Where Is Poland? | Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Intro
Chapter 1 Where Is Poland?
Chapter 2 A Nation Without a State
Chapter 3 Literature and Censorship
Chapter 4 Poland Outside of Poland
Chapter 5 The Ambassadors
Chapter 6 Women and Emancipation
Chapter 7 Who Is Polish?
Chapter 8 Poland Imagined
Chapter 9 The Road to Independence

Chapter 5

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Ignacy Jan Paderewski took the idea of promoting the Polish national cause through art to a wholly new level. Read More

Composer
1860-1941

Ignacy Jan Paderewski around 1915-1920. Photo: United States' Library of Congress

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Paderewski left Poland in 1881 as a 20-year-old. Very soon he set himself on a course to become one of the most successful performing pianists of all time, touring Europe and the Americas.

Already as a wealthy man, he donated generously to numerous causes and charities. Paderewski financed numerous Polish activities, such as a Polish newspaper in Detroit, the erection of a Kościuszko monument in Chicago, Polish cultural activities in Vilnius, and a new department at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1910 in Kraków, Paderewski took part in the unveiling of a monument to the Battle of Grunwald – a project which he commissioned and financed, and which turned into a great outpouring of patriotic feelings.

Poland was also present in Paderewski’s recital programme, with his performances obligatorily including pieces by Frederic Chopin, a composer whom Paderewski felt epitomized the Polish national character. His own musical compositions also featured Poland and Polish musical folklore: from Danses Polonaises and the Tatra-Album to songs to Adam Mickiewicz’s lyrics, Polish Fantasy and the opera Manru, based on a novel by Polish author Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. One of Paderewski’s greatest achievements, his 1908 symphony Polonia, was focussed entirely on the history of the Polish nation in the last few centuries.

Read more on Culture.pl:

A 19th-Century Soundtrack to Polish Life Under the Partitions

About the project

Concept, scripting, textual & visual content

Mikołaj Gliński & Patryk Zakrzewski

Design & development

Translators

Daniel J. Sax, Marcin Gozdanek, Michał Wieczorek

English content editor

Daniel J. Sax

Research

Olga Tyszkiewicz

Additional research

Zofia Łękawska-Orzechowska, Przemysław Gliński

Sources

Digital Film Repository (CRF), CYRYL – Digital Repository of the City of Poznań, Danish Film Institute (DFI), Emigration Museum in Gdynia, European Institute of Jewish Music, FORUM Polish Photography Agency, Fototeka, Gallica (gallica.bn.fr), HBO, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IS PAN), Library of Congress, Museum in Sosnowiec, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (MSL), National Museum in Kraków, National Museum in Wrocław, National Museum in Poznań, National Museum in Warsaw, National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute (FINA), National Digital Library Polona (polona.pl), Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kraków (PAU), Royal Danish Library (KB), Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Poster Museum at Wilanów, Tatra Museum in Zakopane, Zebra Film Studio.

Video materials

‘Poświęcenie Dworca Towarowego’, ‘Legiony wkraczają do Warszawy’, ‘Dla Ciebie, Polsko’ - courtesy of National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute (FINA). Excerpt from ‘Brandes giving lecture at the Copenhagen University’ - courtesy of Danish Film Institute.

With special thanks to

Alan Lockwood, Michalina Petelska, Włodzimierz Karol Pessel, Adam Zulawski

This project was organised in co-operation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of POLSKA 100, an international cultural programme celebrating the centenary of Poland’s regaining independence in 1918.

Financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, as part of the multi-annual programme NIEPODLEGŁA 2017–2022.

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