Since we have learned about the historical background of carols, and their ceremonial, social and artistic functions, we should also mention their political role: to comment on current events, build common narratives, and simply cheer us up in difficult times.
Straightforward, catchy carol tunes encourage us to think up our own words for them: a trick used by writers of humoresques (the press used to be full of satirical pieces written in carol form) and social activists from across the political spectrum. As a result, Christmas songs are perfect material for historical research, revealing much about the Polish nation-building process, its martyrdom, and the history of various social groups. Carols stayed with the Polish people from the time of the November Uprising right up until Martial Law.
So far, we have looked at carols from the perspective of peasants (and a few artists), so now it is time for a ‘workers’ carol’ to the tune of Wśród Nocnej Ciszy (In the Still of the Night). It was written by workers from the Koło ceramics factory (still in existence today), and published by the Union of Polish Workers in 1891.
Hey, on the birthday of the Spreader of truth,
Of our Saviour from darkest oppression,
Let us sing merrily, announcing the truth:
Hey, kolęda, kolęda! […]
If we, brothers, do not wish to die of hunger,
We all know what is good and what is evil.
Let’s stand shoulder to shoulder, shouting as one:
Hey, kolęda, kolęda!
Down with the factory owners and exploiters!
Let’s establish our own new order,
Working together and sharing alike.
Hey, kolęda, kolęda! […]
But recall the words of the Saviour,
We are all brothers in the circle of nations.
Harassing the Jews makes no sense.
Hey, kolęda, kolęda!
Be they Jews, French, English, Italians, Turks or Germans,
Every human is our brother, not a foreigner.
Let’s love one other and shake each other’s hands.
Hey, kolęda, kolęda!
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Not all carols concern the birth of Jesus; some describe the birth of… a state. In 1918 in Lviv, communities connected with Marshal Piłsudski’s legions published a brochure entitled When Poland is Being Born, A Century after its Execution (to the tune of Bóg Się Rodzi):
A country is being born from tender shoots,
Its leaves are already bursting forth.
Let not envy unite us,
Let not corruption oppress us!
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Poet and cabaret performer Maciej Zembaty wrote a carol while interned in Warsaw’s Białołęka prison during the Martial Law period of the early 1980s. It was sung in a prison corridor by a choir of opposition activists (also to the ever-present tune of Bóg Się Rodzi):
God is being born, and our countrymen,
Are scattered across prisons,
For dreaming of Poland’s
Independence in these lands […]
Mothers, wives, sisters, children
Sit at the Christmas table alone.
Only Satan could arrange
Such a fate for our loved ones.
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