Independent Publishing House NOWA

In 1977, Students at John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin started an independent publishing house, creating their own magazine, Zapis, and the first two issues were published under that name. The name Nieocenzurowana Oficyna Wydawnicza (NOWA-Uncensored Publishing House) was suggested by Janusz Krupski, Piotr Jegliński and Wit Wójtowicz, and that summer, the Lublin students contacted Mirosław Chojecki, an activist for the Workers' Defense Committee, who agreed regarding the name. Under Chojecki's leadership, NOWA was moved to Warsaw, and in August 1977, its first book was issued, titled Pochodzenie Systemu (The Origin of the System). It was authored by Marek Tarniewski, whose real name was Jakub Karpiński, a sociologist, who had been expelled from Warsaw University in the late 1960s.