Textbooks as Propaganda by Joanna Wojdon

Author:Joanna Wojdon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

5 Polish Language Instruction

Polish language textbooks were the most numerous and voluminous of all primary school textbooks, because the subject was taught in all grades and during the highest number of lessons. The authors, as in the case of other disciplines, were either academics, teachers or ministerial officials, or, specifically for this subject, writers. There were two kinds of textbooks: readers and grammars. The former included selection of poems, short stories, excerpts from novels and other texts usually accompanied with some guiding questions, comments and exercises for content analysis (including suggestions for essay topics), while the latter introduced the principles of the Polish grammar usually in the form of a short theoretical explanation of a certain issue accompanied with a set of practical exercises. Grammar books usually also included spelling exercises. Sometimes readers and grammar exercises were combined in one book for a certain grade, while other times a third book was added dealing with writing composition, or grammar and spelling were divided into separate volumes. All of them included propaganda, but the readers were the longest so most propaganda issues were developed there.

Readers were supposed to be a tool not so much of literary or cultural education as of indoctrination. Before the 1980s they did not contain too many excerpts from classical literature, but rather poor quality texts written specifically for use at school. In the 1950s the testimonies of working foremen were included, alongside revolutionary songs, and citations from the speeches and writings of Communist Party leaders or revolutionary activists (such as Stalin or Bierut, or Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz). Excerpts were reprinted from communist newspapers, from A Propagandist’s Handbook, The Library of Working Foremen or from the collection May 1st—60 Years of the Holiday of International Solidarity. Some texts about President Bierut were authorized by his office. There was a poem written by a 14-year-old activist of the Union of Polish Youth that combined poetry with communist newspeak to tell about the young activists’ help for Polish farmers. Władysław Broniewski, a well-known poet, wrote a poem called Trade Unions to commemorate the 2nd Congress of the Trade Unions in June 1949, and another one, Zabrze, about the coal mine Zabrze-East that called on all Polish workers to celebrate the Congress of the Polish United Workers Party by fulfilling production plans ahead of schedule. Classical revolutionary songs were also published in the textbooks, such as the International, the Red Banner and the anthem of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

Texts written specifically for the textbooks were usually of a propagandist character, had a banal plot and striking didacticism. Even the communist authorities were aware of this situation, but the curricula demanded texts dealing with so-called contemporary issues, while children’s literature in the People’s Republic of Poland did not have them. Publishers had little choice and used whatever was available regardless of its artistic value. Only readers from the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s for the 6th and 7th grades, and from the late 1980s, abandoned these kinds of texts.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.