Quincy University’s assistant professor of history, Siobhan Doucette, Ph.D., recently authored an article entitled “Censoring Solidarity: Freedom of Speech and its Denial in Poland, 1980-1981.” 

This article analyzes the press of the Polish trade union, Solidarity, to explore its censoring through direct state censorship and self-censorship in 1980-81. It argues that Solidarity’s dual commitment to truth and legality were irreconcilable and that the Communist state cultivated this conflict, contributing to the undermining of Solidarity’s leadership and the treatment of history as an arena for politicization and state control. It posits that these conflicts have contributed to contemporary political divisions in Poland. 

The article was published in Contemporary European History, 2020, by the Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge that serves the academic community, partnering with authors, librarians, learned societies, and publishers to connect the highest quality research with a broad and international audience.

Doucette earned her Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University in 2013. She has published articles in Nationalities Studies and The Polish Review. Her book, “Books Are Weapons: The Polish Opposition Press and the Overthrow of Communism” was published by University of Pittsburgh Press in 2018. She joined Quincy University in fall 2019 after teaching at Xavier University in Cincinnati.  She teaches courses in European and world history. 

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