Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The world of the young maestro

Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s correspondence with his father and Helena Górska offers a glimpse of the atmosphere and aura of the times that had shaped the musician and future president of Poland

.Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s correspondence with his father and future wife Helena Górska can be placed in a specific time and space, namely the broadly defined turn of the 20th century. Technically speaking, it covers the years 1872–1924, but in fact almost all of the letters were sent between 1872 and 1899. This helps us to characterise with some precision the period in which the artist and the recipients of his letters lived, and to identify the people they met, whether described in detail or mentioned in passing. Reading the letters, it is also easy to recognise the events, institutions and places visited such as cities, countries and continents.

Poland, a country that did not exist at the time, was going through a post-insurrection period, experiencing profound social, political and cultural changes. The general thrust of this evolution was similar everywhere.

It was a shift from the dominant late feudalism, largely dependent on agricultural production that was still based on serf labour, to capitalism, ushering in the age of factories and growing urbanisation. However, the nature and pace of that transition varied in the three regions of Poland controlled by different partitioning powers. It is also important to remember that Polish life continued in émigrécircles abroad. The dwindling Great Emigration to France, initially composed of veterans of the November Uprising, and then also of those who had fought in the January Uprising, was replaced by another wave of emigrants, this time mainly young socialists and students. Apart from France, they could be found in Switzerland, Belgium and the British Isles.

But that was not all. By the end of the century, another phenomenon was underway. In addition to political emigration, there was now a tendency to emigrate in search of work. This economic emigration consisted almost exclusively of landless or small farmers from various regions of Poland and equally poor Jews. The destinations were the industrialised countries of Western Europe, but a much larger wave, as it were, reached “America”. At first, “America” meant Brazil, but as time went on more and more people headed for the dynamically growing United States. As a result, the first Polish communities were established on both continents, forming the nucleus of the Polish diaspora.

Meanwhile, Europe was entering the period of Belle Époque with increasing speed. It was a beautiful finale indeed, but it ended dramatically with the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914. The war precipitated the end of European domination in the world. A new global power was rapidly emerging oversees: the United States. If we read the letters carefully, we can trace the symptoms of many of these changes. Although they are described more by accident than by design, one gets the impression that as Paderewski, whose artistic reputation was already well established, approached maturity, he became more interested in what was happening around him in the fields of social change and politics, not to mention art, his preferred domain.

It is also worth noting, that some mentions or dry phrases that the writer seems to have used in passing conceal a deeper meaning. This applies, for example, to the Jews who are sometimes described in the letters with a sense of superiority. Such treatment probably reflects the old habits of landowners who patronised their Jewish middlemen in the eastern regions of Poland. But there is something more there. The passages reveal an awareness of the growing presence of emancipated Jews in Europe, who were increasingly taking up public positions that had previously been closed to them. The new trend was not to everyone’s taste, including the artist’s. He changed his mind later on. The best proof is that he entrusted the writing of the libretto to Manru, his first and only opera, to Alfred Nossig, an assimilated Galician Jew who had even become a Zionist. As the years went by, Paderewski ventured further out into the world. The future maestro first left Sudyłków in Volhynia for Warsaw, accompanied by his father, and then travelled alone, visiting Vienna, Berlin, Paris and London, the centres of Europe and symbols of its power, to finally set off across the Atlantic, taking advantage of his considerable popularity. It was a path that few had taken before him, but one that would later attract scores of similar artistic personalities or scientists in search of better prospects for their work. Paderewski was 39 years old which meant that he was either still young or on the verge of old age, depending on which standard used at that time one chooses to apply.

We do not know much about the first stage of that journey as the maestro did not describe the world of his childhood. He did so later, but only in passing, jotting down some snapshots on the occasion of brief visits to his native land. That land was Podolia and Volhynia, once the vast eastern provinces of the former Commonwealth, with their capitals of Kamieniec Podolski and Lutsk. It was there that Ignacy’s great-grandfather – descended from the Paderewskis of the Jelita coat of arms, a family of minor nobles scattered along the River Bug in the regions of Podlasie and Kuyavia – established a small manor at the end of the 18th century. By doing so, he followed in the footsteps of many of his predecessors and contemporaries from central Commonwealth who hoped to improve their standard of living. However, one generation later, the Volhynia estate was lost. Ignacy’s grandfather and father had to content themselves with managing the estates of other landowning families. This reduced their status to nobles by origin only. After the fall of the Commonwealth, the two provinces became part of the Russian Empire as the governorates of Podolia and Volhynia. But for the Poles who lived there and those on the other side of the River Bug, the land was still Ruthenia or the so-called “seized territories”. Slowly but surely, this area, and then the rest of the eastern territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became the Kresy, the mythical land of Polish culture and tradition. The other Russian-controlled part of Poland visited by Paderewski was the Kingdom of Poland, created at the Congress of Vienna and hence known as the Congress Kingdom of Poland or Congress Poland. Once autonomous, it was virtually in its final days, transformed into the Priwislinskij kraj (Vistula Land) after the defeat of the January Uprising. When the twelve-year-old Ignacy settled in Warsaw for good, the city was nothing more than the capital of the Warsaw General Governorate, the westernmost outpost of tsarist Russia.

In the aftermath of the Uprising, the entire Russian-controlled territory was subjected to an increasingly aggressive Russification campaign, with the result that – except for a few churches or charitable institutions, Warsaw’s Resursa Obywatelska [Merchant’s Resource Association] and Towarzystwo Kredytowe Ziemskie [Landowners Credit Association] – Polish was all but driven out of the public sphere and could only survive in private homes. The censorship authorities had a tight grip on all publications and official activities, including culture and research, not to mention the education system which was largely Russian at all levels. In less official social gatherings, attempts were made to counter this policy by maintaining as far as possible the barriers of nationality and religion. In short, it was the Warsaw that Boleslaw Prus described in the novel Lalka and the instalments of his Weekly Chronicle. One of the few educational institutions in Warsaw that managed to retain its Polish character, despite overall Russian supervision, was the Warsaw Music Institute. Founded and run by Apolinary Kątski, it served as a conservatory and provided access to education for young Poles. It was there that Ignacy, who still went by the diminutive Ignaś, began (relatively late in his own estimation) his professional musical training, which included both performance technique and the art of composition.

In the 1870s, Warsaw was on the eve of rapid urbanisation brought about by the late arrival of capitalism. The lives of its inhabitants, like those of the majority of Poles under Russian rule, were still marked by the trauma of the failed January Uprising. By the late 1970s, however, the memory of the tragedy began to gradually fade as a new generation of young Poles entered public life. Intellectual life gained new momentum. The existing restrictions did not prevent the proliferation of literature and journalism written in the spirit of positivism or, in this particular case, “Warsaw positivism”. Painters who had learned their trade in Kraków and Munich created works on a wide range of subjects – landscapes, genre scenes, portraits and still lifes, as well as pictures alluding to the events in Polish history. The artists were sometimes supported by the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts as far as its budget allowed. During his ten years as a student in Warsaw and later as a teacher, Paderewski travelled extensively, getting to know the regions of the old Commonwealth beyond the Volhynia and Podolia that he remembered from his childhood: the Lithuanian and Belarusian lands (which many people still treated as the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania with its capital in Vilnius) where his first wife’s family came from. His itinerary then took him to Białystok, a fast-growing centre of the textile industry whose population included Poles, Belarussians and Jews. He went on to visit Livonia, still known as the “Polish Livonia”, and various towns in central Poland where he was either invited or where he stayed as a patient: Ciechocinek, Busko and Nałęczów. It was then that he crossed the border of the Russian Empire for the first time, which of course required a passport. This was how he came to know another part of partitioned Poland: Austrian Galicia.

Before this happened, Paderewski made his first visit to St Petersburg in July 1877. He stayed there for several weeks with the view of securing a position at the local conservatory. Built by Tsar Peter I on the Neva River and named after him, the “city of stone” was the capital of the Russian Empire. Its German-sounding name, which was only Russified to Petrograd during the First World War, was a telling sign of the dawning of a new era. The tsar had set the country – known as Moscow (Grand Duchy of Moscow) after its former capital – on a course of rapid modernisation, adopting many of the solutions typical of Western absolute monarchies, but also retaining the quintessentially Russian combination of Orthodox Christianity and imperial ambition. This work was continued and expanded on by subsequent rulers, most notably Catherine the Great, who placed an already imperial Russia at the centre of European politics in the late 18th century. Paderewski – a Pole born and raised in the Russian partition, who travelled the world on a Russian passport and was therefore often mistaken for a Russian – experienced this new Russia first-hand every day in the 1870s. At the time of his first visit to the heart of the state, it was ruled by Alexander II. Initially, the tsar adopted a liberal approach and it was in that vein that he launched several state reforms. The first and perhaps most important of these was the emancipation of peasants through the abolition of serfdom and bonded labour. In 1861 and 1864, the reform spread onto the lands of the Russian partition and had a significant impact on the social and economic transformation of this part of the former Commonwealth. At the same time, however, the tsar ruthlessly crushed any liberation movements that might have threatened his autocratic status. The Poles learned this the hard way during the January Uprising and the period following its suppression. In later years, harsh tsarist repression also affected young Russian rebels who were part of the Narodnik movement, the original version of agrarian socialism.  Radical in outlook, they did not shy away from acts of terrorism such as assassination attempts on tsarist dignitaries. Their young masterminds and perpetrators hoped to shake the very foundations of the regime. But even though one of the attacks claimed the life of the tsar himself, the only effect they had was to increase persecution. Notwithstanding these developments, during the reign of Alexander II, the empire successfully pursued a policy of further modernisation, gradually opening up avenues for the expansion of capitalism in Russia. However, the reforms were always implemented in the spirit of Peter I, offering modernisation without freedom. Advocates of a different approach – who were known as západniks or westernisers and were present in Russian culture and, to a much lesser extent, in politics – had to either quickly adapt their views or flee to the West to avoid imprisonment, exile or forced conscription. Hence the growing presence of Russian émigrés in Switzerland or France in the following decades of the 19th century. They were usually intellectuals with liberal or left-wing views who sometimes had close and good relations with émigrés from Poland. The guiding principle of Russian foreign policy during the reign of Tsar Alexander II was to do everything possible to maintain a strong alliance with the other two partitioning powers. This was reflected in the “alliance of the three emperors” which was renewed on several occasions and which, admittedly, had the effect of stabilising the European order. Its main aim was to combat all European freedom movements and, in particular, to join forces to crush Polish aspirations for independence. The most enduring bond of that alliance was therefore the need to keep tight control over the rebellious Poles. When Paderewski was already a virtuoso of growing renown, he had the opportunity to visit other major cities in Russia, mainly Moscow, but also Kiev and Odessa.

The aforementioned Galicia, which Paderewski often visited, was already one of the “crown lands” of the Habsburg monarchy, a land that had recently been granted a great deal of autonomy. Although Galicia’s independence did not speed up its economic development, it did have one undeniable advantage.  The fact that the region began to be governed by the Polish elite in the 1860s meant that it was possible to advance national culture and education at all levels and cultivate Polish traditions. It also opened up opportunities for the inhabitants of the Austrian partition to become actively involved in politics at the local (local government), Galician (Sejm and Wydział Krajowy [Galician Authority]) and central (bicameral Reichsrat, government) levels. In fact, Galicia was later to be the only partition in which it was possible to carry out pro-independence activities.

For this reason, the Austrian partition was referred to as the „Polish Piedmont”. However, Galicia was far from monocultural, and whatever the Poles gained did not necessarily improve the lot of the other two large communities that would later be called national minorities: the Ruthenian Ukrainians and the Jews.

During that period of autonomy, they were in a much worse position, aggravated by the emerging differences of interest that led to the first conflicts, mainly Polish-Ukrainian. Still, despite the growing tensions, the period was also beneficial to these two groups as they were able to lay the foundations for modern Ukrainian and Jewish culture and national identity, and to develop their own political elites. This was facilitated by the liberal constitution granted by Emperor Franz Joseph I in December 1867. Paderewski often stayed in Galicia, giving concerts or enjoying the local spas (Szczawnica, Krynica). He also visited Zakopane, a town that, from the 1880s, was becoming a fashionable centre of Polish cultural, political and social life.

An excellent educational background and a teaching position at the Music Institute were not enough to satisfy the young musician’s ambitions. He wanted to hone his skills and test his undoubted talent in the concert halls of Europe. So, after ten years spent in Warsaw, he set out to conquer the world. His first stop was Berlin. The city was just entering a period of dynamic urbanisation, transforming itself from the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia to the capital of the Second Reich unified by Chancellor Otto Bismarck’s “blood and iron” policy. The city, which soon achieved the status of a European metropolis, and the country as a whole were going through a period of rapid growth. Military might, proven in the victorious war against Napoleon III’s France, was now backed by an increasingly powerful economy, especially in industry. This motivated the German elites to translate these successes into the realm of politics by becoming a superpower, complete with its own set of colonies. By the end of the nineteenth century, this fast-growing appetite was casting an ever-deeper shadow over the hitherto stable balance of power in central Europe. This soon led to the emergence of two antagonistic blocs on a crash course towards military conflict. The confrontation came in August 1914 with the outbreak of the Great War, which engulfed first Europe and then the entire world.

The war put an end to European domination in the world. Once again, the progression of Paderewski’s career took him to other large cities in unified Germany. Among them was Breslau (as present-day Wrocław was called until 1945), the ancient heart of Lower Silesia that once belonged to the Piasts and then the Prussians. By all accounts, it was the largest and most vibrant city in eastern Germany, home to a great university whose students included Poles from other partitions. Paderewski also visited another major city that emerged at that time, namely Katowice, located in Upper Silesia, a region that was already heavily industrialised.

Paderewski’s short stays in Germany gave him the opportunity to get to know the Prussian partition (after the Russian and Austrian ones). Its central part was Wielkopolska. Formerly the Grand Duchy of Poznan established at the Congress of Vienna, the region had been recently transformed into one of the provinces of the new German state whose policy of „Drang nach Osten” targeted Polishness and the Poles. The policy was mainly implemented through measures such as the “Prussian deportations”, which consisted in the brutal expulsion of Polish agricultural labourers who worked seasonally on the estates of the local landed gentry; the Kulturkampf whose aim was to combat the Catholic Church (still entirely Polish at the time); and the actions aimed at dispossessing the Poles of their land to make way for German settlers. This was accompanied by various forms of increasingly aggressive Germanisation. However, the people of Wielkopolska put up a brave and successful resistance, invoking the existing constitution and other provisions of Prussian law. They were exceptionally adept at using this legal framework to set up their own Polish self-help institutions, whether in the area of the economy or culture. They thus managed to avoid insurrections, except for the short-lived Spring of Nations, and fought „the longest war in civilised Europe”, emerging victorious. The positive outcome of that war was that Wielkopolska was the most developed region of all the Polish lands during the partitions.

The young pianist’s journey across Europe then took him to Vienna, where the renowned composer and teacher Theodor Leschetizky conducted a kind of masterclass for carefully selected students. It was an excellent decision. Paderewski had a very high opinion of the pedagogue and his teaching methods, which ultimately shaped his unique artistic identity. At the end of the 19th century, Vienna was the most important intellectual centre in Europe after Paris. It had a thriving research community, especially in the humanities (philosophy, sociology, psychology combined with psychiatry), natural sciences and law. It was also a hotbed of artistic activity (literature, fine arts, architecture). Its influence radiated throughout a large part of the continent that is often referred to today as Central Europe, leaving its strongest or at least most visible mark on secular, religious and military architecture. We can easily find numerous traces of this influence in the various cities of the region, from Lviv and Krakow in the north to Zagreb, Ljubljana and Trieste in the south. The two dominant artistic styles also originated in imperial Vienna – first Biedermeier, then Art Nouveau. The entire region was controlled by Austria-Hungary, a Habsburg empire ruled by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Its capital, Vienna, was inevitably a major political centre that still had a lot of clout in the European balance of power. The metropolis also had its fair share of Poles who were active in different fields. They belonged to various elite groups, ranging from the aristocracy and politicians to artists, scientists and cultural figures. But it had also attracted newcomers from other corners of Galicia, such as Ruthenians and Jews, who had previously lived far from the great city. They flocked to Vienna in search of better living conditions for themselves and their families. Sometimes referred to as “Galitzianers”, they formed the nucleus of economic emigration. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was newly endowed with a constitution that guaranteed its inhabitants a wide range of public and personal freedoms well as a parliamentary system based on the principles of liberal democracy. Stretching from the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains to the Adriatic Sea, the state was a mosaic of many nationalities (officially known only as “peoples”), cultures, faiths and languages (there was no single official language).

The Habsburg dynasty, represented in this case by Franz Joseph I (Ferenc Josef I), Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary in one person, had so far served as a unifying factor, defusing the growing internal tensions and mutual resentments between the nations inhabiting the individual “crown lands”. However, while the empire was geographically vast, its economic and military potential lagged behind. Most of the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, including the lands of the Austrian partition – Galicia – did not meet the Western European standards of civilisation. As a result, the empire’s position on the European stage became increasingly weak. Due to the growing rivalry with Russia for dominance in the Balkans, Austria-Hungary sought political support from Germany, on which it gradually became dependent. The capital of Galicia, where the young pianist sometimes gave concerts, was Lemberg. It was the seat of the governor, the Galician Diet and many other political, financial, research (university and polytechnic) and cultural bodies. The largest Galician city benefited from the period of autonomy. It quickly acquired all the trappings of a major city to become one of the Central European metropolises at the turn of the 20th century, its urban development being modelled on that of Vienna. This of course depended on the potential of the land as a whole. Other notable cities that Paderewski toured were Prague and Budapest.  The latter, which was the centre of the Hungarian part of the monarchy (Transleithania) and was enjoying a period of prosperity, as evidenced by the magnificent Parliament building, which still towers over the Danube, and the second underground network in Europe.

Gaining ever more momentum, Paderewski’s career had to be put to the ultimate test in the concert halls of Paris, the informal heart of cultural Europe, and Victorian London, the capital of Great Britain, the only global empire of the time. When it happened and when he passed that rigorous test with flying colours, the young virtuoso concluded that he had already conquered all of Europe between Moscow and London. It was time to move to another continent and knock on the door of the New World. This he did, and the last part of the world we find described in his letters is the United States of America.

Initially, his experience was limited to a relatively small section of the East Coast. But the places he visited were the very cradle of the United States: Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, and then New York and Chicago. Later on he would venture out as far west as the Mexican border. After the abolition of slavery and the carnage of the Civil War, the United States embarked on a path of increasingly rapid growth. The trauma of what was essentially a bloody fratricidal conflict lingered for a long time. Paradoxically, however, it marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the young state, giving rise to national structures and practices that have survived to this day. In the late 1860s, the country finally defined its borders and its internal system based on an updated version of federalism, a strong presidency and competition between the two main political parties. US population grew year by year, boosted by successive waves of emigration from Europe. The country was immense and the vast stretches of land to the west needed to be populated by settlers. The drive west was accompanied by the violent removal of the indigenous inhabitants of those regions. This was the beginning of the Wild West, that mythical land that is still alive not only in American culture, but also across the world. The region was being conquered by pioneers, indomitable settlers, hardworking farmers, swashbuckling cowboys, and righteous judges supported by brave sheriffs who successfully fought outlaws, ruthless criminals and the aggressive „savage” Apache and Sioux tribes (whose attacks were increasingly rare). It was also the land of the gold rush, fortunes lost as quickly as they were made, great challenges and great opportunities. However, the Wild West was rapidly becoming civilised and was soon woven into the economic fabric of the developing industrial economy. Indeed, all the American states, though still much diverse, were eventually united into a single federal organism by means of the powerful instrument that was the rapidly growing railway network. But at the time of Paderewski’s arrival in the United States, the West was still wild, while the East was increasingly urbanised and civilised. Its wealthy elites were avid for all things European, fascinated by ancient cultures and eager to visit the Old Continent. Trips to Paris, Rome or London helped them assimilate the local lifestyles which they wanted to imitate. As a result, the first millionaires not only built factories, shipyards, railways and skyscrapers, but also set up foundations in their name. These in turn either supported existing museums, theatres, libraries, concert halls and universities, or initiated the creation of new ones. Thanks to the readily available funds such buildings soon bustled with life in the form of numerous artistic events, exhibitions, performances and concerts. Some of the young musical ensembles and individual artists performing there quickly reached a high level of artistic ability. But the country was also keen to meet European stars. On the other hand, genuine or would-be virtuosos from Europe were encouraged to venture oversees by the increasingly efficient shipping lines, generous fees and news of the warm welcome given by American audiences. It was under such circumstances that Ignacy Jan Paderewski went on his first US tour in 1891. After that, he came to perform in the United States more and more frequently, which earned him the status of a world star. It was also then that he made his first contacts with the Polish community. When in America, Paderewski developed an interest in non-artistic matters. This set him on a course of social engagement which turned into political activity following the outbreak of the First World War.

Tomasz Gąsowski