Poland – country of famous people Created by 5th class of primary school, from primary school “Nazareth” in Kalisz 1 Adam Asnyk Adam Asnyk (1838-1897), was a Polish poet and dramatist. He was born in September 11, 1838 in Kalisz to a noble family, he was educated for an heir of his family's estate. As such he received education at the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry in Marymont and then the Medical Surgeon School in Warsaw. He continued his studies abroad in Breslau, Paris and Heidelberg . In 1862 he returned to Congress Poland and took part in the January Uprising against Russia. Because of that he had to flee the country and settled in Heidelberg, where in 1866 he received a doctorate of philosophy. Soon afterwards he returned to Poland and settled in the Austrian-held part of the country, initially in Lwów and then in Kraków. In 1875 he married Zofia Kaczorowska and around that time started his career as a journalist. An editor of a Kraków - based Reforma daily, in 1884 he was also chosen to the city council of Kraków. Five years later he was elected to the Galician parliament. Around that time he became one of the most prominent men of culture in partitioned Poland. Among his initiatives was the creation of the Society of Popular Schools and bringing the ashes of Adam Mickiewicz to Poland. He was also among the first members of the Tatra Society. He died August 2, 1897 in Kraków and was buried at the Skałka church. 2 Maksymilian Kolbe Maximilian Kolbe (8 January 1894 – 14 August 1941), also known as Maksymilian or Massimiliano Maria Kolbe and “Apostle of Consecration to Mary,” born as Rajmund Kolbe, was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz ( situation in occupied, by Germans army, Poland). He was canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint Maximilian Kolbe on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drugs addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners, amateur radio and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II declared him “The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century.” Do you know that: He was born in January 1894 in Zduńska Wola. He was the second son of Julius Kolbe and Maria Dąbrowska. In 1907 Maksymilian and his elder brother Francis decided to join the Conventual Franciscans. They illegally crossed the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary and joined the Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwów. On 17 February 1941 he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's barracks vanished, prompting commander, SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Friztsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 man from the same barracks to be starved to death in Block 13, in order to deter further escape attempts. One of selected man, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place. Father Kolbe was beatified as a confessor by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 10 October in the presence of Franciszek Gajowniczek. Upon canonization, the Pope declared St. Maksymilian Kolbe not a confessor, but a martyr. 3 Mikołaj Kopernik Nicolaus Copernicus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543 was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published in 1543 just before his death, is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution. His heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center of the universe, demonstrated that the observed motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth at rest in the center of the universe. His work stimulated further scientific investigations, becoming a landmark in the history of science that is often referred to as the Copernican Revolution. Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Among his many responsibilities, astronomy figured as little more than an avocation — yet it was in that field that he made his mark upon the world. Do you know that: Mikołaj Kopernik in 1497 was named a canon at Frombork Cathedral. During 1516–21, Copernicus resided at Olsztyn Castle as economic administrator of Warmia, including Olsztyn and Pieniężno. While there, he wrote a manuscript, Locationes mansorum desertorum (Locations of Deserted Fiefs). When Olsztyn was besieged by the Teutonic Knights during the Polish-Teutonic War (1519–1521), Copernicus was in charge of the defenses of Olsztyn and Warmia by the Royal Polish forces. He also participated in the peace negotiations. Copernicus died in Frombork on 24 May 1543. Legend has it that the first printed copy of De revolutionibus was placed in his hands on the very day that he died, allowing him to take farewell of his life's work. 4 Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz; (December 24, 1798 – November 26, 1855) was a Polish-Lithuanian Romantic poet. He was one of Poland's Three Bards, along with Zygmunt Krasiński and Juliusz Słowacki. Mickiewicz is also considered the greatest Slavic poet, alongside Alexander Pushkin, and a leading author of the Romantic school. Do you know that: Adam Mickiewicz was born at his uncle's estate in Zaosie, near Nowogródek in the Russian Empire (now in Belarus). His father Mikołaj Mickiewicz was a member of the nobility of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. Mickiewicz enrolled at the Imperial University of Vilna. His personality and later works were greatly influenced by his four years of living and studying in Vilnius. In 1823 he was arrested, investigated for his political activities (membership in the Philomaths) and in 1824 banished to central Russia. In 1825 he visited the Crimea, which inspired a collection of sonnets (Sonety Krymskie—The Crimean Sonnets). In 1829, after a five-year exile in Russia, the poet obtained permission to travel abroad. He had secretly made up his mind never to return to Russia, or to his own native land so long as it remained under Russian imperial rule. In 1840 Mickiewicz was appointed to the newly-founded chair of Slavic languages and literatures at the Collège de France. He was, however, destined to hold it for little more than three years, his last lecture being given on May 28, 1844. His mind had become increasingly possessed by religious mysticism. In 1849 Mickiewicz founded a French newspaper, La Tribune des Peuples (The Peoples' Tribune), but survived for only a year. The restoration of the French Empire seemed to kindle his hopes afresh; his last composition is said to have been a Latin ode in honour of Napoleon III. In 1855 Mickiewicz's wife Celina died. On the outbreak of the Crimean War, he left his under-age children in Paris and went to Istanbul, Turkey, where he arrived 22 September 1855, to organize Polish forces to be used in the war against Russia. He died on 26 November in his apartment on the Yenişehir street in Istanbul. The house where he lived in is now a museum. After being temporarily buried in a crypt under his apartment in Istanbul, his remains were transported to France and buried at Montmorency. In 1900 they were disinterred, moved to a politically still- unreborn Poland, and entombed in the crypts of Kraków's Wawel Cathedral, which is shared with many of those who are considered important to Poland's political and/or cultural history. 5 Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (June 30, 1911 – August 14, 2004) was a Polish poet, prose writer and translator. From 1961 to 1998 he was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1980 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Miłosz memorialized his Lithuanian childhood in a 1981 novel, The Issa Valley, and in the 1959 memoir Native Realm. After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, he studied law at Stefan Batory University and in 1931 he traveled to Paris. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934. After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed for his leftist views. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish. Miłosz spent World War II in Warsaw, under Nazi Germany's "General Government," where, among other things, he attended underground lectures by Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics, Władysław Tatarkiewicz. He did not participate in the Warsaw Uprising due to residing outside Warsaw proper. After World War II, Miłosz served as cultural attaché of the communist People's Republic of Poland in Paris. In 1951 he defected and obtained political asylum in France. In 1953 he received the Prix Littéraire Européen In 1960 Miłosz emigrated to the United States, and in 1970 he became a U.S. citizen. In 1961 he began a professorship in Polish literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1978 he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He retired that same year, but continued teaching at Berkeley. In 1980 Miłosz received the Nobel Prize for Literature.