Poland's underground press and the „Kurs” publishing house

Beyond the censor

In communist Poland the independent publishing movement that printed books and periodicals without the censor's approval was called the "second circulation" (drugi obieg). The Museum of Free Speech maintains a bibliography of books published this way in 1976–1989; W lochach socjalizmu is described in it¹.

The „Kurs” publishing house

Wydawnictwo „Kurs” was founded in the autumn of 1983 by Stanisław Michalkiewicz and Marian Miszalski^2,3. It published the monthly „Kurs” — 40 issues, the last in the spring of 1989 — and books: 26 titles in 1983–1991 according to P. Sztąberek's list, 29 according to the Museum of Free Speech^2,4. Its profile was conservative-liberal (including Guy Sorman, Milton and Rose Friedman and Friedrich A. von Hayek), but it also published literature and historical testimonies^2,4.

Studziński knew the publishers from before: from 1977 Michalkiewicz edited and printed „Gospodarz”, whose masthead listed Studziński³. In 1983–1987 Studziński was a regular contributor to the „Kurs” monthly and publishing house^5,6.

The 1988 book

W lochach socjalizmu appeared in 1988, a year after the author's death^7,1. Bibliographic description: [Łódź; Warsaw], Wydawnictwo „Kurs”, 1988; 130 pages, A5, card covers, offset-printed from typescript, no ISBN^7,1. The National Library of Poland gives the place of publication in square brackets, i.e. as established from outside the book⁷.

Two print variants are known: one with a printed price of 600 złoty and one without. The table of contents is on page 130 — in part of the print run that page was not printed¹. The print run is unknown: none of the bibliographies gives it.

Copies are held by, among others, the National Library of Poland, the KARTA Centre, the Museum of Free Speech, the Jagiellonian Library, the Research Centre for East European Studies in Bremen and branches of the IPN; in the WorldCat catalogue the book is OCLC 830217100^7,1,8.

The 2001 edition

A second edition appeared in 2001: Zalesie Górne, no publisher named, 239 pages, 24 cm¹. It is not in the National Library catalogue⁷. How it differs from the 1988 edition is part of our work on the new edition — see the book and its editions.