‘Toruń is merely a suburb of Bydgoszcz’. Manipulations in the press discussion between Toruń and Bydgoszcz in the competition for the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship in the interwar period

Abstract

In the interwar period, the antagonism between Toruń and Bydgoszcz became so strong and pervasive that it took on the features of an emotional conflict involving the societies of both cities. This happened primarily as a result of the large-scale press campaigns conducted by these centres in the 1930s in connection with the planned administrative changes in the country. The articles were aimed at convincing the public that the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship should either be located in Bydgoszcz or remain in Toruń. The content of the publications was often manipulated.  Manipulative techniques usually boiled down to emotional headlines, demonisation of the opponent and selective references to history. The phenomenon culminated in 1937 with the publication of two pamphlets summarising the arguments of each side. Both publications, however, resorted to falsification of data and contained heavily modified maps to support the theses they contained.