3. Personal memoirs Jacek Fisiak The Presence of an Absence Liliana Sikorska For a long time after Jacek died, I could not move any of his things. The books on his bedside table, the papers and books on his desk, the newspapers on the coffee table in the living room, were all left as if he would come back and continue his reading of the World War II soldiers’ memoirs, resume the research into the English loanwords in contemporary Polish, and restart the project on English place names and his study of Old English manuscripts. I wanted to keep thinking that any minute he is going to open the door and I will hear his voice again. In his study, I kept finding signs of his presence, that, in effect, amplified his absence. In May last year, I still hoped that he would participate in the IAUPE conference he so looked forward to and helped me win when I put forward the bid for Poznań during the London conference in 2016. He did not live to enjoy meeting his friends, however. Instead, while looking for some personal documents, I discovered a letter from the American Embassy and a telegram from the British Embassy congratulating him on the organization of IAUPE in 1977. The American Ambassador R.T. Davis wrote: “Please be assured that I am aware of your unstinting efforts to make this conference a great success…It would be difficult to overestimate the importance for Poland of the role you have played these past two years as President of the International Association of University Professors of English.” (August 17, 1977). In an article that appeared in a journal entitled Polska, in 1977, Jacek wrote about the importance of the International Association of University Professors of English, the organization which not only advocated English studies but, from the 1950s, through English, fostered international cooperation, building bridges between the East and the West. Mentioning a number of distinguished guests who came to Poznań to participate in the conference,
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