Authors

Discussion

It is well known that the “Solidarność,” Poland's independent, self-managed labor movement, was an activity that attracted worldwide attention and received broad support from Western countries. Japan, located in East Asia, was another country that looked at Poland with enthusiasm. Japanese leftist intellectuals and journalists were particularly interested in following Eastern and Central European politics. In 1980, a group of activists who had studied or had contacts in Poland launched a coterie magazine called the Monthly Polish Bulletin (Poland Geppou) which reported in detail on the activities of the “Solidarność” movement from 1981 to 1991. The editors selected and translated samizdat articles circulating in Poland and transplanted their context to Japanese political reality, and interestingly this process corresponded to the period in which the “second circulation (drugi obieg)” became an important tool of dissent. This paper reviews the activities of the Monthly Polish Bulletin and looks at support for the “Solidarność” movement in Japan from the perspective of media activism. What is remarkable about the Monthly Polish Bulletin is that through its editing it contributed to the formation of a small (leftist) network that went beyond the mere introduction of the European politics. Based on interviews with former editors, which were conducted to supplement the scarce secondary literature on the subject, the author will examine the publishing mechanisms at work.