Election posters in Poland: From amateurish leaflets to professional billboards

Abstract

Posters as a form of political communication have a long and beautiful tradition in Poland. They played an important role during the communist period as a distribution channel of democratic values. Artists were obliged to use a special code to hide the real message at a time of political censorship. They created not only artistic works but tried to feed and spread the idea of independence and democracy. At the beginning of political transformation in the 1900s/1990s, some artists were still active and they supported Solidarity. In parallel, with the subsequent consolidation of democracy, political posters underwent an evolution. They were no longer an object in the hands of artists, but they started to be an instrument of political actors and commercial agencies, which worked for them. This kind of "cooperation" between political and market participants is responsible for the quality of posters, their standardization, and commercialization. But they are still an important kind of political advertisement in Poland.