Let me start by thanking you for accepting, without a moment's hesitation, my suggestion that I address you in my mother tongue - in Polish. By reason of my position, I usually speak English during official events and functions, but I knew today I would be among friends, only friends, and so I took the liberty of asking you that. It was important to me because I dedicate the words I am about to say to the people of Lviv and to the people of Gdańsk, to Ukrainians and Poles alike, and I would really like this message to reach the ears and the hearts of my countrymen too. I am a Polish patriot and I am also an avowed European. I see no contradiction here – on the contrary. I am a Polish patriot and I love Poland very much, and I love Ukraine very much as well, and there is no paradox in that. To me personally, and I speak from experience, loving both Poland and Ukraine is like loving your mother and falling in love with a girl – I am sure you know what I mean.

On 21 November 1932 professor Kazimierz Twardowski, a professor at your university – which was then known by a different name, Jan Kazimierz University – gave a lecture, I believe it was in this very hall, in which he referred to an honorary doctorate he had just received from another institution, Poznań University. He then pointed out to his audience a certain paradox related to that honorary title, in that scholars, artists, statesmen and military leaders – individuals whose work could not be any more different – all have honorary doctorates bestowed upon them. Incidentally, little did he know that in the 21st century it would become so difficult to tell an artist or even a comedian from a politician and that all over the world demagogues would appear who would feel perfectly at ease being both. But back to honorary doctorates now – the titles are bestowed upon people of different professions and different vocations, because those that award them believe that the recipient can teach us something, and rightly so: the word doctor, etymologically speaking, means someone who teaches, who can impart useful lessons. Now, I am a history teacher by profession but my experience tells me that life is a more interesting educator than teachers – and let me apologise here to everyone present. So I have decided to tell you about lessons that I and we all have been taught by our respective cities, Lviv and Gdańsk, by their history and by their present. I am thinking here about the lessons of solidarity and reconciliation.

Now, I was twenty when I entered the world of politics as an adult. In the late 1970s, while still students at Gdańsk University, we started organising illegal demonstrations against the communist regime and we would always gather at the King John III Sobieski monument. Before World War II that monument was in Lviv, at what was then Hetman's Ramparts. This little piece of Lviv in Gdańsk, which would come to represent hope and resistance, is not the only symbol connecting the two cities. As you may know, Gdańsk's coat of arms has two lions on it. In Gdańsk you can find lions everywhere, though none so beautiful and grand as those guarding the Gunpowder Tower in Lviv. Supporters of Gdańsk's local Lechia football club, my beloved team, even call themselves Lions of the North. And Lechia itself inherited its name from one of Lviv's football clubs from before World War II. It was founded right after the war by engineers from Lviv Polytechnic who had settled in my town to bring Gdańsk Polytechnic back to life and to rebuild my city, our port and our shipyards.

The recently assassinated mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, was a great supporter of Lechia. The grieving people of Gdańsk have received gestures of solidarity from many different places. One of the most moving was a giant portrait of the murdered mayor projected onto the wall of your town hall, which made us all cry when we saw it on the internet, and the message broadcast right before our mayor's funeral, which said: "A grand gesture to promote rapprochement between Poland and Ukraine: the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, flew into Gdańsk on Friday afternoon to stand, if only for a brief moment, beside the coffin of Paweł Adamowicz at the European Solidarity Centre and write his condolences in the book of condolence. On Saturday at 6am he flew back to Lviv."

In Gdańsk we particularly cherish solidarity. Ostensibly weak and defenceless, solidarity proved more powerful than an empire armed to the teeth. Showing solidarity is no easy feat, though; you have to sacrifice your own interests, sometimes even yourself, for someone else. The motto "one for all and all for one" has people uniting for other people, not against them. As our Pope John Paul II said, and he naturally said it in Gdańsk, solidarity always means standing with another, never against another. In politics solidarity is the best antidote for resentment and probably the only real alternative to politics defined exclusively as the ruthless playing off of interests.

Many years ago, when as Poland's Prime Minister I was talking with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, I heard his definition of politics. It resembled a simplified version of Carl Schmitt's philosophy; in short he believed that politics could only be understood as antagonism and we could only unite against our enemies. It is a tempting proposition, very easy intellectually, one that values only strength and thus nearly always cherishes violence, one that rejects compromise, negotiations, coexistence or pluralism. And still, many a time a politician who worshipped strength has had to surrender to solidarity, even though the two always seemed so unevenly matched. Maybe it's because you can fall in love with solidarity but strength you can merely fear, and love always conquers fear.

I know that the events of August 1980 in Gdańsk were an important message for many people of my generation in Lviv. A history professor at your university, Yaroslav Hrytsak, talked about this in an interview for Tygodnik Powszechny weekly in Kraków: "When the Solidarity movement burst on the scene I was at university, and like my fellow students I wanted this miracle of freedom to happen in Lviv too. When I reminisce about those times with my Ukrainian friends, we realise that Solidarity's messages did not only come to Lviv; they reached Volhynia and even Kyiv. Poland's influence became a major factor shaping our Ukrainian identity." End quote.

And the miracle of freedom did happen - in Gdańsk and, a little later, in Lviv and throughout Ukraine - against the grim logic of force. And we all felt from the beginning that there would be no miracle of freedom without solidarity going beyond borders and beyond national identities. When we met in Gdańsk in 1981 as delegates of the Solidarity trade union, we drafted a Message to the working people of Eastern Europe, in which we spoke of our common destiny and the need for Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and other peoples in this part of the world to come together. When the then First Secretary [of the Soviet Communist Party] Leonid Brezhnev received the text of this message, he concluded briefly: this is a dangerous and provocative document. And, as it turned out, he was right.

For many Poles it was something entirely natural that a quarter of a century later Polish Solidarity flags would appear on the streets of Kiev during the Orange Revolution, and that 5 years ago many of my compatriots would come to the Maidan.

Professor Hrytsak also said in his interview that the fascination with Polish solidarity contributed to the first and dramatic conflict between the younger and older generations. His parents had painful memories of Poland. They came from a village outside the town of Stryi and they still remembered pre-war Poland's anti-Ukrainian policies. I don't have to tell you that in my city of Gdańsk I in turn have often heard talk full of anger and bitterness from older Poles, recalling the atrocities in Volhynia and the cruelty which some Ukrainians inflicted on the Poles.

And here I'd like to begin the second lesson - that of reconciliation. Gdańsk - a city that over centuries was built and inhabited by Poles and Germans, Scots and Dutch, Jews and Kashubs, by Mennonites, Huguenots, Protestants, Catholics, Tartars and Crimean Karaites - at a certain moment became a symbol of national conflict and claims, nationalist claims, with one predominant question: 'whose city is this?' rather than 'what kind of a city is this?' A city that for centuries had been a city of synergy, synthesis and symbiosis, [Gdańsk] suddenly became the reason for the outbreak of World War II because German Nazis saw diversity - not just in Gdańsk, but diversity in general - exclusively as a problem to be resolved by violence. The communists were not much better at this. Many years had to pass before the victory of Solidarity opened people's hearts to the need for reconciliation. It was in fact Paweł Adamowicz who first invited the Germans to Westerplatte to commemorate together the anniversary of the start of World War II. Today the Poles and the Germans, like the French, the Spaniards, the Croats and the Slovenians, are building a European community on the foundation of reconciliation.

Lviv is a similar city. Not only because various nations and religions built it over the centuries, not only because - as Yuriy Andrukhovych writes - 300 years ago ships from Gdańsk sailed on the Poltva river. It's difficult to imagine, I know, but 300 years ago this was possible. Also because, just like my city, Lviv was a real synthesis of many cultures and it was only the ruthless 20th century which dictated that all of us, our ancestors, take one side. Tough - but that is water under the bridge now. Today these two symbolic cities, after all they've gone through, Polish Gdańsk and Ukrainian Lviv - cities which sent out a strong message of freedom (Gdańsk to the whole of Poland and Lviv to the whole of Ukraine) - should become beacons for all Poles and all Ukrainians. Beacons of reconciliation, between our nations and within them.

I will end with a quote from Pope John Paul II. In Poland it is still safest to call for reconciliation with one's neighbours by referring to the Pope. On the anniversary of the Volhynia tragedy he said: "The new millennium demands that Ukrainians and Poles should not remain enslaved by their sad memories of the past. Contemplating past events with a new perspective and taking up the task of building a better future for all, they should look at each other with reconciliation in mind. There is no justice without forgiveness, and any cooperation that does not involve opening up to each other would be fragile. (…) As a gesture of good conscience, compassion and kindness we respond with an open heart to the Ukrainians' wishes, which are similar to those of the Poles. Let us respect the memory of the victims of past feuds and conflicts, and by remembering their names let us save every one of them from being forgotten. We owe this to the fallen and their families. But let us not draw up a balance sheet of blood and suffering - for this is the road to nowhere. Let us all bow our heads in reflection, in prayer, and in compassion. Only now can we understand fully the drama in which our nations were caught up in the past. The experiences of the past century - so tragic and painful - have taught us a new perception of patriotism and of national identity, which does not have to turn against someone or seek confirmation in confrontation. (…) Today we are discovering what we have in common. We are strengthening trust and cooperation. There is probably no other country today that would appreciate the role of an independent Ukraine in Europe more than Poland, or that would be more friendly in supporting her pro-European aspirations."

Once again I thank you very much for the award, for what you have done for Lviv, for Ukraine and for all of Europe. You have reason to be proud of what you have done. I wish you all the best. Thank you.