An unspoken turning point. The impact of the events of 1980 on the activities and reporting of the Delegation of the Main Office for Press, Publication, and Performance Control in Białystok

Abstract

The article discusses important aspects of the work of censors in Białystok dur­ing the crisis, particularly in the politically turbulent decade of the 1970s and 1980s in the People’s Republic of Poland. Based on reports from the Białystok branch of the General Directorate for Press and Publication Control (GUKP­PiW), the author analyzed censorship activities, taking into account their scale, the number of interventions made, and the attitudes observed among repre­sentatives of the intellectual and cultural community in the Białystok region. The author argues that the socio‑political crises that took place in Poland in 1980, with particular emphasis on the events of August 1980, resonated in the Białystok region. However, there were few traces of this in the reports of the Białystok censors. The reports sent from Białystok to the Warsaw headquarters are full of euphemisms and understatements. One gets the impression that we are dealing with a kind of self‑censorship. The strategy of “not mentioning” the ongoing breakthrough gave a sense of security and hope for maintaining the existing status quo.