Storozynski received the award from the hands of Lech Wałęsa at the 40th International Polonaise Ball in Miami, which is organized annually by Poland’s honorary consul in Florida Blanka Rosenstiel.
A Pulitzer Prize winner, former member of the New York Daily News editorial board and former city editor of the New York Sun, Starozynski has served for the past four years as President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, which promotes Polish-US academic and cultural exchange.
The organisation has led the campaign against the use of the term “Polish death camps” being used regularly in various media outlets in the US and abroad.
A citation for the award speaks of Storozynski’s achievements in raising the awareness of Polish culture and history in the American media.
His latest book, The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution, has proved both a critical and popular success.
The journalist and writer told the Polish Press Agency that he was greatly moved by the award.
“I first met Lech Wałęsa in 1985, when I worked as an interpreter for a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who interviewed the Solidarity leader. I had several meetings with him in later years,” he said.
Alex Storozynski was born in the United States in 1961, as a son of a Polish World War Two veteran.
He graduated in journalism from Columbia University.
Founded in 2010, The Lech Walesa Media Award is given annually to personalities who excel in promoting worldwide interest in Poland, its history, cultural heritage and the present day.
The gold medal of the American Institute of Polish Culture in Miami was awarded to Stanisław Cardinal Dziwisz.
The Institutes’s honorary distinctions were given to Professor Maria Siemionow, an outstanding Polish surgeon working in the United States, and to Polish-born journalist Rita Cosby, the author of the book Quiet Hero. Secrets from my Father’s Past - the story of Ryszard Kossobudzki, former insurgent in the Warsaw Rising of 1944 and a German POW in World War Two. (mk/pg)