Available in Polish - 50th Anniversary Album of Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club

http://moonrisepress.com/album-50-lecia-klubu.html

Album 50-lecia Klubu Kultury im. Heleny Modrzejewskiej

Ed. by Maja Trochimczyk, Elzbieta Kanski and Elzbieta Trybus

Cover design :Ella Czajkowska. Free PDF Download. 33.4MB

ISBN 978-10945938-50-4. Color Hardcover, $164.00. 

ISBN 978-1-945038-51-1. Color Paperback, $55.00.

380 pages, large format 8.5 by 11 in. with color photos.

Modjeska Club members and guests after Maja Trochimczyk's lecture about Modjeska at 

Laguna Art Museum, March 2019. The museum donated the large Modjeska banner to the Club.

Moonrise Press is pleased to announce the publication of the history of the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club, in Polish (July 2021). Edited by dr. Maja Trochimczyk, Elżbieta Kanski and dr. Elżbieta Trybuś, this 380-page volume documents 50 years of cultural activities of the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club in Los Angeles, established in 1971 by actor-director Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetyński and other Polish emigres.

Club members at 1976 event with the Theater Eskulap from Warsaw, Residence of  President 

and Founder Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski, October 1976. Photograph donated to Club Archives 

by the founder's daughter, Valerie Dudarew-Ossetynski Hunken.

The Club is named after a famous Polish actress Helena Modrzejewska (1840-1909) who emigrated to California in 1876, changed her stage name to Modjeska and became one of the most important Shakespearean actresses of her generation.  After her English-language stage debut in 1877, Modjeska tirelessly toured America by a specially furbished train that served as her hotel on wheels while she gave an average of 8 performances every week, stopping in towns and cities for a day, and moving on... She was the star, producer, director, costume-maker of her troupe. She also wrote a pay for her grandson and painted in watercolor. She became the fashion icon of her times, as well.. 

The Club's logo with Helena Modjeska. Cover design for 1997 website by Ewa Chodkiewicz-Swider.

The Club honored its patron in a variety of ways, including lectures, theatrical and film premieres, unrealized plans to build monuments to her (based on designs by Stanislaw Szukalski and Tomasz Misztal), and the Modjeska Prizes bestowed on eminent Polish and Polish American actors since 2010.

Jadwiga Inglis's article about  the 30th anniversary of the Club, 2002.

​The album consists of essays, interviews, reviews, reminiscences and lists of club's events, including lectures, film screenings, theatrical performances, concerts, cabarets, and more. It is richly illustrated with color photographs taken over the 50 years of the Modjeska Club's history. The volume consists of essays, interviews, reviews, reminiscences and lists of club's events, including lectures, film screenings, theatrical performances, concerts, cabarets, and more. It is richly illustrated with color photographs taken over the 50 years of the Modjeska Club's history. 

Editorial Committee: Ewa Barsam, Beata Czajkowska, Ella Czajkowska, Syl Ves.  Proofreading and copy-editing: Krystyna Kuszta, Jolanta Zych and Isabella Zuralski-Yeager, Ph.D.

Modjeska Club members singing Christmas Carols in 2013.

Texts by: Anna Maria Anders, Tadeusz Bociański, Krysta Close, Dorota Czajka-Olszewska, Zofia Czajkowska, Witold Czajkowski, Zofia Cybulska-Adamowicz, Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetyński, Jadwiga Inglis, Michal Jasień, Tomasz Kachelski, Elżbieta Kański, Klub Kultury im Heleny Modrzejewskiej, Krystyna Kuszta, Jarosław Łasiński, Andrzej Maleski, Dr. Mira N. Mataric, Marta Ojrzyńska, Maria Pilatowicz, Edward Piłatowicz, Dr. Kleofas Rundzio, Andrzej Seweryn, Katarzyna Śmiechowicz, Jan Świder, Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, Dr. Elżbieta Trybuś and Jolanta Zych. 

Modjeska Club members and guess at The Real Poetry of Cosmos event with 

five Polish engineers, at Van Harman Auditorium of JPL/NASA, 2011.

The publication of this volume was made possible by a grant from the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, and the generous support of Moonrise Press. 

The Maska Dramatic Circle by Phyllis Zych Budka Documents Polonian Culture

ISBN 978-0-9963981-4-5 (paperback), $30, x plus 254 pages

ISBN 978-0-9963981-5-2 (eBook – PDF format), $10 download

Moonrise Press announces a new publication in the series dedicated to Polish and Polish American culture: 

The Maska Dramatic Circle: Polish American Theater in Schenectady, New York (1933-1943) by Phyllis Zych Budka appeared in May 2016 in a large format (8 1/2 by 11 in), to accommodate its many facsimile of hitherto unknown historical documents. Instead of a E-Pub format, the e-book is issued as a PDF, due to the large number of scans and examples. 

Designed initially as a family history and based on documents found in an attic, the book was inspired by the involvement of the author's parents Stanley Zych and Sophie Korycinski Zych in the Maska Dramatic Circle in the 1930s and 1940s. While researching this project, Ms. Budka realized that:

 "no one has told the story of the Maska Dramatic Circle, this unique group of young people, mostly first generation Polish Americans, who contributed so much to the cultural life of their community in Schenectady, New York, between 1933 and 1942.  The Maska members were multitalented, hardworking and full of fun.  Their world was completely bilingual, with plays in Polish, a newsletter in both English and Polish, and newspaper articles in both the local English newspapers as well as the Polish ones."  

 In nine years they staged at least 51 plays, complete with costumes, stage settings, music and dancing. The book documents these performances on the basis of a scrapbook of photos, Maska Buletyns and press clippings and thus fills in an enormous gap in the history of  one of the Polish immigrant communities in America.

Ms. Budka explains further: "While I’ve approached the Maska book as a family memoir and a local history, I am coming to realize that it is very relevant to current concerns in the wider community about the disappearance of the Polish American immigrant experience.  I am also very proud of the writing and pictures in our “Project To Discover Schenectady County’s Eastern European Roots” newsletter.  Pascucci’s PhD thesis on the Italian and Polish immigrants in Schenectady in 1880 – 1920 (1989), is the only project that comes close to an in-depth analysis of the local population, filled with statistical data, but lacking the personal touch". 

  

ABOUT THIS BOOK

If we are to have a more complete and nuanced history of Polonia we need more local based sources like the one published by Phyllis Zych Budka. Her focus is the Polish American community in Schenectady, N.Y., a midsized industrial city where she grew up and which does not receive much attention from Polonian historians.  Based primarily on her parents’ scrap book and Polish and English newspapers, it records the amazing theatrical and cultural achievements of the “Maska Dramatic Club of Schenectady,” which from 1933 to 1942 produced more than 50 plays in Polish and, in the process, enriched the lives of Polish immigrants and their children.

~ Dr. Thaddeus V. Gromada, Professor Emeritus of East European History and Past President of PIASA and Polish American Historical Association (PAHA)

______________________________

Phyllis Zych Budka has provided an account of the young, third-generation Polish-Americans of Schenectady, N.Y. who organized a drama group (Maska) that offered both Polish and Polish-American themed plays in the Polish language. Maska began offering plays to the community in the early 1930s and had a successful run for a decade. At a time when they were fast assimilating into the larger American society, these young people sought to preserve Polish culture and to demonstrate its relevance to the contemporary lives of both the immigrant generation and to their children.

~ Robert R. Pascucci, Ph.D., author of Electric City Immigrants: Italians and Poles of Schenectady, N.Y., 1880-1930

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I will be forever grateful to Phyllis for telling the story of my dad's life before I was born. As a kid, I knew my dad was well-read with a great vocabulary. He read books to me, stepping into character roles, inflecting his voice or changing his accent to portray Tom Sawyer, Ivanhoe, or other characters in the stories. I never knew how he learned these skills, he was just my dad. I also remember him telling about hard times during the Great Depression riding the rails in search of work. I wondered about the story behind the photographs of actors on stage of which he was a part. Now, thanks to Phyllis, I know more about his quote about "the happy days" of his participation in the troupe, the fun he had and the awards he won.

~ Joseph Drapala

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phyllis Rita Zych Budka was born in Schenectady, New York, and lives in nearby Niskayuna. All her grandparents came to Schenectady in the early 20th century.  She attended St. Adalbert’s Parochial School, McKinley Junior High and Mont Pleasant High School.  After graduating from the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Arts in Russian Language, she married Alfred J. Budka.  They are the parents of Kenneth, Thomas and Christine and grandparents of seven.  With Al’s encouragement, Phyllis returned to school and received a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Union College.  During her years at Union, she developed an interest in nickel iron and stony iron meteorites, and has published many articles on the results of her research.

Phyllis worked as a metallurgical engineer, retiring in 2007.  As retirement neared, her interest in genealogy and local family history grew.  Many trips to Poland and Lithuania have helped to discover ancestral history and build connections and friendships with living cousins, which continue with the help of the internet.