The 21st Polish Eastern Policy conference, which runs until Wednesday in Wrocław and Wojnowice, is organised by the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe, which is marking its 25th anniversary this year.
Laurynas Vaičiūnas, chairman of the organization, told the PAP news agency that Poland and its allies were facing an information war whose effects could be seen "on the streets of Polish cities."
The conference will look at how to make society more resilient, he said.
According to Vaičiūnas, the idea of "the East" now reaches well beyond Russia, citing Chinese involvement.
Patricipants will also discuss whether Poland, with the tools of the world’s 20th-largest economy, can improve its security.
He said Russia was trying to destroy Polish and European democracy.
After Ukraine, he argued, the European Union is Moscow’s biggest enemy, because the Kremlin cannot afford a democratic bloc of states that broadly get along.
Much of the first day, held at the Ossoliński National Institute, was devoted to the legacy of Jerzy Giedroyc, the editor and publisher who founded the Literary Institute (Instytut Literacki) in 1946.
Its monthly, Kultura, became an influential voice of Polish exiles.
Born in Minsk in 1906, Giedroyc opposed the political system in post-war Poland and became one of its most censored writers.
He called for deep cooperation with Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, and held that Poland’s security depended on the sovereignty of their countries.
But Grzegorz Gil, director of the Institute of Central Europe, argued that Giedroyc’s concept had aged and that applying it unchanged today would be "anachronistic."
Poland, he said, had been "too romantic" and had "slept through" developments in many areas since 2022.
The country should still look east, Gil added, but also north, towards Lithuania and the Nordic countries, which see the threat from Russia in much the same way.
"Nobody can convince us that the Portuguese or the Greeks will stand with Poland through thick and thin," he said.
"Realism today pushes us north, to settle matters in the east."
The Polish Senate has declared 2026 the Year of Jerzy Giedroyc, marking 120 years since his birth.
Marcin Przydacz, head of the International Policy Bureau in the president’s office, took part in the first day of the event.
(ał)
Source: PAP