Interview with Professor James S. Pula by Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm

Interview with Professor James S. Pula of Purdue University - 

Historian, Professor, Author, and Polonia Activist

by Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm

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Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm: You grew up in a small village, New York Mills, in central New York State where 75percent people were of Polish heritage. Both your father’s parents came to America from Poland. Your father born in America but spoke Polish. On your mother side you are French origin. Since you mother did not speak Polish and your father did not understand French, the language was used home was English. Do you have a little knowledge of French and Polish?

James S. Pula: Since so many people in our village knew Polish, it was never offered as a language until after I had already graduated from high school, and it was not offered at any of the colleges I attended. In graduate school I studied French to pass a reading test for research purposes since that was a requirement of my PhD in history. However, I have rarely used it since then so I have lost most of my facility with it.

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You are the author of many books, specializing in ethnic and immigration studies and 19th-century American history. Your first book titled “The French in America” (1975) was published in series on American ethnic group. What is the unique about French Americans?

Prof. Pula: There were small communities of French in Philadelphia (PA), Charleston (SC), and of course New Orleans (LA) since colonial times. French influence in Louisiana remains strong even today. Unlike all of the other states, its basic legal code derives from the French Code Napoleon. My mother’s ancestors came down from Québec to work in the logging camps in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. Quite a few people of French ancestry were prominent in the Revolutionary War and early American history, but I think the most unique feature of the French is how quickly they appear to have assimilated into American society regardless of when they arrived.

Prof. Pula with PAHA President, Anna Mazurkiewicz, 2015.

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You write that you remember from childhood years there were differences between Poles coming from “Austria” and “Russia” during the time of the partitions when Poland lost its independence. At that time Polish immigrants coming to America were registered as from Austria, Germany, or Russia. You write that you also remember that in your village the Poles were divided between those attending the Roman Catholic Church and those who attended the Polish National Catholic Church (Kosciol Narodowy). How much were those differences visible in everyday lives?

Prof. Pula: There were differences of association. Since many of the organizations in town were either based in the parishes, or loosely affiliated with them, membership in these was dictated by whether one was Roman Catholic or National Catholic. The groups even had different cemeteries. The two did not mix, except in the Polish National Alliance and in the local textile union which were open to people regardless of religious affiliation. So as adults social activities were often a dividing factor. For children it was much the same. Most Polish children, like my father, went to the Roman Catholic parochial school until they graduated and then had to attend the public school beginning in eighth grade. National Catholic children could not attend the Roman Catholic school so some attended National Catholic schools in nearby Utica while others went directly into the public schools at an early age. Naturally these divisions meant that children were often not able to take part in each other’s social activities. Once in high school, these divisions largely ended when it came to attending school-related activities, but persisted for anything sponsored by the parishes.

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: As a student you were fascinated with the subject of the American Revolution. You graduated from SUNY –Albany, and your interest build up. Your second book was dedicated to General Włodzimierz Bonawentura Krzyżanowski who took part in the Civil War. He was eulogized by president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 at Arlington. His life was so interesting I believe he deserves a movie. Tell us more about the hero of your book For Liberty and Justice: The Life and Times of Wladimir Krzyzanowski.

Prof. Pula: He was indeed a very fascinating figure. He came from a poor gentry family and was involved in the planning for the Mierosławski uprising in 1846. The Prussians placed him on trial but he escaped before being captured and came to the US. He apparently worked as an engineer for a while, then married an American woman named Caroline Burnett and opened a pottery business in Washington, DC. When the Civil War broke out he volunteered in the local militia as a private and quickly rose to captain. After receiving permission to recruit his own regiment, he was promoted to colonel of the 58th New York, which later adopted the nickname “Polish Legion.” Krzyżanowski fought in many of the largest battles of the war at Cross Keys, Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga. In all of these he gained praise from his commanders, eventually earning promotion to brigadier general.

Following the war he was a successful agent for the US Treasury Department where he was responsible for tracking down smugglers in Louisiana and later the Washington Territory, Alaska, and Panama. When he moved to San Francisco he met Helena Modjeska when she came to America and was instrumental in scheduling her debut in California. He also knew Henryk Sienkiewicz who frequented the tavern Krzyżanowski owned. It was there that Sienkiewicz observed some of the personality traits of the patrons that he later used in his writings.

Quite a career for someone forced to leave his homeland for a new country whose language he did not even know. In 1937 his remains were reburied in Arlington National Cemetery.

Prof. Pula at the gates to the University of Warsaw, Poland.

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: After graduation you taught for two years in South Carolina at a mostly black college. Later you moved to the University of Maryland and you were sent overseas to participate in their programs in Japan, Korea, Germany, and Italy. You experienced a lot of multi-ethnic human diversity with different origin people. Please tell more about it.

Prof. Pula: Teaching overseas was a life-changing experience in so many ways. Living in other cultures, especially in places like Japan and Korea with very different historical and cultural traditions, makes one much more aware of what immigrants face when they arrive in a new country. For someone teaching immigration history, this was an invaluable experience.

One also learns that there are “good” and “bad” people everywhere and that just because something is different does not mean it is less valuable. I think no matter where we come from we all tend unconsciously to judge things by the norms and values of the society in which we grew up. Living in all of these different countries gives one a different perspective. Cultures and ways of doing things may be different, but there is not necessarily any hierarchy — what is accepted and works within a given society is just as valid as what works and is accepted in another society.

And the human variety is amazing. All of the different foods, music, religions, art, and so much else. Spending time in these different cultures was the best education I could ever have hoped to obtain, and a lot more interesting than sitting in a classroom.

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You stated in Polish American Studies (Autumn, 2017) that your early life experiences led you to: “professional lines of research and teaching” that also “have taught you the most valuable of all lessons, that people in all groups are much more alike than they are different…. People, both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad,’ are largely the same everywhere.” What can you add to this beautiful statement?

Prof. Pula: Only that it is unfortunate that individual people cannot be viewed and accepted for what they are — individuals. We always want to place labels on people, to put them into groups, when in fact everyone is unique with individual strengths and weaknesses and should be seen as an individual. If we judged each other by, as Martin Luther King said, the “content of their character,” instead of trying to place them in groups or categories the world would be a better place.

Prof. Pula at PAHA's 75th Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. January 2018

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: Publishing papers, articles, books chapters - you presented your own experience on comparative work - on Germans, Italians, Hispanics, Asian, and others group. It is very interesting and mind-opening reading about diversities and perceptions of different ethnic group in the USA. If asked, I believe, all of the groups would have their - more or less - “songs of complains.”

Prof. Pula: That is an interesting observation. Every group that has come in large numbers to the US has left its own country for specific reasons, and often these reasons are essentially the same for many groups — political or religious persecution, lack of economic opportunity, famine or other natural disaster, and so on. When they arrive in the United States, if there are large numbers they draw attention and sometimes a negative reaction from people already there. The Irish and German immigrants faced a backlash against them in between 1830 and 1860; Poles, Italians, and Jews were often discriminated against in 1880-1920; Asians met opposition in 1880-1900; and more recently Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants have faced the same problems. One of the things one learns is that for each large wave of people, the experience is much the same. If the group is large enough to be perceived as a threat by those already in the US (that is, a competition), especially if there is an economic recession, the group is perceived as a “problem.” In the second and third generations they begin to assimilate and some other group takes their place as the unfamiliar newcomers.

A good example is a pair of editorials I ran across while doing research a couple of decades ago. In the 1830s a newspaper in St. Louis complained in an editorial that the city was being overrun with Irish immigrants who were uneducated, had different customs, and were on top of all that Catholic! Twenty years later the exact same newspaper ran a similar editorial bemoaning the fact that so many German immigrants were arriving and they has strange customs like having picnics on Sunday where they drank beer, spoke in a different language, and kept too much to themselves. The editorial ended with the sentence “Where have all the noble Irish gone?” All of a sudden the Irish were now “noble.” What happened to elevate them? A combination of assimilation and familiarity. So fear of the newcomer was transferred to a newer group, the Germans. It is a process that continually changes only in the names of the groups that are involved.

Cover of the Polish American Encyclopedia edited by Prof. Pula

http://polishamericanstudies.org/text/40/encyclopedia.html

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You were giving courses at the university in ethnic and immigration studies, also about U.S. immigrations policy. I value your interest in the Polish presence in America – before the Great Migration. Quite a few of your books are dedicated to Polish American ethnic subjects, like United We Stand: The Role of Organized Labor in a Polish American Community, 1910-1916 (1990). In your book Ethnic Utica (1994) you present the mosaic of American society. Twelve essays are dedicated to Welsh, Irish, Polish, German, Italian, Syrian/Lebanese, Jewish, African-American, Ukrainian, Oneida Indian, Bosnians. Do you write about immigrants from South America?

Prof. Pula: The book on Polish labor strikes was particularly enjoyable to write since it focused on the town in which I grew up. It is an amazing story of a group of Polish factory workers who organized in the face of opposition from a major textile company and overcame all adversity to win their strikes. They later took these organizational skills into the political arena to literally take over the village government by electing a mayor and a majority of the village board.

Ethnic Utica was a book I edited so the chapters were written by several different authors. The topics were selected by looking at the census for the area and selecting the largest of the groups in the county. Since then Hispanic immigration has increased and the same people that published my book just published one on the Hispanic community as well. Aside from Ethnic Utica, I have written articles on Hispanics for encyclopedias and recently published an article titled “Is the New Immigration Really New? A Comparison of 1910 and 2010” in which I compare the demographic and assimilation of Poles and Italians in the US in 1910 with Mexicans in 2010. It was published in Agnieszka Małek and Dorota Praszałowicz, eds., The United States Immigration Policy and Immigrants’ Responses: Past and Present (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2017). Actually, the data suggest that Mexican immigrants are progressing toward assimilation faster today than were Poles and Italians a century ago.

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You earned both a M.A. and Ph.D. from Purdue University with a major in American history. As part of your interest you wrote a book dedicated to Kosciuszko: Thaddeus Kościuszko: The Purest Son of Liberty (1998). Is Kosciuszko your favorite Polish origin hero? What is the subject you are working on now?

Prof. Pula: Yes, I have admired Kościuszko for some time, actually since I first became aware of him in high school. He really made important contributions to the American Revolution at Saratoga where his engineering skills helped to win a battle that brought the French and Spanish into the war on the side of the rebellious colonials. He went on to build the first fortification at West Point where the US Military Academic is today, to serve with distinction in the Carolinas, and then to return to Poland to lead an unsuccessful revolution to free his own nation. More importantly, as I learned more about him I have been exceptionally impressed by his humanity. In America he befriended the poor, slaves, and indigenous peoples. In Poland he emancipated the peasants on his own land and during the Kościuszko Uprising he proposed citizenship rights for peasants, Jews, and others. His continual support for the less fortunate classes of people is truly commendable. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that the Pole was the “purest son of liberty” he ever met, and of that liberty that went to everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

Right now I am finishing a two-volume publication on the American Civil War that focuses on German immigrants and, to a lesser extent, other immigrants from central and Eastern Europe who fought in the Civil War. I am also editing a 75th anniversary history of the Polish American Historical Association which should be finished next month.

PAHA's Anniversary History at the 75th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

http://pahanews.blogspot.com/2018/01/paha-75th-anniversary-history-by-james.html

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You wrote numerous essays, lectures, papers, and book reviews on Polish subjects. Quite a few of your books are dedicated to Polish American subjects. Together with historian Professor M.B. Biskupski you have published essays and documents titled Polish Democratic Thought from the Renaissance to the Great Emigration: Essays and Documents (1990). Please, tell us about that volume.

Prof. Pula: In that book we brought together a group of prominent historians to write essays on the development of democratic thought in Poland during various eras and supplemented this with the publication of English translations of important documents to make them available to English-speaking scholars. We followed it up with a second volume that begins where the first one left off and continues on through the eventual regaining of Polish independence from Soviet influence. The title of the second volume is The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010).

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Ziółkowska-Boehm: You are also very active in the Polish American intellectual community. You were president of The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA), editor of Polish American Studies for 33 years, associate editor of The Polish Review, and an active member of the Board of The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America (PIASA). Among others awards you received the Amicus Poloniae Award, the Mieczysław Haiman Award, and the Krzyż Oficerski Orderu Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland]. You are a great treasure for Polish culture and history. What do you think can be done for better understanding of the Polish Americans?

Prof. Pula: There is, fortunately, a great wealth of scholarship in both English and Polish on a broad range of Polish American topics. Today, more comparative studies are appearing which is also positive. I think the main problem is integrating these scholarly studies into the mainstream of academic publishing. Both Polish American Studies and The Polish Review are now members of JSTOR, a full-text academic database that makes them available to scholars at more than 6,000 libraries, archives, and other organizations around the world. This is a tremendous advance in placing these materials before scholars writing textbooks, comparative studies, and other publications that will reach a very broad audience. It would be very helpful if some of the Polish journals such as Studia Migracyjne-Przegląd Polonijny could also be made available this way because they contain some excellent studies that would benefit from a wider audience.

Another thing we can do, as academics, is to focus more of our attention on the general public. We often spend all of our time talking to each other in very stimulating conferences, but the results of these are shared in written form in academic journals and seldom if ever reach the general public. This is good for us as individual academics as we build a portfolio for tenure and promotion, but it has no influence on public perceptions. We need to spend more time giving public lectures, working with local community education projects and teachers, and reaching out to deliver our message about the history and culture of Poles and Polish Americans to newspapers, community groups, and other public forums.

NOTE: This interview was conducted in English in November 2017 and published in Polish translation in the journal Odra, April 2018.

Interview with Prof. Neal Pease - by Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm

Prof. Neal Pease, Thomas Napierkowski and Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann receive
medals from the Polish government, Warsaw, 2014.

Professor Pease, you have a master's degree from the University of Kansas, a second master's degree and a doctorate from Yale University. What was the subject of your master's thesis and doctoral dissertation?

-The subject of my master’s thesis, done at the University of Kansas, under the direction of Professor Anna Cienciała, had to do with the portrayal of Poland and issues dealing with Poland in the British press during the interwar years. My doctoral dissertation, completed at Yale in 1982, under the direction of Professor Piotr Wandycz, focused on relations between the Second Polish Republic and the United States in the years following the First World War, with an emphasis on financial relations, and their political and diplomatic repercussions, between the two countries. This became the basis of my first book, Poland, the United States, and the Stabilization of Europe, 1919-1933.

How did you become interested in the subject of Polish history?

-I am often asked this, since I have no Polish ancestry. It was unusual in my day for a “niepolak” to go into this field of study—less so, nowadays, when Polish studies have gone more “mainstream” in the United States, and many of the better scholars of Polish matters, of generations younger than mine, are of non-Polish background. In my particular case, the initial motivations were purely accidental, even trivial. I grew up in a college town, and as it happened, a goodly number of the kids I went to school with, and chummed around with, were sons and daughters of faculty in Slavic studies at my hometown University of Kansas. When I was starting my second year at KU, one of these friends suggested I join him in signing up for a course in Polish and east European history that, by fortuitous chance, was taught by Anna Cienciała. I found the course fascinating, in part because its material was entirely unknown to me. Professor Cienciała encouraged me to pursue my studies further, and convinced me to spend a year abroad participating in an exchange program between Kansas and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań—and I never looked back, as we say. It also helped that these were the early 1970s, when very interesting things were starting to happen in Poland.

So, it can be said that to a large extent American historians of Polish origin - professors Anna Cienciała and Piotr Wandycz--contributed to the development or orientation of your interests and your research?

- I can safely say that, had I not had the good fortune of having been trained and mentored by Anna Cienciała and Piotr Wandycz, I never would have entered the field of Polish and east central European history. The debt I owe to their erudition, their example, and their kindly interest is beyond repayment. I can only hope that, in the course of carrying out my own career, I will have reflected well on, and done justice to the excellent preparation they gave me.

In your books and essays there are many interesting topics. One of them is the role of the Catholic Church in contemporary Polish history. You conduct courses on the history of Poland and Central Europe, the history of Christianity, including the Catholic Church. What archives do you use?

- Naturally, one uses different archives, depending on the particular subject one is researching, so my lifetime itinerary to various archives and libraries will reflect my list of publications. Over the years, I have probably spent most of my time in state and ecclesiastical archives in Poland itself, but because documents relating to Poland have been spread throughout much of the globe owing to the disruptions of war, dictatorship, and emigration, I have logged a good many hours and miles in the United States and London as well. Other collections I have consulted are as modest and nearby as in my home city of Milwaukee, or as famed and distant as the Vatican Archives.

Another topic of your lectures is the so called “Jewish revival” in contemporary Poland. Can an American student develop positive thinking about it?

- This is an extraordinarily interesting and important subject. It is not one that readers will find in my own published work to date, but it is one that I hope to get the chance to address in projects I am now working on that I hope to get into print eventually. In the meantime, there are numerous excellent scholars and commentators working on this subject, and I am eager to promote their work in my capacity as editor of the journal The Polish Review.

You lecture on the history of Western civilization - from the year 1500 to the present day. Other courses: Poland and its neighbors in 1795-1914, Poland and its neighbors - 1914-1945, Catholic Church from 1500 to the present. Can we expect books based on your lectures?

- The possibility of writing one or two books of this sort has occurred to me. For the time being, any of them would need to be added to the lengthy list of “things I’d like to get around to doing someday.”

You are a member of the Board of Directors of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences (PIASA), also in the Polish American Historical Association (2011-2012 - President), and as well you are a member of the editorial board of Polish American Studies. Since 2014 you have been the editor-in-chief of The Polish Review, a reputable scientific journal opened in 1956. It is available in 575 not only American libraries. Do you agree that the ability to read selected texts is an important aspect because it is possible to influence the elites?

- I am honored to have been entrusted with the editorship of The Polish Review, with its distinguished history. It has a slightly unusual profile, in comparison with other journals in our scholarly profession. On the one hand, it is an academic publication, and of course we seek to maintain a high standard of scholarship, but it is not purely academic, in the strict sense: it is the organ of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, whose membership and leadership is composed not merely of academics, but professionals in other fields of Polish identity, or strong interest in Polish matters. For this reason, our potential audience might be somewhat broader than is typical for most scholarly journals, and to the extent this is so, we see this as a sign that the Review is fulfilling its mission.

You are the author of important books, essays, and scholarly papers. Interesting is your book: "Rome's Most Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and the Independent Poland, 1914-1939". (Ohio University Press, 2009). You write that when Poland reappeared on the map of Europe it was perceived as the most Catholic country on the continent. You write that, despite this, relations between the Polish Church and the Vatican were not entirely good, and at times were even difficult. You show the intricate relations between Poland and the Vatican. The Vatican counted on Poland's plan to "convert Russia into Catholicism", while the Polish government was reluctant to take part in this plan. These are not commonly known issues. How did you reach them? Was it mainly thanks to the recently released Vatican archives?

- This was precisely the subject that, to my mind, turned out to be the most complex and fascinating aspect of the book as I progressed through the project. In brief: the Holy See, under the leadership of Pope Pius XI (who had served as papal nuncio to Poland before becoming pope) thought that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, while monstrous in itself, opened a historic opportunity to expand Catholicism eastward into the lands historically Orthodox; this was opposed resolutely by the interwar Polish governments, and to a large extent, by leadership of the Church in Poland, because the Vatican wished to convert the Orthodox to eastern-rite Catholicism, regarded as undesirable by its Polish counterparts as a hindrance to assimilation of Ukrainians and Belorussians into Polish culture, and out of fear that these efforts might further complicate the difficult relationship between Poland and the Soviet Union. Now, these matters were not entirely unknown, and careful readers of my book will note that I made use of a wide variety of published work. But I had an advantage over my predecessors in that I was able to make use of a goodly number of archival sources in order to fill out the picture. I did indeed find some relevant material in the Vatican Archives—but on the whole, I gained the most information from documents in Polish state archives, since this was a matter of considerable discussion—usually unsympathetic discussion—within Polish official circles.

Another book entitled "Poland, the United States, and the Stabilization of Europe, 1919-1933" (Oxford University Press, 1986) is the first publication on the relationship between Poland and the US after the First World War when Poland turned to America to improve its precarious situation. Based on the numerous archives, you show how the Polish leaders in the 1920s were expecting America to support stability in Europe, as Poland regained its independence after gaining the United States of America for political and financial support. How far has this policy and expectations of the United States maintained or changed?

- The heart of that book is summed up in the joking response I would make to colleagues and friends when they asked what I was working on: I would tell them it was a detailed account of something that did not happen, the „something” being the creation of a solid economic and political partnership between the fledgling 2RP and the United States. After the First World War, as is widely known, the US decided to reject President Wilson’s vision of a permanent American role in underwriting European peace and security, preferring to limit itself to financial investment in the Old World. What I discovered was that the Polish governments hoped to overcome American reluctance to support Poland politically and to win an alliance with the transoceanic superpower “through the back door,” so to speak, by attracting US loans and investments in the country on the theory that, sooner rather than later, Washington would feel the need to protect the independence and territorial integrity of a country where many American dollars were at stake. The flaw in the plan was that Americans by and large avoided investing in Poland—precisely because the country was so obviously at risk to the unfriendly ambitions of Germany and Soviet Russia, so it became a vicious cycle discouraging American commitment to interwar Poland.

That said, it strikes me now that I wrote that book during the era of the Cold War and the PRL, and in many ways my approach to the topic reflected a prevalent view of the time, that the absence of close ties between Poland and the United States was somehow a “natural” state of the relationship, dictated by unpleasant but stubborn geopolitical realities. In light of the strong partnership that has developed between the two countries since 1989, now I might approach the subject differently, and invite readers to regard the Polish policies of the 1920s as perhaps premature, but foresighted and prophetic, rather than simply chimerical.

In an essay titled "This Troublesome Question": The United States and the 'Polish Pogroms' of 1918-1919. "Ideology, Politics and Diplomacy in East Central Europe”. (Ed. Biskupski, M. B. University of Rochester Press, 2003) you quote a fragment of Herbert Hoover's journals (1874-1920). Hoover writes that in the news in April 1919 information about the "Pinsk massacre" was reported - the execution of 50 Jews executed at the command of the General of the Polish Army. Americans - at the request of President Wilson, with the approval of Paderewski - sent a delegation to investigate what had happened. It turned out that such an accident did not occur, that it was a lie. In the meantime, I read, for example, in Polish wikipedia, that historians do not judge the massacre in Pińsk unequivocally. Do you think it is important and possible to clarify this matter?

- Over the years there has been considerable discussion and controversy over the sufferings inflicted on Jews dwelling in the kresy in the chaotic aftermath of the First World War, particularly those areas affected by the warfare between Poland on the one hand, and the Bolsheviks and advocates of an independent Ukraine, on the other. These gave rise to lurid reports of perhaps thousands of Jews slain in pogroms at least partially attributable to the encouragement or negligence of Polish military or governmental leadership. While emphasizing that historians still disagree on these matters, in good faith, I think it is fair to say that most commentators agree that these accusations, while not groundless, were considerably exaggerated. The significance of the Pińsk incident was that it was reasonably well documented and verifiable, enough so to prompt the American government to launch an official inquiry into the broader charges of Polish mistreatment of Jews—and there is reason to believe that the U.S. State Department hoped that the verdict of the investigation would largely absolve Poland of blame, and, going further, that the American diplomats cared considerably less about the welfare of the Jews of eastern Europe than they did about protecting the image of the Poland they saw, in that interlude right after the war, as an important European ally of the United States.

But your question raises the larger issue, of the necessity of re-examining the history of relations between gentiles and Jews in the Polish lands. This is of primary and urgent importance, and has been much discussed since 1989, primarily having to do with the years during and immediately after the Second World War, but it can, and should, pertain to the entirety of Polish history. One of the principal signs of a mature and confidently democratic country is its willingness to explore and confront its history, including those issues that are painful or challenging. The record of Polish scholars since 1989 in filling in the “blank pages” of the country’s past, of challenging old taboos, and of correcting the historical record as needed, has been admirable. One hopes they will be able to continue this valuable work, and that they will encounter no such obstacles as those that have hampered the free inquiry of Polish historians in the past.

Interesting is the subject - how Americans write about their "mistakes and distortions". In my opinion they do it usually without tearing robes and lamentations. I read a very interesting book by Lynne Olson entitled "Those Angry Days. Roosevelt, Lindbergh and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 ", N.Y. 2013). The author, a well-known historian, writes about the years before America joined the Second War, and how strong were the anti-war and pro-German moods. Charles Lindbergh - American pioneer of aviation - in 1938 received a medal from Hermann Goering. 

The book has a separate 18 page chapter titled "Setting the Ground for Anti-Semitism," where the author writes that most American universities, including almost all "Ivy League" institutions, had a strict quota system (numerus clausus) for admission to studies. The university Yale Daily News quoted anti-Semitic commentary. The author writes that even after graduation the Jews had problems finding a job. The book has a lot of reviews, none of the reviewers referred to this chapter, a topic that almost nobody knows. Ability to reject, perhaps rather: retraction of many topics - this is an American characteristic (and can be seen from different perspectives). Maybe that's why the average American is so aware of America's "unique role"? Even Indians do not want to remind them of the painful periods in their history. The National Museum of the American Indian (opened in 2004) does not show the period of suffering, "Trail of Tears”. When I was collecting material for the book, the Indians themselves did not bring it up, but they proudly talked about their participation in the Second World War, the code talkers.

- Generally speaking, all people everywhere find it easier to speak of, let us say, the more glorious moments in their histories, and more difficult to recognize or admit those that do not reflect well on them—and all countries have them. In the case of the United States, you mention the destruction and displacement of the American Indians, and a long heritage of class based, “genteel” antisemitism. There is no denying these. Of course, there is also the matter of slavery and its legacy, which lasts to this day. At the same time, historians in the United States have been examining these questions, and others, quite vigorously in recent, and it is likely that their findings will gradually gain more acceptance in wider American society with the passage of time.

You are also interested in sport - soccer in Poland and baseball in the United States. In the essay "Diamonds Out of the Coal Mines: Slavic Americans in Baseball”, you write about the baseball star, very well-known, and much admired, Stan Musial. The legendary baseball player Stan Musial was of Polish descent. (I remember my husband talking about him with admiration and respect). Do you agree that team sport is a form of teamwork and that it is important especially in the early years of youth?

- I am indeed interested in sport, as a pastime of my own, and, as a historian, in the ways sport can reflect and make connections with what we might call „real” history, the meatier affairs of politics, society, economy, and culture. So I have taught, or plan on teaching, courses in the role baseball has played in American history, and soccer (piłka nożna) in world history. For instance, sport has played an important role in the history of the Polonia of the United States, largely because athletics traditionally has served as a significant entryway for acculturation of immigrant populations into American ways of life. And yes, Stan Musial is, by all odds, the greatest American athlete of Polish ancestry.

The question you pose about the usefulness of team sport in teaching youth the values of teamwork, fair play, and citizenship is very interesting. In fact, one can argue the point both ways, either that it does encourage these positive social attributes, or that it can do the opposite. There is probably no one answer. By the same token, there is no question that over the years many social thinkers, in the English speaking world at least, with its vibrant and highly developed sporting culture, have believed that sport can serve these desirable purposes, and that this is the main practical virtue of having young people learn and play these vigorous, organized games—one thinks of the British saying that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, which, while undoubtedly overstated, certainly summarizes an argument for the social benefit of sport.


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The Polish version of this interview appeared in ODRA, Wroclaw, May 2017.

PAHA Announces its Annual Awards at the 72nd Meeting, New York, Jan. 2015

Times Square, NY.  Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

The 72nd Annual Meeting of the Polish American Historical Association began with the Award Ceremony and Dinner Reception at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, on January 2, 2015. Consul General, Hon. Urszula Gacek welcomed the guests and recounted the history of PAHA and its role in the documentation and promotion of Polish American history and culture.

Consul Hon. Urszula Gacek. Photo by Scott Whittle

PAHA President, Dr. Thomas Napierkowski, assisted by Dr. Pien Versteegh, PAHA's Executive Director, presented the awards and prizes to the following awardees. These remarks are based on the presentation speeches.

Photo by Marcin Mazurkiewicz

Mieczyslaw Haiman Award “offered annually to an American scholar for sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans” was presented to NEAL PEASE  – Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Neal Pease has an extensive record of valued publications in the field of Polish and Polish American history, including a well-received book on the Roman Catholic Church in interwar Poland: Rome's Most Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and Independent Poland, 1914-1939. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009). Neal was also an associate editor and major contributor to The Polish American Encyclopedia (2011). His contributions to the study of the Polish-Americans includes research in the area of American sports: “Diamonds Out of the Coal Mines: Slavic Americans in Baseball” (in The American Game: Baseball and Ethnicity, 2002) and “Big Game on the South Side: A Milwaukee Baseball Mystery Decoded."  His article on “The Kosciuszko Reds, 1909-1919: Kings of the Milwaukee Sandlots,” published in the Polish American Studies (2004), won the Swastek Award.

Photo by Scott Whittle

Furthermore, Pease's publications include numerous works on Polish history that have greatly contributed to the expansion of knowledge about Poland and thus actively encouraged the study of the Polish history, culture, and tradition in the United States. Notably, Neal Pease has been active in presenting academic papers and organizing panels at PAHA meetings for decades. He has served as President of PAHA and been active on its Board for a number of years. He is currently a member of editorial board, Polish American Studies. He is the newly appointed editor of The Polish Review and previously did excellent work as Book Review Editor for this same journal. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America.

In Milwaukee and Wisconsin, Neal has been a member of the Polish Studies Committee of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee for more than twenty-five years and has served several stints as chair of this very active and respected committee.  At UWM he teaches courses in Polish history. He is active in Milwaukee Polonia, both in the Polish Heritage Alliance of Wisconsin and its annual Polish Festival and in the Wisconsin Polish American Congress. He is ever ready to volunteer his time and talents whether invited to lecture on Polish and Polish American themes to local communities or to national and international academic audiences.

Photo by Marcin Mazurkiewicz.

The Distinguished Service Award “given occasionally to a member of PAHA who has rendered valuable and sustained service to the organization” was presented to Dr. MAJA TROCHIMCZYK - Editor, PAHA Newsletter and Online Communications Director

 Dr. Trochimczyk joined the PAHA Board as Editor of PAHA Newsletter in 2009 and has redesigned and expanded the newsletter to include a variety of short articles about the Polish American experience, including features on personal immigration histories, Polonia organizations, anniversary celebrations, new or forthcoming books, and other items of interest to the organization. The newsletter is illustrated and well designed.  In 2012, in order to provide a more efficient and faster communications resource to the organization, Dr. Trochimczyk created  a blog called PAHANews.blogspot.com, which to date has 38 posts that include information about PAHA awards, program deadlines, and reprints of selected general interest stories from the PAHA Newsletter. The blog has had over 13,700 views and has become an important venue for publicizing the activities of the organization. She has also contributed to the expansion of the PAHA Facebook page and is one of its co-facilitators, making frequent posts and comments. The Facebook page has over 1950 readers. In 2014, Dr. Trochimczyk redesigned PAHA's print publicity materials (a trifold flyer and a postcard) that used artwork by Julian Stanczak, PAHA's Creative Arts Prize winner.

Photo by Scott Whittle

As a scholar, Dr. Trochimczyk has previously received the PAHA's Swastek Prize in 2007 for the best article published in the Polish American Studies, “The Impact of Mazowsze and Sląsk on Polish Folk Dancing in California” that appeared in Vol. 63, No. 1 (Spring 2006). Article URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20148738. A musicologist and a poet, in 2014, Dr. Trochimczyk co-edited two books on Polish music: Frederic Chopin: A Research and Information Guide  (with William Smialek, for Routledge in New York) and The Lutoslawski Legacy (with Stanislaw Latek, for the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of Canada).  Her  books  include: Polish Dance in California (East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 2007) and her most recent poetry publication, Slicing the Bread (2014) based on childhood memories of her parents who survived WWII in Poland. The Polish American Studies published three articles, including, in addition to the folk dance project, also studies of poetry about Chopin and images and myths about Ignacy Jan Paderewski.  Results of her research on Polish and Polish-American music of the 19th and 20th centuries  have been published in a range of books and journals, including the Polish Review, Musical Quarterly, Muzyka, Journal of Musicological Research, Contemporary Music Review, Computer Music Journal, and books published by Oxford University Press, Indiana University, Cambridge Scholars, Musica Iagellonica, among others. She also contributed 38 entries on music and dance to the Polish American Encyclopedia in 2011, and edited the Polish Music Journal for six years. (www.trochimczyk.net).

Terry Tegnazian with her most recent book and Anna Mazurkiewicz.

Photo by Scott Whittle.

The Amicus Poloniae Award “recognizes significant contributions enhancing knowledge of Polish and Polish-American heritage by individuals not belonging to the Polish-American community” and was presented to Ms. TERRY TEGNAZIAN, the co-founder of the Aquila Polonica Publishing.

Ms. Tegnazian was recognized for her devotion to printing books about Poland in World War II which nurture interest in and have an impact on the perception of Poland and Poles among the American audiences. A graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School, Terry Tegnazian became interested in the Polish experience of World War II as a result of research for a book she was working on about a Polish airman in the Battle of Britain. Reading memoirs of key Polish Underground leaders, she was moved by the stories of the Poles’ incredible courage during World War II—an aspect of the war she had not previously been aware of. Terry co-founded Aquila Polonica Publishing because she felt it was important that such lost stories be restored to history and the wider public.

Photo by Scott Whittle

She has visited Poland several times in recent years.  In addition to being a hands-on publisher involved in all aspects of each Aquila Polonica title, Terry has written about Poland in World War II for the Wall Street Journal Europe and the Warsaw Business Journal, she's been interviewed on national television, and has presented numerous live programs in a wide range of venues, including museums and libraries, university courses, and the Polish Consulate (Montreal) and Embassy in Canada.

Dr. Anna Mazurkiewicz with Pres. Tom Napierkowski. Photo by Scott Whittle

The Oskar Halecki Award “recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States” and was presented to Dr. ANNA MAZURKIEWICZ of the University of Gdansk, Poland.

Dr. Anna Mazurkiewicz served as the editor of East Central Europe in Exile, vols. 1-2: Transatlantic Migrations, and  Transatlantic Identities (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013). This outstanding two-volume work, published under the general editorship and direction of Dr. Anna Mazurkiewicz of the University of Gdansk, takes up an extremely significant area of research in the broad field of Polish American studies, namely the experience of emigration and resettlement in a new homeland. The product of a recent academic conference held in Poland, these books include contributions by thirty-eight scholars from North America and Europe. Their contributions have a broadly comparative character, inasmuch as they include a number of presentations by scholars who examine aspects of both the Polish emigration and settlement experiences, along with those of other peoples from East Central Europe. There are also historical pieces as well as presentations having a more contemporary character. All in all, Dr. Mazurkiewicz's effort makes an inestimable contribution to scholarly research and knowledge in the important field of emigration studies - and with special attention to the experiences of peoples who are all too often overlooked in discussions of this subject.

Anna Mazurkiewicz with her books. Photo by Scott Whittle

 The Swastek Award, “awarded annually for the best article published in a given volume of Polish American Studies, the journal of the Polish American Historical Association”  was presented to LEONARD KURDEK.

The Editors recommend Leonard Kurdek’s article “The Real-Life Story Behind ‘Call Northside 777’: The Crime, the Conviction, and the Search for Justice” from Polish American Studies, Vol. 70, no. 2 (Autumn 2013): 5-78. The Editors stated: “The subject matter is particularly important given the prominence of the Hollywood movie, its influence on how Polish Americans are viewed, and the many Polish American aspects that were left out of the film. The editors consider it a meticulously researched reconstruction of a story with compelling human interest which also deals with the interplay of life with art and Hollywood’s depiction of Polish Americans. A very detailed piece of detective work, it holds the interest of readers from start to finish, is clearly written, and raises a number of very serious and provocative questions about the character of American justice and the consequences of injustice as experienced by a family of poor, working class Polish Americans during the worst times of the Great Depression—a topic that has implications for all disadvantaged peoples. The treatment is objective, with ample evidence provided to support its assertions. The article brought to light an important chapter in Polish American history that had been largely forgotten even within Polonia.”

Rachel Rothstein. Photo by Scott Whittle

The Graduate Student Research Paper Award “recognizes outstanding research into Polish-American history and culture by a young scholar in the humanities or social sciences” and was presented to RACHEL ROTHSTEIN – Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Ms. Rothstein submitted her paper entitled  “Defending the Remnants: American Jews Respond to Poland’s 1968 Anti-Zionist Campaign.”  As the title suggests the Rothstein paper deals mostly with the actions by the organized American Jewish community in response to the Polish communist dictatorship's "Anti-Zionist" campaign in 1968. Based on primary sourcesit is relevant to the story of the Polish Americans as the Communist anti-Semitic campaign led to a wave of emigration from Poland comprised of roughly two-thirds of the remaining Polish Jews with thousands, mostly intelligentsia, immigrating to the U.S. Rothstein relates it to the Polish Communist government reactionaries’ turn against the country’s liberals, intellectuals, students – all in the relevant context of the Cold War. It’s not a paper that discusses anti-Semitism in Poland. It discusses the efforts of the American Jewish leadership to end the state-sponsored anti-Semitism in Communist Poland as a form of repression of freedom and democracy by the issuing of public statements and organizing protests, to calling for the revocation of Poland’s Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) status and allowances for Polish Jews wishing to immigrate to the United States. The efforts of the American Jewish organizations also included a push for exceptions to American immigration policy. The text is very descriptive and aptly discusses tensions around Most-Favored-Nation status, immigration laws, former Communist party members.

Presidents Tom Napierkowski and Grazyna Kozaczka. Photo by Marcin Mazurkiewicz

There were several Skalny Civic Achievement Awards presented to “honor individuals or groups who advance PAHA's goals of promoting research and awareness of the Polish-American experience and/or have made significant contributions to Polish or Polish-American community and culture.”

Karen Majewski with Tom Napierkowski. Photo by Scott Whittle

A. Dr. KAREN MAJEWSKI was recognized for her unwavering efforts to revitalize Hamtramck, one of America’s oldest and most interesting Polonia’s communities located in the heart of Detroit. Her efforts include preserving and promoting Polish cultural heritage in this community. Majewski was elected Hamtramck’s first woman mayor in 2005, since then re-elected twice (2009, 2013). Former executive director of PAHA, she has also organized exhibits devoted to the Polish presence in Detroit, published works related to the Polish-American identity, and continues to work on community revitalization programs.  She is also being recognized for her work as the Curator, of Polish and Rare Books at Polish Mission of the Orchard Lake Schools. Dr. Majewski has previously received the 2004 Halecki Award for her book Traitors and True Poles:Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003). The book was also recognized by the Kulczycki Prize in 2000 for its unique contribution to the history of Polish-American literature. In 2001 she organized the Detroit Historical Museum exhibit, The Polish Presence in Detroit. Dr. Majewski is also the Piast Institute Fellow and a Board Member of the Dekaban Foundation.

Photo by Scott Whittle

B. Mr. TIMOTHY J. KUZMA of Pittsburgh was honored with the Skalny Award for his many faceted, highly productive, and forward looking work as President of the Polish Falcons of American fraternal, his guidance in making the Falcons publication an outstanding fraternal vehicle promoting the Polish heritage that it is, and for his impressive work in making the March 2014 Polish American Summit of national Polonia leaders a success.

Photo by Scott Whittle

C. Mr. FRANK MILEWSKI of New York – Chair of the Anti-Bigotry and Holocaust Documentation Committees of the Polish American Congress was recognized  with the Skalny Award for his continuing and longtime efforts as a Polish American Congress activist in New York, notably his time-consuming work of monitoring American mass media for themes related to Poland and the Polish American community, correcting  errors, and fighting defamatory comments in a professional and informed manner.

D. Dr. ALEKSANDRA ZIOLKOWSKA-BOEHM received the Skalny Award for her role in advancing knowledge and appreciation of Polish history and culture in the United States. Ziółkowska-Boehm is a Polish born writer who now lives in the United States. Her widely acclaimed works published in English deal mostly with the Polish experience in Second World War.

E. Dr. ALEX STOROZYNSKI was presented with the Skalny Award for his past leadership of the Kosciuszko Foundation. Due to his efforts and incentive, the Kosciuszko Foundation moved its operations and communications system to the 21-st century. Modernization, enhanced efficiency, greater outreach must also be paired with his widely read and very well publicized biography of Thaddeus Kosciuszko which has generated renewed interest and appreciation of Kosciuszko as an American and Polish hero of historic stature.

Adrian Prawica with Tom Napierkowski. Photo by Scott Whittle

The Creative Arts Award „recognizes the contributions in the field of creative arts by individuals or groups who have promoted an awareness of the Polish experience in the Americas” and was presented to ADRIAN PRAWICA, director and executive producer of the film The Fourth Partition: Chicago (2013).

The Fourth Partition: Chicago tells a unique and rarely talked about history of Chicago’s Polish Community at the dawn of the 20th century.  It examines economic and political reasons for the migration of over 4,000,000 Poles to the United States between 1870 and 1920. Starting with the first Polish settlers in the Jamestown colony in 1608, this documentary focuses on Polish immigrant workers in heavily industrialized Chicago neighborhoods, their community, as well as their political activism, which aided Poland in her fight for independence during WWI.  The Fourth Partition: Chicago features interviews with some of the most known Polish-American historians in the United States [including PAHA’s James Pula, Don Pienkos and Dominic Pacyga]. The film shows rare images of Poles in the Unites States and their communities, which they built while working in some of the heaviest industries such as steel and meatpacking.  Most of all, it tells a history of one of the largest ethnic communities in Chicago, that is still ever present today”. Trailer of the documentary mayh be seen at:  http://www.amerykafilm.com/thefourthpartition/.  Mr. Prawica was accompanied at the Award Ceremony by Associate Producer Rafał Muskała and PR Representative Paulina Szymczak from Krakow, Poland.

Jim Pula with Tom Napierkowski. Photo by Scott Whittle

At the end special appreciation was expressed for the work of Dr. Jim Pula as Editor of the Polish American Studies in 1996 to 2014, and to Mr. Thom Duszak for his service as PAHA Secretary.

Thom Duszak with Tom Napierkowski. Photo by Scott Whittle

The Award Ceremony and Reception were coordinated by Dr. Anna Mazurkiewicz, Chair of the Awards Committee and Dr. Iwona Drag Korga, Director of the Pilsudski Institute in New York. Thanks to the generosity of the Consulate and the hard work of all involved the ceremony was enjoyed by all attendees - who started the New Year by celebrating achievements of scholars of Polonia.

Photo by Pien Versteegh.

Photo album from the event may be found on Picasa Web Albums (authored by Maja Trochimczyk, with photos by different authors).