Polish socialist advertising in 1945–1989: Status and sources of and outlooks for the research
Polish socialist advertising in 1945–1989: Status and sources of and outlooks for the research

Summary/Abstract: The widespread conviction that commercial advertisements neither existed nor were actually needed in Poland under socialist rule is quite untrue. Admittedly, they were not identical to Western advertisements of the time or today’s advertising activities, but they fulfilled all advertising functions and were a tool regulating the market that was always poor, creating the socialist consumption model as well as educating people so as to make them implement the said model. The advertising activity in question followed capitalist models as far as possible, but it worked out its own forms, means of expression and theory included in many books and specialist magazines, too. The analysis of the advancement of research on advertising in the PRP, sources being the basis that research and its desired directions is the goal of this article. The study questions asked are: 1. What kind of source documents can studies of advertising in the PRP be based on? 2. What is the current advancement of research on the history of advertising in Poland before 1945? What is the current advancement of research on advertising in the PRP? Which areas of science could use the source documents underlying the research on advertising in the PRP? This article is based on the analysis of various groups of source documents, particularly specialist and scientific literature from the 1945–1989 period, scientific papers on socialist advertising published after 1989 and archival records. This article is an analysis of status of research on advertising dr Judyta Ewa Perczak 128 in the People’s Republic of Poland (PRP), sources used in the said research and directions that it should take. The abundance of sources is pointed out. The said sources are mainly archival ones available from the Archives of New Records in Warsaw (they include, among other things, ‘Rada Programowa Reklamy’ (Advertising Program Council), a file being a part of the ‘Ministerstwo Handlu Wewnętrznego’ (Ministry of Internal Trade) unit; the ‘Ministerstwo Handlu Zagranicznego’ (Ministry of Foreign Trade) unit including files with information about Agpol, a foreign trade business in charge of advertising on international markets; ‘Przedsiębiorstwo Usług Reklamowych „Reklama” w Warszawie, Państwowa Agencja Reklamowa „Reklama” 1971–2004’, records of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, those of the Supreme Chamber of Control and many other); the Documentation Department of TVP S.A. and the archives of Polskie Radio S.A. Films, printed matter and advertisements themselves being invaluable research material are also referred to.

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