Meeting: "Banat: a multicultural El Dorado?"

18 October 2025, 17.00

Is Banat today just an advertising slogan or a phenomenon that is extraordinary on a global scale? We invite you to a meeting devoted to the latest issue of Herito and its main topic, Banat. Tomasz Kwoka, a Serbian scholar, linguist and researcher of Vojvodina culture, and Olga Bartosiewicz-Nikolaev, a translator and Romanian scholar, will discuss this phenomenon. Together with the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Bartosz Sadulski, they will reflect on what this region is today.

Banat has always been hidden on the fringes, in the damp corner of the map of Dacia, the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy and finally Austria-Hungary, which treated the region as a buffer zone separating two worlds. However, after being colonised on a grand scale, it became a new home for Europeans lured by the promise of prosperity – from Barcelona to the Vistula. Did those who ultimately stayed create a multicultural atmosphere, or only closed enclaves scattered chaotically across the map? Is the multi-ethnicity of Banat a marketing slogan or a global phenomenon? What is the region, whose very name is a Habsburg concept, today, and how does it nurture its centuries-old heritage?

We will also discuss these questions, which became the starting point for work on the 57th issue of Herito about a region unevenly divided between Romania, Serbia and Hungary, whose inhabitants nevertheless share a common homeland, with our invited guests. The meeting will be chaired by the magazine's editor-in-chief, Bartosz Sadulski.

The new issue of Herito magazine is now available!

Venue: Panoramic Hall, 5th floor

Free admission

Guests:

Dr Olga Bartosiewicz-Nikolaev – literary scholar, Romanist, Romanianist, translator. She lectures at the Institute of Romance Philology at the Jagiellonian University. She deals with the literature, culture and history of Romania in the 20th and 21st centuries, issues of identity and the imaginary sphere of contemporary Romanian society, and the reception of translations of Romanian literature in Poland. She also teaches classes on the New Wave of Romanian cinema. Author of the academic monograph "Tożsamość niejednoznaczna. Historyczne, filozoficzne i literackie konteksty twórczości B. Fundoianu/Benjamine’a Fondane’a (1898–1944)”. Winner of the “Literatura na Świecie” translation award in the “New Face” category (2019) for her Polish translation of Adrian Schiop's novel “Soldiers. A Story from Ferentari”.

Dr Tomasz Kwoka – Serbian scholar, linguist, sworn translator of Serbian, researcher of Vojvodina culture and minority issues, works at the Institute of Slavic Philology at the Jagiellonian University. Promoter of Serbian popular culture in Poland. He also lectured at the Institute of Modern Languages at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow (in the field of Russian philology with Rusyn-Lemko language). Member of the Slavic Culture Committee of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (2021-2025) and the Slavic Studies Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow (since 2023 also scientific secretary of the Committee). Member of the scientific council of the journals Шветлосц (Novi Sad) and Прилози проучавању језика (Novi Sad).

Host:

Bartosz Sadulski – writer and editor, author of three volumes of poetry, as well as the novels “Szesnaście na Bourbon” and “Rzeszot,” for which he received the Kościelski Prize, and was nominated for the “Nike” Literary Award and the Conrad Prize. In addition to “Herito” he is a regular contributor to the “Dwutygodnik” portal. He is a scholarship holder of the “Young Poland” program in the literature category (2019). He lives in Nowa Huta.