Malowana Wolność. Głos Trójmiejskich Ulic w Latach 1980-1981
Painted Freedom. The Voice of the Streets of Tricity in 1980-1981

Summary/Abstract: The totalitarian system of communism consistently controlled the flow of all information to the public about the real state of the country, the economy, and the actions of the government. This monopoly on information was seriously broken in August 1980. From the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk and other striking factories on the coast, information about the events taking place began to spread. It spread so widely and effectively that it crossed national borders. The forms of reaching the public in the pre-Internet era were varied and depended on the ingenuity of the opposition. Underground and strike-period printing houses produced thousands of leaflets, posters and bulletins reporting on the days of the strikes and the pictures of photojournalists, showing crowds of people solidarily supporting the striking crews, ran around the world. Meanwhile, large painted inscriptions summarizing the strike demands appeared on the shipyard walls. Their number and consistent renewal made it impossible for the security forces to remove them completely from the sight of residents who curiously stopped by the walls. One of the people who took up the task of painting the slogans was Zygmunt Błażek, an employee of Gdańsk Unimor electronics factory. After the August strikes ended, Blażek gathered a group of enthusiastic young people around him, and he set out to paint slogans on the walls and sidewalks of the Tricity. The painted slogans “spoke” directly to the residents about their desire for freedom, bypassing the ubiquitous censorship and the hypocrisy of the public media. The painters’ work, often at risk of arrest, was immortalized by Tricity photographers, thanks to whom these dialogues with society reached the rest of the country.

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