The Polish Press on the International Position of the Second Republic from the Munich Conference of 1938 to the September Campaign of 1939. Status and Prospects for Research

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the state of research on the portrayal of the international position of the Second Republic in the period from the Munich Conference in 1938 to the outbreak of the Second World War in the Polish press. Despite the plethora of literature on the press of the interwar period in Poland, there are few references to the content of the media published during the aforementioned period. Authors synthesized the press of the Second Republic most often focusing on the analysis of periodicals according to the political criterion and on statistics concerning their quantitative development. However, in the literature one can find references to the content of the media that commented on the international position of the Second Republic in the period 1938–1939. The authors focused on the circumstances of the Munich Agreement in September 1938 and its consequences also for Poland. They also leaned on the echoes of the outbreak of the Second World War on the pages of Polish periodicals. It is therefore worth formulating as a postulate for further research the view that there is still a lack of studies that would present the international situation of Poland between the Munich conference and the end of the September campaign in the pages of the national press to a broader extent.