The Diploma of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs for outstanding services in the promotion of Poland in the world

The Diploma of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs for outstanding services in the promotion of Poland in the world has been granted annually since 1970. The first Diplomas were awarded to Poles and members of the Polish diaspora for their service in promoting Polish culture around the world. Since 1999, the Diploma may be granted to any person, regardless of nationality, who has contributed to the promotion of Polish culture, politics, sports, or economy, abroad. Institutions and non-governmental organizations are also eligible. This new formula makes it possible to honour all those who contribute to the creation of a positive image of Poland and of its uniqueness in the world.

Laureates of the Diploma for the year 2009:

• Andżelika Borys, a leader of Polish diaspora in Belarus. As president of the Union of Poles in Belarus (2005-2010), Ms. Borys showed courage and determination in defending the rights of the Polish minority and was repeateadly pursued by the Belarusian administration for her actions. Currently, Ms. Borys is director of Polonika, a firm coordinating assistance to Polish minorities in Belarus.

Mirosław Bałka, one of the greatest Polish contemporary artists, is known internationally for his installations, sculptures and video works dealing with both personal and collective memories, especially as they relate to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland's fractured history. His poetic works, recalling the tragedies of European history such as the Holocaust, memorialize events through symbolic abstraction rather than discrete monument. Mr. Bałka’s solo exhibitions include those at the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, and Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. In 2009, he was the 10th artist to be invited to the immensely popular Unilever Series at Tate Modern, the world’s most-visited modern art gallery. His installation How it is? was proclaimed the best work of art so far commissioned for the Turbine Hall.

• Victor Khoriev, professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the Slavic Literature History Department. A renowned specialist in Polish literature, co-author and editor of the two-volume History of Polish Literature, and initiator, co-author and editor of the unique publication History of the Literature of the Central European Countries after the Second World War. Professor Khoriev teaches Polish at the Faculty of Philology at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, forming a new generation of literature translators.

Marjukka Mäyry, president of the Union of Associations Poland – Finland. To promote Poland, Ms. Mäyry actively cooperates with numerous cultural and scientific institutions in Finland. She collaborates with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland on organizing the annual Polish Film Week, which has already become a steady point in the cultural calendars of nine Finnish cities. The Union organizes lectures on Polish literature, culture and history, given by translators and cultural studies specialists invited from Poland.

• Jan Madey received his Ph.D. in mathematics (1972) from the Warsaw University, where he has taught from the beginning of his career. He is the author of the first Algol 60 and Pascal programming languages manuals in Polish, as well as of their method of teaching. Professor Madey devotes his time to the promotion of talented Polish youth abroad; for several years now he has been a tutor to student teams from Warsaw University, which win prizes in the world programming contests such as the Academic Collegiate Programming Championships or the EU Young Scientists Contest. He is currently the Vice-President of the General Council for Higher Education, Chairman of the Board for Information and Media Education, and President of the Polish Children’s Fund. Notably, he is the first Pole to be President of European University Information Systems (EUNIS).

Hanaa Abdel Fattah Metwaly, professor at the Cairo University in Giza, theatre director and translator of Polish literature into Arabic. He translated works of Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, Tadeusz Różewicz, Sławomir Mrożek, Stanisław Lem, Marek Hłasko, as well as of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Władysław Reymont, and Bolesław Prus. From 1995 to 1999 he ran a radio show Polish poets and their poetry on. Author of numerous articles on theatre and Polish literature. He has been inviting Polish performances to the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre.

• Allen Paul, former Associated Press reporter and political speechwriter is the author of Katyn – Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth, which tells the story of one of the 20th century's greatest and least-known tragedies: the fate of Polish prisoners of war in the former USRR, in particular – the Katyń massacre. The book was first published in 1991 by Scribner in New York to wide acclaim: The New York Times called it "a moving reconstruction of the human side of these events". Two editions of Katyn have been bestsellers in Poland; a Czech edition was a bestseller in 2008. New editions released in the U.S. (Northern Illinois University Press, 2010, 8th edition), and in Poland, include revelations on the high-level U.S. cover-up of Katyń. Mr. Allen made the first of his many trips to Poland in 1989. Currently, he researches a book about Solidarity, based on a true story about the Polish underground's daring plot to expose Stalin's guilt at Katyń.

Natalia Paszkowska and Marcin Mostafa of WWA Architekci, architects of Polish Pavilion for EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. An example of most recent trends in architecture and design, the Pavilion’s outer shape resembled a folded sheet of paper and inside it employed the motive of traditional folk cut-outs. Referring to the EXPO theme, better cities-better life, the cut-outs changing from folk forms into organic ones, and finally into a city map and industrial patterns, were a metaphor of migration from countryside into cities. Their story formed a base for images and films showing Poland through its history, culture, economy and every-day life. The Pavillion was visited by nearly 3 million visitors and was covered in Financial Times, Archivonte, The Guardian, Dezeen, Der Spiegel, Design Boom, among others.

• Henryk Skarżyński, professor, world famous otolaryngologist, surgeon, outstanding specialist in hearing and speech disorders, a pioneer in the field of ear implantology, especially cochlear implants of the inner ear and brainstem. He is the founder and director of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing in Warsaw, as well as of the International Center of Hearing and Speech in Kajetany, Poland. In 2002, he was the first in the world to perform surgery of implantation of the cochlear implant in partial deafness, using his author method PDCI (partial deafness cochlear implantation). Professor Skarżyński is author of many scientific publications and laureate of numerous prestigious awards.

Jo Song Mu, Polish language lecturer of the Polish Philology Department at the Foreign Languages College in Pyongyang, North Korea and Member of the Board of the Association of Polish-Korean Friendship. Offering Polish language courses in North Korea was only possible thanks to his determination and personal devotion – Mr. Jo Song Mu remains the only Polish language teacher in DPRK, and prepared Polish-Korean Dictionary for the course participants.

In previous years, the Diploma was presented to: Marcin Gortat, Prof. Michał Heller, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, Janusz Kamiński, KARTA Center, Wojciech Kilar, Krystian Lupa, Adam Małysz, Leszek Możdżer, Myslovitz, Chris Niedenthal, Jerzy Owsiak, Sir Simon Rattle, TV Polonia, Krzysztof Warlikowski, father Marian Żelazek, among others.