Open AccessLife – Paris Match – Świat: East/West Image Transfer in the Weekly Magazine Świat (1951–1969) and the Impact of the Magnum Style on Photo-Reportage in Poland
Author(s) -
Margarete Wach
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal for history culture and modernity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2213-0624
DOI - 10.18352/hcm.525
Subject(s) - iron curtain , style (visual arts) , photography , cold war , politics , newspaper , pace , doctrine , shot (pellet) , history , west germany , sociology , law , art history , media studies , visual arts , art , political science , economic history , geography , archaeology , chemistry , geodesy , organic chemistry
Polish photo-reportage of the 1950s and 1960s was crucially shaped by the illustrated weekly newspaper Świat (The World, 1951–1969). The magazine was conceived in the heyday of Stalinism and the socialist realist doctrine to keep pace with its Western counterparts Life, Paris Match or Picture Post during the Cold War. In the new political system, the social role of photography was to agitate, but the photoeditor- in-chief, Władysław Sławny (1907–1991), designed Świat in the style of Henry Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment’ aesthetics. He published the works of Magnum photographers and other Western colleagues. This article analyzes the massive transfer of knowledge, human resources and photography between Poland and France which flowered in the 1950s. The transcultural exchange was implemented with the aid of personal contacts and editorial practice that promoted photo transfer from the West and corresponded with the atmosphere of the ‘thaw’ after Stalin’s death. It shows that photographers travelled eastwards as well as westwards, and that the Iron Curtain was visually more permeable in both directions than has previously been suggested.