The effect of the international artistic tradition upon the autonomy of Polish student theater is straightforward. Through it the ideal of the autonomy of artistic life within Polish society, and the ideal of the transnational significance of art is strengthened. Three means have been operative: officially supported Polish institutions, international cultural exchanges and festivals, and foreign broadcasts and publications. Poland will host guest lecturers and cultural groups frequently supporting them with Polish currency, while it will send Polish lecturers and cultural groups abroad where host countries will support them once abroad. The members of student theaters learned further about such theater through direct contacts at international theater festivals at home and abroad. Student theaters in the sixties, during a considerably less liberal period, then helped integrate this avant-garde tradition into Polish cultural life. Unlike the theaters of the fifties, but like the theaters of the sixties, they presented full dramatic works in an aesthetically sophisticated and innovative way.