The letter received from Mariusz Lickiewicz of Via Sudetica reads:
The VIA SUDETICA association announces that it proposed to the Mayor of Bolesławiec the organization of a multicultural ceramic parade—the Festival of Cultures.
At present, together with the organizer of the Bolesławiec Ceramic Festival, we are working on the concept for this year’s Saturday event. The parade’s format is intended to focus on a celebration of color, sound, joy and friendship. The parade route will be extended, and its final destination will also be changed. Work is under way on the parade’s concept—various ways of conducting it and opportunities for artistic expression by its participants are being considered; none of them will infringe anyone’s personal rights or potential copyrights, should any such rights exist. An invitation to take part in the great joint Saturday parade was also extended to Mr. Bogdan Nowak.
As an association, we regret that an initiative on which, above all, the members of VIA SUDETICA worked for years, and which was co-financed by the association for many years, is now the subject of conflicts, disputes and controversy. The beautiful idea that guided Gliniada has died. Gliniada has become a means of waging a political war in our small ceramic homeland, when it should have been its flagship local product.
VIA SUDETICA is currently carrying out many other activities connected with promoting the region and Bolesławiec ceramics—for example, its participation last week in the Polish Culture and Cuisine Days in Prague—as well as promoting sports among Bolesławiec residents: the cycling rally series known as the County Cycling League, and the Ceramic Xtrabike Marathon and Ceramic Cyclocross bicycle races. These events are in no way connected with Gliniada or any “Gliniada-like” activities.
Our decision to co-create this year’s parade stems from the outrage of Bolesławiec’s ceramic community over Mr. Nowak’s decision not to organize the Gliniada Parade this year. VIA SUDETICA also includes entrepreneurs connected with the ceramic industry—they supported the development of this happening throughout the years; from the very beginning, Mr. Nowak described it, among other things, as a grassroots social initiative. Our decision is all the more difficult because the day after “our” multicultural parade, the demanding and organizationally intensive 2nd Ceramic Xtrabike Marathon Bolesławiec 2015 will take place.