Files of the Warsaw Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party on “Forefathers' Eve”

Magdalena Raszewska (ed.)

Abstract

Archival material containing documents selected from the set of files of the Warsaw Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party related to Dejmek's Forefathers’ Eve and the events of March 1968. In the introduction, the editor informs about the content of the entire collection and the context of the published documents. Two sets of files were selected for publication. The first concerns exclusive performances of Forefathers’ Eve for workers' activists, which were presented subsequent to the plays removal from the repertoire available to the general public. The audiences of the special shows were carefully selected and prepared to watch the performance. The second set of documents presented is an account of the propaganda campaign after the last performance of Forefathers’ Eve and of the party's preparations for the Extraordinary Meeting of the Warsaw Branch of the Polish Writers' Union convened for February 29, 1968. According to the editor, the documents show that the party had no coherent concept of how to extricate itself from ill-considered decisions about the performance, and at the same time there were growing fears of a potential reaction from the USSR, exacerbated by the situation in Czechoslovakia.