Yearbook of Bibliology and Press Studies

Summary

The first number of the Dziennik Polski" (The Polish Daily) - the official newspaper of the Department of Information and Documentation of the emigré Polish Government in London appeared on 12 July 1940 in London. The editors-in-chief were Jerzy Szapiro and Jan Tabaczyński (for the first three weeks), Marceli Karczewski (from 15 August 1940 to 1 July 1943), Stanisław Sopicki (from 1 July 1943 to 15 December 1943), Zygmunt Lityński (from 15 to 31 December 1943). The daily appeared from Monday to Saturday in 10,000 - 15,000 copies. The collaborators of the newspaper in their memoirs did not hide that "The Polish Daily" had been in this period "a dull government speaking-tube". Apart from speeches, political commentaries concerning the current international situation and Polish matters, as well as interviews and reports of its own correspondents, the newspaper also published essays, reports, feuilletons, memoirs, literary compositions - poems, short stories or serialised novels, historical accounts, political analyses, and book reviews. The editorial board was a contact-box for countrymen scattered all over the world. The newspaper did not have its technical infrastructure and until the end of the war it used the English printing-firm St. Clement's Press in London. From January 1944, due to political reasons, on the initiative of Minister Stanisław Kot, an obligatory merger was made between the civilian "Polish Daily" with the opposition „Dziennik Żołnierza" (The Soldier's Daily) from Scotland and since that time until now one newspaper "Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza" has been published.
"The Polish Daily" played a multifunctional role; it was first of all "an emigration panorama"; it propagated the Polish cause, informed Poles in army camps and civilian concentrations about developments in the war front; it also satisfied the demand for the Polish word and acquainted its readers with customs and culture of Great Britain; it printed the literary works of the emigré intellectual elite, and integrated the Poles scattered abroad.