The places where thinking is promoted. The activity of culture periodicals in Poland after 1989

Abstract

After 1989, when the borders were opened and the censorship, which had blocked the independent cultural activity, disappeared, free market appeared in Poland. The important proponents of the cultural life, particularly in literature, were groups of artists contributing to cultural periodicals. The 1990s saw a flurry of cultural magazines. Nowadays, they play an important role in Polish cultural life. They promoted a lot of prominent authors and originated the most interesting literary phenomena in Poland after 1989. Many of these periodicals are still published, but many titles disappeared, often due to economic reasons. In the last twenty years, cultural periodicals were published by associations and foundations and they were funded from various sources, mainly local and ministerial grants. In 2011, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage granted subsidies to 47 periodicals, but the regulations of their allocation and hardly take into account the artistic value of the periodicals.