Jerzy Urban (born Jerzy Urbach, 3 August 1933 – 3 October 2022) was a Polish journalist, commentator, writer and politician, best known as the founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Nie. From 1981 to 1989 he was the Press Secretary of the Communist government under the Polish People's Republic, and the Head of the Polish Radio and Television Committee in 1989. A staunch anticlerical and pro-communist throughout his life, he frequently was the centre of numerous controversies due to his unfiltered comments and entrenched political views resulting in support of the communist regime; on the other hand, he was a sharp-witted, intelligent and uncompromising satirist, writer and journalist, which results in a complicated legacy of his life. Biography Before 1989 Urban was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Łódź. His father, Jan Urbach, was an activist of Polish Socialist Party and the General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland. In 1939, they relocated to the city of Lwów (Lemberg, now Lviv). Following the outbreak of the Second World War and the German-Soviet occupation of Poland, a Soviet official mistook the last two letters of the family surname and incorrectly transcribed it as "Urban". His parents later refrained from returning to the original spelling, a move which possibly saved their lives when Germany seized Lwów in 1941. Urban reportedly attended 17 different primary and high schools. He completed his senior high school exams as an external student. He studied in two faculties of the University of Warsaw and was expelled from both. He started his journalistic career with the journal Nowa Wieś. From 1955 to 1957, he was a journalist - reporter and commentator - for the weekly Po prostu, which started during the rehabilitation of Władysław Gomułka, who became communist party leader. However, the newspaper was closed by the personal initiative of Gomułka, which symbolised the end of the thaw which started under Gomułka. The newspaper was closed mainly because of the biting, uncompromising opinion articles by Urban. Urban himself was officially banned from publishing under his own name. From 1961, he worked for the weekly Polityka, continuing his opinion pieces under pseudonyms. He was eventually totally forbidden from carrying out any journalistic activities. This ban continued until Gomułka lost power as party leader. Despite his critical attitude towards Edward Gierek's rule, he was an opponent of the Solidarity movement in 1980 and often criticized its leaders (including Lech