Where Is Poland? | Mass culture

Chapter 9

Mass culture

The pre-WWI era was also the time when Polish mass culture was born. Cinematography was developing and the first Polish recordcompany was established. The forerunners of avant-garde art reached the Polish lands.

An advertisement for Trianon cinematograph, postcard, ante 1915. Photo: Polona.pl

Film before the Lumières

The history of Polish cinema started even before the Lumière brothers. In 1894, Kazimierz Prószyński invented a pleograph, a device that could be used for recording and projecting films. Prószyński used his device to make several films in Warsaw, in which he documented the city’s everyday life. In 1901, he founded the first Polish film studio – Towarzystwo Udziałowe Pleograf. A year later, the studio produced two comedies: Powrót birbanta [Return of a Reveller] and Przygody dorożkarza [Adventures of a Carriage Driver]. Prószyński was also very creative in regard to the commercial use of his invention – 'night-time light advertising', as he called it - consisted in displaying film advertisements on large-format screens in the centre of Warsaw.

Prószyński was not the only pioneer of cinematography who lived in Poland at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1895, one of the fathers of documentary film, Bolesław Matuszewski, founded the Paryska Fotografia Lux Sigismond et Comp film studio, employing several cameramen. His employees filmed street scenes and important political events (visits of leaders and ceremonies in Russian and Austrian courts), travelled to the countryside where they collected ethnographic materials, and laid the foundations of educational film, recording medical operations which were later shown to student of medicine.

In 1896, Piotr Lebiedziński invented a cinematograph of his own. In the same year, the premiere of the Lumière brothers film took place in Kraków. In 1899, the first cinema in Poland, called Gabinet Iluzji (The Cabinet of Illusion), was opened in Łódź. Cinema became more and more popular in Polish society.

Unfortunately, practically none of these films has survived to the present day in full form. Pruska kultura [Prussian Culture], about the children's strike against the Germanization policy, is the oldest preserved film. However, its screening was forbidden by the censors, so it was shown in France. Therefore, the first widely distributed Polish film was Antoś po raz pierwszy w Warszawie [Antoś Visits Warsaw for the First Time].The Sfinks Film Studio, founded in Warsaw by Aleksander Hertz in 1909, became a real film empire. It produced screen adaptations of Polish literary classics ('Meir Ezofowicz' from 1911, based on Eliza Orzeszkowa's novel and ‘A Story of Sin' from the same year, based on Stefan Żeromski's novel), as well as popular melodramas. The brilliant career of Pola Negri (or Apolonia Chałupiec), later famous thanks to her performances in Hollywood and German expressionist films, started from Niewolnica zmysłów [The Slave of Sin], produced by Sfinks.

Syrena shellac record. Photo: public domain

Siren Song

One of the oldest recording companies in Europe was founded by Juliusz Feigenbaum in Warsaw in 1904. Even the company's name – Syrena ('the Mermaid') – referred to the symbol of Warsaw.

It started by producing recordings of Polish and Russian folk songs and motifs in small numbers. Soon, however, it began to publish Polish national dances, patriotic and folk songs, thanks to which it enjoyed considerable success. With time, the company had its own orchestra, consisting of musicians of the Grand Theatre and the Philharmonic, as well as its own recording studio.

Syrena quickly became the largest recording company in the Russian-held Kingdom of Poland. It was also able to effectively compete on the Eastern European market. In 1910, the company opened up a branch in Moscow, which allowed it to spread its wings. As a result, people danced to the rhythm of songs played on Syrena’s records from Warsaw to Moscow, and even beyond the Ural Mountains.

At that time, Syrena’s position in the Eastern European market was almost on par with that of industry-giant Gramophone. Critics praised the technical level of the recordings, the absence of noise and the overall professionalism. The press also emphasized the quality of Syrena’s recordings, which was better than that of German records. Tomasz Lerski, a scholar of the recording company’s history, writes:

More and more attention was paid to Syrena’s new releases, to their artistic and technical level. The company quickly became a focus of attention of the press and the audience. Buying its recordings became fashionable.

On the eve of World War I, Syrena was already a powerful force in the market – it pressed 2.5 million records a year (approximately 15,000 per day) and recorded two thousand new titles annually. The artists whose voices were captured on its fragile shellac discs instantly became famous.

Syrena recorded a very wide repertoire of music, ranging from popular to folk and instrumental, as well as classical (including opera, symphonic and chamber music). Before 1914, the company managed to immortalize the voices of Lucyna Messal – a famous prima donna of the Warsaw operetta, Mieczysława Ćwiklińska – a popular actress, Wiktoria Kawecka – prima donna of the Warsaw operetta, and singer Józef Redo.

The company also did not shy away from recording religious music (for instance, the choir of Saint Alexander Cathedral on Saxon Square) and even the repertoire of military orchestras (before 1915, the military orchestras of Russian regiments stationed in the Kingdom of Poland). Recitations of literature performed by popular actors and commemorative recordings were also captured on discs. In 1913, the first tango recording was made.

The pre-war period of the company's activity essentially came to an end after the Germans entered Warsaw. Nevertheless, a few dozen new records were successfully recorded in 1915, including songs of the Legions. ‘Dabrowski’s Mazurka’, which was released at that time, was labelled as a ‘folk song’ to avoid censorship.