News and Events
The Institute would like to hear about any current events relevant
to the history of the Polish community in Australia. If you would
like to contribute to this page please contact
us.
John Potaski, ca. 1762-1824
Potaski (Potowski, Potasky, Patoskey, Potaskee) aged between 40
and 50 years, born in Poland, married Catherine Sullivan from
Ireland. One son born in England, one daughter born off the coast
of Tasmania. Roman Catholic.
The convict Joseph Potaski arrived at Port Phillip, Victoria
on the HMS Calcutta, transported for seven years for stealing
a hair shawl and other articles. Potaski's wife and son accompanied
him on the voyage. He with 306 convicts and some settlers under
Lieutenant Governor David Collins founded a new settlement at
Sullivan Bay near Sorrento, Victoria.
Potaski became a successful wheat farmer in Tasmania after his
wife received a 30 acre land grant. He attended the Hobart musters
of 1811, 1818, 1819, 1823. He died in Hobart in August 1824.
Sources:
1. Tipping, Marjorie. Convicts unbound : the story of the Calcutta
convicts and their settlement in Australia (1988)
2.Paszkowski, Lech. Poles in Australia and Oceania, 1790-1940
(1987)
A concert is taking place to celebrate the
200th anniversary of the first Polish person arriving in Australia.
The Pol-Art Festival, to be staged in Hobart from 26 December
2006 to 3rd January 2007, brings together entertainers and artists
from around Australia and New Zealand to promote the very best
of theatre, music, visual arts and folkloric dance from Polish
culture. More information...
In an address in 1973 Al Grassby, Minister for Immigration in
the Whitlam Labor government, inaugurated multiculturalism (A
multi-cultural society for the future... (Canberra, 1973))
To celebrate this important milestone Al Grassby is organising
various events around Australia: a parliamentary reception in
Sydney at State Parliament on 3 September 2003; a national event
in Canberra in November; and another proposed commemorative event
in Canberra in August. Victoria, SA, WA, Queensland, Tasmania
and NT have yet to decide on arrangements. For more information
contact Al Grassby at bci@austarmetro.com.au
Below is a summary of the article published in the Sydney
newspaper Glebe on 12 of March 2003, entitled A
fiery end for archives.
On Sunday 9 March 2003 a fire swept through the Polish Club,
Ashfield. Pictured in the article is the Club's President Margaret
Kwiatkowska inspecting the damage which destroyed the club's archives,
the air conditioning plant room and the room housing the Polish
Army Museum. The Museum's items were saved although extensively
water damaged. Despite holes in the roof the damage has not stopped
the Club's normal activities. The Club began in 1964 and its Norton
Street premises were purchased in 1967. In 1984 it purchased an
adjacent building, no.75 Norton Street to extend the club's various
activities.
Thesis title
Backwards, forwards and in-between: Nostalgic landscapes,
identity and photography among the Australia's Polish community
Abstract provided by Max Kwiatkowski
My research attempts to explore some of the links that exist
between 'homeland' landscapes, migration, nostalgia, photography,
identity and trips back 'home'. This will be accomplished through
an examination of the experiences-and photographs-of a number
of Poles who migrated to Sydney, Australia, as children or teenagers
in the 1980s in the Solidarity wave of emigration out of then
communist Poland. Of particular interest is the role of photography
and photographs in directing, documenting and remembering journeys
back to the ancestral homeland, as well as in imagining and imaging
the homeland itself. Among the goals of this study is to demonstrate
the enormous potential of popular (or 'snap') photography in social
science research-a potential that doesn't appear to have been
recognised let alone realised in much past academic literature.
More...
|
