Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 300-55-9

Title

RFE Publications Based on Polish Underground Press

Date(s)

1977 - 1990

Description Level

Series

Extent and medium (processed)

5 Archival boxes, 0.62 linear meters

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

The series contains materials prepared by the RFE Polish Underground Publications Unit for use by the Polish Broadcasting Department (BD) in its daily 20-minute program on Polish Samizdat, as well as surveys and English translations of Polish Samizdat and materials for other BDs.

The series contains three distinct types of material:

- Polish Underground Extracts (PUE): Published from June 1984 to August 1986 (until April 1985 known as Polish Samizdat extracts) in English; contains translations of articles from Polish Samizdat;

- Polish Independent Press Review (PIPR): continuation of PUE in a “situation report” format, published from September 1986 to November 1989 in English; it contains topical reviews of the contents of Polish Samizdat journals;

- Polish Independent Press Summary (PIPS): published from September 1987 to July 1990 in Polish; contains copies of major articles, lists of contents from journals, and title pages of new books.

Independently, the series includes a collection of Background Reports (BR) and Situation Reports that cover the topics related to the underground press and the democratic opposition. Within this collection, filed separately are the BRs that constitute a sort of “pre-history” of the RFE publications for the years 1977-1981, presenting press reviews of the Polish Samizdat contents from the pre-Solidarity period.

To the best of our knowledge, the series represents the biggest and most comprehensive corpus of English-language sources for the study of Polish Samizdat and the Polish democratic opposition.

Accruals

Not Expected

System of arrangement

Arranged first by type of publication (PUE, PIPR, PIPS) and second, inside the subseries - chronologically.

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

Unknown

Languages

English, Polish

Description Control

Archivist's note

Processed by Piotr Wcislik, February, 2011; revised by Csaba Szilágyi, July, 2012.