Polish Culture in The Interbellum - Highlights

Highlights

While the term Polish culture refers primarily to the Polish-language culture in Poland, the Second Polish Republic also had numerous vibrant national minorities, most notably Jewish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and German. It was a multicultural society whose ethno-cultural makeup was shaped over a period of centuries. In 1921 according to the first-ever national census, the Catholic Poles constituted 69.2% of the population, the Ukrainians 14.3%, the Jews 7.8%, the Belarusians 3.9% and the Germans 3.9%. The minorities amounted to 30.8% of the total. The rise of new intelligentsia resulted in the development of a record number of political parties, lobbies and societies. In a dozen or so years the newspaper readership doubled. In 1919, new universities opened in Poznań, Wilno, and Lublin. Universities in Kraków and Lwów were polonized already five years earlier. The Elementary School Teachers Union was formed in 1919. In the first ten years of Poland's redevelopment, the total number of schools increased by almost 10,000 thanks to the official decree on public education. By the time of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of 1939, some 90% of children were in schools across the country, the number limited only by the shortage of qualified staff and lack of adequate locales especially in the villages.

In 1921 a major trade fair was established in Lwów right after the end of hostilities there; designed to facilitate new business partnerships from within Poland but also from Greater Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union among other places. The annual Eastern Trade Fair or the Targi Wschodnie (as it was known in Polish) by 1928 could boast some 1,600 exhibitors, 400 of them being foreign firms. The fair attracted 150,000 visitors that year, with tram connections to the city, customs office and telephone exchange on site. Also in 1928, a similar trade fair was launched in Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania) to drum up business in northeastern Poland, reaching out to Lithuania and Latvia. The Northern Trade Fair (Targi Północne) was visited by the staggering 180,000 guests in the first year. It was the biggest annual event locally showcasting textiles, furniture, farm animals, furs, tourist equipment, production machinery and many other commercial products.

See also: Poznań International Fair launched in 1921

New theatres opened in Bydgoszcz (1919), Katowice (1922) and Toruń (1929). In Warsaw, the new Teatr Polski performed since 1913 already, and in 1924 the Teatr Narodowy opened, followed by the Teatr Bogusławskiego (1926, rebuilt) and the Ateneum (1928). There were also several vibrant theatre companies in Kraków and Lwów. By 1936 there were 26 permanent dramatic theatres in the country. The Kraków Philharmonic Concert Hall inspired by the Brussels' Maison du Peuple, was completed in 1931 thanks to the generous sponsorship by Prince and Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha. Throughout the interwar period, the Kraków Philharmonic maintained also the Polish Professional Musicians Trade Union set up to protect the welfare of its members as well as the artistic level of their performances.

Music conservatories were established in Warszaw, Poznań, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź and Wilno. In 1934 the main branch of Poland's National Museum was erected in Kraków with holdings reaching 300,000 items. The film industry received major boost around 1934 when a generation of new actors joined in including Stefan Jaracz, Mieczysława Ćwiklińska, Elżbieta Barszczewska, Kazimierz Junosza-Stępowski and Adolf Dymsza. The period saw the introduction of the studio system of filmmaking with Sfinks of Warsaw, founded by Aleksander Hertz, becoming the biggest film production company locally. The studio discovered the then 17-year-old Pola Negri and made eight feature films with her, before Negri became an international sensation based in Hollywood. In 1926 the Polish Radio began its regular broadcasts from Warsaw. The number of publicly owned stations increased to 10 prior to the 1939 invasion.

For more details on this topic, see Radio stations in interwar Poland.

In 1933, the Polish Academy of Literature (PAL) was founded in Warsaw. It was one of the most important state institutions of literary life focused on the advancement of culture and art. It was proposed by Stefan Żeromski in order to speed up the process of recovery from the century of racial anti-Polonism, and implemented on the fifth anniversary of his death. The Academy awarded two highest national honors for contribution to the development of Polish literature: the Gold and the Silver Laurel (Złoty, and Srebrny Wawrzyn). The main objective was to raise the quality level of Poland's book publishing. The honorary members included the Academy's main promotors: President of Poland Ignacy Mościcki and Marshal Józef Piłsudski.

See also: Polish literature in the Interbellum