Culture in modern Poland

With the fall of communism Polish culture and society began a process of profound transformation, marked by the return of democracy and redevelopment of civil society. After 1989, the heavy government controls ended, and the radical economic changes were introduced. The influx of new aesthetic and social ideas was accompanied by the Western market forces. However, unlike any other temporal marker in the development of Polish culture from the past, the year 1989 did not introduce any specific literary events or artistic manifestations. For a generation of accomplished writers the objectives and their moral quests remained the same as in the preceding period. The first decade of freedom brought mainly state reforms in the financing of cultural institutions and patronage; forcing self-sustainability in an often uncharted territory. Literature, film, visual arts, theater and mass media remained focused on their active participation in public life.

Polish literature includes many famous poets and writers concerned with issues pertinent to the present: Jan Kochanowski, Adam Mickiewicz, Bolesław Prus, Juliusz Słowacki, Witold Gombrowicz, Stanisław Lem and Ryszard Kapuściński. Writers Henryk Sienkiewicz, Władysław Reymont, Czesław Miłosz, and Wisława Szymborska have each won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The events that shaped Polish culture at the onset of the post-communist period began in 1976. The suppressed demonstrations of 1976 gave rise to underground publishing on an unprecedented scale. It was the true beginning of a new literary knowledge in Poland. Between 1976 and 1989, the so-called Drugi obieg (the Second circulation, term commonly applied to Poland's illegal press during the military Coup d'état), published the staggering 5,000 regular newsletters and full-size periodicals including some 7,000 books.

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