The Paris Magazine 'Kultura' (1947-2000) as a Polish–Ukrainian Laboratory of Democracy and Free Market Thinking

• In Event: "Polish" and "Ukrainian" Cases of the Socialist Model of Modernization: Case Study of Formal and Informal Behavior after 1945

Abstract

The monthly émigré magazine Kultura was published in the years 1947–2000, initially in Rome, and from 1948 in Paris. After the communist government seized power in post-World War II Poland, Kultura acted as a cultural and political centre for Polish (and other) émigrés, exerting influence on the People’s Republic of Poland, but also on other countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The first thesis of the paper is that Polish–Ukrainian reconciliation after the fall of communism, and especially after the Orange Revolution of 2004, would not have been possible without the preparation of the intellectual ground by Kultura. The second thesis is that Kultura prepared the Polish and Ukrainian elites for the implementation of democracy and a free market economy. The forging of mutual connections and circulation of knowledge paved the way for systemic transformation, contrary to the intention of the socialist rulers in both countries. Both theses will be tested by means of qualitative and quantitative analysis of the legendary Parisian institution Kultura.

Author

• Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast, Viadrina European U (Germany)