Post by Jaga on Dec 26, 2008 9:45:10 GMT -7
I forgot to write about it in the newsletter:
Jadwiga's Crossing Author to Speak at Polish Heritage Society of Rochester
Event in Organization's 90th Anniversary Celebration
Additional information:
Dick Lutz, 917 617-0449 or 212 826-9056 or editor@MainStreetWIRE.com
Alexander Johnson, Polish Heritage Society of Rochester, belcoda@gmail.com or 585-738-7300]
The Polish Heritage Society of Rochester, NY, is about to celebrate its 90th Anniversary year.
As an initial event in a year-long festival, the society will present readings by the co-author of Jadwiga’s Crossing, a novel of early Polish immigration, on Friday evening, January 23.
The novel, in English, chronicles a year in the life of Pawel Adamik and Jadwiga Wdowiak, sweethearts – and then newlyweds – in conflict over what he considers "the crazy notion of travel to an unknown land." He has made opportunities for himself in military service to the Prussian occupiers of Poland, and is reluctant to the point of declaring that they will not go forward with such foolish plans. She is a Kashube, a young woman of determined and independent nature who has resisted the full measure of Bismarck’s kulturkampf (culture war) against the Polish language, culture, and traditions. She has an undeniable dream of leaving occupied Poland "for a free land where Polish people can be Polish."
The novel is the product of a father-and-son team. Aloysius A. Luczkowiak (later, Lutz, after a family name change) began the work in the 1950s, drawing on the many stories of immigration he had heard as a child and young man growing up in a Polish neighborhood of Dunkirk, New York. A steelworker by trade, he died in 1966 while the story was still in early stages.
By then, his son Richard Lutz had become a University of Michigan graduate and a broadcast journalist, working in public radio and television in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and later as a consultant to the British Broadcasting Corporation, based in New York City. From time to time, he had read and edited his father’s work, and in 1983 he decided to complete it, taking a year off to give it full-time attention.
But the novel was not finished until 2006. The younger Lutz explains, "The dedicated year in 1983 was enough to complete the overall shape of the novel and to do some critical research that hadn’t been possible with the resources Dad had available in Dunkirk. In New York City, I had access to the library, and the help of a skilled research librarian, at the Kosciuszko Society. That was important to get dozens of details right."
He explains that the Kashube wedding customs of the Baltic region, around the fishing villiages of the Hel Peninsula, were significantly different from those of the farmers living near Kalicz, the groom’s home. "Getting the specifics of that chapter right was the greatest challenge," he says.
In the story, the couple travel with a diverse group of their fellow Poles, exchanging stories of life in a Poland occupied by three different neighboring powers. The conditions of travel aboard an aging German ship, pressed into extended service to take advantage of the emigration trade, are extraordinarily difficult. To complicate matters, Jadwiga is pregnant, determined that her child must be born an American in America. But that goal fades as the ship is damaged and the contingent of travelers becomes impatient, then irritable.
The bulk of the novel is the story of their journey and their companions, ending with their first months in Dunkirk as they struggle to make their new home a happy one. But by then, as the result of a series of events aboard ship, Paul and Jadwiga have "adopted" a family of six, and all their combined ingenuity is required to survive, then prosper, in a new and strange environment.
The younger Lutz is now retired, and is the editor and publisher of The Main Street WIRE, a fortnightly community newspaper serving Roosevelt Island, part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. When time permits, he’s at work on the sequel to Jadwiga’s Crossing, to be titled Jadwiga’s America.
Jadwiga’s Crossing was introduced last year in a special public reading at the Polish Consulate in New York.
The January 23 event in Rochester is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue. Additional information is available from Alexander Johnson, the membership chairman of the Polish Heritage Society of Rochester, at 585-342-5248, or by e-mail to belcoda@gmail.com. The website for the novel is JadwigasCrossing.com.
Jadwiga's Crossing Author to Speak at Polish Heritage Society of Rochester
Event in Organization's 90th Anniversary Celebration
Additional information:
Dick Lutz, 917 617-0449 or 212 826-9056 or editor@MainStreetWIRE.com
Alexander Johnson, Polish Heritage Society of Rochester, belcoda@gmail.com or 585-738-7300]
The Polish Heritage Society of Rochester, NY, is about to celebrate its 90th Anniversary year.
As an initial event in a year-long festival, the society will present readings by the co-author of Jadwiga’s Crossing, a novel of early Polish immigration, on Friday evening, January 23.
The novel, in English, chronicles a year in the life of Pawel Adamik and Jadwiga Wdowiak, sweethearts – and then newlyweds – in conflict over what he considers "the crazy notion of travel to an unknown land." He has made opportunities for himself in military service to the Prussian occupiers of Poland, and is reluctant to the point of declaring that they will not go forward with such foolish plans. She is a Kashube, a young woman of determined and independent nature who has resisted the full measure of Bismarck’s kulturkampf (culture war) against the Polish language, culture, and traditions. She has an undeniable dream of leaving occupied Poland "for a free land where Polish people can be Polish."
The novel is the product of a father-and-son team. Aloysius A. Luczkowiak (later, Lutz, after a family name change) began the work in the 1950s, drawing on the many stories of immigration he had heard as a child and young man growing up in a Polish neighborhood of Dunkirk, New York. A steelworker by trade, he died in 1966 while the story was still in early stages.
By then, his son Richard Lutz had become a University of Michigan graduate and a broadcast journalist, working in public radio and television in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and later as a consultant to the British Broadcasting Corporation, based in New York City. From time to time, he had read and edited his father’s work, and in 1983 he decided to complete it, taking a year off to give it full-time attention.
But the novel was not finished until 2006. The younger Lutz explains, "The dedicated year in 1983 was enough to complete the overall shape of the novel and to do some critical research that hadn’t been possible with the resources Dad had available in Dunkirk. In New York City, I had access to the library, and the help of a skilled research librarian, at the Kosciuszko Society. That was important to get dozens of details right."
He explains that the Kashube wedding customs of the Baltic region, around the fishing villiages of the Hel Peninsula, were significantly different from those of the farmers living near Kalicz, the groom’s home. "Getting the specifics of that chapter right was the greatest challenge," he says.
In the story, the couple travel with a diverse group of their fellow Poles, exchanging stories of life in a Poland occupied by three different neighboring powers. The conditions of travel aboard an aging German ship, pressed into extended service to take advantage of the emigration trade, are extraordinarily difficult. To complicate matters, Jadwiga is pregnant, determined that her child must be born an American in America. But that goal fades as the ship is damaged and the contingent of travelers becomes impatient, then irritable.
The bulk of the novel is the story of their journey and their companions, ending with their first months in Dunkirk as they struggle to make their new home a happy one. But by then, as the result of a series of events aboard ship, Paul and Jadwiga have "adopted" a family of six, and all their combined ingenuity is required to survive, then prosper, in a new and strange environment.
The younger Lutz is now retired, and is the editor and publisher of The Main Street WIRE, a fortnightly community newspaper serving Roosevelt Island, part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. When time permits, he’s at work on the sequel to Jadwiga’s Crossing, to be titled Jadwiga’s America.
Jadwiga’s Crossing was introduced last year in a special public reading at the Polish Consulate in New York.
The January 23 event in Rochester is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue. Additional information is available from Alexander Johnson, the membership chairman of the Polish Heritage Society of Rochester, at 585-342-5248, or by e-mail to belcoda@gmail.com. The website for the novel is JadwigasCrossing.com.