Tango in the Stalinist Poland, 1954

Описание: Ulubione tango (My Favourite Tango) (J. Kozłowski) Orkiestra pod dyr. Piotra Szymanowskiego, Muza 1954 (Poland)

NOTE: Juxtaposed with typical Stalinist propaganda posters is rare and lovely recording of „prewar style" tango played by fine Polish tango-orchestra, one of few that were still able to perform & record such "burgeois music" in the year 1954. All my clip is supposed to portray the nightmare of national schizophrenia that laid hold of the poeople's minds in the Stalinist Poland (years 1948-56). On one hand, at homes they played such music, which painfully reminded everyone of not-long-ago and lost, as they thought, forever, capitalist society, free trade, democtratic rights for the people etc., while on the other hand, out in the streets was nothing but most vulgar Soviet-style propaganda, implanted by force onto the collective memory of the nation numbering as many as 10 centuries of its royal and democtratic history.

Such schizofrenic and a pure-nonsense process of indoctrination was possible only by eliminating the intelligentsia, first in a physical sense (example of which was NKVD-organised Katyn massacre of 10 thousand Polish officers in 1940) and - secondly - by their professional degradation and cutting off sources of their oeconomic existence. That's exactly what happened to my family: my Father, who until the 2nd World War was a director of secondary school near Poznań, in 1948 was automatically deprived of his professional status. He was offered a continuation of his career only under condition of enrolling into the Communist Party of Poland - the offer the rejection of which was more than obvious to him. Also my Mother, a typical representative of prewar "possesive middle class", was not given better chance to work, than physically.

What I remember from early childhood are posters like this decorating most of free space on the city walls... while... as soon as you crossed treshold of your home - what release! Such beautiful music was played on the gramophone, or by the radio when Dad tuned in some West European stations, or when it was sung and played on piano by my Parents!

This tango is dedicated to their heroic, invincible love for Truth and Beauty they - like so many Poles of their generation - never deceived.