On 22 January the Krakow City Council presented the Kazimierz Wyka Award, funded by the Mayor of the City of Krakow and the Governor of the Małopolska Voivodship. This year’s winner was the literary critic and literary scholar Andrzej Mencwel. The ceremony was honored by the presence of the Mayor of Krakow Jacek Majchrowski, the daughter of Professor Kazimierz Wyka, as well as a large group of professors of the Jagiellonian University and the award winners from previous years.
Andrzej Mencwel was the Director of the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw and President of the Polish Society of Cultural Studies. He is a member of the scientific councils of the Institute of Polish Culture and the Interdepartmental Individual Studies in the Humanities, the Council of the Society for the Promotion and Propagation of Sciences, Warsaw Scientific Society, Programme Councils of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the Festival of Science, the Centre for Contemporary Art, the Janusz Korczak International Association, Association Internationale des Critiques littéraires, jury member of the Jerzy Giedroyc Academic Prize, as well as chairman of the Humanities Team of the Ministry of Education. In 1990 he obtained his habilitation based on the book Ethos of the left. Essay on the birth of Polish culturalism (1990). Winner of the Jan Strzelecki Polish PEN Award (1998). He was awarded the Medal of the National Education Commission, the Medal of the University of Warsaw, and “Gloria Artis” Medal.
The Kazimierz Wyka Award is granted in the field of literary criticism, essays and literary history. Very highly rated by both theorists of literature and art and artists themselves, the award now belongs to one of the few in this area in Poland.