Alex Storozynski
Pulitzer Prize winning-journalist, author, filmmaker, President Emeritus & Chairman of Board of The Kosciuszko Foundation.
Alex Storozynski
Alex Storozynski's film Kosciuszko: A Man Ahead of His Time was broadcast on PBS in the US and TVP in Poland.
His latest book, Spies In My Blood: Secrets of a Polish Family’s Fight Against Nazis and Communists, is a compelling true story. It narrates the journey of two brothers, raised in New York by WWII exiles who ventured to Poland. Each took a different path to infiltrate the Communist secret police on a mission to uncover the truth about their family of soldiers, spies, and assassins.
As a member of the New York Daily News editorial board, Storozynski wrote editorials and op-ed columns on public policy issues and was part of the writing team that won the Pulitzer Prize, George Polk Award, Sigma Delta Chi Award, Deadline Club Award, Associated Press and Silurian Awards. He is a former City Editor of The New York Sun and founding editor of amNewYork. He has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, Newsday, Forbes.com, The Huffington Post, and other publications. Storozynski's book The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Era of Revolution won the Fraunces Tavern Book Award, The Templar Military History Award – “Military Order of Saint Louis,” and other awards.
Storozynski is a recipient of the Lech Walesa Media Award and decorated with Poland’s “Gold Cross of Merit” by former President Lech Kaczynski and the “Officer’s Cross of Merit” of the Republic of Poland by President Bronislaw Komorowski.
Thaddeus Kosciuszko was one of the most important figures of the modern world. Fleeing his homeland after a death sentence was placed on his head for courting a woman above his station, he came to America one month after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, showing up on Benjamin Franklin's doorstep in Philadelphia with a revolutionary spirit and an engineering genius. As a volunteer, he proved his capabilities and became the most talented engineer in the Continental Army.
Kosciuszko constructed fortifications for Philadelphia, devised battle plans for the American victory at the pivotal Battle of Saratoga, and designed the plans for Fortress West Point―the same plans the traitor Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British. Then, seeking new challenges, Kosciuszko asked for a transfer to the Southern Army, where he oversaw a ring of African-American spies.
He stood up for the rights of enslaved Africans, Native Americans, women, serfs, and Jews. After the war, he returned to Poland and was a leading figure in that nation’s Constitutional movement. As Commander in Chief of the Polish Army, he led a defense against a Russian invasion in 1794. Captured and later pardoned by Russia’s Paul I, he lived the remainder of his life as an international celebrity and a vocal proponent for human rights.
This definitive and exhaustively researched biography fills a long-standing gap in historical literature with its account of a dashing and inspiring revolutionary figure.
Filmed on the battlefields of Saratoga, Fort Ticonderoga, West Point, and historic sites in New York, Philadelphia, and across Poland, the documentary outlines Kosciuszko’s impact on the American Revolution and the revolutions in Europe.
Kosciuszko: A Man Before His Time tells the story of a Polish and American hero. In the summer of 1776, Kosciuszko showed up unannounced on Ben Franklin’s doorstep in Philadelphia to offer his services. Franklin hired him right away, and Kosciuszko served in the Continental Army longer than Lafayette, Von Steuben, or any other foreign officer and had a greater impact on the American Revolution than any of them.
He was responsible for the victory at the Battle of Saratoga. He left his estate in America with Thomas Jefferson, instructing him to use the money to purchase and emancipate enslaved Africans and to leave enough money for their education and buy them land, cattle, and farming tools so they could be free to make their living.
Jefferson called Kosciuszko “as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known.”
In Poland, Kosciuszko led a revolution to free enslaved serfs, win rights for Jews, women, and the middle class, and liberate his country from Russian occupation.
Kosciuszko’s motto was, we fight for “your freedom and ours.”
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