To celebrate Poland's national holiday in May 2021, the Modjeska Club is pleased to present a Zoom lecture on "Law vs. Justice? Claims to Plundered Art and Cultural Treasures from Poland, East-central Europe, and Beyond" by Prof. John Radzilowski, Ph.D., professor of history at University of Alaska Southeast. The lecture will be in English and take place on May 8, 2021 at 7 pm in the evening (Saturday). Club members and guests will receive an invitation by email. If you would like to be invited, send email to prezes@modjeska.org.
Prof. Radzilowski holds a Ph.D., 1999, Arizona State University, specializing in Modern U.S. History, Russia/Eastern Europe, and Public History. He also received Certificate in Scholarly Publishing, 1994, from the Arizona State University; and BA, 1989, in History from the Southwest Minnesota State University.
He has taught history, art history and geography at UAS on the Ketchikan campus since 2007. Prior to moving to Alaska, he taught history courses at University of St. Thomas, Hamline University, and Anoka-Ramsey College in Minnesota. He also served as assistant project director at Center for Nations in Transition, at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota where he helped design and administer USAID and State Department-sponsored training programs for business, economics, and political science faculty and NGO leaders in Ukraine and east central Europe. In 2018, As Fulbright Scholar, he gave a series of public lectures to commemorate the centennial of U.S.–Polish diplomatic relations sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, Warsaw, Poland, Cultural Affairs Section.
Prof. Radzilowski's research and teaching interests are wide-ranging and diverse: immigration and ethnicity, military history, war and genocide, the impact of technology on the history and geography of the Great Plains and Midwest, local and regional studies, and the history of Poland, Russia, Ukraine and central and eastern Europe. In addition to 13 books and numerous edited volumes, Prof. Radzilowski published 37 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and books; as well as review essays, encyclopedia articles, book reviews, and many other articles.
Prof. Radzilowski's awards include Mieczysław Haiman Medal for sustained achievement in research, awarded by the Polish American Historical Association; Oskar Halecki Prize for outstanding book or historical monograph, awarded by the Polish American Historical Association for Poles in Minnesota, 2005/06. In 1998 he was awarded Krzyż Kawalerski Orderu Zasługi (Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Merit) by President of the Republic of Poland. His many research prizes include two Joseph Swastek Prizes for best article in Polish American Studies (1995 and1992); he also received numerous teaching awards.
BOOKS:
- 2020 Poles in Illinois, co-authored with Ann Gunkel. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press).
- 2017 Frantic 7: The American Effort to Aid the Warsaw Uprising and the Origins of the Cold War, co-authored with Jerzy Szcześniak. (Philadelphia & Oxford: Casemate).
- 2007 Travellers History of Poland (Gloucester, U.K.: Arris Books & Boston: Interlink); second U.S. edition, 2012.
- 2007 Ukrainians in North America (Philadelphia: Chelsea House/Facts on File).
- 2006 Minnesota. On the Road History Series. (Boston: Interlink).
- 2005 Poles in Minnesota (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press).
- 2003 The Eagle and the Cross: A History of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, 1873–2000 (New York: Columbia University Press/East European Monographs).
- 2002 Polish Immigrants, 1890–1920 with Rosemary Wallner. Coming to America Series. (Mankato, Minn.: Blue Earth Books).
- 1999 Community of Strangers: Change, Turnover, Turbulence and the Transformation of a Midwestern Country Town co-authored with Joseph Amato (Marshall: Crossings Press).
- 1997 Prairie Town: A History of Marshall, Minnesota, 1872–1997 (Marshall: Lyon County Historical Society).
- 1996 To Call It Home: The New Immigrants of Southwestern Minnesota, co-authored with Joseph Amato, et al. (Marshall: Crossings Press).
- 1995 Bells Over the Prairie: 125 Years of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, New Ulm, Minnesota (New Ulm: Cathedral Parish).
- 1992/95 Out on the Wind: Poles and Danes in Lincoln County, Minnesota, 1880–1905 (Marshall, Minn.: Crossings Press, 2nd edition 1995).
EDITED AND CO-AUTHORED VOLUMES
- 2014 American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change, 2d rev. ed., editor w/James Ciment (New York: Cengage).
- 2003 Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Borderlands of Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, edited with M. J. Chodakiewicz (New York and Charlottesville: Leopolis Press).
- 2003 Poland’s Transformation: A Work in Progress, edited with M. J. Chodakiewicz and D. Tołczyk (Charlottesville: Leopolis Press and the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia).
