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Culture In The People's Republic Of Poland
After the end of the Second World War, Polish society and culture were subject to significant changes. Post-Second World War With expanding urban industrial opportunities in the early postwar era, agriculture steadily became less popular as occupation and lifestyle in new Poland. The service sector, like industry, grew rapidly, even though much less than the service sectors of Western Europe. The result was a postwar exodus from the rural areas and increased urbanization, which split apart the traditional multigenerational families upon which the prewar mostly rural society had been based. The early socioeconomic reforms were greeted with relief by a significant faction of the population. Most people were willing to accept Communist rule in exchange for the restoration of relatively normal life. Even the Catholic Church believed that any open resistance would be suicidal. Postwar Poland, like the rest of socialist Eastern Europe, saw growing opportunities for higher education a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Gierek
Edward Gierek (; 6 January 1913 – 29 July 2001) was a Polish communism in Poland, Communist politician and ''de facto'' leader of Poland between 1970 and 1980. Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as General Secretary of the Communist Party, First Secretary of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) in the Polish People's Republic in 1970. He is known for opening communist Poland to the Western Bloc and for his economic policies based on foreign loans. He was removed from power after labour strikes led to the Gdańsk Agreement between the communist state and workers of the emerging Solidarity (Polish trade union), Solidarity free trade union movement. Born in Sosnowiec, Congress Poland, to a devoutly Catholic Church, Catholic family, Gierek emigrated with his relatives to France at a young age. In 1934, he was deported to Poland for communist advocacy and campaigning, but subsequently moved to Belgium to work as a coal miner in Genk. As a result, he was proficient in Fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Czesław Miłosz
Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". Miłosz survived the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II and became a cultural attaché for the Polish government during the postwar period. When communist authorities threatened his safety, he defected to France and ultimately chose exile in the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Stalinism in a prose book, ''The Captive Mind'', brought him renown as a leading ''émigré'' artist and intellectual. Throughout his life and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kultura
''Kultura'' (, ''Culture'')—sometimes referred to as ''Kultura Paryska'' ("Paris-based Culture")—was a leading Polish-émigré literary-political magazine, published from 1947 to 2000 by ''Instytut Literacki'' (the Literary Institute), initially in Rome and then in Paris. It was edited and produced by Jerzy Giedroyc and ceased publication upon his death. Giedroyc was one of the main reasons why ''Kultura'' enjoyed an unwavering prestige and a constant stream of esteemed contributors that enabled it to play a prominent role in Polish literary life. ''Kultura'' published polemics and articles, including those by Nobel Prize for Literature laureates Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, as well as works by numerous other authors. Literary critics such as Maria Janion, Wojciech Karpiński, Jan Kott, and Ryszard Nycz also contributed. ''Kultura'' was and continues to be essential reading for students of Polish literature. Over the years it printed, and popularised the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Destalinization
De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system. Monuments to Stalin were removed or toppled, his name was removed from places, buildings, and the state anthem, and his body was removed from the Lenin Mausoleum (from 1953 to 1961 known as Lenin and Stalin Mausoleum) and buried. These reforms were started by the collective leadership which succeeded him after his death on 5 March 1953, comprising Georgi Malenkov, Premier of the Soviet Union; Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Ministry of the Interior; and Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish Film School
Polish Film School ( pl, Polska Szkoła Filmowa) refers to an informal group of Polish film directors and screenplay writers active between 1956 and approximately 1963. Among the most prominent representatives of the school are Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Munk and Jerzy Kawalerowicz. Overview The group was under the heavy influence of Italian neorealists. It took advantage of the liberal changes in Poland after 1956 Polish October to portray the complexity of Polish history during World War II and German occupation. Among the most important topics were the generation of former Home Army soldiers and their role in post-war Poland and the national tragedies like the German concentration camps and the Warsaw Uprising. The political changes allowed the group to speak more openly of the recent history of Poland. However, the rule of censorship was still strong when it comes to history after 1945 and there were very few films on contemporary events. This marked the major difference betwee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, and were strongly influenced by the writings of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, then went into a deep eclipse. It made a comeback after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation on modernization theory and more generally of universal history. But the theory remains a controversial model. Modernization refers to a model of a progressive transition from a "pre-modern" or "traditional" to a "modern" society. Modernization theory suggests that traditional societies will develop as they adopt more modern practices. Proponents of modernization theory claim that modern states are wealthier and more powerful and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says that "the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed". RFE/RL is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent government agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services. Daisy Sindelar is the vice president and editor-in-chief of RFE. RFE/RL broadcasts in 27 languages to 23 countries. The organization has been headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, since 1995, and has 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff and 1,300 stringers and freelancers in countries throughout their broadcast region. In addition, it has 700 employees at its headquarters and corporate office in Washington, D.C. Radio Free Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solidarność
Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland. In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-authoritarian social movement, using methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. Government attempts in the early 1980s to destroy the union through the imposition of martial law in Poland and the use of political repression failed. Operati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Komitet Obrony Robotników
The Workers' Defense Committee ( pl, Komitet Obrony Robotników , KOR) was a Polish civil society group that was established to give aid to prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests and ensuing government crackdown. KOR was an example of successful social organizing based on specific issues relevant to the public's daily lives. It was a precursor and inspiration for efforts of the Solidarity trade union a few years later. It was established in September 1976 by Antoni Macierewicz and Piotr Naimski. A year later it was reorganized into the Committee for Social Self-defence KOR (''Komitet Samoobrony Społecznej KOR''). History This organization was the first major anti-communist civic group in Poland, as well as Eastern Europe. It was born of the outrage at the government's crackdown on the June 1976 protests. Its stated purpose was to create "new centers of autonomous activity." It raised money through sales of its underground publications, through fund-raising gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish October
Polish October (), also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution, which was less dramatic than the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but may have had an even deeper impact on the Eastern Bloc and on the Soviet Union's relationship to its satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe.Iván T. Berend, ''Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery'', Cambridge University Press, 1999, Google Print, p.115-116/ref> For the Polish People's Republic, 1956 was a year of transition. The international situation significantly weakened the hardline Stalinist faction in Poland, especially after the Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut died in March. Three years had passed since Joseph Stalin's death and his successor at the Soviet Union's helm, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him in February. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workers' Councils
A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. The council communist Pannekoek describes shop-committees and sectional assemblies as the basis for workers' management of the industrial system. A variation is a soldiers' council, where soldiers direct a mutiny. Workers and soldiers have also operated councils in conjunction (like the 1918 German ''Arbeiter- und Soldatenrat''). Workers' councils may in turn elect delegates to central committees, such as the Congress of Soviets. In such a system, the workers themselves are able to exercise decision-making power. Some socialists believe that workers' councils are necessary for the organization of a proletarian revolution and the implementation of a communist society. A works council is distinct from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
