Emigré journal Kultura: a sharp Polish nail in communism’s coffin

Roundtable discussion with Jan Kubik (UCL SSEES), Katarzyna Zechenter (UCL SSEES), Jan Chodakowski (journalist, one of the creators of Puls*) and Rory Finnin (Cambridge) in the Masaryk Senior Common Room at SSEES where there will be an exhibition of Kultura. The exhibition will continue until 19 February.

Kultura was a leading Polish émigré magazine which began publishing in 1947, first in Rome and later in Paris, with Jerzy Giedroyc as its editor. Banned in Poland, it became a symbol of opposition publishing literary works and political analyses by leading Polish intellectuals living in Poland and abroad.  

Jerzy Giedroyc set up the Literary Institute publishing house in 1946 with a loan from the Polish 2nd Corps. He saw the Institute as an émigré cultural institution and understood that freedom of expression was a necessary condition for the attainment of Polish independence. As well as literature, he wished to publish works on political and social issues. On his  publishing goals, he wrote: “making readers aware of their range and development (...) will provoke a chain of thought that must in turn lead to the underpinning of Polish life with the principles of political equality, social justice, and respect for human rights and human dignity. The time is near when the books on these subjects published by the Institute will be required reading, not just for the politically and socially active, but for every contemporary, cultivated Pole”. 

Authors featured in Kultura included Czesław Miłosz, Witold Gombrowicz, Marek Hłasko, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński and Andrzej Bobkowski. 

The monthly journal ran to 637 issues, terminating in 2000. The format of some editions was such that the magazine would fit neatly into a pocket making it easier for travellers to smuggle copies into Poland. 

Archived copies of Kultura are available online at: http://www.kulturaparyska.com/

*Puls was an important dissident journal and publishing house.