Summary

After the end of World War II Jerzy Giedroyc founded the Literary Institute "Casa Editrice Lettere" in Rome in 1946, with its own printing-house "O. G.L". Next year it moved to Maisons-Laffitte near Paris. The editorial staff consisted of Zofia Hertz and Zygmunt Hertz (died in 1979) from the very beginning and Henryk Giedroyc, the editor-in-chief's brother, from 1952. The Institute was intented to influence the situation in Poland in a skilful way through various initiatives, according to the rule;: "it's only the word that counts". Since the very beginning up to now the Institute has been publishing:
- a monthly "Culture", one of the best periodicals of the Polish emigrants of the 20'th c.
- a quarterly ^Historical Notes", up. to 1973 a semiannual
- books (the first one published in Rome was "Legions" by H. Sienkiewicz) published from 1953 on as subsequent volumes of "Culture's" Library with the series "Documents", "The Revolutionary Archives", "Without Censorship".
The Literary Institute, commonly called "Culture" cooperated with many outstanding writers, poets, essayits, critics e.g. G. Herling-Grudziński, J. Mie-roszewski, J. Czapski, J. Stempowski, K. A. Jeleński, M. Danilewicz-Zieliń-ska, W. Gombrowicz, Cz. Miłosz, St. Vicenz, M. Wańkowicz, J. Łobodowski, G. Orwell, S. Weil, B. Pasternak, J. Wittlin, K. Wierzyński, T. Terlecki, A. Malraux, A. Koestler, G. Greene, and many others.
The editorial production of the Literary Institute has presently reached 482 books, 555 numbers of "Culture" and 106 "Historical Notes".