POLcast

An interview with Canadian historian, author and educator Zig Misiak about the history and aftermath of Canadian residential schools as well as his 50 years of work with and for Canada's First Nations.

In this episode you will hear my interview with Ilona Kowalik Urbaniak, a mathematician and musician, born in Poland, living in Canada and now working in Cracow, Poland. 

An interview with Sabina Baral, who wrote an extremely successful book in Polish "Zapiski z wygnania" (Notes from Exile). The book talks about her family's experience of being made to leave Poland in March 1968, as a result of the ruling communist party's anti-Semitic purge. Those forced to leave were made stateless and were subjected to humiliating exit procedures.

Sabina left Poland with her parents, parting with her Polish boyfriend. This was the end of her life in the country where her family had lived for generations. And a new beginning.

In this episode you will hear three interviews with:

• Ewa Henry- Dawson, head of the Canada Team of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, about this year’s 29th annual campaign in Canada, pandemic-style.  

• Irene Tomaszewski, a Canadian writer, editor and translator of Polish descent living in Ottawa, for many years the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Review, an online English-language magazine on Polish culture, established in 2008. We talk about Bogumił W.Andrzejewski, a Polish linguist and his connection to Somalia.

• Pola Janowska and Mery (Marysia) Grupinska, two Polish high school students, actively involved in Global Awareness Movement (GAM), an initiative created by young people from Poland, developed and managed entirely by its young inventors, with mentorship of Jola Kulik from Young Talent Management.

In this Episode, we present two interviews, with:

• Prof. Bart Bonikowski, American sociologist from NYU, teacher and advisor of Amanda Gorman at Harvard;

• Joanna Ciapka-Sangster, a Polish Canadian violinist from Edmonton, Canada.

I hope that while listening to this POLcast episode you will forget about the pandemic and this weird Christmas 2020. This episode #78 celebrates the beauty of Christmas through music. You will learn a lot about Polish carols and other Christmas traditions. In this special Christmas episode I interview Joanna Ciapka-Sangster, a Polish Canadian violinist from Edmonton, Alberta.

POLcast Episode 77 features two experts talking about Poland, its current situation, its geopolitical position, the present, the past, and the future

You will hear three interviews with:

• Michael Mostyn, the Chief Executive Officer of B'nai Brith Canada,

• Matthew Samulewski, an activist in the Polish Canadian community, mostly its younger generation,

• Thomas Lukaszuk, a Polish-born Canadian politician and former Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, who served in the provincial cabinet and was the Deputy Premier of Alberta.

See: Legality, morality, and freedom(s) – antisemitism in Polish language newspapers

Quo Vadis Conferences Canada and the Polish Students’ Association (PSA) at the University of Toronto have teamed up to co-host an online conference just for students!

POLcast is happy to be the event’s media patron.

In February I conducted this carefree – pre-COVID-19 – interview with Kinga Heming, an amazing Polish Canadian jazz singer, who was born in Poland, moved to Ottawa when she was five and now resides in the small town of Kelowna in the Canadian province of British Columbia. I had just seen (and loved) her performance at the Kabaret pod Banką’s annual Kabareton (Cabaret Night) but most of all – she had been nominated for coveted Grammy Award.

The pandemic...

Every day brings us new numbers - every single one of them represents someone whose life has been affected by this horrifying pandemic that has changed our world in ways we could not have imagined or predicted. Someone infected or deceased. Those numbers keep growing every day and we all pray or wish for the day when we hear that they have begun to drop. 

Today we will talk about mental health, a very important face of the COVID-19 crisis.

I talk to Dr. Ewa Antczak, a child psychologist, who deals with the emotional/psychological impact of the pandemic on kids.

On May 1 2004, Poland joined the European Union (EU), fulfilling its great dream to rejoin the great European family and community, from which it was isolated by the communist regime and system. 

May 2 is Polish Flag Day which has been celebrated since 2004. May 2nd is also celebrated as a day of Polish diaspora or Poles abroad, so called POLONIA DAY. There are roughly 20 mln people of Polish ancestry living outside Poland, making the Polish diaspora one of the largest in the world and one of the most widely dispersed.

May 3 is Poland’s national holiday: Polish Constitution Day. Poles are celebrating the declaration of the constitution in 1791, the second (after the American Constitution) democraitic, progressive constitution in the world.