Osobliwości powojennych dziejów Krakowa 1945–1970. Tezy

Abstract

The author presents in the form of theses those events, phenomena and periods characteristic of the post-war history of Krakow (1945–1970) that distinguish this city, its community, institutions and authorities in the overall picture of Poland in that period. They result from the particular course of military occupation and war events in Krakow as well as the specific role and attitudes of the communities centered around the metropolitan curia of Archbishop Adam Sapieha and around the underground organization of Krakow’s socialists. They influenced substantially the postwar development of the city, which – changed in its demographic and social structure and in its cultural and intellectual atmosphere – for several years became, owing to the destruction of Warsaw, the most important centre of Poland’s cultural and spiritual life and then resisted the communist domination as well as the Sovietization and Stalinization tendencies more strongly than the other centers. As a result, it is in Krakow that the changes in Poland, characterised by liberalism in the political and cultural sphere as well as by a pursuit of independence from the Soviet domination, and associated with the breakthrough in October 1956, were the most profound and lasting. Krakow also proved to be best prepared for modernization and successfully approached the role of the other, besides Warsaw, metropolis following the political breakthrough in December 1970.