Lecture: Czeslaw Milosz Remembered

ANNA FRAJLICH, an accomplished Polish émigré poet, is the author of 12 collections of poetry and
the recipient of prestigious awards from the Kościelski Foundation of Switzerland and W&N
Turzański Foundation of Toronto. In their citation, the prize committee commended Frajlich’s work as
one „of the most interesting phenomena om contemporary Polish poetry,“ one which „reveals deep
truth about the existence of an idividual entangled in the tragic fate of contemporary civilization.“ The
expanded second edition of her bilingual volume Between Dawn and Wind, translated and with an
introduction by Regina Grol, was published in Fall 2006 by Host Publications.
Recently Frajlich published “Laboratorium” collection of prose miniatures, and collection of essays
“Czesław Miłosz. Lekcje”.
Anna Frajlich (aka Anna Frajlich-Zajac) received her MA from Warsaw University in the Polish
literature, and her Ph.D. in the Slavic Department of the New York University in 1991. Her poetry,
reviews, articles and essays have been published in various journals in Poland, the United States, and
Europe.
Frajlich is a Sr. Lecturer at the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University in New York
City, where she teaches Polish language and literature.
In 2002 Anna Frajlich received The Knight Cross of the Order of Merit awarded by the President of
the Polish Republic and in 2008 she received the Honorary title of the Ambassador of Szczecin,
Poland.

Irena Grudzinska Gross teaches East European literature at Princeton University. She
emigrated from her native Poland after student unrest of 1968. She studied in Italy and in
the United States. A graduate of Columbia University (1982), she taught at Emory
University, New York University and Boston University. Her books include “Golden
Harvest” with Jan T. Gross, forthcoming in 2012 at Oxford University Press, “Czesław
Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets,” Yale University Press, 2009, and “The
Scar of Revolution: Tocqueville, Custine and the Romantic Imagination,” University of
California Press, 1995. She edited books on literature and the transformation process in
Central and Eastern Europe and is the author of numerous book chapters and articles on
these subjects published in the international press and periodicals. Between 1998-2003,
she was responsible for the East-Central European Program at the Ford Foundation. From
2000 till 2003 she was co-chair of the Trust for Civil Society in East-Central Europe, and,
among other functions, Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Baltic-American
Partnership Fund. At present, she is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Friends of
Stefan Batory Foundation and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Borderland
Foundation in Poland.
Title of her presentation is: War Poetry of Czeslaw Milosz

KRYSTYNA S. OLSZER, Born and educated in Poland, Krystyna S. Olszer has been
living in the United States since 1970. Since 1973 she has been connected as with the
Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and its quarterly The Polish Review. She
has contributed to numerous journals in America and Poland as well as London’s
Wiadomości and Paris’ Kultura. She edited the anthology For Your Freedom and Ours
(1981) and Treasury of Love Poems by Adam Mickiewicz (1997), and I Am Healthy and
Feel Fine. The Auschwitz Letters of Marian H. Serejski (2010) She has published the
Polish Handy Extra Dictionary (1996) and a collection of her articles on the Polish
language, Polszczyzna z oddali (2001). For almost 30 years she has taught Polish
language and literature in New York — Hunter College until 2006 and later, part-time, at
Columbia University as Adjunct Associate Professor of Polish.
In 1997 she received an honorary distinction from the Polish Government for her “Merit
to the Polish Culture.”
Title of her presentation: CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ IN THE POLISH INSTITUTE OF ARTS
AND SCIENCES (from personal perspective)