Krytyka Polityczna

Krytyka Polityczna is the largest Central and Eastern European liberal network of institutions and activists. It was established in 2002 following the publication of an Open Letter titled, “The Open Letter to the European Public Opinion”,  demanding a more open and integrated European policy from the Polish elites.  Krytyka Polityczna consists of the online “Dziennik Opinii”(Opinion Daily), a quarterly magazine, a publishing house, cultural centres in Warsaw, Łódź, Gdańsk and Cieszyn, activist clubs in a dozen cities throughout Poland as well as in Kiev and Berlin and a research centre: the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw. It employs over sixty people and works with a few hundred volunteers. Krytyka Polityczna organises around 1,500 events and actions every year.

Krytyka Polityczna are the contemporary heirs to the Central and Eastern European traditions of an engaged intelligentsia representing an ethos of public activity and creating a “social glue” through the use of social movements. This tradition dates back to the late 19^th century, where the movements were charged with the task of modernising and developing society and was later revived during the 1970s and  1980s through dissident movements, which were seeking to empower society against authoritarian rule and to restore democracy, equality and personal freedoms. All of these movements have centred around building independent institutions, an orientation towards progressive social changes and a desire to maintain a strongly ethical approach.