Jerzy Giedroyc Award for the Institute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Jerzy Giedroyc Award for the Institute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Institute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Kaunas, Lithuania), as well as the writer and poet Tomas Venclova, have become laureates of the fifteenth Jerzy Giedroyc Prize.

The editorial board of the well-known Polish newspaper “”Rzeczpospolita” awards the prize annually to individuals and institutions that work to strengthen Poland’s good relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

This time the jury departed from the tradition of awarding the prize to Poles and recognized a person and an institute from Lithuania.

The award ceremony took place in Warsaw on 1 December.

As jury secretary Hanna Wawrowska emphasized, the Institute of the GDL was recognized “for fulfilling a mission that promotes the dissemination, in the lands of contemporary Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland, of the heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, especially the tradition of coexistence among cultures, languages, religions, and peoples.”
“The Institute belongs to a tradition that recalls the song of a forgotten world and sounds like a memory of Arcadia, because it refers to a world of good coexistence among different languages, cultures, religions, and peoples,” said Professor Jan Malicki, director of the Institute of Eastern Europe at the University of Warsaw.

The Jerzy Giedroyc Award was established by the editorial board of “Rzeczpospolita” in 2001, on the first anniversary of the death of the editor and creator of “Kultura” and the Literary Institute in Paris.

The award may be given to individuals or institutions that in their activities follow the principles upheld by Jerzy Giedroyc.

Their characteristic feature is a selfless concern for the public interest and the cultivation of good relations between Poland and the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.

The Institute of the GDL is a non-governmental institution that brings together intellectuals and cultural figures from Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and several other states of the region.

More details – http://www.ldki.lt (http://www.ldki.lt/)