Artists in Films of the Cinema of Moral Anxiety. The second half of the 1970s saw the birth of a trend in Polish cinematography later described as the cinema of moral anxiety. Films created as part of this trend grew directly out of a specific socio-political reality. On the one hand, they spoke of universal values such as truth and goodness, to which they owe their universality and topicality, and on the other hand, they showed the reality of Poland in the 1970s. Although not an absolute rule, the plot of films of moral anxiety was often set in intellectual, journalistic and artistic circles. However, the theatres, ballrooms and television corridors described in the films were a metaphor for the Polish People’s Republic. By setting the action in artistic and creative circles, especially rather mediocre ones, among small-town masters of ceremonies, heads of small student theatres, provincial actors, it was possible to circumvent the bans and slip under the censors’ radar. All the problems and conflicts occurring in the real life of all people living in a real socialist country were reflected in these films. They all faced similar situations, being oppressed by cliques and arrangements in the workplace and in public life.

After World War II, culture became a tool that the communist authorities used to take over the so-called government of souls in Poland. Therefore, they introduced revolutionary changes in that field to bring it in line with the Soviet models. The state was to be the sole patron, setting the directions for artists to follow, and the relevant party bodies or institutions were to control creative processes to ensure that they did not become distorted in a way inconsistent with the prevailing ideology. According to the theorists, this was the only way to ensure more efficient management of culture and a better understanding of its needs. The communists used creators for their own purposes in a utilitarian way and, at the same time, they pushed those who refused to comply to the margins of social life. The article is an attempt to describe the state of research in the period from the publication of the 2014 issue of “Memory and Justice” dedicated to the subject in question until today. For over a dozen years, scientific research has been conducted in that field, the purpose of which is to explain and describe the mechanisms of the authorities’ influence on creative circles in the period from 1944 to 1989. The progress made is noticeable, although the degree to which individual environments are described greatly varies. The best results have been achieved in the field of writers or filmmakers, though a lot of work still needs to be done when it comes to musicians or visual artists.

Whenever domestic art historiography handles the subject of Vladimir Lenin, it is only in the context of socialist realism. It is as if October 1956 contributed to the disappearance of the presentations of the leader of the Bolshevik revolution from the public space of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). The preserved works of art and documentation of art competitions related to Lenin present a false image of the Polish history of the period from 1956 to 1989. The methodological assumption of this article was the adoption of symbolic caesuras that result from the dynamics of political events, not artistic ones, as it was politics that influenced changes in artistic life and art, not the other way around. The selection of October 1956 and the date of the restoration of the name “Rzeczpospolita Polska” (the Republic of Poland), along with the crowned White Eagle at the end of 1989, as terminus post quem and terminus ante quem is the result of two orders: in the earlier period, the point of reference for all images of Lenin and his presentations in Polish art was socialist realism; at that time, the subject of Lenin was dealt with rarely compared to that of Stalin, who was treated as the main person responsible for the success of the Soviet Union. The focus of the research on the years 1956–1989 is also a response to the attitude of denial, noticeable in the literature on the subject, towards the presence of “Leninists” in the communist art of that period. The author analyses the causes of that puzzling phenomenon by dealing with the issue of the memory of the participation of artists in the communist machine of visual propaganda.

Theatre as “the most social of the arts” interacts with the audience, the surrounding reality and responds most quickly and accurately to social changes. Not infrequently, the stage itself prosecutes or catalyses these transformations. The article is devoted to the socio-political dimension of theatre in “People’s Poland” in moments of crises. In addition to the impact of the “Polish months” and martial law on the shape and content of the Polish stage, the article shows selected reminiscences of these events in the theatre, as well as the catalysing function of theatrical art, manifested in periods of breakthrough.

The musical Zielona Góra was known in Poland mainly for the Soviet Song Festival. Above all, the city had a different life — the local one. In Zielona Góra, the interest in big-beat music began in the 1960s. In 1963 the band Lubusze was founded, basing its repertoire on the music of The Shadows. Jolanie and Inni soon gained popularity in the Lubuskie region. Both groups were established in 1966. They were successful in national and regional competitions. In 1969 Jarosław Kukulski founded the band Waganci, basing it on former musicians of Jolanie. His band appeared in the audience’s nationwide consciousness and Kukulski himself, together with his wife Anna Jantar as a singer, became a famous musician and composer. In 1970, Polish big-beat began to transform into “real” rock music. In Zielona Góra, on the other hand, new groups important for the region were created, including Akces and Układ. At that time, various types of wedding and dance ensembles were already forming, created for profit. There were difficulties in finding musicians in the city who would like to play their own songs. Other difficulties were, among others state control and little media interest — especially nationwide ones. When Akces broke up, some of its musicians created the Weekend, which was one of the last manifestations of the artistic activity of musicians coming from the big-beat generation.

Tadeusz Różewicz was one of the most prominent Polish writers of the 20th century: a poet, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. A soldier in the underground Home Army during the Second World War, he studied art history at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow after the war, eventually devoting himself exclusively to literary work. At the beginning of 1950, he settled in Gliwice, which, at the time, was a provincial town from the point of view of Cracow. He never joined the ranks of the Communist Party and his voluntary detachment from mainstream literary life allowed him to partially maintain his artistic autonomy. His contacts with foreign writers and publishers brought him to the attention of the communist state security authorities. During his stay in Gliwice, he was investigated by the Security Service in relation to a case code-named “Writer”. In 1968, he moved to Wrocław. The article is an attempt to reconstruct the causes, course and effects of the poet’s exposure by the Security Service against the broad background of his time in Gliwice.

The article presents – on the basis of Stefan Kisielewski’s Diaries from 1968–1970 – the profile of Leopold Tyrmand as an enemy of the contestation movements in the United States. At the turn of 1968 and 1969, Tyrmand was a lecturer at Columbia University. At that time, he opposed those views of American youth which he considered to be neo-Marxist and Maoist. An analysis of the historical context of Tyrmand’s American journalism from 1968–1970 shows his intransigent attitude to the New Left movement, as well as to Soviet and Chinese communism. The wave of protests in 1968 was criticised by the writer. In his Diaries, Stefan Kisielewski also refers to the conservatism of Tyrmand, which, however, raises doubts in terms of interpretation. Tyrmand’s anti-communist stance cannot be viewed in isolation from the Cold War geopolitical rivalry between the United States, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The writer did not succumb to the ideology of communism, neither in Poland nor in America, during the period of the New Left’s accelerating expansion.

The article addresses the discussion on the two-volume novel Imiennik (vol. 1: Śladami pradziada [In the Footsteps of the Great-Grandfather], vol. 2: Miecz i pastorał [Sword and Crosier]) by the Cracow lawyer and writer Karol Bunsch, published in 1949. It describes the reign of Bolesław the Bold and the ruler’s conflict with the Bishop of Cracow, Stanislaus of Szczepanów, which ended with the latter’s tragic death in 1079. In the novel, the author combined historical facts, his own interpretations of contentious issues and extant source material, as well as fictional events; in doing so, he strongly outlined the scientifically unverifiable inner motivations of historical figures. The novel sparked a polemic between the author and his critics that took place, among others, in Tygodnik Powszechny [Common Weekly]. It mainly concerned Bunsch’s portrayal of Bishop Stanislaus, which was considered unreliable and hurtful. Critics of the book rejected the historians’ concepts on which Bunsch relied, as well as some of the information given by Gallus Anonymus, or proposed a different interpretation. At the same time, they gave preference to later sources that portrayed Bishop Stanislaus in a positive light. Bunsch defended the hypotheses of older scholars he presented in the novel, as well as many of his own thoughts, accusing his opponents of ignorance of the sources, misinterpretation and even manipulation. The dispute dragged on for many years and had an additional political dimension, becoming part of the complicated relationship between the Catholic Church and the communist government.

The literature on the shipbuilding industry in the People’s Republic of Poland includes the phenomenon of the Głos Stoczniowca in the 1970s. The aim of the article is to examine the thesis of the literary character of the Głos Stoczniowca in the 1970s. Extensive use was made of the files collected in the State Archives in Gdańsk and recorded film notations with the journalists of the weekly newspaper Wiosna Adamowicz as well as the late Grzegorz Kurkiewicz and Mirosław Stecewicz. In addition, thirteen issues of the paper were subjected to a quantitative analysis of the content and, in particular, the surface of the press. The research results are presented in detailed statistical summaries of journalistic material, iconography and authors. It was possible to confirm the literary character of the title and to describe its role in the 1970s.

Among young filmmakers, the number of directors and cinematographers without a (full-time) job in their learned profession tripled in five years (from 1976 to 1981). As a result, nearly 120 young filmmakers were unemployed at the dawn of 1981, most of whom did not get the chance to make their film debut in an out-of-school setting either. Considering the number of directors and cinematographers who entered the profession in the preceding decades, it should be noted that the late 1970s and early 1980s were characterised by an oversupply of directors and cinematographers in relation to the number of vacancies and the production capacity of socialist cinematography (around thirty full length live-action films were made annually). The author identifies the reasons for this state of affairs and reconstructs the process of solving these problems. It analyses both the activities of the cinematographic and television authorities towards the environment of young filmmakers and the Youth Circle of the Polish Filmmakers Association, whose initiatives provoked the state authorities to act. They resulted in the establishment, during the carnival of Solidarity, of the independent Karol Irzykowski Film Studio, which brought together filmmakers who had not made their debut yet. Its establishment proved to be a remedy to alleviate the financial plight of young filmmakers.

The paper presents the links between archeology and the totalitarian systems of fascism and communism. It shows how, on the orders of Nazi ideologues, the conquest of Polish lands was justified as the lands formerly inhabited by Germans and much later occupied by Poles. Nazi archaeologists were also to discover or even fabricate the discoveries of pro-German places of worship, which would then serve new rituals. Italian fascists, by conquering North Africa, posed as descendants of the Romans legally rebuilding the Roman Empire. After the war, the Stalinist authorities in Poland tried to legitimise their rule as continuators of the Piast rulers, and to instil in the displaced Poles the idea that they had lived in the Recovered Territories. The authorities of the Soviet Union treated the annexed countries as their colonies and plundered everything, including archaeological sites. The communists ruling Romania pretended to be the successors of the Dak kings, heroic defenders against the Romans. The presented examples show that Nazi and Communist ideologues willingly made use of service-minded archaeologists who provided them with the ordered research results.

Attitudes of the Jewish and German Minorities in Poland in The Face of the War against Bolshevik Russia 1919–1920. The reborn Polish state was not a nationally homogeneous country. On the territory of the Second Polish Republic, national minorities could be found, among which the following were dominant: Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians and Germans. The aim of the article is to present the various attitudes of the Jewish population and the anti-Polish attitude of the German population towards the Polish-Soviet war of 1920. A lot of space was devoted to showing positive examples of identification of part of the Jewish population with the Polish raison d’état in the face of the Bolshevik threat in 1920, but also a negative attitude towards the Polish state, which was shared by some Jews. Factors influencing the attitudes of the above-mentioned national minorities during the armed conflict between Poland and Bolshevik Russia were also indicated.

This article aims to broaden the knowledge on the political participation in the interwar Poland. Author gives a complex description of political public assemblies in Warsaw 1922, as a manifestation of Polish political culture in the interwar period. The author analyses the course of assemblies and the social background of the assembled public. The role and activities of political elite and law enforcement agencies are highlighted, as well as their use of force and collective violence. There were three events in 1922 that expose the major political conflicts within Polish politics throughout the period of Józef Piłsudski as the Head of State and the Constituent Assembly of 1919-1922: The government crisis in June and July, the parliamentary election in October and November and the presidential election in December of 1922. The common manifestation of these conflicts were public assemblies of Varsavians.

The case study of the repressive actions of the Soviet regime against ethnic groups, particularly the Czechs of Volyn, is based on the analysis of archival materials and memoirs. The analysis of the basic documents regulating the repression process shows that there was no separate document/order under which the operation against the Czechs was carried out and that the repressive bodies implemented the provisions of the so-called „Polish model” operation. The repression mechanism and the categories of the repressed Czech population within the chronological period of 1921–1941 are characterised. It is noted that mass arrests, evictions/deportations, and executions of the population, particularly Volynian Czechs, were commonly implemented on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR and from 1939 in Western Ukraine too. They became the means and tools for the realisation of the internal policy of Sovietisation. Archival materials and memoirs helped ascertain the categories of the Czech origin persons who were subjected to repression as “socially dangerous ones”. They were former owners of industrial enterprises, so called “Kurkuls”, landowners, former state functionaries and policemen, Polish military, active participants of a social movement and its leaders, prisoners of war, members of the Czech army, as well as soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps of the Russian army (1914–1918). The research findings argue that repressions against the Volynian Czechs led to a negative attitude of the Czechs toward the Soviet regime, and in the post-war period, toward the re-emigration movement.

The article deals with the great religious-political debate on the Neouniate movement, a new form of attraction of the Orthodox population to unify with the Catholic Church. During the pastoral conferences held in Pińsk, the Church tried to find arguments to convince Polish political factions to accept Uniate action in the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic. It was shown that the intention of church circles was not to create a new national separatism in the Borderlands (modelled on the Ukrainian one in Eastern Lesser Poland) but to conduct a missionary campaign of a primarily religious nature. The article also shows an intra-church discussion on Byzantine influences in the Eastern rites, leading to a complete rigidity of the liturgy and a reduction of theological concerns among the Uniates exclusively to ritual issues. During the deliberations at the pastoral conferences, solutions were sought that included respecting the old Eastern Rite and teaching converts the basics of Catholic theology.

The article aims to present the situation of people with mental disorders during the Nazi era, with particular emphasis on the foundations of the extermination policy and its post-war consequences. The “Act on Preventing the Birth of Offspring Burdened by Hereditary Disease” turned people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness into second-class citizens. The wide-ranging program of their sterilisation and euthanasia was an excellent preview of what could happen to intellectually able and mentally healthy people in the Third Reich and the lands under German occupation. The Nazi extermination policy had at least two sources: scientific achievements (also in the field of genetics as the basis for the development of eugenics), and the social, political and economic conditions in Germany. The post-war period did not bring the expected consequences, either from the perspective of the perpetrators, or the victims and their families. The use of science for the purpose of exterminating people whose lives were considered incomplete, to the extent it took place during the analysed period, was unprecedented in modern history and has not happened since. However, we observe disturbing tendencies that may indicate the unethical use of scientific achievements in eliminating “life not worth living”.

NKVD camp no. 515 with, a sub-camp in Nuzal in the North Ossetian ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), operated from April to September 1945 for arrested German internees of group “B”. Apart from Germans, there were also Hungarians and Slovaks in the camp. Poles and Polish citizens suspected of collaboration with the German occupier were sent to the sub-camp in Nuzalu during the time of its establishment. For that reason, the living conditions in the camp were extremely difficult. Sanitary facilities and food supply standards also did not meet the security requirements included in the orders regarding the arriving contingent. The diseases that developed not only devastated the internees physically but were also the reason for their high mortality rate. The hard work in the zinc and lead ore mine also contributed to the above. It is assumed that 57 out of nearly 400 Poles and Polish citizens died in the period from April to September 1945, that is slightly more than 14 percent. Some internees were released in October 1945 and others two years later.

The purpose of the article is to present the fate of Colonel Tadeusz Felsztyn — a legionnaire, an officer of the Polish Army and Polish Armed Forces in the West, a survivor of the Katyn massacre and post-war emigrant. Felsztyn came from an assimilated Jewish family from Lvov. After passing his matriculation exam, he undertook studies, which he had to interrupt due to the outbreak of World War I. He served in the Polish Legions, and after Poland regained its independence — in the Polish Army. During World War II he was imprisoned by the Soviets but he was not executed by the NKVD. Then, he served with the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, the Polish Army in the East and the Polish II Corps. After the war, he settled down in the UK. Colonel Tadeusz Felsztyn was not only an outstanding officer but also a scientist, the author of 22 books and approximately 60 articles in the field of armaments, atomic science, physics and religion. The Colonel belongs to the tragic generation of Polish citizens who fought for Poland’s independence and had to become an emigrant after 1945.

The article presents the participation of the Częstochowa clergy in the so-called “Patriotic Priests” movement. It gives the number of priests belonging to the District Priests’ Commission in Katowice and the District Priests’ Commission in Łódź. It also brings closer the motives for their involvement, the functions they performed in central and regional structures, as well as characterises the forms of political and social activity. It raises the question of the attitude of the bishops of Częstochowa – Teodor Kubina and his successor Bishop Zdzisław Goliński – and the other confreres to the “patriot priests”.

The secession of Katanga, one of the provinces in the Congo, and the participation of Polish mercenaries in the battles against UN forces (ONUC) and the rebellion of the Baluba people are little known in Poland. The published memoirs of Jan Zumbach and Rafal Gan-Ganowicz shed some light on this forgotten period. However, there is archival material that provides a decidedly more detailed insight into the number of Poles who participated in the events taking place in Congo. There are no such sources for the period of the Simba rebellion; information on this subject can only be drawn from the diaries of the above-mentioned Polish mercenaries. It is interesting to note that the first one, Jan Zumbach, made an effort to create some disinformation as to the personalities of his Polish colleagues participating in the events. Despite the difficulties in research, the participation of former soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces in the West in the battles in Katanga and later in the Congo against the communist insurgency deserves the attention of historians.

The liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia was part of the extensive anti-church measures of the communist regimes under the control of the Soviet Union. The presented study pays attention to the progress of the totalitarian regime towards the church in Czechoslovakia with an emphasis on identical or similar practices in the Central European area. It identifies the effects of events from Poland and the Soviet Union on the process of liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church and deals with its course and consequences for society. An important part of the study are the reactions of Greek Catholics to the forced Orthodoxisation.

This article looks at the activities of one of the most important party organs, the Regional Party Control Commission. In doing so, it reveals the many irregularities that occurred within the party. The main objective is to show the mechanism that occurred when investigating cases involving members of and candidates to the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR). At the same time, the text shows what a serious tool the Regional Party Control Commission was in the hands of the leadership of the Regional Committee of the PZPR in solving many personal problems.

The beating, on 21 December 1977, of Father Andrzej Bardecki — a long-standing church assistant and one of the editors of “Tygodnik Powszechny” — at the entrance to his apartment in Kraków, made to look like an ordinary bandit attack, had a huge impact not only on the church community in Kraków but also the whole of Poland, especially on those contesting the people’s power. It was a sort of revenge for the views presented by the editors of “Tygodnik Powszechny” (and indirectly also by Cardinal Karol Wojtyła) on the reality of the church policy of the communist state and the attempts of the regime press to show the correct relations of Polish communists with the Holy See. The assumption of the conducted investigation was not to reveal the perpetrators of the attack. The article presents the mechanisms used by the communists in the fight against the opposition, which was considered to be the environment of “Tygodnik Powszechny”, and in intimidation of active oppositionists. The attack on the Sikorski Square in Cracow in 1977, was referred to by the authorities of Poland and their “armed arm” many times over the later decades of the 20th century.

The article focuses on the economic blackmail used by the Soviet Union against the Polish People’s Republic (the PRL) during the so-called Polish crisis (1980–1981). In 1980–1981, the Kremlin achieved great efficiency in the simultaneous use of many foreign policy tools. To force the introduction of martial law by the Polish authorities, three basic methods of pressure were implemented: threats to use military intervention, support for the pro-Soviet faction of the Polish United Workers’ Party (the PZPR) and threats to cut off supplies of raw materials and financial aid. Compared to the economic, political and military consequences of a possible invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in Poland, the use of those three tools was rather costless. Such a strategy could be used over a longer period of time and flexibly, depending on the development of the situation. Based on the conducted analysis — using the studies and available source materials — the threat to reduce supplies of raw materials was the most effective tool in the Kremlin Arsenal. The hierarchy of Soviet foreign policy tools adopted so far — from the most to the least important ones — was as follows: threat of military intervention, support for the pro-Soviet faction within the PZPR, then economic pressure. In fact, that order should be reversed. The most important tool in the Kremlin Arsenal was the sanctions — it was the threat of their application that finally pushed the Polish leadership to take action.

Following the imposition of martial law in Poland, societies from 24 countries around the world got involved in the relief effort. For foreign donors, the Catholic Church, which carried out its charitable activities through the Charity Commission of the Polish Episcopate, was a trustworthy institution. The aim of this article is to answer several questions: how did the Charity Commission of the Polish Episcopate manage the distribution of donations intended for the Katowice province? What was the scale of foreign aid provided to the people of the province? Finally, what were the reactions of the beneficiaries to the support received? The choice of the Katowice province was determined by its population and the fact that Katowice was the seat of the Charity Commission of the Polish Episcopate. In 1982, the Diocese of Katowice received nearly 21,000 tonnes of goods to distribute those in need; a year later, it was nearly 7,000 tonnes. Due to a lack of documentation, it is not known how many donations were made exclusively to residents of the Dąbrowa Basin and the Gliwice region. The basic charitable work unit was the so-called Parish Charity Teams. The opportunity to supplement the information on people in need was provided by the 1981/1982 traditional round of visits to parishioners. The attitudes of the beneficiaries of foreign aid varied widely, ranging from gratitude and embarrassment to demanding attitudes and dissatisfaction with the support received.

In the last years of his life, spent in exile in the FRG, Father Franciszek Blachnicki established the International “Light-Life” Centre for Evangelisation in Carlsberg in 1982. The Christian Service for the Liberation of Nations was also based there. Both establishments were supported by the Maximilianeum Publishing House, which released literature addressed mainly to the Polish community and then was transferred to Poland. Providing the equipment for the printing house required material resources. Friends of Father Blachnicki, the Protestants from the Campus Crusade for Christ International, were there to help. Initially, it was ad hoc assistance, and from December 1985 it developed into permanent orders for printing. To properly arrange cooperation with the Protestants, at the turn of 1985 and 1986, Father Blachnicki established the Ecumenical Evangelisation Publishing House (Ekumeniczne Wydawnictwo Ewangelizacyjne). It was registered in the name of his brother and Jolanta Gontarczyk (the agent of the Polish People’s Republic, known as “Panna”). She was in charge of the account of the publishing house. Despite a large financial inflow into the account, there was a constant shortage of money to meet basic needs. There are many indications that communist agents were responsible for the embezzlement of the funds received by the publishing house. In March 1987, the publishing house was to start a three-year contract with Campus Crusade. If that contract for 2 million US dollars had gone through, it would have solved the financial problems of Father Blachnicki and would have been the opportunity to develop the publishing activity — however, Father Blachnicki died suddenly on 27 February 1987.

Wiktor Woroszylski was one of the longest interned writers. From 13 December 1981 to 18 October 1982, he was held in detention centres in Warsaw Białołęka, Jaworze and Darłówek. On 20 February 1982, during a search, guards seized from him a 99-page fragment of a diary written in solitary confinement. An extensive fragment of the manuscript seized from the poet was handed over to Wacław Sadkowski, alias “Olcha”, a writer working in the Security Service, for analysis. The published analysis is the only trace of Woroszylski’s notes from this period. The original fragment of the diary has not been found to this day.

This publication discusses two documents from the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine. They were created in 1988 by the KGB structures of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and present an assessment of events that took place at that time to be used by the leadership of the party and the Ukrainian SSR. They concern the activities of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and its leaders, primarily Vyacheslav Chornovil. In the following months, that political environment established the People’s Movement of Ukraine for Reconstruction, which was the main factor of political change in the country. The KGB of the Ukrainian SSR noted that the assumptions of the programme of the new organisations included, among other things, the demand for the legalisation of the Greek Catholic Church. From that time, it became one of the most important ideological assumptions of the Ukrainian perestroika movement. The changes in Ukraine were of fundamental importance for the eastern policy of John Paul II, one of whose goals was to legalise the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. They made it possible to implement that postulate. The analysis of both documents focuses on the denominational aspect of the described events.

The article is a comprehensive discussion and evaluation of the catalogue of the main exhibition of the Museum of John Paul II and Primate Stefan Wyszyński. It presents comments on the concept of individual sections of the exhibition, their content and the applied means of expression. The exhibition was generally prepared in a competent way, which does not mean that certain additions, improvements or corrections could not be made to it.