Mazurek Dabrowskiego
National Anthem of Poland and other patriotic songs from Poland
Label: Polskie Nagrania, 2008
Catalogue No: PNCD1242
Format: CD
This special edition CD commensurate 90th anniversary of Poland's independence.
Tracks:
- Mazurek Dabrowskiego (Dabrowski's Mazurka) Orchestra, Part 1
- Mazurek Dabrowskiego (Dabrowski's Mazurka) Orchestra, Part 1-4
- Mazurek Dabrowskiego (Dabrowski's Mazurka) Orchestra and Choir, Part 1-4
- Mazurek 3 Maja - Witaj, majowa jutrzenko (May 3rd Mazurka - Hello, bright dawn of May)
- Tam na bloniu blyszczy kwiecie (There shine the flowers)
- Krakowiak Kosciuszki - Bartoszu, Bartoszu (Kosciuszko's Krakoviak)
- Pobutka Krakusow - "Dalej chlopcy" (Wake up Cracowians)
- Ostatni Mazur - "Jeszcze jeden mazur dzisiaj" (Last Mazurka - One more mazurka today)
- Bywaj dziewcze zdrowe (Goodbye pretty girl)
- W krawym polu - pobutka (In the bloody field - wake up)
- Hej strzelcy wraz - Marsz strzelców (March of the shooters)
- Rozkwitaly peki bialych roz (Blooming of white roses)
- Przybyli ulani pod okienko - Piesnn Czwartego Szwadronu (The arrival of the horseback riders - song of the fourth squadron)
- Piechota (Infantry)
- O moj romarynie rozwijaj sie (Bloom my dear Rozmaryn)
- Rozszumilay sie wierzby placzace (Weeping willow's hum)
- Czerwone maki na Monte Casino (Monte Casino's red poppy seeds)
- Hej chlopcy bagnet na bron (Bayonet your arms boys)
- Palcyk Michala (Michal's palace)
- Na Wawel, na Wawel (Wawel Castle, Wawel Castle)
- Plynie Wisla plynie (Visla river is flowing)
- Piekna nasza Polska cala (Poland is the most beautiful country for me)
Archival recordings (1963, 1964, 1967, 1980)
Line-up:
National Philharmonics Orchestra and Choir, Kazimierz Kord - conductor
Orchestra and Choir of Polish Radio, Jerzy Kolaczkowski - conductor
Soloists:
Zofia Wilma-Bagniuk - soprano
Pola Lipinska - alto
Zdzislaw Niekodem - tenor
Kazimierz Pustelak - tenor
Jerzy Sergiusz Adamczewski - baritone
Jozef Wojtan - baritone
Lyrics:
Poland has not died yet
So long as we still live
That which alien force has seized
We at sabrepoint shall retrieve
March, march, Dabrowski
To Poland from Italy
Let us now rejoin the nation
Under thy command
Like Czarniecki to Poznan
Returned across the sea
To free our fatherland from chains
Fighting with the Swede
March, march...
Cross the Vistula and Warta
And Poles we shall be
We've been shown by Bonaparte
Ways to victory
March, march..
Germans, Muscovites will not rest
When, backsword in hand
"Concord" will be our watchword
And the fatherland will be ours
March, march...
Father, in tears
Says to his Basia
Just listen, it seems that our people
Are beating the drums
March, march...
All exclaim in unison
Enough of this bondage
We've got scythes from Raclawice
God will give us Kosciuszko
About:
Mazurek Dabrowskiego ("Dabrowski's Mazurka") is the national anthem of Poland. It is also known by its original title, "Piesn Legionów Polskich we Wloszech", "Song of the Polish Legions in Italy"), or by its incipit "Jeszcze Polska nie zginela ("Poland Is Not Yet Lost" or "Poland Has Not Yet Perished").
The song is a lively mazurka with lyrics penned by Józef Wybicki in Reggio nell'Emilia, Cisalpine Republic (now in Italy), around 16 July 1797, two years after the Third Partition of Poland erased the once vast country from the map. It was originally meant to boost the morale of Polish soldiers serving under General Jan Henryk Dabrowski in the Polish Legions, which were part of the French Revolutionary Army led by General Napoléon Bonaparte in its conquest of Italy. The mazurka, expressing the idea that the nation of Poland, despite lack of political independence, had not perished as long as the Polish people were still alive and fighting in its name, soon became one of the most popular patriotic songs in Poland.
The song's popularity led to a plethora of variations, sung by Polish patriots on different occasions. It also inspired other peoples struggling for independence during the 19th century. One of the songs strongly influenced by Poland Is Not Yet Lost is Hey Slavs, a former national anthem of Yugoslavia. When Poland re-emerged as an independent state in 1918, Mazurek Dabrowskiego became its de facto anthem. It was officially adopted as the national anthem of the Republic of Poland in 1926.
The original lyrics authored by Wybicki was a poem consisting of six stanzas and a chorus repeated after all but last stanzas, all following an ABAB rhyme scheme. The official lyrics, based on a variant from 1806, show a certain departure from the original text. It misses two of the original stanzas and reverses the order of other two. Notably, the initial verse, "Poland has not yet died" was replaced with "Poland has not yet perished", suggesting a more violent cause of the nation's possible death.[2] Wybicki's original manuscript was in the hands of his descendants until February 1944, when it was lost in Wybicki's great-great-grandson, Johann von Roznowski's home in Charlottenburg during the Allied bombing of Berlin. The manuscript is known today only from facsimile copies, twenty four of which were made in 1886 by Edward Roznowski, Wybicki's grandson, who donated them to Polish libraries.
The main theme of the poem is the idea that was novel in the times of early nationalisms based on centralized nation-states – that the lack of political sovereignty does not preclude the existence of a nation. As Adam Mickiewicz explained in 1842 to students of Slavic Literature in Paris, the song "begins with verses which are the emblem of recent history: 'Poland has not yet perished, so long as we still live'. These words mean that people who have in them what indeed constitutes nationality are able to extend the existence of their nation regardless of the political circumstances of that existence, and may even pursue its re-creation." The song also includes a call to arms and expresses the hope that, under General Dabrowski's command, the legionaries would rejoin their nation and retrieve "what the alien force has seized" through armed struggle.
The chorus and subsequent stanzas include heart-lifting examples of military heroes, set as role models for Polish soldiers: Jan Henryk Dabrowski, Napoléon Bonaparte, Stefan Czarniecki and Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Dabrowski, for whom the anthem is named, was a commander in the failed 1794 Kosciuszko Uprising against Russia. After the Third Partition in 1795, he came to Paris to seek French aid in re-establishing Polish independence and, in 1796, he started the formation of the Polish Legions, a Polish unit of the French Revolutionary Army. Bonaparte was, at the time when the song was written, a commander of the Italian campaign of French Revolutionary Wars and Dabrowski's superior. Having already proven his skills as a military leader, he is described in the lyrics as the one "who has shown us ways to victory." Bonaparte is the only non-Polish person mentioned by name in the Polish anthem.
Stefan Czarniecki was a 17th-century hetman (military commander), famous for his role in driving the Swedish army out of Poland after an occupation that had left the country in ruins and is remembered by Poles as the Deluge. With the outbreak of a Dano-Swedish war, he continued his fight against Sweden in Denmark, from where he "returned across the sea" to fight the invaders alongside the king who was then at the Royal Castle in Poznań. In the same castle, Józef Wybicki, started his career as a lawyer (in 1765). Kosciuszko, mentioned in a stanza now missing from the anthem, became a hero of the American Revolutionary War before coming back to Poland to defend his native country from Russia in the war of 1792 and a national uprising he led in 1794. One of his major victories during the uprising was the Battle of Raclawice where the result was partly due to Polish peasants armed with scythes. Alongside the scythes, the song mentioned other types of weapon, traditionally used by the Polish szlachta, or nobility: the sabre, known in Polish as szabla, and the backsword.
Basia (a female name, diminutive of Barbara) and her father are fictional characters supposed to evoke a sentimental image of women and elderly men waiting for Polish soldiers to return home and liberate their fatherland. The route that Dabrowski and his legions hoped to follow upon leaving Italy is hinted at by the words "cross the Vistula (Polish: Wisla), cross the Warta", two major rivers flowing through the parts of Poland that were in Austrian and Prussian hands at the time.
