“I come from nowhere.” –Andy Warhol

MEDZILABORCE, Slovakia – Welcome to nowhere, two small Slovak border towns called Mikova and Medzilaborce, but more widely known as the obscure Eastern European genesis of America’s most famous pop artist, whose mother was born nearby.

Surrounded by monuments to the Red Army and overshadowed by an Orthodox dome, the museum built in Andy Warhol’s honor appears painfully out of place. When we arrived at 3 p.m., we were the day’s first visitors.

After a debate with the single staff member, a clerk in her early 20s, about whether the museum was open, we were admitted, mostly because I was an American. Although there are signs prohibiting photography, my Polish traveling companions didn’t hesitate to reproduce the collection with flashes on.

A Pennsylvania native, I had visited Pittsburgh’s Warhol museum two years earlier. The top floor was devoted to an exhibit of his homoeroticism. Another exhibit showed the oxidation prints created when Warhol urinated on exposed copper plating.

As we wandered from room to room turning on lights, I realized that the biggest difference between the two museums – besides visitors – is the artist. Warhol dropped the vowel from the end of his name to Americanize it, but make no mistake: It is Andrzej Warhola who is on display here.

Warhola was a good Communist. A popular exhibit here includes suddenly non-ironic prints of Lennon and Mao. Hammers and sickles outnumber soup cans.

In Warhola’s world, Ingrid Bergman dressed as a nun outdazzles Marilyn Monroe. The artist’s baptismal certificate is on display, as well as the Catholic liturgy from his funeral service. Surprising only to me, there is a snapshot of Warhola meeting with Pope John Paul II.

Warhola wasn’t homosexual. He had a girlfriend who shot him because he wouldn’t marry her. The only eroticism in this museum is a few colored pencil sketches, tastefully hidden behind a nook in the wall, similar to the way the more graphic scenes of the Holocaust are displayed at the Auschwitz visitor’s center, located only a few hours’ drive away.

Only a handful of my students in Tarnawa have heard of Andy. On our way out, my Polish friends thanked me for inspiring them to see the museum. Warhola many have been a famous American artist, but he wasn’t so different from them. Practically Polish.

Readers interested in more information about the Slovakian Museum of Andy Warhol can watch the documentary film Absolut Warhola.

William is a sophomore in the Elliott School of International Affairs, majoring in International Affairs and concentrating in Europe and Eurasian Studies. In the summer of 2009, he taught students in Poland through Learning Enterprises and has also taught in D.C. with the AnBryce Institute.

Search terms for the article:

• andrzej warhola
• baptism certificate andy warhol museum
• medzilaborce

“Polish Alaska” – that’s how Janusz Krajnik describes the region of Bieszczady to me.  Janusz, like many others of his generation, studied Russian and not English in school, but even I am hard-pressed to think of a better description. Bieszczady is a wild paradise with mountainous terrain, packs of bison and wolves, log cabins and even natural oil. During the winter it even looks like Alaska.

Janusz is the directior of the Jan Pawel II Gymnasium in Tarnawa Dolna. For four weeks I’m teaching English classes to 60-some students in this village. Equipped with one semester of Polish classes and a crash course in international affairs courtesy of the Elliott School, I’m standing in front of a classroom on Poland’s border with Slovakia and Ukraine, an area that just a few years ago was at the center of the history I’m studying at GW today. Although I can’t attest to the amount of English my students have picked up in four short weeks, I have certainly learned a lot by teaching and living in the beautiful homes, fields, and mountains of the Polish Alaska.

William is a sophomore in the Elliott School of International Affairs, majoring in International Affairs and concentrating in Europe and Eurasian Studies. In the summer of 2009, he taught students in Poland through Learning Enterprises and has also taught in D.C. with the AnBryce Institute.