Monitor

The magazine Monitor was a Polish publication edited by Franciszek Bohomolec for the last 20 years of his life. Modeled after the English magazines The Tatler and The Spectator, it was one of the first modern periodicals in Poland and significantly contributed to the Polish Enlightenment. Bohomolec was a dramatist, linguist, and theatrical reformer, known for his plays that satirized the ignorance and folly of the Polish aristocracy. Under the communist government, Poland's media, including publishing, was strictly controlled by the Main Office for the Control of the Press, Publications, and Public Performances (GUKPIW). Despite censorship, Poles became adept at reading between the lines, and alternative perspectives were found in independent publications and an underground "free sector." Media restrictions eased in 1989, leading to a proliferation of new publications after censorship was abandoned in 1990.12