Alice in the wonderland? Socialist realist interiors in Poland

The subject of this article is the representative Polish interiors of the period of Socialist Realism. Although they were supposed to follow the doctrine, they represented various forms, conventions, motives, and patterns far from these imposed. They make us revise the views on the monolithic and colonial nature of the Socialist Realism in Eastern Europe. In this article, I would like to discuss the diversity of the Polish interiors created in the period of Socialist Realism. The analysis will indicate that even in the most “socialist realist” creations we are dealing with the “socialist realist” elements only. Moreover, these single forms or items seldom became “doctrinal”: it was difficult to define what the “socialist realist” design should look like. Socialist Realism in the interior design is, therefore, highly hybrid in many layers.