O nirwanie po polsku i innych toposach Orientu indyjskiego w muzyce polskiej pierwszej połowy XX wieku. Próba rekonesansu
On nirvana in Polish and other toposes of the Indian Orient in the Polish music of the first half of the 20th century. An attempt at reconnaissance

Author(s): Renata Skupin
Subject(s): Music, History of Art
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: What is crucial for the issues dealt with in question is a differentation between the no-tions of the Orient and orientalism (as understood by E.W. Said and in a non-Saidian under-standing), Indianism, exoticness, and exoticism. Our native (national) variation oforientalism needs to be considered from the point of view of a borderline location of Polandat the meeting of two cultures: eastern and western, as well as Asian and European one, anda reference to a “passion for the Orient wonders” grounded in the Polish tradition.The Indian Orient became the source of inspiration for Polish composers of the first halfof the 20th century in a peculiar way, determined by the very location and tradition, as wellas a delay of the Orient renaissance in our country as compared to the countries of WesternEurope. As a result, an exceptional mingling of reception sources and values was observed.The Indian orientalism in music at that time constitutes above all a reception of a literary(Young-Polish) topos of nirvana as a result of the polonization of Indian elements. The se-cond main source of inspiration is connected with a reception of Rabindranath Tagore’sworks. The wave of this inspiration developed song works to the texts of an Indian poet. Be-sides, what is worth mentioning is an attempt, though rare, to look for the sources of the re-novation of the scale material of the Polish music in the Indian one.“Otherness” and “dissimilarity” as an advantage of the Orient in a dichotomic system.The East and West, in relation to the Indian Orient in a Polish form in the first half of the20th century did not have raison d’être because of Polish conditions and ideological intrica-cies Indianness was then understood, also by composers, as “native”, not foreign.

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