Jak gdyby nigdy nic (As If Nothing Happened...) -- tango (Scher /Jerry) -- Albert Harris & Orkiestra Odeon pod dyr. J. Gerta, Odeon 1936 (Polish)
NOTE: Certainly, this is one of the most beautiful Polish songs composed before 1939. Written by Alfred (Fred) Scher, who was one of best composers of the film-music in prewar Poland, it got excellent lyrics written by Jerry (pseudonym of a poet, Jerzy Ryba) with the evergreen schlagwort (niem: the hit-line): Jak gdyby nigdy nic... (As if nothing mattered... As if nothing ever happened [between us]). This phrase is until today, sometimes sung by the lovers, who even don't know, where it comes from. The text tells about Him, who waits for Her, who is coming back "after so many long years". And he tells to her in his thoughts: when you come back -- I won't ask you about anything, I will simply say "hello", just as if nothing happened,. And when you enter this room again, it will be full of flowers, as if nothing ever happened between us... Only, when you rise your eyes and meet mine, you will see in them such sorrow, such immense sorrow, that it'll make you pause your steps... Then you will understand: that something is finished, and there's no use bringing it back by force, as if nothing happened between us.
Ofcourse, such hit needs a proper frame, and I decided I the best I can do is continuing the Polish prewar country manors photoshow (see part one presented several days ago, with the Faliszewski's hit "Marzenie" • Polish tango: Tadeusz ...
See also Mieczysław Fogg's version of this lovely song • Henryk Gold & Mieczysł...
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A piece of history: Polish landed gentry (in Polish: "ziemianie", from ziemia, "land") was more than just a social group of hereditary landowners who held manorial estates. Within their tradition they also preserved the best of the national memory of the historical Polish chivalry, who served the nation and defenced the land. Although the March Constitution of Poland (1921) abolished the legal class of hereditary nobility, the social group of nobility remained socially recognized and gentry remained both an economic and social reality.
At the end of World War II, by the Polish Land Reform (1944) carried out by the Polish Committee of National Liberation this group was eliminated. All "ziemianie" were evicted from their home and land, and the homes -- each being a little museum of precious Polish historical documents and art - forever destroyed. (Today, even the renovated ones are nothing but Disneyland.) Many gentry families, especially those descended from hereditary nobles, but also the landed gentry of commoner origin were eliminated by the Germans and Russians even earlier during the War.
The unhealable wound remains open in the place, where once the noble class of "ziemianie" were in the Polish history. Nothing can repair in the Polish legacy that immense loss of the priceless historical objects and nothing can bring back to the Polish identity the lost gene pool of the best part of the nation, which was exterminated during the war as well as during the postwar years, so by the German as the Soviet occupants of Poland.
Also, in postwar years, the action was carried on by the communists, aimed at the final destruction of the roots of chivalry in the Polish population. After the almost total annihilation in years 1939-45 of Polish nobility inhabiting Polish territories, which due to the Yalta Pact of 1943 were incorporated into the Soviet Union -- the archives of old Polish families were captured by the competent cells of the NKVD. On basis of these documents, fabricated were the false biographies of many communist agents - often native Russians (eg. gensek Boleslaw Bierut or marshal Rokossovsky) who, after training in Moscow, were sent to Poland onto high positions in the Communist apparatus. In the contemporary Polish politics still are active many descendants of those fake Polish landowners, who, thanks to their historical names, enjoy high respect in the society, while in the same time are playing a double game and support many of the post-communist machinations, in -- and around Poland.
25 янв 2014
