lineup of the first Sopot Jazz festival included Melomani,  Andrzej Kurylewicz Band, Zygmunt Wichary Band, Drazek i Pieciu, Jerzy Grzewinski Band, Kamil Hala Band (Czechoslovakia), Pawel Gruenspan Band, Pinokio, The Dave Burman Jazz Group (England) and first Polish modern Jazz band - Komeda Sextet with Krzysztof Komeda on piano, Jerzy Milian - vibes, Stanislaw Pludra - alto sax, Jan 'Ptaszyn ' Wroblewski - baritone sax, Jozef Stolarz - bass, and Jan Zylber on drums.

Famous Polish People - Part 1

Mikolaj Kopernik

Mikołaj Kopernik - Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543), was a Polish astronomer and mathematician who set out scientifically based theory of a universe with the sun at its centre and that the earth and the moon were shaped round. Before nearly everyone thought that the earth was flat and wheels drove the sun, stars and the moon. 

He was born in Torun, Poland. His father Niklas Koppernigk, was a merchant and baker from Cracow, who migrated to Torun. Mikolaj Kopernik studied astronomy and astrology in the University of Cracow, later canon and civil low in Bologna, Italy and medicine at the University of Padua, where he received a license to practice medicine.

Maria Sklodowska-Curie

Maria Skłodowska - Marie Sklodowska-Curie 

 (1867 - 1934), Polish physicist and chemistwho was unable to get accepted into any Russian universities (Poland was already partitioned) (due to her gender and anti-Polish repercussions of the January Uprising). In the age of 24 Maria moved from Warsaw to Paris where she obtained and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She married Pierre Curie, French physicist.

Maria Sklodowska was a pioneer in field of radioactivity, discvovered polonium and radium and was first female professor at the University of  Paris as well as first person honored with two Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw.

Fryderyk Chopin

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin - Frederic Francois Chopin (1810 - 1849), was a Polish composer, virtuoso pianist and music teacher of French-Polish parentage. He was born in Zelazowa Wola, Duchy of Warsaw, grew up and completed his musical education in Warsaw and later settled in Paris as part of the Polish Great Emigration.

Chopin composed more than 200 works during his short lifetime. Most of them dedicated to his friends and students.