Near the end of the Second World War, a magazine made of wit and levity was born; everyone in Poland read it. While the external factors may change over time, our inner vibe remains the same.

If this text had gotten into the hands of Marian Eile, this paragraph wouldn’t exist. The founder of Przekrój always cut out the introduction, with no mercy and no hesitation. He believed an article with no beginning was better, and usually he was right. On rare occasions the editors would secretly restore the deleted passage, keeping their fingers crossed that the boss wouldn’t notice. Even when he did, he let it go. The issue went to print, and, as nature abhors a vacuum, other texts were already waiting in line where “the great editor”—as his colleagues called him with both humor and admiration—could cut other things out. And that’s how it went, week after week, for the full twenty-four years and 1,277 issues of Przekrój.