"Odra" (1945-1950) : monografia czasopisma

Abstract

This volume presents the history and role of “Odra”, a social-cultural journal founded by journalists and writers gathered around Wilhelm Szewczyk. The journal was published in Katowice in the years 1945–1950, first as a biweekly and since 1946, as a weekly. The legacy of the journal is of particular value. Within a few years, it became one of the most important social-cultural periodicals in post-war Poland. This volume traces its development; it consists of six parts. The first part presents the social and political background of the journal. In the years that followed World War Two, the social and cultural press was a major forum for discussion, in particular, for debates on culture. The most important debates of the time included the battle for the Polish intelligentsia, in which the “Odra” journal participated. Such disputes were, to a considerable extent, a substitute for political topics, that is, for problems which could not be explicitly addressed. Journals that were published at that time had one thing in common: they were all subject to censorship. However, it must be remembered that censorship was merely a tool in the hands of the party. Because “Odra” was regarded as an oppositional journal, censors read it very closely. As a result of their intervention, the published versions of articles were sometimes quite remote from their original forms (...).