"One of the measures of success in the world is to appear on the front cover of well-known journals. Since the end of the Second World War, Poland had not been at the forefront of the world media until the election of Pope John Paul II in 1979 and the establishment of the ‘Solidarity’ Independent Trade Union in 1980. During that period Poland would appear in the media relatively often, following numerous clashes of ‘Solidarity’ and the government, Pope’s visits to his native land and the ‘Round Table’ discussions, which brought down the communist system. In turn, for the next decade or so the world did not hear much about Poland."(...)