“I want Polish history to enter the UK mainstream,” Justin Maciejewski, director-general of London’s National Army Museum, has declared, as cited by Polish state news agency PAP.
He was quoted as saying that he wanted to make Polish history as well known to millions of history buffs in Britain as the past of France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
Maciejewski spoke ahead of the 2021 Chelsea History Festival, an immersive outdoor project jointly organised by his museum that started in London on Friday and runs until September 26, promising "events, talks, and discussions on all things history."
The festival includes several lectures on the history of Poland, including one by Jennifer Grant on Polish pilots serving in Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II, and a speech by Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski on Poland's landmark Constitution of May 3, 1791.
The event also features a panel discussion about the 1940 Katyn Massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviets, and will also tell the fascinating story of the Polish elite Silent-Unseen Paratroopers, who trained in Britain to fight the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II, the PAP news agency reported.
It quoted Maciejewski as saying in an interview that Polish history has been "somewhat neglected" in British school curricula despite the fact that Poland is a large country that "has played a pivotal role in some key moments of European history."
One such moment was when Poland “stopped the spread of the Bolshevik revolution” by defeating the Bolsheviks in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, Maciejewski said, according to the Polish news agency.
“We are eager to showcase such episodes,” Maciejewski was cited as saying.
He also told PAP that during the previous two Chelsea History Festivals, audiences were “moved to tears” by the story of Poland’s WWII resistance leader Witold Pilecki, who detailed German atrocities in Auschwitz, while Roger Moorhouse’s lecture on the Polish war effort in 1939 was “a true eye opener.”
Maciejewski praised the Polish embassy in London and the local Polish Cultural Institute for helping organise Polish-themed events, PAP reported.
A graduate of Cambridge University and a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, Maciejewski has been in charge of London’s National Army Museum since 2018.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP