Polish Nobel laureates honoured in 2011
Two Nobel Prize winners are being honoured in Krakow and across Poland this year.
The scientist Maria Curie-Sklodowska and the writer Czeslaw Milosz both have anniversaries in 2011.
It is 100 years since Curie-Sklodowska won the Nobel Prize, for chemistry, in recognition of her work in the field of radioactivity. She first became a Nobel laureate in 1903, for physics.
Czeslaw Milosz (born in 1911) is known for his poetry, and especially for his collection of essays The Captive Mind, exploring the capitulation of creativity to totalitarianism. His work earned him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980. Milosz spent his last years in Krakow, and died here in August 2004. He is buried at the Skalka church near the Wisla river.
Scientists will gather in Krakow from January, for conferences in Curie-Sklodowska’s name. A poetry festival is planned for the spring, to mark Milosz year.