4 ms·

Can someone give a source for communists banning polonaise? It sounds implausible, and googling did not produce a satisfying result.

by akho 1y ago

where-group-by 1y ago
Surface google searches do not return anything meaningful. It would be also weird to call one of the domestic car lines after something that is supposedly banned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Polonez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Polonez
HPsquared 1y ago
It's interesting, I asked ChatGPT about this and it said it was not banned, then I turned on "search the web" and it says it was - citing AP News and VoA, basically this very article. I wonder if there's any more info. Edit: funnily enough DeepSeek gives an answer that sounds plausible: apparently during the Stalinist period of 40s-50s while it supposedly wasn't outright banned "overt displays of national pride were often discouraged" ... That seems to fit, and a bit of judgement over whether something is banned explicitly or simply so unthinkable in the official climate that it may as well be banned.
- everdrive 1y ago
  >It's interesting, I asked ChatGPT about this and it said it was not banned, Asking ChatGPT is useless for finding a definitive answer for anything, and all the more so when the facts are in question.
  - floydnoel 1y ago
    it feels like soon anything that chatgpt doesn't know will be deemed "misinformation" any experts in any field can easily find tons of stuff LLMs don’t know. hell they don’t even know how to measure or calculate wallpaper correctly.
    - olddustytrail 1y ago
      Nobody can. Wallpaper calculations are in the realm of eldritch mathematics. You always end up with a gap, and despite that several rolls left over! Which you will then keep for years "just in case".
p_l 1y ago
Imperial Russia, not communists
- amszmidt 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
  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.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
krige 1y ago
The sources come from Polish language books. Folk dances were a part of school curriculum in the first half of the XXth century, and part of the maturity exam was ceremonial dancing of polonez. In 1948 the whole education system was changed to be in line with USSR programs, and folk dances, including the polonez ceremony, were removed as class "unjust". This was not a hard ban, and the tradition slowly, unofficially at first, came back a couple decades later anyway. FWIW the Imperial Russia didn't like the Chopin polonez (the music) either and considered it "a cannon hidden in a bocquet", forbidding its performance in their part of the occupied/partitioned territory (ironically it was perfectly fine to play it in Russia itself).
- akho 1y ago
  There is a large distance between “removed from curriculum” and “banned”. I suspect that it’s not in the current school graduation requirements either. The “cannon hidden in the flowers” quote comes from Schumann, who wasn’t Russian. Chopin, of course, sympathized with the November uprising and renounced his Russian citizenship, so Tsarist Russia was not happy about that. That does not tell you anything about the polonaise itself, though.
  - alxlaz 1y ago
    > There is a large distance between “removed from curriculum” and “banned”. I suspect that it’s not in the current school graduation requirements either. Not necessarily, early on things got dropped from the curricula all the time because the GUKPiW had banned them, either specifically or by topic. Blanket bans on general topics or activities make it extremely difficult to discuss censorship post-factum. For example, Juliusz Slowacki wasn't banned, but while some of his works could be freely published in some media they were fully or partially banned in other media (notoriously, Television Theatre got in trouble over parts from Kordian). Lots of cultural activities or works weren't banned directly, or not in all forms.
    - akho 1y ago
      Yes, “large distance” implies that many in-between options exist. Folk dances, however, were a whole thing with Stalinists (“culture that is national in form, and socialist in content”), so an outright ban would seem out of character. I would probably remove folk dances from school graduation requirements too, if I somehow fumbled into a position where I take those kinds of decisions.

Can someone give a source for communists banning polonaise? It sounds implausible, and googling did not produce a satisfying result.

by akho 1y ago

Can someone give a source for communists banning polonaise? It sounds implausible, and googling did not produce a satisfying result.

where-group-by 1y ago

Surface google searches do not return anything meaningful. It would be also weird to call one of the domestic car lines after something that is supposedly banned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Polonez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Polonez

HPsquared 1y ago

It's interesting, I asked ChatGPT about this and it said it was not banned, then I turned on "search the web" and it says it was - citing AP News and VoA, basically this very article. I wonder if there's any more info. Edit: funnily enough DeepSeek gives an answer that sounds plausible: apparently during the Stalinist period of 40s-50s while it supposedly wasn't outright banned "overt displays of national pride were often discouraged" ... That seems to fit, and a bit of judgement over whether something is banned explicitly or simply so unthinkable in the official climate that it may as well be banned.

everdrive 1y ago
>It's interesting, I asked ChatGPT about this and it said it was not banned, Asking ChatGPT is useless for finding a definitive answer for anything, and all the more so when the facts are in question.
- floydnoel 1y ago
  it feels like soon anything that chatgpt doesn't know will be deemed "misinformation" any experts in any field can easily find tons of stuff LLMs don’t know. hell they don’t even know how to measure or calculate wallpaper correctly.
  - olddustytrail 1y ago
    Nobody can. Wallpaper calculations are in the realm of eldritch mathematics. You always end up with a gap, and despite that several rolls left over! Which you will then keep for years "just in case".

p_l 1y ago

Imperial Russia, not communists

amszmidt 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
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.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

krige 1y ago

The sources come from Polish language books. Folk dances were a part of school curriculum in the first half of the XXth century, and part of the maturity exam was ceremonial dancing of polonez. In 1948 the whole education system was changed to be in line with USSR programs, and folk dances, including the polonez ceremony, were removed as class "unjust". This was not a hard ban, and the tradition slowly, unofficially at first, came back a couple decades later anyway. FWIW the Imperial Russia didn't like the Chopin polonez (the music) either and considered it "a cannon hidden in a bocquet", forbidding its performance in their part of the occupied/partitioned territory (ironically it was perfectly fine to play it in Russia itself).

akho 1y ago
There is a large distance between “removed from curriculum” and “banned”. I suspect that it’s not in the current school graduation requirements either. The “cannon hidden in the flowers” quote comes from Schumann, who wasn’t Russian. Chopin, of course, sympathized with the November uprising and renounced his Russian citizenship, so Tsarist Russia was not happy about that. That does not tell you anything about the polonaise itself, though.
- alxlaz 1y ago
  > There is a large distance between “removed from curriculum” and “banned”. I suspect that it’s not in the current school graduation requirements either. Not necessarily, early on things got dropped from the curricula all the time because the GUKPiW had banned them, either specifically or by topic. Blanket bans on general topics or activities make it extremely difficult to discuss censorship post-factum. For example, Juliusz Slowacki wasn't banned, but while some of his works could be freely published in some media they were fully or partially banned in other media (notoriously, Television Theatre got in trouble over parts from Kordian). Lots of cultural activities or works weren't banned directly, or not in all forms.
  - akho 1y ago
    Yes, “large distance” implies that many in-between options exist. Folk dances, however, were a whole thing with Stalinists (“culture that is national in form, and socialist in content”), so an outright ban would seem out of character. I would probably remove folk dances from school graduation requirements too, if I somehow fumbled into a position where I take those kinds of decisions.