Andrzej Wajda Receives Embassy’s First Czesław Miłosz Award

19 June 2007

Andrzej Wajda with the Czesław Miłosz Award, Ambassador Victor Ashe and Joanna Miłosz, niece of Czesław Miłosz  (see more photos)

U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe, presented legendary film director Andrzej Wajda with the U.S. Embassy’s first Czesław Miłosz Award for Contributions to U.S-Polish Understanding on June 18 during a reception at the Ambassador’s Residence. The award honors an individual dedicated to promoting improved communication, closer cooperation, and greater understanding between the people of the United States and Poland.

The award is named after Czesław Miłosz, the Polish author and co-founder of the literary group "Zagary." During World War II, Miłosz worked in Warsaw for the underground press. He subsequently settled in France where he continued to write, winning the Prix Littéraire Européen in 1953. In 1960, at the invitation of the University of California, Miłosz moved to Berkeley where he was Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature until late in his life. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. 

In selecting Andrzej Wajda as the first recipient of this award, Ambassador Ashe noted, “Wajda is being honored because he is not only one of the most acclaimed directors in the history of film, but he brought Polish culture and politics to U.S. and international audiences through his films.  Wajda also put his career at risk in order to defend the truth and the civic rights of people particularly the freedom of speech.  Generations have been brought up on his films, and many Americans came to know and understand Poland and the blossoming Solidarity Movement through his films.  He has been a moral and professional authority for many Polish people and for many foreigners; an authentic symbol of a man changing the outlook of contemporary art - not only cinema - and shaping the knowledge about the mechanisms of history and politics.”

The Czesław Miłosz Award is one of three annual awards the Embassy has initiated this year.  In January, Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Jan Karski Freedom Award.  In March, Władysław Bartoszewski received the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Award for Public Service.