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The medal has been issued in 1980 to commemorate the Polish poet and georrapher, Wincenty POL, 1807-1972 and The International Festival of Song and Dance Ensembles Zielona Gora, 1980.
The medaille has been created by the outstanding Polish medalist, Profs. Jozef STASINSKI, opus 1023.
Wincenty Pol (20 April 1807 – 2 December 1872) was a Polish poet and geographer.
av. Wincenty
Pol
rv. The
inscription in Polish; The International Festival of Song and Dance Ensembles
Zielona Gora 1980
diameter – 100 mm x 105 mm, (ca 4“ x 4⅛“)
weight
– 325.00 gr, (11.46 oz)
metal – bronze, mint authentic patina
Wincenty Pol was born in Lublin (then in Galicia), to Franz
Pohl (or Poll), a German in the Austrian service, and his wife Eleonora Longchamps de
Berier, from a French family living in Poland. Pol fought in the Polish army in
the November 1830 Uprising and participated in
the 1848
revolution. In spite of his mixed family background, he considered himself
a Pole, so much so that he changed his surname to Pol.
He was interned in Königsberg (Królewiec)
after the fall of the November Uprising in Russian partition of Poland. He enrolled at the
University but soon became embroiled in controversy, for his anti-Tsarist
agitation. While Pol was defended by German speaking professors, Peter von Bohlen and Friedrich Wilhelm
Schubert, he left Prussia and continued his exile in France. While in
exile Pol worked on his first poems in tribute to the heroism of the
insurgents, issued later in the set of "Songs of Janusz".
Although he had no formal education in geography, during his
travels in Polish lands he wrote several books on this subject, and in 1849 was
appointed professor at the Jagiellonian
University in Cracow.
He wrote a fine descriptive work, Obrazy z życia i
podróży (Pictures of Life and Travel), and also a poem Pieśń o
ziemi naszej (Song of our Land). In 1855 he published Mohort,
a poem relating to the times of Stanisław August Poniatowski. His earlier Songs
of Janusz (1836) inspired Frédéric Chopin to
write a number of Polish
songs, but only one survives.
Pol was probably first to introduce into Polish literature the
term "Kresy" to
describe the territories lying near the eastern frontiers of the Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth.]
He died in Kraków. Pol was interred in Kraków's historic Skałka Church, a mini-pantheon of Polish scholars, writers and
artists, especially from the Kraków area.