ABSTRACT
Kolejka (The Queue) is a board game developed in 2011 by Karol Madaj and published by the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland. The goal of Kolejka was “to reconstruct, in a vivid manner, the circumstances in which Poles lived for decades under an externally imposed communist system” and “show young people and remind the older ones what hard times these were…” It sold over 100,000 copies in the just first two years, first in Polish, but then also in other languages, including English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The article presents this game as a form of public history, i.e., history for the public, by the public, with the public and about the public. Starting from the game rules it deconstructs the historical narrative behind the gameplay and discusses its reception, on the basis of feedback provided by international students who played it at the University of Wrocław.
