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51 - 1929: Ignacy Paderewski at the Vatican

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Edited and translated by
Foreword by
John R. Near
Affiliation:
Principia College, Illinois
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Summary

In May 1929, I was having lunch at the Elysée Palace, and I took the liberty of asking President Gaston Doumergue for the Grand Cross to be bestowed on the former prime minister of the Polish Republic who was on our side. We know all that he did for the resurrection of his country. Doumergue did not hesitate. “When you leave here,” he told me, “you can go to the telegraph office and tell Paderewski that we have just given him the grand cordon rouge (grand cross).”

Paderewski, of a most inquiring mind, rare artistic nature, and superior intelligence, resigned from all his generous works, having accomplished through his virtuosic talent an endeavor for his country that was as effective in its moral force as would be winning a great battle for Poland.

As prime minister of the Republic in Warsaw, Paderewski had bonded with the Nuncio, who was to become Pope [Pius XI]. The Pope, having learned that Paderewski was passing through Rome after the peace, asked him to come and relive his heroic memories of that time, as he had done in Warsaw. This was a great surprise for the cardinals who had never seen a piano at the Vatican.

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2024

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