History

St. Cyril and Methodius, commonly known as the Polish Seminary, was founded in 1885 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1909, due to better housing conditions, it was moved to the nearby Orchard Lake, where it exists today. The creation of this seminary is connected with the mass economic emigration of Poles to the United States.

On August 1, sirens will sound at 5 p.m. Warsaw time, the buzz of conversations will be silent, and the traffic will freeze for a minute. Poles will pay tribute to the heroes of the Warsaw Uprising.

Chicago’s Edward J. Moskal was born May 21, 1924, the son of immigrants. High school educated and a World War II veteran, he was the proprietor of a successful business at the time of his election in 1967 to serve as treasurer of the Polish National Alliance. At that convention Charles Rozmarek was defeated by Aloysius Mazewski for the PNA presidency. Moskal went on to win election six times before becoming president in October 1988 in a special election following Mazewski’s death. That November he was elected president of the Polish American Congress, an office he held until his death on March 20th, 2005.

The book of prof. Ewa Thompson goes beyond the boundaries of previous research on the phenomenon of yuródivy (юродивый). The researcher confronts the portrait of the saint madman preserved by literature and hagiography with the social and political context of their activities in pre-revolutionary Russia. Thompson argues with the view that the phenomenon of God's madness, booming in Rus and later in Russia until the time of the October Revolution, grew unequivocally out of Christianity.

In the last weekly Solidarity Weekly (Tygodnik Solidarność), my attention was drawn to a column by the editor Waldemar Biniecki, "A book that no one in Poland has heard of." The column concerns a very important political and economic problem for Poland, which is the creation of the "Intermarium".

Terry Tegnazian is among a growing number of Americans with no Polish roots who notice that there is a big piece of education missing in their upbringing. It is the history of Poland and the role she played in World War II. In 2005, Terry opened a new publishing house Aquila Polonica Publishing with the mission to bring the story of Poland and Poles in World War II and after to the American public. The quality of Aquila Polonica work has been recognized through several prestigious awards and a growing readership.

The history of the Church of St. Adalbert in Milwaukee is part of the history of the Polish American community. The life of many outstanding Poles, and of the simple but very patriotic Polish emigrants who support their activities, is connected with the community of this church. This story deserves to be saved from oblivion.

“Already in the first days of my internment in Birštonas, near Kaunas, on the Nemunas, I went for a walk along the river at the camp's border. Suddenly I noticed a small object shining in the sun. I picked it up and smiled. It was a silver thaler from 1580. On one side it showed the image of Stefan Batory with the Latin inscriptions «Stephanus, Rex Poloniae, Magnus Dux Lituaniae», and on the other side there was the coat of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth."

Three related activities defined Mazewski’s career: his building of a highly successful law practice, his engaging in Republican party politics, and his involvement in the Polish National Alliance fraternal. A PNA national director in 1947 at age 31, Mazewski was elected President of the Alliance over Charles Rozmarek in September 1967 at the 35th national PNA convention in Detroit. Long involved in the Polish American Congress, he was elected PAC president in 1968. He served as president for 20 years — until his death on August 3, 1988.

Wołyń-Zhytomyr is close to the heart of every Pole. In these areas and on the Poles living here, the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has left its mark of suffering. The following great sons of our nation were related to Żytomierz: Józef Conrad Korzeniowski, Jarosław Dąbrowski, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Juliusz Zarębski, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and others.

May 28, 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of Fr. Maksymilian Kolbe - the guardian of Niepokalanów, a Franciscan monastery and a large publishing house - having been imprisoned in the German concentration camp at Auschwitz. On this occasion, the Franciscan Publishing House «Fraternal Call» in Krakow will be publishing a volume of poetry by Kazimierz Braun entitled "Songs of Saint Maximilian and other poems".