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The everyday Maluch Owning a car was the dream of millions of citizens of the People’s Republic of Poland, as it allowed them to taste the freedom that was so rare in the country, and to feel a bit like a Westerner, if only for a moment. However, the everyday life of car owners in […]
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New roads for th Maluch The rapid motorisation of the country in the 1970s necessitated investment in road infrastructure. Wrocław’s transport system had been in place since before the Second World War and remained essentially the same until the reign of comrades Edward Gierek and Ludwik Drożdż. Meanwhile, the number of cars registered in the […]
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A Maluch in the petrol queue Production of the Polish Fiat 126p began in the same year that the Western world was shaken by the first oil crisis, caused by the embargo imposed by Middle Eastern oil producers following the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Poland, which imported this raw material mainly from […]
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A Maluch in the petrol queue Photo 1. A common sight on the streets of Wrocław and other Polish cities in the 1980s. Photo by Wiesław Dębicki (collections of the Ossolineum Library / Documents of Social Life Department) Photo 2. ‘Słowo Polskie’ of 12 March 1984, No. 61, p. 5 (collections of the Ossolineum Library […]
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Maluch in opposition The small Fiat was the ‘baby’ of Edward Gierek’s team, one of its most important ventures and a symbol of the illusory prosperity of the 1970s. The economic mistakes made by this team led to the crisis and, as a result, its collapse and the emergence of the Solidarity trade union. The […]
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Maluch and Dwarfs In the 1980s, characteristic dwarfs appeared on the walls of buildings in Wrocław. They were the work of the Orange Alternative – probably the most unusual opposition movement in the history of communist Poland. Apart from graffiti, the main form of activity of the Orange Alternative led by Waldemar ‘Major’ Fydrych were […]
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Maluch in capitalism The Polish Fiat 126p was a thoroughly socialist enterprise. It was the state that decided to launch production of the popular car, bought the licence and selected the contractor, built the factory and organised the system for selling the finished vehicles. But the Maluch survived the change of regime and was produced […]
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Maluch in capitalism Photo 1. Photo by N.N. (collections of the Ossolineum Library / Documents of Social Life Department) Photo 2, 3. In the late spring of 1990, Poland’s first municipal elections after the Second World War were held. One of the first decisions taken by the new Wrocław authorities was to close the Market […]
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Maluch under water ‘The Flood of the Millennium’ in July 1997 was one of the most tragic events in Wrocław’s post-war history. On Sunday 13 July, about a third of the city was under water. Some 2,500 residential buildings were flooded. Many Wrocław residents lost all their possessions, including their cars, which they were unable […]
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Sentimental Maluch The fate of the tiny Fiat is a perfect example of history repeating itself. In the early 1970s, the car was eagerly awaited and then almost universally desired. In the 1980s, the car became commonplace, and in the following decade, when second-hand Western cars began to appear in large numbers in Poland, it […]