The 25th Anniversary of awarding Lech Walesa with the Nobel Peace Prize

At high noon in the Royal Castle in Warsaw a celebration was commenced in commemoration of a double jubilee of President Lech Walesa. The morning meeting with the hero of the day and his wife, Danuta Walesa, was attended by the leader of NSZZ „Solidarność", Janusz Śniadek, former prime ministers - Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, archbishop Józef Życiński, Adam Michnik, the Minister of Education Katarzyna Hall, Andrzej Wajda, and the head of the Advisory Team to the Prime Minister - Michał Boni.

The meeting in the Royal Castle was chaired by the President of the Lech Walesa Institute - Piotr Gulczynski, and the laudations were delivered by the President of Warsaw Ms. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Walz, the Speaker of Senate of the Republic of Poland - Bronisław Komorowski, professor Norman Davies, archbishop Tadeusz Gocłowski, and Stanislau Shushkevich, former Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus.

'It was a moment of real emotion, I had a sense of belonging to a great, wise nation that chose a path of evolution, not revolution', recalls the moment of awarding Nobel Peace Prize to Lech Walesa Bronisław Komorowski, the Speaker of Senate. The Marshal reminded the most important moments of Lech Walesa's political activity. Among them - „the sight of the shipyard gate", when the leader of Solidarity was standing atop and spoke to the people. 'The sight of the shipyard gate, adorned with flowers, icons of the Blessed Virgin - and with Lech Walesa, who stands on the top of the gate and speaks. He speaks and is an embodiment of our Polish dreams of freedom and unity (...). At that time, looking at Lech Walesa, I was thinking: this is the end of Marx, the end of class struggle, and the beginning of the great national solidarity within the Polish dream of freedom', said Komorowski.

The archbishop Tadeusz Gocłowski thanked Lech Walesa for, i.a., 'the courage stemming from the will to win for a just cause'. He said, 'I thank you for what you did for Poland and for Europe'.
'It was one of the most difficult times in our history. The heroes of the times do not have it easy. You don't have it easy, Mr. President', said archbishop Gocłowski. 'Human activity brings forth various reactions' - he added.
In his laudation, professor Shushkevich lamented: 'The approach to Lech Walesa is misunderstood and I frequently must explain in Russia and Belarus what was his role and why was he awarded the Nobel Peace Prize'.

Professor Norman Davies recalled that Solidarity was an example for many political movements, both right- and left-wing. He said that the most prominent fact was that the Solidarity, led by Lech Walesa, initiated the biggest peaceful insurgence in history, and fought a bloodless war in line with the views of the pope John Paul II. 'A necessary consequence of this choice, detouring revolutionary guillotines, terror and slughters, was a fact that the victory had a shape of compromise, collaboration with former enemies, and uniting people from different parties', said professor Davies. In his opinion, due to peaceful change we can today say that the 3rd Republic (Poland after 1989) is maybe not a perfect commodity, but its better than any other'.

Professor Davies stressed that Lech Walesa is the only Pole in our times that reached such heights, and whose name is recalled along such names as Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa.

At the end of the celebration in the Royal Castle, the President Lech Walesa thanked everyone who 'let themselves be led through the strikes, protests, and rotten compromises'. 'I was always bad at thanking, I'm a revolutionary. Now I would like to extend my thanks to the 10 million - you've listened to us, you believed'.

The second part of the Monday celebration of Lech Walesa's jubilee was a concert Nobel 83 Pro Memoria, directed by Janusz Zaorski, staged in the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw at 8 p.m.

The evening gala was attended by former President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, former PM's Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Jerzy Buzek, the ministers of the current government - Katarzyna Hall, Bodgan Zdrojewski, the Mps Wojciech Olejniczak, Sławomir Nowak, Nelly & Jan Rokita, and others.

The guests were greeted by the President of Warsaw - Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz : 'Today's concert is a tribut of the capital to its honorary citizen - Lech Walesa - for his service to Poland', she said.
The concert was led by Krystyna Janda and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, who between the entries of other artists read fragments of strike postulates.

The concert included popular Polish artists, including Dżem, Lombard, Edyta Gepper, Krystyna Prońko, Ewelina Flinta. During Paweł Kukiz's take on the famous song of Jacek Kaczmarski, the bard of Solidarity, the audience stood up and listened to the song standing. Huge screens over the stage showed documentary materials including the awarding of Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, singing of the August agreement, meetings of Lech Walesa with the pope John Paul II, pilgrimages of the pope to Poland, as well as snapshots from interviews with Lech Walesa.
At the end of the concert, Lech Walesa appeared on stage together with his wife and his son Bogdan, who in 1983 received on his behalf the Nobel Peace Prize.

The President of Warsaw thanked Danuta Walesa for the courage and support to her husband, and the audience gave her a standing ovation. 'I must say I am more touched that I was 25 years ago', stressed she.
The deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration, Grzegorz Schetyna, read aloud a letter from the absent Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which - as he stressed - was also supported by the Civic Platform (a ruling party). Tusk stressed in his letter to Walesa that 'only a few could be said to have done so much for a free and democratic Poland of today'. He described the former President as the symbol of national and European history. He thanked for the fight against communist dictatorship, for the years devoted to Solidarity, for the moments of emotion and rejoicing when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his letter, the Prime Minister wrote also: 'Today, we cannot escape big words. A nation that is not able to preserve its myths, loses identity. The clearest signs of national memory are its heroes, and you are a hero of our common imagination and history. We are proud of you'.

The former President, addressed his special thanks to Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz: 'I thank her for not seeing any agents, for not sensing any plots', he joked, applauded by the audience.

'Our generation managed to bring to a close an era of divisions, borders, blocs, to open the time of intellect, information, informatization. Many generation dream about it, we lived it', he said at the end of Nobel'83 ProMemoria concert.

The celebrations that took place in Warsaw on 29th September 2008 are an introduction to the main part of the Nobel 25 project, a conference „Solidarity for the future" planned for December in Gdansk.