ANN ARBOR—Several leading figures from Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement in 1980-81 will take part in a special 20th anniversary conference, “The Silences of Solidarity,” Sept. 21-23 at the University of Michigan’s Rackham Building.

Sponsored by the U-M Center for Russian and East European Studies, the conference will feature Poland’s recent foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek, who will deliver the University’s annual Copernicus Lecture at 4 p.m. Sept. 23 at Rackham Auditorium.

Geremek, a current member of the Polish Parliament, helped found the Solidarity trade union in 1980, served as an adviser to the clandestine Solidarity Provisional Committee and was an aid to Lech Walesa. He also was imprisoned under martial law for illegal political activity.

The three-day conference will open with a lecture by author Pawel Huelle at 8 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Rackham Amphitheater. Huelle’s talk is titled “Three in a Boat, Solidarity, Walesa, and I: The Gdansk Perspective on Poland’s Road to Freedom.”

Over the following two days, Sept. 22-23, key participants in the Solidarity movement, along with American and Polish scholars, will analyze the events of 1980-81 in an attempt to fully appreciate Solidarity’s achievements as one of the great social movements of the 20th century.

Among those taking part in panel discussions are Solidarity activists Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, Ryszard Bugaj, Bogdan Cywinski, Danuta Kuron, Barbara Labuda and Father Stanislaw Musial.

For a complete schedule of events or for more information, contact the Center for Russian and East European Studies at (734) 764-0351 or at crees@umich.edu.