Authors

Discussion

In 2024 and 2025, I conducted a series of interviews with creators and editors who were active during the period of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). I employed semi-structured, open-ended interviews, using a prepared scenario as a starting point for in-depth conversations. The aim was to explore how censorship during the PRL was remembered and experienced by those who worked under it.

The memories collected in these interviews—with creators such as Józef Hen, Tomasz Jastrun, Andrzej Kurz, Piotr Mitzner, Andrzej Niczyperowicz, Jolanta Sztuczyńska, Jerzy Illg, and Teresa Walas—are complemented by published interviews and testimonies of censors from 1990, 1994, 1996, and 2000, including Kazimierz Rosadziński, Leon Rzendowski, Edward Pawlak, and an anonymous censor from GUKPPiW, and more.

This research documents personal recollections of broadly defined censorship practices while also shedding light on the everyday strategies, negotiations, and ethical dilemmas that shaped cultural and editorial work under state control. It contributes to our understanding of memory, cultural production, and the enduring legacies of censorship in Poland’s recent past.