Polish Battle Hymns

artists.jpg, full-width, Carpathians listening to ‘The Red Poppies’ performed by Alfred Schütz’s orchestra, May 1944, photo: book ‘Trzecia Dywizja Strzelców Karpackich’ by Mie, Polish Battle Hymns

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These songs inspired poets and were cause for heated copywrite disputes. Lady Death and women’s heroes – the lancers – were lauded in them. In our day just as in the past century, they leave no one unmoved: they compel us to feel empathy, to cry and to smile. Culture.pl has selected songs on the theme of war that are the most popular and beloved by millions of Poles.

‘Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino’

It is 17 January 1944. Nazi forces are holding their position at the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino, in the valleys of nearby rivers and on the neighbouring mountain ridges of Italy. Wishing to break the line of German reinforcements, the anti-Hitler coalition goes on the offensive. Three massive battles, which lasted about four months, end in defeat for the Allied forces. The Germans defended their position well, placing mines, traps and barbed wire in the passes and mountainsides, therefore it was difficult to take their territory. The fourth surge became crucial. At the request of the British commander Oliver Leese, the Polish II Corps under the leadership of Lieutenant General Władysław Anders joined the Allied forces. This time, the anti-Hitler coalition successfully broke through the defences and captured the abbey on the top of the mountain. A few hours before taking the abbey, poet and actor Feliks Konarski wrote a few verses about this battle, and his friend Alfred Schütz composes a melody on the spot. In the following days, Konarski would compose new couplets, and the Theatre of the Polish Soldier would perform the touching tune at the foot of Monte Cassino.

The red poppies on Monte Cassino
Drank Polish blood instead of dew…
O’er the poppies the soldiers did go
‘Mid death, and to their anger stayed true!
Years will come and ages will go,
Enshrining their strivings and their toil!
And the poppies on Monte Cassino
Will be redder for Poles’ blood in their soil

The Battle of Monte Cassino – along with the battles of Kursk and Stalingrad – is called one of the fiercest fights of the Second World War. Today there is a cemetery there, in which General Anders himself is buried. The Polish forces lost nearly a thousand men in this battle, and the coalition as a whole lost more than fifty thousand.

It is interesting that the theme of Monte Cassino and allusions to this Polish battle hymn can be found in the works of prominent Russian poets and bards. For example, Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky wrote in his poem ‘A Little Song’: ‘Only the mountaintops and blooming poppies remember that it was the Poles in Monte Cassino’, and Alexander Galich in ‘Ballad of the Eternal Flame’: ‘Poppies, poppies on Monte Cassino, oh, how you did blacken, poppies!’

'O mój rozmarynie'

‘O mój rozmarynie’ (O My Rosemary) was one of the most popular songs from the time of World War I and the Polish-Soviet wars. The words of this composition were most likely written by several people. Michał Sokolnicki, historian, diplomat and personal secretary to Marshal Piłsudski recalls:

This song came about during our trek from the village of Lanckorona to Kraków on 14 April 1913. As we were marching, a young rifleman with a childlike voice was singing it repeatedly. Then the song caught on with the other soldiers. I was among those who asked for it to be sung over and over again. We would finish singing some other song and would then return to ‘Rosemary’. On the way to Kraków, our entire unit learned the song, performing it to the rhythm of our march. Later, other detachments began singing ‘Rosemary’, and so the song began its journey around Poland during the war.

The authorship of this work’s tune is attributed to Zygmunt Pomarański, a Polish soldier and composer who was killed at Auschwitz.

Why does this war song make reference to rosemary? The fact is that from ancient times this evergreen herb was a symbol of eternity and remembrance. In Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers, d’Artagnan had a recipe for a balm, given to him by his mother. The remedy, which is made with rosemary, possessed miraculous powers and could heal any wound. Shakespeare’s Ophelia appeared with flowers before her brother, king and queen and said: ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.” In 17th-century Europe, they even tried to cure the plague with rosemary. In ancient Greece, this herb was associated with the goddess of love, Aphrodite, and was given to young people, and in Ancient Rome it was also considered to be a panacea for all illnesses.

The hero of the Polish song, approaching a girl with a declaration of love, begs the rosemary to grow faster. ‘And if she tells me she doesn’t love me, the Uhlans are recruiting, the riflemen are marching, I’ll enlist’, the youth decides. Be sure to listen to this moving war song, devoid of pathos and hatred for the enemy.

'Hej, hej ułani'

Uhlan on steed, Polish Legions, 1914–22, photo: Polona

A smart figure, elegant uniform, red and blue with striped pants, flashy head-gear and a sabre at his hip – Polish Uhlans were not only valiant warriors but also, to use modern language, were the sex symbols of their time. The anonymously authored battle song ‘Uhlans’, which appeared in the 19th century, is proof of this. The composition tells in a humorous way about how women adore the Uhlans. It is these courageous young men who are held in the hearts of single maidens as well as married ladies, widows and … even old women.

Grandma on her deathbed

once mused, ‘Oh God!

Will there be Uhlans

In the next world too?

(translated by Katherine Alberti)

'Białe róże'

Martial music has a very masculine history. A majority of compositions are written from a male point of view, on behalf of men. The soldiers in them tell about their battles, their preparedness to give their lives for their nation, their longing for loved ones. The song ‘Białe róże’ (White Roses) is an exception. It was written by men, but the main character of the song is a woman. The lonesome young girl tells about her lover, Jasieńko, who has gone off to war.

Buds of white roses look up.
Come back, Jasieńko, from this war,
Come back and kiss me like in years gone by,
For this I’ll give you the most beautiful rose.

The lady in the song, like thousands of other women, would never see her lover again.

In an empty field a cold wind blows,
No more can your Jasieńko return, no,
Cruel death takes a bloody toll,
Jasio has been buried in a dark grave.

(translated by I. Belov)

In this song, written in 1918, there are no lofty words about heroic deeds, heroism and patriotism. Instead, it conveys the hopelessness and unbearable pain of a woman who has lost her closest companion.

'My, Pierwsza Brygada'

This song of the Polish Legions – the military force put together by Józef Piłsudski in 1914 – can often be heard in the repertoire of military bands in Poland today. The legendary marshal called ‘We, the First Brigade’ not only the most tragic and proud Polish song but also his favourite.

Thanks to the memorable melody of the verses, the crisp marching rhythm and the broad tunefulness of the chorus, soldiers can easily memorize ‘My Pierwsza Brygada’ (We, the First Brigade). The song instantly became not just a wartime hit but also, according to the soldiers themselves, the unofficial anthem of Poland. As we know, success has many fathers, and so there were many disputes about the song’s authorship. It took years to clarify and come to an agreement on an attribution. It’s worth adding that these arguments elicited undisguised irritation on the part of Marshal Piłsudski. And it isn’t surprising: when at a convention of legionnaires, the marshal expressed thanks for ‘The First Brigade’ and gave praise that was received by officer Tadeusz Bernacki, who, according to his words, wrote the song in 1917 on the way to the prisoner-of-war camp in Szczypiorno.

Cover of songbook ‘Pieśni i Piosenki Legionów Polskich, 1914–22, photo: Polona

Overflowing with pride after Piłsudski’s words, he even added yet another couplet to ‘We, the First Brigade’. Meanwhile, lieutenant colonel Tadeusz Hałaciński, after learning what happened at the convention, pointed out that the fame was due him. According to Hałaciński, it was he who wrote the words to Poland’s unofficial anthem while at the Italian front. The legionnaires who did not suffer from poor memory confirmed that ‘they had been singing “The First Brigade” since 1915’ – literary critic Krzysztof Masłoń wrote in his description of the conflict for the newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

The legendary song became the subject of official court hearings, and Piłsudski instructed his subordinates to find out who actually wrote the lyrics. After interrogating witnesses and analysing texts, the Military Historical Institute of Poland ruled that Hałaciński wrote the chorus and two of the first verses and Bernacki wrote the rest. Through a Polish Ministry of Defense decision in 2007, ‘The First Brigade’ became the official song of the Polish Army.

'Dziś do ciebie przyjść nie mogę'

This song, one of the most beautiful partisan songs from World War II, is also known as ‘Kołysanka’ (The Lullaby). As with many other battle songs, the question of authorship is also ambiguous here. According to one version, the lullaby was written by a pharmacist from Lublin, Stanisław Magierski. He had loved music from his youth, learned how to play the piano, dreamed of studying at a conservatory, but fate had other plans. When the teenager reached 14 years of age, his father passed away. The youth was never able to realize his plans. After growing up, he had to run the pharmacy and household goods store owned by his family. Things went wonderfully for him. Stanisław managed to expand his father’s business by opening a photo lab, selling cameras, photographic plates, film, as well as perfumes, soaps and elixirs of his own making.

When the war came to Poland, Magierski aided the Polish partisans with money and medicine, and he often hid members of the Home Army in his home. As the Lublin chronicler Mirosław Derecki claims, Magierski also collected evidence of Nazi crimes during the war: he copied photographs that SS officers from the Majdanek concentration camp printed at his photo lab, and after the Nazis retreated, he himself took photos of their victims. In this terrible time, a man discovered a new talent within himself – he began to write poems and music to them. Magierski wrote ‘The Lullaby’, beloved by millions of Poles, in 1943 specially for the partisan detachment ‘Nerwy’ (Nerves). The son of Magierski’s neighbour was a part of this military company and had been with his comrades in the Magierski apartment more than once. During one of these visits, the young partisan and his friends asked Stanisław to write a song for their troop. And so the fictional tale about a young man who left his girl to fight for Poland was born.

I can’t come to you tonight,

I go into the nightly dusk,

Don’t watch for me by the window,

The sight will be lost in the fog.

Why should you know, my dear,

that I will sleep in the wood.

I can’t be here anymore,

My buddies await me in the forest

[…]

If I’m not back, in the spring time

Let my brother plant my fields.

My bones will be overgrown with moss

enriching the soil.

Go out some morning,

Touch the rye

and kiss it as you kissed your lover,

I'll be alive in the ears of grain.

(translated by I. Belov)

Today, a quiet Lublin street, which crosses Heroes of Monte Cassino Street, bears the name of Stanisław Magierski.

'Wojenko, wojenko'

This song, popular among the Polish Legions in the 1920s to this day is included in practically every book of military songs. The main character of this marching composition is Lady War, for whom handsome young men, the best citizens of their country leave.

War, oh war, what kind of lady are you?

That you attract, that you attract

These most handsome boys?

[…]

Our boys are marching, bloody sweat is pouring,

One, two step my man, one, two step my man,

That’s how Poland battles.

War, oh war, what power do you have?

Whoever you love, whoever you love,

He lies in a cold grave

(the Wolfrand translation)

Songbook ‘Łączko, łączko, łączko… i nuty piosenki’, 1920, photo: Polona

The song, most likely written in 1914, was perceived by many as a folk song, and many people added their own words to it. Today, there are a minimum of eight different text versions of ‘Wojenko, wojenko’ (War, oh War).

'Biały krzyż'

When a white birch cross without an inscription is placed in a forest, as a rule it means that an unknown soldier is buried in this place. This next song is dedicated to these unknown heroes. Unlike all the previous compositions, ‘Białt krzyż’ (The White Cross) was written two decades after the end of World War II. The composer of the music was Krzysztof Klenczon, one of the soloists and guitarists of the iconic band Czerwone Gitary (The Red Guitars), and the lyrics were written by the poet and satirist Janusz Kondratowicz. The impetus for writing the song came from Krzysztof’s personal history: after the war, his father, Home Army soldier Czesław Klenczon, became the leader of the Polish anti-communist underground and hid from security service officers for eleven years. ‘In the autumn of 1956, an unshaven man in a long old coat appeared in our doorway. That was the first time I saw my father. When he disappeared, I was only three years old’, Krzysztof Klenczon recalled years later. ‘Then, in the evenings, my father would tell us how he had lived all those years’.

When communist censorship allowed the use of topics related to guerrilla fighters in artwork in 1968, Klenczon and Kondratowicz wrote ‘The White Cross’. Propagandists thought that the Red Guitars were singing of the guerrilla fighters of the Armia Ludowa (The People’s Army), which fought against the occupying Germans during World War II, but Klenczon, while singing the words ‘the memory returns of those who are no more’, was thinking about his father’s friends – the enemies and victims of the communist system. The majority of Poles well understood the meaning the author hid between the lines.

In this article, we have covered only a handful of Poland’s war songs. If this subject interests you, listen to some other works on this theme: the oldest Polish soldiering song ‘Idzie żołnierz borem, lasem’ (The Soldier Marches Through Forest and Woodland), which was most likely written during the time of Napoleon; the patriotic march ‘Rozszumiały się wierzby płaczące’ (The Weeping Willows Started Rustling), whose words were set to the music of Vasily Agapkin’s legendary ‘A Slavic Maid’s Farewell’; the bellicose World War I song ‘Szara piechota’ (Grey Infantry) or the ballad ‘Deszcz, jesienny deszcz’ (Rain, Autumn Rain). This last song, written by Marian Matuszkiewicz, was performed by the jazz artist Stanisław Soyka and The Red Guitars, and the poet Agnieszka Osiecka used it in her musical production ‘Niech no tylko zakwitną jabłonie’ (Let the Apple Trees Bloom).

The author would like to thank Jacek Melecki for historical information.

Written in Russian by Evgeny Klimakin, 9 May 2018, last updated 9 May 2019

Translated from Russian by Katherine Alberti

Language English