Kalina Błażejowska

(b. 1987) – a reporter, writer and journalist.

Awarded and nominated for several prizes, she was the editor of the culture section of Tygodnik Powszechny in 2013–16. She has also published articles and interviews in Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format and Piśmo. Magazyn Opinii.

In 2014, she published ‘Uparte serce. Biografia Poświatowskiej’ (Stubborn Heart: A Biography of Poświatowska), a finalist for the Gryfia Literarty Award, and Book of the Spring at the Poznań Review of New Publications and Krakow Book of the Month. In this book, the author complicates the one-dimensional legend of this poet’s life, in part by going back to never-before-published fragments of correspondence.

In 2023, Błażejowska published a much-discussed piece of reportage, ‘Bezduszni. Zapomniana zagłada chorych’ (Soulless: The Forgotten Extermination of the Mentally Ill), on the forgotten history of victims categorized as socially unproductive groups who did not deserve to live – people with disabilities, classified as mentally ill, or the elderly who required constant care – placed in special medical centres or subject to euthanasia, either by Nazi doctors or Polish staff. The author traces this history in three institutions: a children’s psychiatric clinic in Lubliniec, a psychiatric hospital in Gostynina and a care home in Śrem. Soulless was given the Polityka History Award, the International Witold Pilecki Award, the Kazimierz Moczarski Youth Historical Clubs Award and the second class KLIO award; it was also nominated for the Kazimierz Moczarski Historical Award and the Złota Róża Award.

Kalina Błażejowska graduated in film studies and journalism from the Jagiellonian University. She was a scholarship winner from the Ministry of Education and Higher Schooling. She was honoured in 2014 with the Teresa Torańska Newsweek Award for young journalists, and a year later, she took Małopolska Journalist of the Year. She was also nominated for the Barbara Łopieńska Award for best press interview and the MediaTory Prize.