Where Is Poland? | Maria Skłodowska-Curie

Intro
Chapter 1 Where Is Poland?
Chapter 2 A Nation Without a State
Chapter 3 Literature and Censorship
Chapter 4 Poland Outside of Poland
Chapter 5 The Ambassadors
Chapter 6 Women and Emancipation
Chapter 7 Who Is Polish?
Chapter 8 Poland Imagined
Chapter 9 The Road to Independence

Chapter 5

Maria Skłodowska-Curie

At the same time when Modjeska was touring America, another Polish emigrant Maria Sklodowska (better known as Marie Curie) was pursuing a brilliant career in France, as a scientist in the new, uncharted fields of physics and chemistry. Read More

Chemist
1867-1934

Marie and Pierre Curie (centre) in their laboratory in Paris. Photo: public domain

Maria Curie-Skłodowska

Skłodowska left the Russian-held partition in 1891, when she was 24. A brilliant student, she had not been allowed to study at the Russian Imperial University of Warsaw. In Paris, she followed her dreams of studying physics and mathematics. And yet she too was not willing to forget where she came from. When in 1896 she and her husband Pierre Curie discovered a new chemical element, in honour of Marie’s homeland they decided to call it Polonium.

The decision to name their discovery in reference to Poland was an obvious political statement at a time when the name ‘Poland’ wasn’t even present on the map. This attempt to bring attention to Poland proved successful when the couple was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902 (for Marie it was to be her first of two). Polonium may have been invisible to the human eye but, just like Poland, it was definitely there.

Read more on Culture.pl:

Polonium, Radioactivity & Elephants: How Poland Shaped Maria Skłodowska-Curie

About the project

Concept, scripting, textual & visual content

Mikołaj Gliński & Patryk Zakrzewski

Design & development

Translators

Daniel J. Sax, Marcin Gozdanek, Michał Wieczorek

English content editor

Daniel J. Sax

Research

Olga Tyszkiewicz

Additional research

Zofia Łękawska-Orzechowska, Przemysław Gliński

Sources

Digital Film Repository (CRF), CYRYL – Digital Repository of the City of Poznań, Danish Film Institute (DFI), Emigration Museum in Gdynia, European Institute of Jewish Music, FORUM Polish Photography Agency, Fototeka, Gallica (gallica.bn.fr), HBO, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IS PAN), Library of Congress, Museum in Sosnowiec, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (MSL), National Museum in Kraków, National Museum in Wrocław, National Museum in Poznań, National Museum in Warsaw, National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute (FINA), National Digital Library Polona (polona.pl), Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków (PAU), Royal Danish Library (KB), Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Poster Museum at Wilanów, Tatra Museum in Zakopane, Zebra Film Studio.

Video materials

‘Poświęcenie Dworca Towarowego’, ‘Legiony wkraczają do Warszawy’, ‘Dla Ciebie, Polsko’ - courtesy of National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute (FINA). Excerpt from ‘Brandes giving lecture at the Copenhagen University’ - courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

With special thanks to

Alan Lockwood, Michalina Petelska, Włodzimierz Karol Pessel, Adam Zulawski

This project was organised in co-operation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of POLSKA 100, an international cultural programme celebrating the centenary of Poland’s regaining independence in 1918.

Financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, as part of the multi-annual programme NIEPODLEGŁA 2017–2022.

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