W ramach tegorocznej akcji #JestemFulbrigherką #JestemFulbrighterem zapraszamy do śledzenia cyklu #FulbrightDekady.
As a part of this year’s #JestemFulbrighterem (#IAmaFulbrighter) social media campaign, we encourage you to check out the #FulbrightDecades series!
The #FulbrightDekady (#FulbrightDecades) series is a travel back in time during which you will learn lots of interesting facts and stories about the Polish-U.S. Fulbright Commission since its inception in 1959. We will cover the program’s history throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond. You may be surprised by something you learn! Every week we will reveal to you the newest decade on our social media pages and website.
Today we travel back in time to the late 50s and early 60s, when Fulbright Poland sent its first grantee from Poland to the United States, and hosted its first grantee from the United States in Poland!
In 1959, Polish professor Dr. Franciszek Lyra, a graduate of the English Philology doctorate program at the University of Warsaw went to the United States as a Fulbright grantee. He obtained a scholarship to study linguistics for a year at The University of Indiana at Bloomington. Several years later, the knowledge and skills he acquired in the USA would prove valuable as he assisted in opening the Institute of English Philology at the Marie-Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin. He is the first grantee of the Fulbright Commision not only in Poland, but in the entirety of Eastern Europe. How does Dr. Lyra remember his times at an American University? Dr. Lyra told us this: “One day I got a letter from the State Department. In the envelope there was a plane ticket to Washington and an invitation to meet with President Kennedy for International Students Day!”
Three years later, in 1962, we hosted our first American grantee, Dr. Daniel Aaron in Poland. Dr. Aaron was a professor in the Harvard University Department of English and American Literature and Language, and lectured at the University of Warsaw for a year. In his observations of Poland during this time he stressed how different the image of Warsaw was during the time of the Cold War to the mental image projected upon him by the stories of Americans who experienced daily life in Warsaw before his time there. He deeply appreciated the beauty of the Polish language, with his first word being “korkociag” (corkscrew). He also liked to take trips on the bus and train, and adored speaking with new people.
! Fun fact: The two professors were quite good friends and remained in contact until the death of Dr. Aaron at the age of 103 in 2016. Dr. Lyra shared some fond memories of their friendship with us: “On the fortieth anniversary of the Fulbright program in Poland, on October 21, 1999, together with Dr. Aaron, I had the honor of unveiling the J. William Fulbright plaque in the main hall of the University of Warsaw Library, which is still present there today.”
As you can see, the friendships made during your Fulbright trip can last a lifetime, and the skills you pick up along the way can prove to be invaluable.
➡️ More information about our first Fulbrighters is available at: https://fulbright.edu.pl/75-years-of-the-fulbright-program-franciszek-lyra/ and: https://fulbright.edu.pl/daniel-aaron/righterką
