In September 2008, at the College of Europe in Natolin, Canadian student Kinia Adamczyk, an alumna of Poland in the Rockies 2006 and a PitR intern in 2008, decided that the global PitR network needed something more formal than the social connection provided by facebook, a dedicated space to read and write about things Polish, in English.
She shared her idea with PitR program director, Irene Tomaszewski, and with PitR friend Judith Browne, then living in NY. Before long, articles came pouring in: book and film reviews, interviews, commentary, and feature articles. We had a Review! What to call it?
Kinia then searched for a name. CosmoPOLitan, stressing both the Pole and the Cosmos, sounded just right. Next, the website, and for this, two brilliant and unbelievably generous PitR alumni stepped in, Antoni and Jan Kowalczewski. With everything in place, we were then ready to send Cosmopolitan Review urbi et orbi.
Kinia Adamczyk, who served as the first editor, has since then graduated and gone on to a career in investigative journalism in Montreal. She refers to CR, affectionately, as her MA thesis, and it has turned out to be the most widely read MA thesis ever.
Judith Browne now lives in South Africa, but keeps in touch.
Jan and Antoni Kowalczewski continue to be CR’s webmasters and very generous supporters.
Irene Tomaszewski, in Montreal, continues as editor, together with Justine Jablonska, also a PitR 2008 alumna, who lives in Washington, DC. John Guzlowski serves as poetry editor.
Tony Muszynski, the founder and Director of Poland in the Rockies, serves as Chair of the Editorial Board. The other Board members, besides Justine Jablonska and Irene Tomaszewski, are PitR 2008 alumna Anna Kisielewska and longtime PitR supporter Maureen Mroczek Morris, whose internet research abilities are matched only by Commisario Brunetti’s Signorina Elettra.
CR’s audience includes readers in 56 countries, the largest number in the United States, Canada, the UK and Poland.
