Thread by @FAB87F

Poland Is Not Yet Lost - The History of Poland's National Anthem

Whether you call it “Poland is Not Yet Lost,” “Song of the Polish Legions in Italy” or “Dąbrowski’s Mazurka,” they all describe the same thing: Poland’s national anthem.
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Despite the various sombre titles, the anthem is composed in the cheerful style of a Polish mazurka - lively Polish folk music that utilises a triple meter - and is played at all major sporting events and national holidays.
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The man behind the now famous lyrics is Józef Wybicki (1747-1822), a jurist by profession, but also a renowned Polish intellectual, poet, diplomat and political activist.
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After the 1795 partition of Poland, which erased the country from the map, between its Russian, Austrian and Prussian neighbors, Wybicki headed to Italy to help form the Polish Legions, to fight alongside France’s Napoleon Bonaparte’s army.
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Napoleon Bonaparte was seen, as the most promising bet to help Poland regain its independence.

Wybicki wrote the original lines of the song in Reggio Emilia, near Bologna, in 1797 to celebrate the retirement of some of the Polish legion’s soldiers.
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But its uplifting melody and hopeful lyrics (March, March, Dąbrowski, from the Italian land to Poland, under your command, we shall rejoin the nation) quickly conquered the hearts of the soldiers and lifted the spirits of the troops.
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The founder and general of the Polish Legions Jan Henryk Dąbrowski – to whom the song is dedicated – wrote to Wybicki a few weeks later: “The soldiers seem to like your song more every day. We are humming it often too, with all the due respect to the author”.
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General Henryk Dąbrowski organised soldiers to fight with Napoleon against the Austrians, with the hope of pushing that fight into the homeland for a national uprising.

Wybicki’s tune was created to boost the morale of those soldiers.
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It proved to be an hit beyond the front lines thanks to its uplifting lyrics - a song which would become an anthem for a state which did not feature on maps, but touched a chord with Polish people, the symbol of the irrepressibility of the Polish spirit.
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National uprisings and wars were a key feature in trying to regain a country, but the preservation of Polish culture through literature and music were equally as important. The opening stanza sums up this notion of Polish defiance perfectly:
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"Poland has not yet perished
So long as we still live
What foreign force has taken from us
We shall take back with the sabre."
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The anthem contains a reference to Napoleon with whose armies the Poles hope to ‘cross the Vistula and Warta (rivers) .... Bonaparte has shown us the roads to victory.’ Sadly, as with most Polish tales, things did not end well for Dąbrowski and his soldiers.
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The French turned out to be less than useful allies, exploiting the Polish soldiers and decimating their ranks via war and disease, effectively killing any chance of recapturing the homeland.
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Throughout the entire 19th century, Dąbrowski’s Mazurka remained highly popular and became a symbol of the Polish people’s struggle for freedom.
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It was for instance heard at most of the key events in Polish 19th century history, including during the 1830 November Uprising and the 1905 revolution.
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But when Poland once again became a free nation at the end of WWI the song was revived and declared the country’s official anthem in 1926.
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One of the most famous performances of “Poland is Not Yet Lost” came in 1945, when famed Polish pianist Artur Rubinstein performed at the opening concert at the inauguration of the United Nations.
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Upset that Poland had no delegation, Rubinstein played a loud, slow version of the anthem, repeating the final section loudly. This display of patriotism resulted in Rubinstein receiving a standing ovation.
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The composer Józef Wybicki called Poland’s Kashubia region home.

A National Anthem Museum opened in 1978 in the northern city of Będomin, Wybicki’s birth place about 50 km south of Gdansk located in Wybicki's manor house.
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If you happen to be in the neighborhood, you should definitely make a stop at the museum, where you’ll also be able to listen to the numerous parodies of the mazurka created throughout the centuries.
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There, you’ll also learn how the Polish mazurka inspired other national anthems in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Ukrainian national anthem and the Pan-Slavic song “Hey, Slavs”, used as the official anthem of war-time Slovakia and Yugoslavia.
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As for the Flag of Poland. Here is a link to the equally fascinating if less poetic story of the Polish flag.

https://twitter.com/FAB87F/status/1625886838245261313?s=20

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