Author: maxwelal

Victoria University 4 October 2008

Polish Culture,
Polish Experiences

Conference Schedule
10:00 Welcome, Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk 406)
10:10 “Poland and New Zealand: A Modern Friendship”
Lech Mastalerz, Polish Ambassador to New Zealand
Phillip Griffiths, former NZ Ambassador to Poland
10:30 “John Dee, Magic, and the Polish Crown”
Glyn Parry, History, VUW
11:00 Coffee break
11:15 “Polish Goals in the Pan-Slavic Revolution of 1848”
Alexander Maxwell, History, VUW
11:45 “Dissent in the Nation of Nobles”
Richard Millington, VUW, German
12:15 Lunch
2:00 “The European Union & Poland’s E. Neighbors”
Desmond Brennan, NCRE, Canterbury
2:30 “Polish broadcasting laws in the European Union.”
Eva Polonska-Kimunguyi, University of Melbourne
3:00 “The Polish Community in New Zealand”
Magdelena Grkow, Polish School of Wellington
Eric Lepionka, Dom Polski of Wellington

Conference Abstracts

Desmond Brennan (dwbrenn@hotmail.com)
“The European Union and Poland’s Eastern Neighbors”
This presentation will examine the changing relations between Poland and its eastern neighbours. It will be looking in particular at the changes which have come about as a result of the entry of Poland and Lithuania into the EU. While Poles and Lithuanians now have free access to western Europe, Belarusians and Ukrainians find themselves on the wrong side of a new Iron Curtain. The presentation incorporates findings from surveys and interviews carried out during a study trip to Eastern Europe in June-July 2008.

Alexander Maxwell (alexander.maxwell@vuw.ac.nz)
“Polish Goals and the Pan-Slavic Revolution of 1848”
Count Valerian Krasiński served as a Polish diplomat during the 1830 November rising, and after the Russian victory settled in London as part of the “Great Emmigration.” His 1848 Panslavism and Germanism, written in response to the 1848 revolution, surprisingly advocated a voluntary union between Poland and Russia, even accepting a Romanov monarch for the Polish crown. Krasiński’s mental reconciliation with Russia illustrates a characteristically Polish manifestation of Pan-Slavism, a Slovak movement originally developed in response to conditions in the Habsburg lands. This paper examines Krasiński’s ideas in light of Pan-Slav polemicist Jan Kollár.

Richard Millington (richard.millington@vuw.ac.nz)
“Dissent in the Nation of Nobles: ‘The Bust of the Emperor’ ”
Joseph Roth’s 1934 story “The Bust of the Emperor” is usually read as a lament for the author’s lost homeland, an elegy to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in response to the increasingly jingoistic and brutal forms of nationalism on the rise in Europe. The setting of the latter part of the story in the Second Polish Republic appears almost incidental – this functions as just one example of the new, ethnically based states in Eastern Europe. This paper suggests an alternative interpretation by examining the story and the events it portrays from the perspective of its specifically Polish setting.

Glyn Parry (Glyn.Parry@vuw.ac.nz)
John Dee, Magic, and the Polish Crown
English scholar, astrologer, alchemist and occult philosopher John Dee, travelled to Poland with count Adalbert Łaski in 1583, because angels had revealed the cosmic importance of Eastern Europe in the coming apocalypse. Dee expected Łaski, or Stephen Báthory, the Hungarian-born king of Poland, or the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II, to play a decisive role in the coming struggle with Antichrist. That events turned out otherwise over the next six years indicates the problematic relationship between occult philosophers and sixteenth-century rulers.

Eva Polonska-Kimunguyi (evap@unimelb.edu.au)
“Polish broadcasting laws in the European Union.”
A recent report of the EU Commission found that Polish television offers the highest percentage of ‘European programs’ in the EU, claiming a success for its ‘Television without Frontiers’ initiative. The Polish media scene changed significantly when Poland decided to become an EU member, Polish policymakers experienced many challenges and difficulties adapting to European laws. However, Polish broadcasters really offer national, not European. European media laws alone cannot fully ‘Europeanize’ national media sectors nor produce a European identity.

With generous support from
The Polish Embassy in New Zealand (Wellington)
Niel Quigley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research
The History Programme, Victoria University (Wellington)