The first version of the virtual Museum of the Orange Alternative was created in 2009. Waldemar Fydrych referred to this version as the “archive”, as opposed to the current Museum of the Orange Alternative, available to public since the end of 2011. The majority of the exhibits presented on-line belong to the private collection of Orange Alternative's leader, Waldemar Fydrych, and date back to early 1980s. The exhibition is complemented with materials from other participants of the movement, independent photojournalists and filmmakers, as well as the archives of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Due to the virtual nature of the museum, part of the presented materials remains in the hands of the authors (photographers, illustrators, etc.) or public institutions (e.g. IPN) rather than the Orange Alternative Foundation – the official owner and managing authority of the Museum.
Although historical activity of the Orange Alternative as a social movement covers the years 1986-1990, its future leaders began their activities several years earlier. Particularly groundbreaking was the New Culture Movement created in 1980 at the Bolesław Bierut University in Wrocław by a group of hippie students, ideologically close to neo-anarchism and the New Left. The Movement remained active until the introduction of martial law at Wrocław universities in December 1981. Most prominent figures of the initiative included Andrzej Dziewit, Waldemar Fydrych – who at that time became known as the “Major”, Piotr Stażyński, Zenon Zegarski, Jacek Drobny, and Wiesław Cupała. The first and the only issue of the journal A published by the Movement had contained Fydrych’s Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism, which several years later became the theoretical basis for Orange Alternative’s happenings. During students’ strikes in the autumn of 1981 the Movement published seven editions of the Orange Alternative magazine, although the University Strike Committee, dominated by the Independent Students’ Association, promptly attempted to censor the obscene and satirical content of the magazine. In spite of the conflict, the Movement’s activists participated in the strike until its end, introducing a light-hearted atmosphere and numerous artistic activities.
During the martial law “Major” Fydrych came up with the idea to paint dwarfs over the spots left after removing opposition’s slogans from the walls. According to the dialectics, an opposition’s slogan (e.g. “away with the junta” or “release political prisoners”) was a thesis, a spot after removal an antithesis, and the dwarf – a synthesis. “Major” described the concept as “tactical painting”. In August 1982 Fydrych and Cupała painted their first dwarfs. Throughout the following year around a thousand of images of dwarfs appeared across several Polish cities, such as Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, Szczecin, Katowice, Cracow, and Warsaw. In 1986 Fydrych organised the first street happening. At that time he was also engaged, with Piotr Gusta, in creating anti-nuclear posters. The most prominent happenings of the Orange Alternative took place in the years 1987-1988, and were shaped by the Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism, paratheatrical experiments, New Culture Movement's engagement in student strikes, and the concept of “tactical painting”. The cheerful Dwarfs happening, organised in the centre of Wroclaw the 1st of August 1987 attracted hundreds of participants. The form of these events was inspired not as much by the purely artistic happenings of the neo-avantgarde of the 1960s and 1970s, but rather by street theatre, carnival parades, public manifestations and marches, with added elements of rock concerts and parodies of official, socialist rallies. Initially the police reacted to the happenings by arresting the participants. In turn, the Orange Alternative incorporated the chases of “dwarfs” by the police to the scenarios of the happenings; this tactics turned out particularly spectacular in the Eve of October Revolution, sensationally dispersed by police forces. Gradually the merry spirit of the happenings affected the policemen who were becoming part of the game, e.g. during the humorous celebrations of the Militia Day the officers mingled and fraternised with the cheerful crowd. The police would arrest just the most active participants while the number of brutal interventions was decreasing. Finally, the Revolution of Dwarfs on the 1st of June 1988, which gathered several thousand people, ended with no police actions. Also during subsequent events the police did not intervene.
In the years 1987-1988 the wave of youth protests in the form of carnival-style happenings spread from Wrocław across other cities, gaining particular popularity in Łódź, Warsaw, and Lublin. In the partially free elections of June 1989 Fydrych ran as an independent candidate for senator and his campaign served as a pretext for a several-week-long chain of happenings and concerts in the streets of Wrocław, known as the Attending Art Festival. However, the electoral result was poor, while the happenings, deprived of the tension between the participants and the police, became repetitive. Soon “Major” emigrated to France, while other leaders of the movement either dedicated themselves to artistic pursuits or sought gainful employment. Nevertheless, Orange Alternative was revived at least on several occasions in the 2000s, mainly by Fydrych’s initiative, who returned to Poland in 1999. Particularly notable are “Major’s” three runs in the elections for president of Warsaw, in which he ridiculed mainstream politicians. In 2004, during the so-called orange revolution in Ukraine, Fydrych and his “dwarfs” travelled to Kiev to support local protesters. The Orange Alternative protested against the GMO as well as the European Culture Congress in 2011. Other initiatives focused on commemoration and anniversaries. In 2007 Fydrych established the Orange Alternative Foundation.
The first creators of the Orange Alternative originated from hippie, artistic, and student milieus. Some of them had previously been active in Students' Solidarity Committees or the Independent Students’ Association but in general were reluctant to engage in regular politics. Instead they drew inspiration from neo-anarchism, situationism, gauchist left, and counterculture of Western Europe and the North America. Initially their main aim was to change the dominant culture, hence the name New Culture Movement, which preceded the Orange Alternative. In spite of its anarchistic leaning, the Orange Alternative was not a subversive movement. Its political objectives included democratisation and liberalisation of socialism in the spirit of Prague Spring, addressing the issues of civil liberties, human rights, liberal lifestyle, and environment protection. Although on occasions the daily practice would deviate from the theory, Orange Alternative rejected hierarchies and formal rules of organisation and manifested egalitarian approach. Notably, the movement virtually never addressed economic issues.
The happening – the main modus operandi of the “Orange Ones” in the 1980s – is a respected example of avant-garde practices, and its choice serves as a testimony to artistic aspirations of the leaders of the movement. However, the carnival form enriched with elements of demonstrations, street parades, rock concerts, and guerilla theatre proved innovative and within several months was adopted by the majority of alternative youth movements in almost all the major cities of Poland. Similarly innovative was the use of graffiti – stencils in particular – for disseminating ideas and slogans, and informing about upcoming events. The creators of the Orange Alternative were often engaged in “the third circuit” underground music recording, as well as punk, reggae, ecological, and pacifist movements.
The use of revolutionary and socialist symbolism was of particular significance for the Orange Alternative practices. This included staging the events of the October Revolution, chanting propaganda slogans, and replicating images of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. In response to reactivation of the Polish Socialist Party by the left-wing faction of the Solidarity in 1989, Fydrych proclaimed the revival of the communist Polish Workers’ Party. In January 1990 the Orange Alternative in Lublin celebrated the unveiling of a monument dedicated to Bolesław Bierut (a Stalinist era Polish leader), which had been recently dismantled by the new, Solidarity-based authorities. Małgorzata Bierut, the granddaughter of president Bierut, participated in the event. Such actions where not only aimed at ridiculing the symbols and the ceremonialism of socialist state, but were equally set to provoke the conservative and nation-centred opposition, often submissive to clergy and displaying nationalist inclinations. The Orange Alternative was to be an alternative for both sides of the political conflict, and more importantly, for the symbolic universes they represented.
Although the happenings never constituted political activities per se, they attracted the attention of the Security Service (SB): the leaders of the movement were often stopped for control, arrested, and many of them, e.g. Andrzej Kielar, brutalised by the police during the dispersing of the illegal gatherings. Fydrych himself spent three weeks in prison for illegally giving away hygienic pads – a commodity suffering shortages at that time – during a happening on the 8th of March 1988. However, he was released due to numerous protests both staged by alternative youth and the opposition’s intellectuals. Nonetheless, over time the police and the SB in Wrocław, and later in other cities, ceased to use violence against the participants of the happenings, and eventually lost interest in the movement. In this respect, the Orange Alternative succeeded in overcoming the barrier of fear between the demonstrators and the repressive authorities, whose officers reciprocated the kind-heartedness of the “orange” youth.
Sources:
Waldemar Fydrych, Bohdan Dobosz, "Hokus Pokus or the Orange Alternative", Wydawnictwo Aneks, Wrocław 1989.
Waldemar Fydrych, Bronisław Misztal, "The Orange Alternative: Revolution of Dwarfs", Wydawnictwo Pomarańczowa Alternatywa, Warszawa 2008.
Waldemar Fydrych, "The Lives of the Orange Men", Fundacja Pomarańczowa Alternatywa, Warszawa 2001.
Waldemar Fydrych, "Major", Narodowe Centrum Kultury, Warszawa 2013.
Joanna Dardzińska, Krzysztof Dolata (wstęp, wyb. i oprac.), "All Ploretarians, Be Beautiful! The Orange Alternative in the documentation of the state security apparatus (1987-1978)", Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Wrocław 2011.
Barbara Górska, Benjamin Koschalka (red.), "Happening against Communism by the Orange Alternative", Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury, Kraków 2011.
