The “Długa” gallery at BOK-MCC is presenting more than 150 photographs depicting Poles in the years 1970–1980. Photographers from the Forum agency (including Chris Niedenthal, Jan Morka, Sławek Biegański, Maciej Osiecki and the doyen of Polish photojournalists, Aleksander Jałosiński) showed Poland during the era of prosperous socialism.
Poles dance at private parties, organize party rallies and paint banners assuring the leader: “Comrade Gierek—we are always with you!” They buy bananas, eagerly awaited for the holidays, and behave politely in offices. On holiday, Poles lie on the crowded beaches of Międzyzdroje, having first squeezed into the carriages of Polskie Koleje Państwowe. The photographs also show them proudly gazing at spectacular socialist construction projects: Warsaw Central railway station and Nowa Huta.
In a photograph from a milk bar, Poles tuck into cabbage soup or tripe soup, steaming and aromatic, undisturbed by the gigantic ashtray beside them, full of cigarette butts. They wash their Fiat 126ps and move into apartment blocks, springing up like mushrooms after rain. They join the May Day parade and then kneel at a rural wayside shrine to pray together.
One wall features photographs of the moral and intellectual authorities of years gone by. They include Józef Szajna, Wiesław Dymny, Melchior Wańkowicz, Antoni Słonimski,Arkady Fiedler, Stanisław Lem, Erwin Axer, Piotr Skrzynecki, Krzysztof Penderecki, Andrzej Wajda, Maria Janion, professors: Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Szczepan Pieniążek, and Kazimierz Wyka.
Even Lem, in his futuristic visions, did not imagine that some of them would be called “the educated elite” and “pseudo-elites,” while their less-than-crystal-clear life stories would be combed through by the bark beetle of the Institute of National Remembrance.
While viewing the photographs, visitors can listen to Polish hits from the 1970s. Rosiewicz sings, “Forty years have passed, like a single day…,” while Krawczyk rhetorically asks, “How did the day go? Is it worth looking back, or calling out to it from afar: farewell, day!” Viewers must answer this question for themselves. Because although the “Gierek sweet treat” was rather bitter, years later we still savor it with a strange and, it seems, genuine pleasure.
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)