President
of the Republic of Poland
Bronisław Komorowski
Dear Sir or Madam,
2011 has gone down in the history of the Republic of Poland as the year
when our country assumed the leadership of the Council of the European
Union. Those extraordinarily intensive six months of copious meetings at
the highest levels of government and weighty, penetrating discussions on
the future of the Community are still fresh in our memories.
Poland’s presidency tenure also represented a great opportunity to present
something to our friends from abroad that, for us Poles, has long been
a great source of pride while serving as an inexhaustible incentive for us
to act, namely Polish culture. These ends were served by the International
Cultural Programme of the Polish Presidency, which was coordinated by the
AdamMickiewicz Institute and proceeded under the motto, I, CULTURE.
With a wealth of events taking place in various cities and countries, Polish
literature, music, art and culture came to be seen as a marvellous space
for freedom and unbridled expression. A space for the simultaneous
continuation and ongoing reinterpretation of the national tradition. But
above all, a space for continuous dialogue with European culture as well as
a quest for correspondingly new forms of expression.
4
adam mickiewicz institute
