Since 2017, the Polish National Foundation (Polska Fundacja Narodowa - PFN) has been taking care of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officer personnel and soldiers, familiarising them with Poland’s history, culture and national heritage. This initiative has grown into a permanent project of the Foundation, carried out with American, British, Romanian and Croatian soldiers. Successive shifts of the NATO Battalion Battle Group have the opportunity to get to know Poland in many dimensions. Together we have visited many places of significance from the perspective of our complex history, often testifying to the painful but heroic attitude of generations.

Poland’s history is closely linked to Lithuania, so this time NATO soldiers together with PFN representatives will visit the Vilnius region. It is our duty to bring the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth closer to the Americans, the British, the Croats and the Romanians. They are planning, among other things, to visit the Museum of the Baptism of Lithuania, the Franciscan Parish, the Museum of Victims of Genocide, the Cathedral, the Old Town, the Gates of Dawn and many other monuments and places worth visiting that testify to the common history of Poland and Lithuania.

NATO officers’ cadres and soldiers will be jointly hosted by the Polish National Foundation in Lithuania. This is yet one more of our shared initiatives within the framework of the ‘Zwiastun/Forerunner’ educational programme, a package of educational activities that we have been carrying out with NATO for the past five years. Telling Polish history to American, British, Croatian and Romanian soldiers is a valuable, multi-faceted programme of the Polish National Foundation. I am personally pleased that the next area of our activities is Lithuania, allowing us to introduce NATO soldiers to the multicultural history of Poland. The history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is a repository of many common elements of the history of a multinational and multi-ethnic state for Poland and NATO soldiers. „I am convinced that the continuation of activities under the ‘Zwiastun/Forerunner’ programme precisely in Lithuania is a necessary completion of NATO soldiers’ learning of Poland’s fascinating history

— said Dr Marcin Zarzecki, President of the Board of the Polish National Foundation.

The main task and at the same time the challenge of the Zwiastun project is the intention of active dialogue with the officers and soldiers of NATO forces stationed in Poland. For this initiative, it is necessary to shape relations based on the sources of identity of the Polish national community. Not only does the Zwiastun programme successfully build a platform for the exchange of mutual relations, but above all a positive awareness of Poland among the officers of the NATO Battalion Group

— added Michał Góras, Vice President of the Board of the Polish National Foundation.

Almost 3,000 soldiers took part in educational and historical lessons about Poland within the framework of the Zwiastun project. This is an important initiative of the Polish National Foundation, especially now since Russia has invaded our neighbour - Ukraine. NATO officer cadres and soldiers are not just passively learning about our history and culture. NATO soldiers help as volunteers with other projects run by the Foundation. The soldiers supported representatives of the Polish National Foundation in handing over Christmas parcels to victims of the war in Ukraine as part of another PFN project, ‘Paczka na Kresy’, and also visited facilities where aid was provided to the children, who were victims of the war in Ukraine.

Tłum. K.J.