2012 - Year of Korczak, Kraszewski and Skarga

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Korczak's famed Warsaw orphanage. Likewise, August will mark the 70th anniversary of his death in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka.

A special Korczak Congress will be among the highlights of the year's programme. Meanwhile, a postage stamp will be issued with a portrait of the writer.

2012 also sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski, a prolific writer of historical literature who penned over 200 novels.

Kraszewski is best known for his work An Ancient Tale (1876), which was made into a film by director Jerzy Hoffman in 2003.

Finally, 2012 will mark 400 years since the death of legendary Jesuit preacher Father Piotr Skarga, a committed reformer who argued that Poland's ruling classes faced catastrophe if they did not alter their ways.

The Polish word skarga (complaint), was born thanks to the preacher.

Among other events, a new national pantheon for merited Poles from the fields of art and science will be opened in Krakow on 27 September, the 400th anniversary of Skarga's death, at the Church of SS Peter and Paul, where the preacher was himself interred in 2012. (nh/pg)