Ok, so let's dive in the depths of Polish fantasy. Wiedźmin was published in "Fantastyka" magazine in December 1986. Sapkowski won 3rd place in the open contest. The book version, alongside of the other short stories was published in 1990 so it's a bit outside of the time frame. It sparked a bit of discussion, mainly because of the genere, but let's start from the beginning. Status of Fantasy To understand Polish fantasy scene one must know that back in the day there was a sharp division between fantasy and SF. SF was seen as serious one that allowed to deliver deep thoughts about human nature (Lem) or criticise communism under the guise of writting about aliens and future generations (Zajdel, Huberath, Oramus etc...). Meanwhile fantasy was a silly, womanly fairy tale. There was limited edition of Tolkien and some prints issued by fanclubs (probably legal because nobody told that they weren't ;) ) but that was it.

Fantastyka Magazine It's hard to overestimate the impact of Fantastyka magazine on the Polish fantasy literature of all generes. It was the magazine you headed for when you wanted to write fantasy and meet other authors and fans. Established in 1983 by Adam Hollanek published short stories, reviews, and essays. Hollanek was established writer and journalists so it helped him to obtain all premission- there wasn't any problems with censorship that I'm aware of, but shortage of paper was a big problem. The avarange circulation was 200k copies per month, was sold very quickly (to compare- "Filipinka" (popular girls magazine ) 550 000, "Świat Młodych" (for teens, unisex) 50000)- sometimes aforementioned problems with material caused long delays, but it managed to get two spin offs "Młoda fantastyka" for kids and "Fantastyka-Komiks" In spite of female warrior on the first cover Fantastyka dealed mainly with SF in all forms. The first fantasy story published there was "Mag" by Feliks W. Kres and it tells a lot that it grained a lot of praise author managed to publish his first book in 1990. Later fantasy stories were far and inbetween. The award for Wiedźmin was a bit of suprise- because of the genere and fact that author was a bit of outsider in close knit community. The responses were mixed, but grained Sapkowski's enough exposure to publish five more storied till 1990 when he published them in book form. Sources:

(Mainly memoirs, all in Polish) Wasz cyrk, moje małpy by Maciej Parowski

Światy Polskiej fantastyki by Wojciech Sedeńko

Historie Fandomowe by Tomasz Pindel

Fantastyka magazines from 1983 to 1995