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.