„Przewodniczący Rady Państwa, sekretarz, generał, co wczoraj jeszcze godność piastował premiera”. O szopkach – satyrycznych audycjach telewizyjnych – na przykładzie programów z udziałem Wojciecha Jaruzelskiego w latach 1969–1990

Abstract

The satirical nativity play is a specifically Polish entertainment genre that flourished on television in the 1960s. The programmes, broadcast after midnight at the turn of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, presented the most important personalities of communist public life as puppets, reciting and singing rhyming couplets. Although it was concessionary satire, the cribs aroused great emotion among the audience. Wojciech Jaruzelski experienced a special situation: he did not appear in the cribs most often, but he was the only one who was presented as an aspiring politician, holding and leaving the most important positions in the state. On his example we can observe the original strategies of the creators of nativity scenes and their attempts to shape the image of Polish politicians, in the Polish People’s Republic and the democratic Poland after year 1989.