Cultural Significance
Nowa Huta is the location of an award-winning film by Andrzej Wajda called the Man of Marble (Polish: Człowiek z marmuru), based on a true story of the rise and fall of a Stakhanovite bricklayer who helped build the new model socialist city in the course of the Stalinism in Poland. Man of Marble, made in the mid 1970s, presaged the Solidarity labor union movement in Gdańsk that was ultimately responsible for overthrowing Communism, as the film that starts in Nowa Huta ends in Gdańsk.
When the district was built in 1950s, songs promoted by propaganda in the People's Republic of Poland included the widely popular hit single "O Nowej to Hucie piosenka" (This Song is about Nowa Huta), still remembered today especially by many Poles of the older generation.
Poland's first-ever opera written in 1794 by Wojciech Bogusławski, called The Presumed Miracle, or the Cracovians and the Highlanders (Polish: Cud mniemany, czyli Krakowiacy i Górale), is set in the village of Mogiła where Nowa Huta was built originally. The two newest housing estates are named after the play: osiedle Krakowiaków (the Cracovians Estate) and osiedle Górali (the Highlanders Estate). The opera by Bogusławski was also the first theatre production played upon the opening the district's legendary Ludowy Theatre.
Oedipus - a tragedy from Nowa Huta is a play based on ancient Greek myth about Oedipus, premiered in Łaźnia Nowa Theatre under direction of Bartosz Szydłowski
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