To ostatnia niedziela (It's The Last Sunday) (Petersburski /Friedwald) - Zygmunt Piotrowski z ork. Syrena-Rekord, Melodja-Electro 1935
Melodja-Electro was a dime store version (it cost only 1,5 zl) of Syrena-Electro. Many artists disagreed to appear on this label (Adam Aston, Mieczysław Fogg, Hanka Ordonówna), while others were mentioned merely as "refrain singers" or under a nick (e.g. Tadeusz Faliszewski's label name for Melodja- Electro was Jan Pobóg). This most famous tango of prewar Poland (ex-aequo with Petersburski's "Oh Donna Clara") is performed here by Zygmunt Piotrowski, who was in years 1930-32 a member of Chór Wiehlera revellers' group, to join later Chór Juranda as their first tenor. He also recorded for Cristal-Electro in a duett with R. Marrot (Duet "Corda" see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D5Wq1qjZeY ). That modest and little known singer, who most of his life worked as a streetcar operator, died of tuberculosis during the German occupation of Warsaw.
I decided to upload this fairly wornout side firstly, because this "suicide-tango" had become a legend and each prewar Polish version of it has a special value (see also Mieczysław Fogg's version at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-hg58QQmdc ) secondly: that scratchy, dim tone of the old tango matched perfectly these ancient postcards of towns and villages of the "Polish Atlantis" - the lost forever universe of Polskie Kresy Wschodnie (Polish East Borderlands)...
NOTE: Polish Kresy (Polish Eastern Borderlands) - the term used to describe Polish eastern territories that belonged to Poland before 1939 (The Voivodeships of Lwów, Stanisławów, Tarnopol, Volhynia, Wilno, Nowogródek) and now constitute western territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. As a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, on September 17, 1939 the territory was annexed by the Soviet Union, and a significant part of the ethnic Polish population of the eastern Kresy was deported to other areas of the Soviet Union including Siberia and Kazakhstan. During the Teheran Conference in 1943, a new Soviet-Polish border was established, in effect sanctioning most of the Soviet territorial acquisitions from September 1939 and ignoring protests from the Polish emigre government in London. Soviet Union incorporated Polish Kresy into the Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, and 50 years later when the Soviet Union broke up, they remained part of those respective republics after they gained independence.
Before September 1939 the population of the Kresy was multi-ethnic, primarily comprising Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians. According to Polish research, Poles formed the largest ethnic group in these regions, and were demographically the largest ethnic group in the region's cities. Other national minorities included Lithuanians (in the north), Jews (scattered in cities and towns across the area), Czechs (in Volhynia), and also Russians. Mother language given in 1931 Polish census was following: Lwów Voivodeship: 58% Polish, 34% Ukrainian language , 8% Yiddish, Vilno Voivodeship: 60% Polish, 23% Belarussian, 8% Yiddish, 3% Russian, 8% Other, including Lithuanian.
Now, the term Kresy is for most Poles an imaginary place of Polish legends and of valorous deeds. The places of mystical "Polish defenders of Christian Europe" first against Tatar and Turkish invaders: Wolodyjowski, Zagloba and Kmicic, and in the XXth Century - against "the Bolshevik plague" from Soviet Russia. The elite of Polish aristocracy and landowners had their enormous properties in Kresy, where, in their "private kingdoms" the richest, the most magnificent renaissance or baroque palaces, churches, monasteries were build during long ages of domination of the Polish culture in that area. Also, the worldwide legend of the "East-European Jewish shtetl" comes from Kresy: When one reads the biographies of great Jewish men of the science, culture or the politics, their birthplaces so often being in Lwów, Wilno, Grodno, Stryj, Drohobycz Czortków, Buczacz, Kołomyja and hundreds of other towns, and villages, immediately evoke in Polish imagination that magic word: Kresy.
Unfortunately, with some exceptions in the bigger cities, like Wilno or Lwów, today most of the priceless cultural heritage of the multi-age Polish presence in that area is not restaured any more and, predominantly, left to decay.
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Mieczysław Fogg - Ostatnia niedziela, 1936by 2402521,035,147 views
This is an enjoyable version with nice singing and lovely orchestration. I agree that the sound gives an authentic feeling. And what fabulous photos of the Eastern towns! Special thanks for the two of Buczacz, my father's hometown. My grandfather owned a business there and who knows if it wasn't in the rynek!
dzheger 2 years ago
Hi D., I am keeping a nice set of Buczacz photos for you for some other occassion. Here, the idea was to present a bit more than merely Buczacz so no more could be inserted but two photographs.
240252 2 years ago
Grzegorz,
Thank you so much for the vintage photos of Wilno and the other cities. This old gently played recording of this Magnificent Tango is just Perfect and only adds to the Nostalgia. Dziekuje....I MUST get to Wilno one day.
genia106 2 years ago
Genia, you absolutely MUST go to Wilno one day. The city is well restored and - hence the irreversible losses from last war time (e.g. the Jewish area: Wielka St. 0:52 does not exist, it was pulled down by the Germans) most of churches, palaces and majority of the architectural structure of the town is in good condition. Ofcourse, it is claimed everywhere that Polish presence in this city was short and accidential, and it's really iritating as a denial of obvious historical facts.
240252 2 years ago