Does Poland need a new political vision today?
Who in Poland today is developing ideas that could become policy ten or twenty years from now? In a world dominated by successive crises, opinion polls and day-to-day political disputes, are we still capable of thinking about the state in the longer term?
The Mieroszewski Centre invites you to a series of three events in Gdańsk, Warsaw and Kraków, taking the life and thought of Juliusz Mieroszewski – one of the most important writers associated with the Paris-based Kultura – as their starting point.
Reading Mieroszewski’s writings from the second half of the twentieth century reveals how consistently he thought in the long term about Poland’s place in a changing Europe. He paid particular attention to the East and to relations with Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia. It was there that he sought answers to the question of Poland’s future security.
At the same time, he did not cling to assumptions once they had been made. As reality changed, he revised his own views and earlier assessments. Yet he always tried to look beyond immediate events. Many of the ideas developed by Mieroszewski and the circle around the Paris-based Kultura eventually entered the mainstream of Polish politics, even though they had been formulated far from Poland.
We do not, however, want to ask what Mieroszewski would say today. We are more interested in whether there is still room for this kind of thinking.
Does Poland need a new political vision? Who is shaping it today – politicians, intellectuals, experts or journalists? Can ideas developed outside day-to-day politics still influence state decisions? And are we capable of revising our own assumptions when reality changes?
We will return to these questions in three conversations – at the Gdańsk Book Fair, the Big Book Festival in Warsaw and the International Book Fair in Kraków. Each event will approach the subject from a slightly different angle, but together they will explore what kind of ideas Poland needs today and who is capable of developing them.
The starting point for the series is Maciej Łuczak’s book Pragmatyczny wizjoner. Rzecz o Juliuszu Mieroszewskim (A Pragmatic Visionary: Juliusz Mieroszewski), published by the Mieroszewski Centre.
GDAŃSK
11 September, 3:00 p.m.
Gdańsk Book Fair | Library
Maciej Łuczak
Moderated by: Estera Flieger
WARSAW
26 September, 12:00 p.m.
Big Book Festival, 81 Dąbrowskiego St.
Marek Cichocki, Agnieszka Lichnerowicz, Maciej Łuczak
Moderated by: Estera Flieger
KRAKÓW
23 October, 11:00 a.m.
International Book Fair in Kraków, 9 Galicyjska St.
Andrzej Brzeziecki, Marek Cichocki, Kaja Puto
Moderated by: Estera Flieger
