Already after 11:00 a.m., the Mayor of Wroclaw and city councillors met in the Town Councillors Chapel in St. Elizabeth’s Church. Then, assisted by the orchestra, the cavalry patrol of the City Guard and members of the Marksmen’s Society, they went into the Old Town Hall. The most important event of this year’s celebration of the Wroclaw Festival was scheduled in the Grand Hall.
The route of the procession was the starting point in the speech of the Mayor of Wroclaw Jacek Sutryk that inaugurated the ceremony in the Old Town Hall.
“Today, we can be proud of our beautiful and cheerful Wroclaw. We must remember that our presence here is only an episode in the history of Wroclaw, but it is also up to us how this city will develop in the future,” said Mayor Jacek Sutryk. When referring to the winners of this year’s awards, he stressed their inventiveness, passion and contribution to making Wroclaw famous in Poland and abroad.
Awards of the City of Wroclaw and the Mayor of Wroclaw are traditionally granted on 24th June during an official session.
This year the main award – the title of Honorary Citizen of Wroclaw (Civitate Wratislaviensi Donatus) – went to the writer Olga Tokarczuk. The author of such books as Primeval and Other Times, House of Day, House of Night, Flights or The Books of Jacob is the winner of many literary Polish and foreign awards. In 2018, she was the first Pole to receive The Man Booker International Prize for Flights (originally published in Polish as Bieguni). This year she was again among favourites for this award for her novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Awards for scientists and social workers
During the ceremony in the Old Town Hall, a group of Wroclaw people, companies and institutions with huge contributions to the city’s society were distinguished, too.
- The 1st Degree Honorary Badge of Wroclaw was granted to Professor Roman Duda – a mathematician, an academic lecturer, a participant in the anti-communist opposition movement, and the former rector of the University of Wrocław.
The winners of the Award of the City of Wroclaw were:
- Józef Kazimierz Jagielski – a doctor, a co-creator of the centre for electrocardiology and genetic research in Wroclaw;
- Andrzej Kübler – a doctor, an anaesthesiologist, a specialist in intensive therapy and palliative care;
- Paweł Banaś – an art historian, a collector, an academic lecturer;
- Andrzej Maria Turkiewicz – a social activist and voluntary worker;
- Regional Olympic Board in Wroclaw – an association of Wroclaw sportspersons who have participated in Olympic games;
- Polish Numismatic Society.
Awards of the Mayor of Wroclaw were granted to:
- Andrzej Ptak – an originator of activities addressed to excluded and homeless people, the author and manager of the MiserArt project;
- Kierunek Przygoda [Direction: Adventure] Foundation, aimed at creating conditions for proper psychomotor development and the upbringing of children and young people;
- Małgorzata Młynarska – a speech therapist, an academic teacher, the originator of the idea of Cafe Równik, where disabled people work;
- Zbigniew Czwojda – a jazz musician, a trumpeter, a composer;
- Luxon LED – an energy-saving lighting manufacturer and designer.
