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p_l 4 days ago

Imperial Russia, not communists

amszmidt 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

AFAIR .. it wasn't even banned during the Imperial Russian times; rather it was just considered a "Russian" dance.

Never heard of the Polonez being banned during PRL times... We sure danced it out in the fields then (though this was later times).

vkazanov 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

As a half Polish half Russian who grew up in soviet Lithuania i still remember hating to learn polonez in the late soviet period. Dancing doesn't involve computers...

Anyways, as a single statistically insignificant fact: polonez was not banned in late ussr.

And a glamorous version of polonez was also taught in higher imperial circles. At some point everything polish was quite trendy. Probably not around the big 19th century uprising though.

The full story of the dance and the music in the empire is quite a bit more complicated than just "banned" or "not banned". Many polonezes were written by Polish aristocrates integrated into imperial elites and were very popular.

One example is Oginsky's polonez. Oginsky was one of the uprising avtive participants. And also an imperial senator.

There's also Kozlovsky (orthodox Polish from belarus or something) whose polonez was an unofficial imperial hymn at some point.

So go figure. History is never as simple as narrative builds try to put it.

p_l 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Polonez certainly wasn't banned under PRL or USSR, but it would not surprise me if Chopin arrangements of Polonez were banned in "Congress Poland" but allowed in "proper Russia"

anticodon 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wasn't banned by Imperial Russia either. There was a very short period of time (1799-1828) when all kind of waltzes were banned, but the ban was never enforced and it had nothing to do specifically with polonez or Poland.

sparky_z 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I wouldn't describe 29 years as "a very short period of time".

olddustytrail 4 days ago | parent [-]

Clearly not a geologist...

akho 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And the de facto Russian national anthem at the time was a polonaise.

akho 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The article’s title is “Once banned by communists, Poland’s stately 18th century dance garners UNESCO honors”.

Imperial Russia also never banned the polonaise, obviously.