Shaping a national image abroad: content planning in Polish Socialist periodicals for external audiences (1958–1964)

This work examines the phenomenon of post-war illustrated periodicals, established by political mandate to project a positive image of Poland to foreign audiences. The objective is to reconstruct the content approval process for two magazines – Poland and Pol’sha – drawing exclusively on archival documents from 1958–1964. The analysis adopts a contextual perspective, focusing on the socio-political conditions surrounding the production and circulation of these translations. It also focuses on the agents of translation: the people and institutions that determined the content and form of the country’s image transferred abroad. The components of this image depended on internal factors: the goals of cultural diplomacy supporting the country’s foreign policy activities, and on external factors: the conditions in the target countries. When designing the image of Poland for Western countries and, separately, for the Soviet Union, political decision-makers took into account ideological, political and economic factors. In their discussions, they focused on the content, were less interested in the graphic form, and almost completely ignored the issue of translation, which was the pillar of the magazines.