| Poland on the Front Page |
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| Posted: Friday, September 9, 2005 |
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| ARTICLES |
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Radio Polonia
(Warsaw, Poland)
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| Publications Date: September 8, 2005 |
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Poland on the Front Page is the title of an open-air exhibition which is on display in the centre of Warsaw. It features reproductions of articles and photos which appeared in the foreign press from 1978 - the election of the Polish Pope - to 1989, the collapse of communism.. Radio Polonia's Michal Kubicki went to see the show and talk to some of the visitors.
According to Polish politician Radek Sikorski, it's not such a bad thing when a country does NOT make news headlines around the world. This, he claims, is a sign of stability and general prosperity. In the 1980s Poland was hardly a politically stable country.
It was indeed a historic decade.
The election of Pope John Paul the Second in 1978 was followed by his first visit to Poland, the birth of Solidarity, the imposition of martial law in 1981, the elections of 1989 and the formation of the Solidarity-led government. During that time the developments in Poland made headlines many times.
The exhibition features the front pages of the major foreign dailies and weeklies. Solidarity's victory in 1980, as curator Ewa Zadrzyńska told me, was given prominence in the media almost around the world.
"The reaction in France was absolutely fantastic, as can be seen from the headline in Nouvelle Observateur - Long Live Poland!!!. The workers' mutiny in Poland was received with much enthusiasm, with the exception, I'm sorry to say, of some of the German papers."
On the day I went to the Poland on the Front Page exhibition, it attracted mainly a young audience. For these two 17 year-olds, it spoke of events they knew only from their parents...
This Warsaw University graduate was born a year after Solidarity and Lech Walesa hit the headlines...
The exhibition in Warsaw's city centre also includes a selection of photos documenting the events in Poland which the Polish photographer Chris Niedenthal contributed to Time and Newsweek magazines.
Earlier this year, the exhibition was shown at the National Press Club in Washington. |
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