Solidarity Movement
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Solidarity Movement
Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland. In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-authoritarian social movement, using methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. Government attempts in the early 1980s to destroy the union through the imposition of martial law in Poland and the use of political repression failed. Operati ...
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Solidarity Logo
The Solidarity logo designed by Jerzy Janiszewski in 1980 is considered as an important example of Polish Poster School creations. The logo was awarded the Grand Prix of the Biennale of Posters, Katowice 1981. By this time it was already well known in Poland and became an internationally recognized icon. According to the artist, the letters were designed to represent united individuals. This characteristic font, colloquially known as '' solidaryca'' ("Solidaric"), was implemented many times in posters and other pieces of art in different contexts. Notable examples include a film poster for ''Man of Iron'' by Andrzej WajdaJaniszewski'homepage/ref> and, in 1989, a poster by Tomasz Sarnecki designed for the first (semi-)free elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...
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Social Change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure, for instance the transition from feudalism to capitalism, or hypothetical future transition to some form of post-capitalism. Social development refers to how people develop social and emotional skills across the lifespan, with particular attention to childhood and adolescence. Healthy social development allows us to form positive relationships with family, friends, teachers, and other people in our lives. Accordingly, it may also refer to social revolution, such as the Socialist revolution presented in Marxism, or to other social movements, such as women's suffrage or the c ...
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Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 ''sui iuris'' churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is th ...
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Gdańsk Agreement
The Gdańsk Agreement (or ''Gdańsk Social Accord(s)'' or ''August Agreement(s)'', pl, Porozumienia sierpniowe) was an accord reached as a direct result of the strikes that took place in Gdańsk, Poland. Workers along the Baltic went on strike in August 1980 in support of the 21 demands of MKS which eventually led to the creation of Solidarity. Background The labor strikes did not occur because of problems that emerged shortly before the unrest, but due to political and economic difficulties the previous ten years. Under the rule of Władysław Gomułka in the late 1960s, Poland's economy was in disarray. To counter this, the government increased food prices just before Christmas 1970 which irritated the entire populace of the nation. On December 14, 1970, workers from the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk began a strike against party headquarters within the city insisting on the formation of independent trade unions. In this disturbance 75 people were killed after Gomułka ordered th ...
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Alina Pienkowska
Alina Barbara Pienkowska (12 January 1952 – 17 October 2002; her surname is often misspelt as ''Pieńkowska'') was a Polish free trade union activist and a Senator for Gdańsk (1991–1993, Solidarity Parliamentary Club). She was involved in the creation of Solidarity, of which she was a member of its organizing committee. Biography Pienkowska's father worked in the Lenin Shipyard and had joined in the shipyard workers' protest of December 1970. In 1980 she was a young, widowed mother (of a son, Sebastian) working as the shipyard nurse. She had been one of the founders of the underground Free Trade Unions of the Coast in the 1970s. She wrote health-related articles for the underground journal, ''The Coastal Worker'', mostly related to shipyard safety and rising accident rates. The August 1980 strike started on the 14th over the firing of Anna Walentynowicz. All of the phone lines into the shipyard were cut except to the clinic, and as the nurse, Pienkowska was instrument ...
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University Of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868, and has been officially headquartered at the university's flagship campus in Berkeley, California, since its inception. As the non-profit publishing arm of the University of California system, the UC Press is fully subsidized by the university and the State of California. A third of its authors are faculty members of the university. The press publishes over 250 new books and almost four dozen multi-issue journals annually, in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, and maintains approximately 4,000 book titles in print. It is also the digital publisher of Collabra and Luminos open access (OA) initiatives. The University of California Press publishes ...
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Movement For Defence Of Human And Civic Rights
Movement for Defence of Human and Civic Rights ( pl, Ruch Obrony Praw Człowieka i Obywatela, ROPCiO) was a right-wing political and social organization formed in People's Republic of Poland in March 1977. It tried to resist the regime by denouncing it for violating Polish and international laws including the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. History The declaration, issued and presented to the press on March 26, 1977, was signed by 18 people, among them Andrzej Czuma and gen. Mieczysław Boruta-Spiechowicz (Ret.) It explained that the aims of the ROPCiO were to preserve and defend the civil and human rights. In fact the real aim was to fight the Communist regime of the Polish United Workers' Party by legal means. The declaration was issued only three days after the Polish parliament had ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ROPCiO focused on preparation of open letters of protest ...
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Workers' Defence Committee
The Workers' Defense Committee ( pl, Komitet Obrony Robotników , KOR) was a Polish civil society group that was established to give aid to prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests and ensuing government crackdown. KOR was an example of successful social organizing based on specific issues relevant to the public's daily lives. It was a precursor and inspiration for efforts of the Solidarity trade union a few years later. It was established in September 1976 by Antoni Macierewicz and Piotr Naimski. A year later it was reorganized into the Committee for Social Self-defence KOR (''Komitet Samoobrony Społecznej KOR''). History This organization was the first major anti-communist civic group in Poland, as well as Eastern Europe. It was born of the outrage at the government's crackdown on the June 1976 protests. Its stated purpose was to create "new centers of autonomous activity." It raised money through sales of its underground publications, through fund-raising ...
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June 1976 Protests
The June 1976 protests were a series of protests and demonstrations in the Polish People's Republic that took place after Prime Minister Piotr Jaroszewicz revealed the plan for a sudden increase in the price of many basic commodities, Polish Radio, Poland remembers June 1976 workers' protests, 25.06.2009
particularly food (butter by 33%, meat by 70%, and sugar by 100%). Prices in Poland were at that time , and controlled by the government, which was falling into increasing debt. The protests started on ...
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President Of Poland
The president of Poland ( pl, Prezydent RP), officially the president of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej), is the head of state of Poland. Their rights and obligations are determined in the Constitution of Poland. The president heads the executive branch. In addition, the president has a right to dissolve parliament in certain cases, can veto legislation and represents Poland in the international arena. History The first president of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz, was sworn in as president of the Second Polish Republic on 11 December 1922. He was elected by the National Assembly (the Sejm and the Senate) under the terms of the 1921 March Constitution. Narutowicz was assassinated on 16 December 1922. Previously Józef Piłsudski had been "Chief of State" ('' Naczelnik Państwa'') under the provisional Small Constitution of 1919. In 1926 Piłsudski staged the " May Coup", overthrew President Stanisław Wojciechowski and had the National Assembly ...
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1989 Polish Legislative Election
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland in 1989 to elect members of the Sejm and the recreated Senate. The first round took place on 4 June, with a second round on 18 June. They were the first elections in the country since the Communist Polish United Workers Party abandoned its monopoly of power in April 1989. Not all parliamentary seats were contested, but the resounding victory of the Solidarity opposition in the freely contested races paved the way to the end of communist rule in Poland. Solidarity won all of the freely contested seats in the Sejm, and all but one seat in the entirely freely contested Senate. In the aftermath of the elections, Poland became the first country of the Eastern Bloc in which democratically elected representatives gained real power. Although the elections were not entirely democratic, they led to the formation of a government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki and a peaceful transition to democracy in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe ...
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Polish Round Table Agreement
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Poland from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups in an attempt to defuse growing social unrest. History Following the factory strikes of the early 1980s and the subsequent formation of the (then still underground) Solidarity movement under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa, the political situation in Poland started relaxing somewhat. Despite an attempt by the government to crack down on trade unionism, the movement had gained too much momentum and it became impossible to hold off change anymore. In addition there was fear of a social explosion due to economic malaise and runaway inflation that had depressed Polish living standards and deepened public anger and frustration. By 1988 the authorities began serious talks with the opposition. In September 1988, when a wave of strikes was coming to an end, a secret meeting was held which in ...
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