Polish Day at the Free University of Brussels - promotion of Polish culture
Polish scientists in Brussels want the presence of our compatriots in Belgium to be associated not only with gainful work, but also with cultural exchanges or scientific cooperation. Thursday was a Polish Day at one of the Brussels universities.
A conference devoted to common history was organized at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). Jeremy Lambert from the Polish Institute in Brussels told PAP that the idea of Polish Day was born in a scientific community and appealed to the Institute.
"We became involved. Poles in Brussels are not a new phenomenon, this emigration is not only economic, it is also intellectual and dates back to the beginnings of Belgian independence, the 1830s. Gen. Jan Skrzynecki commander in chief of the Belgian army, Joachim Lelewel lived here too" - he said.
Lambert admitted that Belgians know very little about Poland. "We did a survey, in which we checked the state of knowledge about Poland among Belgians in Brussels, and found that they know little, they know only a few Poles, for example John Paul II. They also associate Poles with jobs in services. We decided to reach Belgian society through Belgian institutions. We organize very few closed projects, we always have a Belgian partner and we cooperate with, for example, in the field of literature. We communicate this knowledge not in Polish but in French, Dutch and English" - he said.
Head of the Polish Chair at ULB Prof. Dorota Walczak-Delanois recalled that even 20 years ago meeting a Pole on a Belgian street was a rare event. "Over the past 20 years, the number of students of polish studies at the Free University of Brussels has grown threefold. Polish language can be more often heard on the campus, in the cafeteria or in the library. Polish artists, writers, politicians and historians live in Brussels. Books of Polish authors in French or Dutch are available at the university bookstore" - she said.
As she added, the capital of Belgium is a cultural and national melting pot. In her career she taught students from all continents. Interest in the Polish language is also a result of the Belgians\' openness to other cultures, because they are in the centre of Europe - the crossroads of Romanesque and Germanic cultures" - she emphasized.
As she said, one should not forget about the fact that for many years there has been equivalence of diplomas on the basis of an agreement with the University of Warsaw, and because of that Polish students who come here can obtain the diploma of the Free University of Brussels. "By organizing today\'s conference we want to show that Brussels is also the capital of Polish students" - she said.
One of Walczak-Delanois\' former students is the originator of the conference, Dr. Katia Vandenborre of ULB and the Belgian National Research Fund (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique). She came up with the idea of Polish Day when the ULB authorities decided to promote Brussels as a city of student capital. "I thought that it would be worthwhile to show that we also have Polish student capital here. My field is Polish literature but I am very interested in Polish-Belgian cultural transfers. In my work I noticed that there are many Polish students here at ULB. It\'s the same at universities in Liege, Ghent and Antwerp" - she emphasized. She added that she would want to organize more such conferences.
She said that Belgians still do not know much about Polish culture. "There are still too few people working on the development of Polish-Belgian cultural ties. But I think that the interest in Polish culture - literature, music - is great. We have to show that there is something between us, although we do not see it well" - she said.
Dr. Mateusz Chmurski from the Faculty of Polish Studies of the University of Warsaw, a scholarship recipient of the Foundation for Polish Science is also working temporarily at ULB. "Such conferences should be organized for several reasons. Firstly, Polish-Belgian history is quite important. Secondly, especially in Poland, the image of student exchange in the past has been obscured by large agglomerations: St. Petersburg, Kiev, Berlin, Munich, Paris, London, and Belgium has been forgotten somewhere" - he said. At the conference, Chmurski spoke about Maria Dąbrowska.
From Brussels Łukasz Osiński
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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Przed dodaniem komentarza prosimy o zapoznanie z Regulaminem forum serwisu Nauka w Polsce.
