Łuszczyński was decorated in late October, becoming the first Polish country musician to receive the honour.
The award caps a career spanning more than 45 years, during which he helped build a scene that once faced suspicion and ridicule, he said.
The music began reaching Poland from the United States in the 1970s and quickly grew in popularity, although, as Łuszczyński recalled, in communist-era Poland, anything associated with the West could be treated as politically suspect.
"When I was seven, in the mid-1950s, I first heard country music on the Voice of America, which my father listened to," he told Poland's PAP news agency.
Listening to the station at the time was a crime, he said, but his family tuned in regularly.
This brought him his first taste of the genre, and he asked his parents to let him listen every Thursday evening when a country program aired.
Łuszczyński said the music shaped his life early. "Thanks to listening to this music, I learned English," he said, adding that he was writing his first songs in English by age 13.
An architect by training, Lonstar is also an accomplished festival host, translator and visual artist, in addition to a much-awarded songwriter and performer.
He described school as an early battleground. In primary school, he said he received a failing grade in music for admitting he listened to country acts. His teacher "knew nothing about this music," he said, but its origin in what was then labeled "imperialist America" was enough to draw condemnation.
This blinkered ignorance was common in education in communist Poland.
Despite that, he formed his first band, Western Stars, and later, in 1978, founded another group, The Country Family.
Lonstar performs at the 29th Country Picnic Festival in Mrągowo, northeastern Poland. Photo: PAP/Artur Reszko
Łuszczyński argued that when the genre finally became more visible in Poland in the 1970s, it still arrived with a stigma.
In his telling, officials tolerated it partly by framing it as music of oppressed people, while rock ’n’ roll was sometimes cast by propagandists as youthful rebellion against American power.
Country, he said, was then tagged with stereotypes, becoming "racist, bourgeois and hick" music—a description he called a "harmful lie."
For him, the essence of country music is lyrical truthfulness. Citing the prolific American songwriter Harlan Howard, Łuszczyński repeated the famous line that a country song is "three chords and the truth," adding that while he often uses more than three chords, he tries not to shy away from the truth, even when it brings criticism.
His career is closely tied to Poland’s best-known country gathering in Mrągowo, a lakeside town in the Masuria region of northeastern Poland.
Łuszczyński said informal summer picnics among fans in the late 1970s helped inspire what became the Mrągowo Country Picnic festival, which first took place there in 1983. He recalled that an earlier "Country Picnic" was held in the southwestern towns of Jelenia Góra and Karpacz in August 1982.
A key milestone for the community came on December 4, 1981, when music writer Korneliusz Pacuda helped establish what is now Poland's Country Music Association, bringing together fans, musicians and journalists.
Korneliusz Pacuda. Photo: Grzegorz Śledź/PR2
Following a lull at the end of the 1990s, Lonstar said the music's popularity has been rising again. He pointed to the Czyste Country (Pure Country) festival in Wolsztyn, which he co-organizes, saying its founding principle was to invite musicians who perform only country music.
This year’s edition drew about 10,000 people, he said, adding that the renewed interest is also visible online, on radio and at concerts.
Łuszczyński has performed widely at home and abroad. Over nine US trips, he said, he has played 32 concerts, including several in Nashville, and has played 21 countries, most often in Canada and Western Europe.
In late July, Mrągowo hosted its 44th Country Picnic Festival, demonstrating how a once-marginalized genre has become a durable fixture of Poland’s music calendar.
Since 2015, Poland has also marked September 30 as Polish Country Music Day, featuring events to promote the genre and support local performers.
The Gloria Artis medal is awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to individuals and organizations in recognition of their distinguished contributions to Polish culture.
Past recipients include the jazz great Zbigniew Namysłowski, the much-loved actress Krystyna Janda, and the textile artist Magdalena Abakanowicz.
The medal is also occasionally awarded to foreigners who have contributed to the promotion and preservation of Polish culture. They include composer Arvo Pärt, sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard and pianist Yundi Li.
(rt/gs)
Source: dzieje.pl