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(More customer reviews)my review from the POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL:
The struggle for Poland, during the 123 years between the Third Partition in 1795 and her recovery of independence in 1918, was fought not just with bullets but with song. Prussia, Russia and Austria did not just seek Poland's political extermination. They also strove to eliminate Polish identity by attacking her language and culture. Poles were not just to feel they were a subject people under the boot of a foreign empire; they were to stop feeling like Poles. Keeping Polish identity and culture alive, therefore, was in some ways even more important than such failed military uprisings as 1830 and 1861.
That's why Polish choral groups began springing up in 19th century occupied Poland, starting first with the Prussian Partition. That's why Prussian police kept such a close eye on choral rehearsals. That's why, in the Russian Partition, Czarist censors forbade the use of the word "Polish" to describe the music the choirs sang. Until 1905, choirs could only sing "folk" (ludowa) or "domestic" (domowa) music.
The Polish Singers Alliance of America (PSAA), established in Chicago in 1889, had a similar raison d'etre to its Polish counterparts. Founders Antoni and Konstanty Mallek were not rarefied aesthetes, though they had sophisticated tastes. The PSAA did not promote ars gratis artis, but existed to "'fire . . . young hearts, awaken . . . in them a love of God and Fatherland, and a love of people and brothers and sisters . . . " (p. 26).
The PSAA would keep Poles Polish through music. 19th century America also posed challenges for Poles. Assimilation was a powerful force, and Poles had come here voluntarily. 19th century immigrants often had only a rudimentary education, with limited contact with Polish "high" culture. The job of creating, on foreign soil, a Polish national consciousness among Galicians, Mazovians, and Pomeranian peasants would be no mean feat. It was a challenge to which the PSAA rose.
There were, of course, musical outlets in church choirs, but the PSAA represented something different. It sought to cultivate the Polish secular music tradition. Blejwas called the PSAA an "ideological organization" because, unlike the fraternals, it was never a money-making business but rather an institution driven by its ideal.
Through ten chapters, the author chronicles the PSAA's history from its origins through the late 1990s. (M.B. Biskupski's "Forward" seeks to provide information on the most recent developments in the institution). The PSAA's history mirrors the history of many Polonian institutions: internal schisms resulting in organizational breakup; prolonged incumbencies and "leaders" who did not know when to leave; chronic underfunding; and the viccissitudes of change within Polonia caused by assimilation, loss of Polish language ability, and demographic change.
Blejwas tells the story of division and reconciliation; adaptation in the second and subsequent generations; the impact of war; dilemmas of cultural cooperation with Communist Poland, a state nominally free but hardly free in the sense Polonia understood that word; and changes within Polonia that have left PSAA membership largely static for decades. Blejwas always situates the history of the PSAA against the backdrop of the history of American Polonia as well as of key events in Poland. The author shows the deft hand of a professional historian, always aware of proportion and perspective. His style is that of a writer one wants to read.
The actual narrative history of the PSAA runs 185 pages. The book is rounded out with 52 black and white illustrations and lots of supplementary information such as lists of national officers, member choirs (including children's choirs), honorary members, and songs used in winning repertoires at national convention competitions. There is a section of brief biographies of select PSAA figures as well as impressive notes and bibliography.
This was Blejwas' last book, completed just before his death in 2001. Happily, it has finally seen the light of day. Numerous sponsors apparently subvened this work, although it still totes a hefty pricetag. It fills the need for a contemporary history of one of Polonia's smaller, albeit important national organizations. The book shows what a loss American Polonia suffered with the passing of Stan Blejwas. Recommended.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Polish Singers Alliance of America 1888-1998 : Choral Patriotism (Rochester Studies in Central Europe)
This book examines the history of the Polish Singers Alliance of America (PSAA) as an ideological organization. As a case study of an immigrant cultural organization that evolved demographically into an ethnic organization of the succeeding generations, it documents the extent to which the politics of the homeland engaged an immigrant and ethnic community over a century. This is a study of immigrant nationalism, as articulated by immigrant and ethnic singing societies. The survival of the Polish Singers Alliance as an ideological organization suggests considerations about the ability of an immigrant and ethnic culture to resist and to adapt to America's assimilative forces. The Alliance was a federation of amateur choirs. Its history cannot be understood without reference to the political fate of modern Poland over the last two centuries. This book situates the origins of the PSAA within the history of Poland during the partitions, as well as its commitment to Polish independence and to the preservation and propagation of culture through song. As the children and grandchildren of the immigrants succeeded them, the Alliance subsequently evolved into an ethnic organization with numerous American-born individuals. After the recovery of Polish sovereignty, which by coincidence occurred in 1989 when the Alliance celebrated its centennial, questions arose about the role of such an ideological organization in the new political context. The late Stanislaus A. Blejwas was CSU University Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University.
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