The Beginnings of Press Studies During the Partitions and in the Reborn Poland: Galician and Krakow tropes

The article is of a review nature. It deals with the beginnings of press studies and the gradual crystallization of press studies as a scientific discipline in Poland, conducted or published mainly, though not exclusively in the areas of Galicia and Małopolska.

The author recalls – behind the works of Sylwester Dziki – pioneering research conducted in the Lviv and Krakow centers in the nineteenth century by several generations of professional bibliographers and historians (such as J.S. Bandtkie, K.J.T. Estreicher) and amateur enthusiasts (such as A. Chłędowski, K. Szajnocha, S.J.N. Czarnowski). At the beginning of the twentieth century, they took the form of broader organizational activities (S. Gorski, S.T. Jarkowski), in particular related to the implementation of the ideas adopted at the Krakow Congress of Journalists (1911) and implemented gradually after regaining independence, mainly by Jarkowski and his colleagues. The article shows the process of the institutionalization of Polish press studies in the dimension of journalistic education (especially at the academic level), the development of journalism integrating press researchers, and finally – a long-term fight for the establishment of a center researching the press. 

These three ideas materialized partly in the interwar period through the activities of, among others, the Academy of Journalism in Warsaw (1927–1939). However, they developed in a more mature form only after the Second World War, with the establishment of the Polish Institute of Social Sciences and the “Press Poland” industry monthly. In the following years, journalism studies at the University of Warsaw and Jagiellonian University as well as scientific journals like “the Press Studies Quarterly” (the body of the Press Research Institute in Warsaw) and “the Contemporary and Early Press” (related to the Press Research Centre in Krakow) were established. 

The article is of a review nature. It deals with the beginnings of press studies and the gradual crystallization of press studies as a scientific discipline in Poland, conducted or published mainly, though not exclusively in the areas of Galicia and Małopolska.

The author recalls – behind the works of Sylwester Dziki – pioneering research conducted in the Lviv and Krakow centers in the nineteenth century by several generations of professional bibliographers and historians (such as J.S. Bandtkie, K.J.T. Estreicher) and amateur enthusiasts (such as A. Chłędowski, K. Szajnocha, S.J.N. Czarnowski). At the beginning of the twentieth century, they took the form of broader organizational activities (S. Gorski, S.T. Jarkowski), in particular related to the implementation of the ideas adopted at the Krakow Congress of Journalists (1911) and implemented gradually after regaining independence, mainly by Jarkowski and his colleagues. The article shows the process of the institutionalization of Polish press studies in the dimension of journalistic education (especially at the academic level), the development of journalism integrating press researchers, and finally – a long-term fight for the establishment of a center researching the press. 

These three ideas materialized partly in the interwar period through the activities of, among others, the Academy of Journalism in Warsaw (1927–1939). However, they developed in a more mature form only after the Second World War, with the establishment of the Polish Institute of Social Sciences and the “Press Poland” industry monthly. In the following years, journalism studies at the University of Warsaw and Jagiellonian University as well as scientific journals like “the Press Studies Quarterly” (the body of the Press Research Institute in Warsaw) and “the Contemporary and Early Press” (related to the Press Research Centre in Krakow) were established.