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06-08-2008

Wajda receives Estonian honor

By FNE Staff
    President Ilves will decorate Polish film director Andrzej Wajda with the Terra Mariana Order, one of Estonia's highest state distinctions

    President Toomas Hendrik Ilves of Estonia is one among the foreign participants in the commemoration of the Warsaw Rising joining Polish president Lech Kaczynski at the main event at the capital's Powazki Cemetery.

    While in Warsaw, President Ilves will decorate Polish film director Andrzej Wajda with the Terra Mariana Order, one of Estonia's highest state distinctions conferred to foreign nationals for outstanding achievements in various fields of endeavor. Past recipients of the Order include Queen Elizabeth II, Vaclav Havel, and Lech Wałęsa.

    Wajda's latest claim to fame is Katyn, a feature that takes its title from the forest in Russia, the scene of the mass killing by the Soviet NKVD police of thousands of Polish officers in 1940. It was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category.