Adam Michnik, recipient of the 2009 Ion Ratiu Democracy Lecture Award and editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza published an essay in The Guardian on the role of Poland's Solidarity movement in the events of 1989.

Focusing on the enormous changes of the past twenty years, as well as the lingering dissatisfaction about the results of these changes, Michnik states that Poland today "is a normal, democratic, European country. Its the kind of country I wanted my generation to bequeath to our children. Although to tell the truth, I wish that it was a rather better one."

Visit The Guardian's website to read "Solidarity under Strain."