Tribute to the victims of the tragic flight was paid by the Deputy Presidents of the Institute of National Remembrance Karol Polejowski and Krzysztof Szwagrzyk in Warsaw, and Mateusz Szpytma in Cracow. The main commemorations of the anniversary of the Smolensk disaster, attended by the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, began at 8:41 a.m. in front of the Presidential Palace. At the beginning of the ceremony, a roll call was held during which the names of those who lost their lives in the presidential plane crash were read out.Flowers at the Monument to the Victims of the Smolensk Tragedy of 2010 and at the monument to President Lech Kaczyński were laid by the Deputy President of IPN, Dr Karol Polejowski.
In Warsaw, Dr Karol Polejowski and Dr Krzysztof Szwagrzyk honoured the memory of Professor Janusz Kurtyka by laying flowers at a commemorative plaque dedicated to the former IPN President at the Institute headquarters. This was followed by a Holy Mass at the Sanctuary of St. Andrew Bobola in memory of Janusz Kurtyka and Janusz Krupski.
Deputy President Polejowski, also visited the IPN's Central History Point educational centre named after President Lech Kaczyński, where,he commemorated the former President of Poland. During the visit, he laid a wreath at a plaque dedicated to his memory.
“Every year we return to the tragic events of 10 April 2010. In this way, we build the memory of the Polish Nation, a historical memory that we pass on to you, the young. After completing your school education and then your studies, it will be you who continue to carry the memory of Polish history,” he said to the participants of the meeting.
Flowers at the plaque commemorating Janusz Kurtyka were also laid by Deputy President Karol Polejowski and the Director of the Central History Point named after President Lech Kaczyński, Anna Putkiewicz.
At the Reformed Church of St. Casimir the Prince in Cracow, a Holy Mass was celebrated for the soul of the late Janusz Kurtyka and all those who perished in the Smolensk disaster. The service was attended by Dr Mateusz Szpytma, Deputy President of IPN, Dr Filip Musiał, Director of the IPN Branch in Cracow along with his deputies, Marzena Kruk, Director of the IPN Archive, employees of the Cracow branch of IPN, and representatives of patriotic communities.
The Institute’s delegation commemorated the late Janusz Kurtyka by lighting candles at his grave in the Alley of the Distinguished at Rakowicki Cemetery. The ceremony was also attended by the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and Minister of National Defence, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
Professor Janusz Kurtyka (1960-2010)
Janusz Kurtyka was born on 13 August 1960 in Cracow. He was a graduate of the History-and-Philosophy Faculty of the Jagiellonian University. He completed doctoral studies at the History Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where in 1995 he defended his doctoral thesis in the humanities. In 2000 he received his doctoral habilitation.
Between 2000-2005 he was the organiser and director of the Cracow branch of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Since 1979 he had been active in the democratic opposition in Cracow, co-founding the Independent Students Association (NZS) at the Jagiellonian University’s History Institute and being a member of the NZS JU founding committee. He was a scholar employed at the History Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (from 1985) and a member of its Scholarly Council in the years 1999-2002 and 2003-2006. Between 1989 and 2000 he was the Chairman of the Solidarity Trade Union of the Cracovian History Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Janusz Kurtyka was the author of more than 140 publications in the field of the Polish mediaeval and early-modern history as well as the history of the anti-communist resistance movement in Poland after 1944. These include the books: ‘Generał Leopold Okulicki“ Niedźwiadek”: 1898-1946’, ”Tęczyńscy. Studium z dziejów polskiej elity możnowładczej w średniowieczu” ,”Latyfundium tęczyńskie. Dobra i właściciele XIV–XVII w.”, ”Odrodzone Królestwo. Monarchia Władysława Łokietka i Kazimierza Wielkiego w świetle nowszych badań”. He was also the co-author of numerous other publications.
Since 1994 he had been the chief editor of the ‘Freedom and Independence Historical Notebooks’, the co-author of the ‘The Historical and Geographical Dictionary of the Cracow Province in the Middle Ages’ and ‘The Polish Biographical Dictionary’. He chaired the Editorial Committee of the series ‘Conspiracy and Social Resistance in Poland: 1944-1956. A Biographical Dictionary’. He was a member of the editorial board of the Institute of National Remembrance’s scholarly journal ‘The Apparatus of Repression in the Polish People's Republic : 1944-1989’. Janusz Kurtyka was also a member of such organisations as the Polish Historical Society, the Society of Friends of Science in Przemyśl and the Polish Heraldic Society.
On 9 December 2005 the Sejm of the Republic of Poland elected Professor Janusz Kurtyka as the President of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Prof. Janusz Kurtyka was a laureate of the Adam Heymowski Prize (1996), the second prize in the Klemens Szaniawski Competition (1998), the Joachim Lelewel Prize (2000) and the Jerzy Łojek Prize (2001). In 2009 President Lech Kaczyński awarded him with the Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. In 2010 Janusz Kurtyka was postmothously awarded with the IPN’s Custodian of National Memory Prize.
More:
The funeral of Professor Janusz Kurtyka
Janusz Kurtyka Street on the map of Warsaw