US and Poland 4219-AW216
While Polish ties with America originate in the colonial era, they became particularly strong and decisive for bilateral relations during the American Revolution. At the time of birth of the United States as an independent country, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was being partitioned by its neighboring states. Did these two states separated by an ocean have anything in common in 1770s? If so, can 1860s be relevant in examining the story of yearning for freedom on both sides of the Atlantic? What was the Polish contribution to the history of the United States? What was the role of the United States in the Polish road to freedom?
Students attending this class will have a chance to search for answers to these questions as well as explore American history in the context of bilateral relations with Poland. The selected texts included in the reading package will encompass the following themes: Polish immigration to North America (migration for “bread and freedom”; Polish-American heritage); relations between US and Poland (social, cultural, political, diplomatic, economic and military); shared values and heroes of both nations; alternating trends in the sentimental and strategic friendship.
There will be 15 lectures (30 contact hours).
1. Poland in American Global Outlook
2. Legendary Origins of Bilateral Contacts
3. Polish & American fight for freedom
4. Kosciuszko & Jefferson
5. Poland Partitioned, America Divided
6. Poles in America (19th cent.)
7. Polish Immigration to the US (19th/20th cent.)
8. Polish-Americans; ethnic pride - ethnic prejudice
9. US and the rebirth of Poland
10. Americans in Poland (20th c.)
11. The Polish case in World War II - from the American vantage point
12. "Battle for Hearts and Minds" - US soft power tools during the Cold War
13. Ethnic lobbying in the US during the Cold War
14. Beyond QRHELPFUL - American support for "Solidarnosc"
15. Poland in NATO
Type of course
elective monographs
Mode
Remote learning
Classroom
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
Knowledge.
Upon completing this course a student:
a) has an in-depth knowledge of American-Polish relations in social, political and cultural perspectives
b) at advanced level, stipulates various conditions, dynamics and evolution of American-Polish relations, both in domestic (Polish-Americans) and international (bilateral relations) dimensions.
c) is aware of methods, mechanisms and processes formulating American relations with Poland
Skills:
Upon completing this course a student:
a) is able to interpret and explain US foreign policy towards Poland in relation to the American national interest
b) identify domestic sources of American conduct on global stage
c) research, analyze, evaluate and present a selected aspect of US impact in Poland
Social competences:
Upon completing this course a student:
a) understands the importance and follows the discourse related to the American-Polish relations
b) is aware of importance and role of American leadership of the "free world" in the 20th century
c) creatively approaches planning and undertaking research steps needed to complete the project on the American impact in Poland.
Assessment criteria
Workload: 120 hours: 60 -reading; 30- project, 30-lectures/contact hours.
a) Students are required to read 2-3 assigned short texts each week (up to 60 hours of reading per semester). Active participation in class is worth 15% of the final grade.
b) 15% of the final grade will be based on the research project. (US soft power in Poland during the Cold War)
c) There will be a written exam consisting of 10 questions, of which students would pick and answer any 3 (short essay form). 60% of the final grade.
Practical placement
n/a
Bibliography
Articles, book chapters:
1. Edward P. Alexander, “Jefferson and Kosciuszko: Friends of Liberty and of Man,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Jan., 1968), pp.87-95, 97-103.
2. M. B. B. Biskupski, “The Origins of a Relationship, The United States and Poland, 1914-1921”, The Polish Review, Vol. LIV, No. 2, 2009: p. 147-158.
3. M. B. Biskupski, “Re-Creating Central Europe: The United States 'Inquiry' into the Future of Poland in 1918”, The International History Review, Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 1990), p. 249-279.
4. M.B. Biskupski, “Paderewski as Leader of American Polonia, 1914-1918,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), p. 37-56.
5. M. B. B. Biskupski, Independence Day Does Not Cross the Atlantic: Poland, Polonia and November 11th, 1918–2012, [in:] East Central Europe in Exile, Vol. 2, p. 205–219.
6. Stanislaus A. Blejwas, “Cold War Ethnic Politics: The Polish National Catholic Church, the Polish American Congress, and People's Poland: 1944-1952,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Autumn, 1998), p. 5-24.
7. Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Beyond Illusions an Indifference,” The Polish Review, Vol. LIV, No. 2, 2009:139-140.
8. John N. Cable, “Arthur Bliss Lane: Cold Warrior in Warsaw, 1945-47,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn, 1973), p. 66-82.
9. Anna Maria Cienciala, “The United States and Poland in World War II,” The Polish Review, Vol. LIV, No. 2, 2009:173-194.
10. Janusz Cisek, “Kosciuszko, We Are Here!: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland,1919-1921,”p. 5-42, 44-50, 60-62.
11. Ryan Charlton, “From Fact to Myth: The Story of Panna Maria,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 29-44.
12. John J. Davis, “Postwar Relations: The Long Climb from Yalta and Potsdam to Gdansk and the Round Table,” The Polish Review, Vol. LIV, No. 2, 2009:195-228.
13. Justyna Deszcz, “On Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Native American Experience,” ATQ, 2002, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p. 43-52.
14. Piotr Derengowski, “The Polish Voice on Slaves and Slavery in the United States of America in Mid-Nineteenth Century”, in: East Central Europe in Exile: Transatlantic Identities, Vol. II, ed. A. Mazurkiewicz, p. 117–133. EBSCO.
15. Gregory F. Domber, “The AFL-CIO, The Reagan Administration and Solidarnosc,” The Polish Review, Vol. Lll, No. 3, 2007:277-304.
16. Daniel Fried, “Poland, America, and the Arc of History,” The Polish Review, Vol. LIV, No. 2, 2009:141-146.
17. Jerzy Hauptmann, “The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 in the American Press,” The Polish Review, vol. 4, no 4, 1959, p. 46-56.
18. Oskar Halecki, “The Historical Role of Central-Eastern Europe,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 232, A Challenge to Peacemakers (Mar., 1944), p. 9-18.
19. G. Hodges, “Kosciuszko and African-American History,” The Polish Review, 2014, Vol. 59(3), p. 41-56.
20. Beth Holmgren, “A Colonial Party and the California Dream” in: Starring Madame Modjeska: on tour in Poland and America, Indiana Univ. Press 2012.
21. Peter H. Irons, “’The Test is Poland’: Polish Americans and the Origins of the Cold War,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 30 (1973), p. 5-63.
22. Walter Jajko, “The Warsaw Rising from the Contemporary American Perspective,” Dialogue and Universalism, 2004, Vol. 14, 5/6, p. 247-250.
23. John Foster Leich, “Foreign Service: A Young U.S. Foreign Service Officer in Gdansk and Warsaw, 1947-48,” The Polish Review, Vol. LV, No. 1, 2010: 93-110.
24. Richard C. Lukas, “The Big Three and The Warsaw Uprising,” Military Affairs, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Oct., 1975), p. 129-135.
25. Anna Mazurkiewicz, “East European Lobby in the U.S. during the Cold War,” in: Our Past and Present in the Shadow of the Cold War: The Legacy and re-emergence of a conflict between the United States and Russia, ed. Anna Péczeli, Zsolt Pálmai (Budapest: Antall József Knowledge Centre, 2017), 80-91.
26. D.E. Pienkos, “Witness to History: Polish Americans and the Genesis of NATO Enlargement,” The Polish Review, Vol. XVIV, No.3, 1999, p. 329-337
27. Neal Pease, Introduction: Poland and the American Retreat from Europe, 1919-1924 in: Poland, the United States, and the Stabilization of Europe, 1919-1933 (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 3-21.
28. James Pula, “Fact vs. Fiction: What Do We Really Know About the Polish Presence in Early Jamestown”, The Polish Review, LIII, no. 4 (2009), p. 477-493.
29. James S. Pula, Jamestown's 400th Anniversary, Polish American Studies, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Fall 2008), pp. 9-15.
30. James S. Pula, “Krzyzanowski's Civil War Brigade,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Autumn, 1971), p. 22-49.
31. J. Pula, “Whose Bones Are Those? The Casimir Pulaski Burial Controversy”, Georgia Historical Quarterly, Spring 2016, Vol. 100/1, p. 68-87.
32. James S. Pula, “Tadeusz Kosciuszko: A case study in constructed historical symbolism,” The Polish Review, 2008, Vol. LIII/2, p. 159-182.
33. .James S. Pula, “The American Will of Thaddeus Kosciuszko,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 1977), pp. 16-25
34. James Pula, Image, Status, Mobility and Integration in American Society: The Polish Experience, Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 16, No. 1, The Poles in America (Fall, 1996), p. 74-95.
35. Charles Sadler, “Pro-Soviet Polish-Americans”: Oskar Lange and Russia’s Friends in the Polonia, 1941-1945, The Polish Review 1977, vol. 22, no. 4, p. 25-39.
36. Robert Szymczak, “The Vindication of Memory: The Katyn case in the West, Poland, and Russia, 1952-2008,” The Polish Review, Vol. VIII, No. 4, 2008, p. 419-443.
37. Robert Szymczak, “Hopes and Promises: Arthur Bliss Lane, the Republican Party, and the Slavic-American Vote, 1952,” Polish American Studies 45/1 (Spring 1988): 12–28.
38. Robert D. Ubriaco, Jr., “Bread and Butter Politics or Foreign Policy Concerns? Class versus Ethnicity in the Midwestern Polish American Community during the 1946 Congressional Elections,” Polish American Studies 51/2 (Autumn 1994): 5–32.
39. Paul G. Vaughan, Beyond Benign Neglect: Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Polish Crisis of 1980, Polish Review, Vol. XVIV, 1999, no. 1, p. 3-28.
40. Joseph Wieczerzak, “American Reactions to the Polish Insurrection of 1863,” Polish American Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jul. - Dec., 1965), p. 90-98.
41. Helena Znaniecka Lopata, Polonia’s relations with the rest of American Society (ch. 5) in: Polish Americans (New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers, 1994), p. 113-141.
Monograph:
1. Piotr S. Wandycz, The United States and Poland (Cambridge Mass., London: Harvard University Press, 1980).
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: