Polish newspaper corpus

Polish newspapers

Link to the Polish newspaper corpus (password protected)

None of the analysed newspapers appeared throughout the 100 period of investigation 1918-2018. The newspapers appearing in Poznań in the interwar period were all closed down during the Nazi occupation. Głos Wielkoplski started appearing in February 1945 after the liberation of Poznań. Poznań supplement of Gazeta Wyborcza has been appearing since 1994. The local newspapers in Zbąszyń and Słubice appeared after the transformation in the 1990s and 2000s. The newspapers cover the years as presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Polish newspapers: time period covered.

The characteristics of the newspapers

Dziennik Poznański, a pamphlet, later a newspaper established by Hipolit Cegielski. Published between 1859-1939. It represented liberal gentry, later conservative views. (Boras – Trzeciakowski 1871: 88).

Kurier Poznański, a newspaper established by Ludwik Merzbach. Published between 1872-1939. First associated with the Catholic Church, in the 20th c. taken over by National Democracy, a nationalist party. (Jakubowska 1992, Paczkowski 1980)

Posener Tageblatt, a newspaper organ of the German Union (Deutsche Vereinigung), an extreme right wing nationalist party. Published between 1878-1939. (Kopeć 2013)

Ostdeutscher Beobachter, a newspaper published in Poznań during the Nazi occupation 1939-1945. No articles about street renaming were found in this outlet.

Głos Wielkopolski, Polish regional newspaper published since 1945. It represents conservative views. (Cofta 1970)

Gazeta Wyborcza, it is a liberal newspaper, published since 1989. Since 1994 it has regional supplements, a Poznań supplement among them.

Zbąszynianin, first monthly, then quarterly appearing in the years 1989-1991 as a monthly; 1996-1999 as a monthly; 1999-2006 as monthly; 2011-2018 as a quarterly.

Gazeta Słubicka, appearing since 1991, first as a weekly, then as a monthly.

Pogranicze Lubuskie, appears since 2005.

The making of the corpus

The newspapers were available in different formats. In Zbąszyń and Słubice they were collections of printed newspapers available in the local library. Zbąszynianin  was in the form of bound yearly volumes. In Słubice the newspapers were collected on open shelves, they were not ordered by title or year. Dziennik Poznański, Kurier Poznański, Posener Tageblatt, Ostdeutscher Beobachter and Głos Wielkopolski (1945-1950) were available in the form of digital scans in Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa https://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra/publication/519710#structure). Głos Wielkopolski 1950-2011 paper copies were available in Raczyński Library in Poznań. Relevant articles were scanned. Since 2012 digital copies of the newspaper are available through the newspaper archive (https://www.prasa24.pl), which consists of searchable PDF files, screenshots of relevant articles were taken. Gazeta Wyborcza, is available through an online archive (https://classic.wyborcza.pl/archiwumGW/0,0.html). The relevant articles were downloaded in the doc format. The size of the corpus and the file formats are presented in Table 2 below.

Table 2. The size of the Polish newspaper corpus and the file formats.

References

Boras, Zygmunt i Lech Trzeciakowski. 1971. W dawnym Poznaniu. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.

Eugeniusz Cofta. 1970. „Pierwszy polski dziennik w wolnym Poznaniu”. W: Trud pierwszych dni. Poznań 1945. Wspomnienia Poznaniaków. Tadeusz Świtała (red.). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. 36–39.

Jakubowska, Urszula. 1992. „Twórca „Kuriera Poznańskiego” (Marian Seyda)”, Kwartalnik Historii Prasy Polskiej 31(3-4): 38-44.

Kopeć, Zbigniew. 2013. Poznań między wojnami. Opowieść o życiu miasta 1918–1939. Łódź: Księży Młyn.

Paczkowski Andrzej. 1980. Prasa polska w latach 1918–1939. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.