The KARTA Center — an independent non-governmental
organization (incorporated as a foundation), documenting and popularizing the
recent history of Poland and Eastern Europe.
It continues the activities of the illegal "Karta" and the clandestine
Eastern Archives of the 1980s.
The KARTA Center Foundation,
tel. (0-22) 848-07-12, fax 646-65-11, 02-536
Warsaw, ul. Narbutta 29
: mailto:ok@karta.org.pl web
site: http://www.karta.org.pl/
account no. FOK: BPH PBK S.A. VIII Oddz.
Warszawa 11101037-401030002471
SWIFT: BPHKPLPK
January 1982 — "Karta" founded in
Warsaw as an underground paper focusing on political commentaries (19 issues)
that was transformed after a few months into an independent almanac presenting
human attitudes towards dictatorships (seven issues)
November 1987 — The "Karta" editorial
office initiates the foundation of the independent Eastern Archives — a social
movement documenting the concealed and falsified "eastern" past (with
nearly 200 people organized in 12 branches all over Poland in one year)
February 1990 — Incorporation of the Eastern
Archives Foundation and the KARTA Foundation, cooperating closely with each
other
January 1991 — The first legal issue of
"Karta” as an independent historical journal
November 1991 — The foundation of the People's
Poland's Archives (the Opposition Archives since May 1998) with a view to
collecting social evidence of the post-war Poland, including documents on the
opposition against the system
December 1991 — The foundation of the KARTA
Center combining all the branches of both Foundations in terms of content and
premises
April 1992 — "The Conscience Week in
Poland” — a meeting in Warsaw with 54 members of the "Memorial”
Association (Russia, Ukraine) — the launch of the "Common Ground — Eastern
Europe" Project coordinated by KARTA
June 1993 — "The Conscience Week in
London” — a meeting of the KARTA and "Memorial" representatives with
Polish political emigrants
June 1994 — A meeting on "Poles and
Ukrainians 1918–48. Difficult Questions” — the beginning of the
Polish-Ukrainian dialogue on that aspect of history
October 1994 – The
Soviet Union – Poland 1919-89. "In the Empire's Circle" – a meeting
of the Russian and Polish researchers on the history of Soviet crime
December 1995 — The first volume of the
"Index of the Repressed", a series of lists naming persons repressed
in the USSR
October 1996 — The merger of both foundations,
the objective of the new KARTA Center's Foundation being also to "spread
and strengthen tolerance and democracy”
November 1996 —
"The Time of Dissidents" conference, with the Center becoming the
coordinator of the international Dictionary of Dissidents
June 1997 — The finals of the first competition
for secondary school students on Polish Everyday Life 1945-56, staged as part
of the "History at Hand” Project launched together with the Stefan Batory
Foundation
June 1997 — The opening of "The Time of the Empire" exhibition
at the Zachęta art gallery
May 1998 — The first volume of the
"Poland-Ukraine Difficult Questions" series published by KARTA, with
a view to presenting a series of Polish-Ukrainian seminars organized by the
World Union of the Home Army Ex-Servicemen and the Union of Ukrainians in
Poland
June 1998 — The opening of a permanent
Polish-German exhibition of the Krzyżowa Foundation at the International
Youth Meeting House in Krzyżowa — "Rejecting Lies". From the
History of the Anti-Totalitarian Resistance and Opposition in Central and
Eastern Europe, prepared by the Kreisau Initiative from Berlin and the KARTA
Center
November 1999 — The
opening of exhibition "The Gates to Freedom. From Solidarity to the
Unification of Germany" at the Debis Hause (Berlin), prepared jointly with
the International Relations Center.
December 1999 — The opening of "The End of
Yalta 1945–89" exhibition at various locations internationally, prepared
on the order of Polish Foreign Ministry in ten editions and five languages
January 2000 — A demonstration mottoed
"The Alarm for the Town of Grozny" — against the Russian
extermination of Chechnya, prepared in cooperation with the Eighth Day Theatre
Company and other independent groups
August 2000 — The
opening of "The Solidarity Days" exhibition in the court of the Royal
Castle in Warsaw to show the August 1980 events
May 2001 — The Center ("History at
Hand") joins EUSTORY — a network of organizers of historic competitions
for school pupils in Europe
September 2001 — The opening of the Internet
Center of the "Index of the Repressed"
October 2000 — The opening of the exhibition
“Solidarity 1980. The Eighteen Days that Shook the World” at various locations
in the world, prepared on the order of the Polish Foreign Ministry in 14 copies
and five languages
March 2001 — The
finals of a three-year competition on "Private Entrepreneurs 1945–89”,
organized jointly with the Kronenberg Banking Foundation — the publication of
an album and opening of a photographic exhibition
September 2001 — Foreign Minister
Władysław Bartoszewski awards the KARTA Center with a diploma for its
merit in the promotion of Poland in the world
December 2001 — Open Days to mark the 20th
anniversary of the imposition of martial law in Poland; the foundation of the
Opposition Archives Club — an informal association of former oppositionists
supporting the documentation of independent activities in People's Poland (PRL)
December 2001 — Zbigniew Gluza decorated by the
"Tygodnik Powszechny" weekly with the St. George medal "for the
struggle against non-remembrance"
August 2002 — The Center signs an agreement
with the National Remembrance Institute on cooperation in work on the
"Index of the Repressed"
November 2002 — The foundation of the Social
Archives Council at the Main Board of State Archives, its mission being to
support social archiving activities in Poland; Zbigniew Gluza elected the
Council's Chairman and the KARTA Center appointed to keep the content-related
secretariat
November 2002 — The KARTA Center receives the main
prize in the fourth edition of the Pro Publico Bono competition for the best
nationwide civic initiative — "for its activities and merits in
documenting and popularizing the recent history of Poland and Eastern
Europe"
November 2002 –
Zbigniew Gluza and the KARTA Center receive the Jerzy Giedroyć prize
awarded by the "Rzeczpospolita” daily for their activities in favor of the
Polish reason of state.
The KARTA Center's team
Management Board (Center's Council — marked names)
Zbigniew Gluza — Chairman, Editor-in-Chief
(z.gluza@karta.org.pl)
Piotr Jakubowski — Director (p.jakubowski@karta.org.pl)
"Karta" Quarterly (redakcja@karta.org.pl)
Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner —Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Agnieszka Knyt —
Secretary of the Editorial Office
Michał
Zarzycki
Danuta
Błahut-Biegańska — Graphic Design
Piotr Janeczek —
Layout
Distribution (kolportaz@karta.org.pl)
Grażyna
Brudzińska-Włodarz — Manager
Radosław
Firlej
Index of the Repressed (indeks@karta.org.pl)
Alexander Guryanov
— Coordinator in Russia
Anna Dzienkiewicz —
Series Editor
Ewa Rybarska —
Series Editor
Eliza Dzwonkiewicz
— Information
Opposition in Polish People's Republic (PRL) (opozycja@karta.org.pl)
Jan
Strękowski, Katarzyna Boruń-Jagodzińska, Bartosz Kaliski, Alicja
Kopka, Małgorzata Tupalska, Joanna Węgrzynowska, Małgorzata
Zaremba
Common Ground — Eastern Europe (common.ground@karta.org.pl)
Dorota Pazio-Wlazłowska
Irena
Bieńkowska
Monika
Kapa-Cichocka
History at Hand (historia.bliska@karta.org.pl)
Alicja Wancerz-Gluza — Coordinator
Piotr Filipkowski
Archives (archiwum@karta.org.pl)
Janusz Opaska — Manager
Agnieszka
Iwaszkiewicz
Maciej
Kamiński
Photographic Archives (foto@karta.org.pl)
Tomasz Gleb —
Manager
Ewa Pazyna
Center's Office (ok@karta.org.pl)
Agnieszka Gleb — Manager
Grażyna Lech —
Chief Accountant (ksiegowosc@karta.org.pl)
Ewa Jakubowska —
Accountant
Magdalena Kornacka
— Secretariat
Karol Burchard — IT
Office in Germany (karta-dt@t-online.de)
Anna Zinserling —
Representative
Michael Schmidt
Permanent Associates
Beata Alberska, Hugon
Bukowski, Halina Cieszkowska, Aneta Dylewska, Leszek Jackiewicz, Rafał
Knap, Elżbieta Krassowska, Olesia Mazurek, Ewa Marzec, Halina
Myślicka, Barbara Odnous, Mariusz Olczyk, Janusz Przewłocki, Anna
Równy, Dominik Różański, Izabella Rybicka, Robert Stachowicz, Piotr
Stańczyk, Joanna Strasz, Iwona Surleta, Aleksandra Szpunar, Agnieszka
Wesoła, Agnieszka Wiesławska, Krystyna Zygała, Romuald
Żochowski
Current Sponsors
The Stefan Batory Foundation
The Ford Foundation (USA)
Scientific Research Committee
The Foundation for the Development
of Polish
Science
Polish President's Chancellery
National Remembrance Institute
Ministry of Culture
Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
Polish-German Cooperation
Foundation (German funds)
Open Society Archives (Hungary)
Polonia Aid Foundation Trust
(UK)
The Körber Foundation (Germany)
The NOWA Foundation
Winkowski Sp. z o.o.
Municipality of Warsaw
and individual
donors
Publication
The Center's major publications is "Karta" (published underground
in the years 1982–89 and officially since 1991 — 36 issues by the end of 2002)
— a quarterly on man in history devoted to the history of Poland and Central
and Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Through compiled source
materials — diaries, memoirs, reports, letters and other documents — human lots
come back to life and history is uncovered so that it can be not only learnt
but also "felt" and seen due to the album form of the journal. Each
issue has 160 pages and usually more than 100 archival photographs.
Selected themes from the "Karta" issues published so far are
published in the German language version in the form of a 240-page anthology
(three such issues have appeared in print so far). A Russian version of the
anthology is now being prepared.
The work on the foreign-language historic exhibitions: "The End of
Yalta" and "The Solidarity Days" resulted in the publication of
two monographs in English.
The "Karta" themes sometimes evolve into book form (more than
ten titles so far). The Center also publishes book series on: "The Polish
Jews" (the third title is under preparation now) and the "20th
Century Evidence” that is also under preparation now. The latter series is to
present major events of the recent history through editing source materials and
photographs, with two books "The Year 1920. Poland's War Against the
Bolshevik Russia" and "The Year 1968", expected to be published
in 2003.
Exhibitions
The themes raised
by "Karta" often inspire exhibitions, mainly photographic ones. At
present, the Center can offer the following exhibitions:
– "The Gates
to Freedom. From Solidarity to the Unification of Germany" — a large
German-language exhibition on display since 1999 in several cities in Germany
and Austria)
– "Private
Entrepreneurs 1945–89 " — an
exhibition traveling around Poland, presenting various forms of enterprise in
Polish People's Republic (PRL)
– "The Time of
the Empire" — Soviet Russia in a broad panoramic view of archive and
contemporary photographs by Tomasza Kizny
– "The Kolyma
Planet" — photographs from Tomasz Kizny's expedition to Kolyma
– "Independent
Photographic Agency Denial" — photographs from the time of martial law and
the period of the fall of the Communist system
History at Hand
An educational project implemented since 1996 in cooperation with the
Batory Foundation and financed by the Foundation. Annual competitions for
historic research works are announced for the youth of schools above the
elementary level. A total of 7000 pupils have already participated in seven editions
of the competition; their work has produced tens of thousands of documents,
photographs or eyewitness reports — providing a panoramic view of the 20th
century viewed through the experience of local communities. The finals of the
competition are held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw every June. Many works have
appeared in print or in the media.
The competition is an element of the EUSTORY network established by the
Körber Foundation from Hamburg — grouping competition organizers from 14
European countries. Many winners and their tutors participated in annual
international Summer Schools in Germany and seminars or Fall Academies in
Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Poland, or Ukraine. Plans provide for the
publication of bilingual anthologies of pupils' works on the common past of
nations. The nearest one — the Polish German anthology is to appear in print in
spring 2003.
The subject of the 2002/2003 competition is "People in Motion
—Migration, Social Promotion and Degradation 1914–89".
Opposition in Polish People's Republic (PRL)
The aim of the Project is to record the history of opposition groups'
activities in Poland in the years 1945–89. The major documentary and publishing
undertaking is "The Opposition in Polish People's Republic (PRL). A
Biographic Dictionary 1956–89", with two volumes already published (300
biograms) and the third one being under preparation (the full list of figures
that are to be described by the Dictionary was announced in "Karta"
35).
Work is underway on a guide to "The Independents for Culture
1976–89" to include some 4,500
participants in the independent culture and publishing movement in Poland. A
part on Warsaw and its vicinity is already available on the KARTA www site
(databases).
An Internet database on "The Repressed 1981–89" has been
developed with information on nearly 10,000 of the interned under martial law
being loaded into the base in the first stage of its operation.
April 2002 saw the official inauguration of the Opposition Archives Club
initiated by the Center to associate people from former opposition groups and
their researchers with a view to restoring the memory of the independent Poland
in the Polish People's Republic. This social movement makes it possible to
compile underground publications and collections of individual groups or
persons, as well as to document events not recorded in historiography. The work
is financed from funds raised in social collections by the Club members.
Common Ground
The "Common Ground — Eastern Europe" Project was inspired in 1992
during the "Conscience Week in Poland" — a meeting in Warsaw with
representatives of the "Memorial" Association from Russia and
Ukraine. The Center has been coordinating partner' activities aimed at
documenting the common grounds of the 20th century history that were
particularly neglected in terms of research. The Project has been joined by
partners from Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Germany, Ukraine, Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia, as well as the remaining 23 countries of the region that
were Communist in the past.
The Project initiated the formation of independent social archives of
modern history in a number of countries.
Due to its cooperation with "Memorial" the Center has
published "The Lagers. An Encyclopedic Guide" — a translation of the
first regular description of labor camp structures (1923–60).
The Project includes the publication of a book series
"Poland–Ukraine: Difficult Questions"— documenting the successive
stages of dialogue between historians of both sides. The Center has also
developed a database on mutual victims of the bloody conflict of the 1940s.
For a few years now, work has been underway on the "Dictionary of
Dissidents" — an encyclopedic compilation of biograms of the most
outstanding members of opposition from the countries of the former Soviet bloc
in the years 1956–89 (successively being launched on the Internet).
Index of the Repressed
The Project has been in opening since 1988. At the beginning, it was a
social movement in favor of gathering the dispersed knowledge on Polish
citizens repressed in the USSR and under the Soviet occupation. After access
had been given to Polish and post-Soviet archives a computer database on those
repressed was developed (with some 670,000 records).
The verified lists of names are published in separate volumes (fourteen
so far) and rendered available on the Internet:
– the Executed in
Katyn, Kharkov and Tver in April-May 1940 — 14,463 people;
– the prisoners of
Yuzha, Starobelsk II, Gryazovets and Suzdal and the dead or missing prisoners
(1939–41) — 26,994 people;
– those arrested in
the years 1939–41 near Lvov and Drohobych — 5,822 people;
– those arrested in
the years 1939–47 and imprisoned at labor camps near Vorkuta — 9,800 people;
– "the
internees" after 1944 in Boroviche, Stalinogorsk, Ostashkov, Donbasa, near
Saratov and Ryazan — 21,210 people.
The "Memorial" Association has been the Center's main partner
since 1992 with research groups from Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine
cooperating, too. Since August 2002, the Project has been implemented under the
patronage of the National Remembrance Institute.
New lists of verified data are being loaded onto the Internet Center of
the "Index of the Repressed" on: www.indeks.karta.org.pl
Archives
The Center's
archive collections have been developed as a result of its comprehensive
activities — from the very beginning of the "Karta’s" (1982)
existence, and, in an orderly manner — from the time of the foundation of the
Eastern Archives (1987). These resources document the whole "social"
history of the 20th century Poland and her immediate neighbors, and
especially subjects that have not been researched or are hardly present in the
collective awareness. The Center puts special emphasis on gathering records by
individual eyewitnesses (memoirs, diaries, and reports...).
The Center's
archive collections include:
– Eastern Archives — vicissitudes of the
Polish population in the Eastern Outlands of the Second Polish Republic after
the outbreak of WW II until the 1950s;
including the documentation of the "Index of the Repressed" and
copies from the post-Soviet and émigré archives (50 meters)
– Opposition Archives — social resistance
and the opposition against the authorities, including everyday life in Polish
People's Republic (PRL); including one of the largest and most comprehensive
collections of underground periodicals and books as well as other publications
(posters, bills, leaflets), groups' and individuals' collections, museum
pieces, and independent fine art works from the years 1980–89 (690 meters.)
– "History at Hand" Archives —
documents gathered from more than 4000 competition works, describing events in
locations all over Poland in the 20th century (45 meters.)
– Photographic Archives — more than
70,000 photographs from the period 1890–1990, including more than 10,000
digitized ones; photographs from family albums, news photographer heritage, and
amateur photographer archives; the collections are gradually being made
available on the Internet
– The "Memoirs Written in Polish in the 20th
Century” collection (12 meters.)
– Thematic Library (History of Poland and
Eastern Europe in the 20th century) — books, collections of
periodicals, press cuttings (250 meters.)
Collections are made available to the public on weekdays (9.00–16.00
hrs) in the reading room housing 11 persons. A part of the collection has been
computerized.
Mauthausen–Gusen Documentation
The international "Oral History" Project: The Mauthausen Survivors
Documentation Project implemented in 2002 in 23 countries, coordinated by
Vienna University. The aim of the Project is to gather — what is termed as the
oral history in the latest methodology — 800 audio and video recordings by
former inmates of the Mauthausen–Gusen system of Nazi concentration camps. The
KARTA Center — as the Polish partner of the Project — is recording 164 reports
by inmates and makes a special archive collection, including documents,
photographs and unpublished memoirs.