Happy Polish American Heritage Month! Join us in celebrating by reading featured articles from Polish Studies journals published University of Illinois Press: Polish American Studies and The Polish Review.
Polish American Studies
Polish American Studies is the Polish American Historical Association‘s interdisciplinary, double-blind refereed scholars journal. The journal features humanities and social sciences articles, edited documents, and related materials that deal with all aspects of the history and culture of Poles in the Western Hemisphere. Particularly welcome are contributions that provide perspective as part of the larger Polish Diaspora and examine its relationship to other ethnic groups.
Recommended Reading
“The Causes and Characteristics of Polish Immigration to the United States: A Review of Research”
by James S. Pula
In Volume 80, Issue 1, Pula attempts to expand on an earlier study on the causes and nature of Polish migration by taking a longitudinal view of the subject from 1608 to 2020. It focuses primarily on Polish and American circumstances that influenced migration, the number of Polish people arriving in the US during the different historical eras, and their regions of settlement and employment.
“Martha, Anna, Antoni, and Pierogi: Food Autobiographies and Mainstreaming of Polish American Identity”
by Anna D. Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, editor of Polish American Studies
Does your cookbook shelf feature Martha Stewart, Anna Thomas, or Antoni Porowski? All three of these popular authors include elements of their food autobiographies in their cookbooks. This article from Volume 78, Issue 2 examines how the authors highlight their Polish American upbringing and connections to the cuisine and culture of Poland and Polonia. Although they situate their identities within different contexts, all three cookbook authors succeeded in mainstreaming Polish food through building an acceptable image of a Polish American family.
The Polish Review
The Polish Review, a multi-disciplinary, peer-reviewed scholarly quarterly devoted to Polish topics, is the official journal of The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. Launched in 1956, The Polish Review has established itself as one of the most distinguished journals in the various fields of Polish studies, a publication that encourages lively scholarly exchange and cutting-edge innovation. The Review publishes research articles on Polish history, literature, art, architecture, sociology, political science, and other related topics, along with review essays, book reviews, and annotated translations of documents and literary works.
Recommended Reading
“Erasing Herstory: Mila Elin, the Avant-garde’s Forgotten Female Poet”
by Agniezska Jezyk
This essay from Volume 68, Issue 1 aims to familiarize the reader with the unknown work of Mila Elin, a forgotten poet of the Polish interwar avant-garde and the only woman in avant-garde circles in Poland at the time. The analysis examines the reasons for Elin’s erasure from the history of Polish literature, which, apart from the disastrous impact of World War II on Polish material culture, might have been caused by the criticism of her contemporaries, scholars’ biased views of her work, and, perhaps most importantly, her own diffidence.
“Between Letters from America and ‘Sachem’: Henryk Sienkiewicz’s American Experience”
by Tadeusz Bujnicki
In this article, featured in Volume 67, Issue 4, Bujnicki follows Polish novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz’s three-year- long stay in the United States (1876–1878), as well as its result—“Letters from a Trip to America” and short stories inspired by this trip. The article concentrates on the way the author presents both geographic and social aspects of America as well as ideological and artistic interpretation. Sienkiewicz in his writings presents the nature of American democracy, ideas of freedom and equality at the same time noticing unjust treatment and extermination of the Indigenous Americans.