‘My first impression while reading Professor Maciej Gołąb’s book was consternation and a sense of disbelief that only now had such a work been written. Although the ‘Dąbrowski’ Mazurka was written more than 200 years ago and for 100 years had functioned as the constitutionally ratified national anthem of the Second, ‘People’s’ and Third Republic of Poland, the circumstances surrounding the composing of the Mazurka’s tune, as well as its reception and popularisation and the changes it underwent before assuming the invariant form familiar to all Poles as their most important national song, had never been subjected to a thorough investigation based on factographic and above all musical sources (including sheet music and recordings). [...] This excellent book will enter the canon of works in the fields of musicology and also history, literary studies and cultural studies, radically altering how scholars – and indeed anyone interested in Polish history of the turn of the nineteenth century – conceive of the beginnings and ‘maturing’ of the tune of the ‘Dąbrowski’ Mazurka and the functions of the different musical variants of this song in Polish lands and other European countries, particularly during and after the November Uprising, more or less up to the mid nineteenth century, and also how the processes unfolding at that time helped to shape our national anthem.’

from the review by Professor Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska

‘The melody to the “Song of the Legions” was a singular text from the very beginning. Like a geological probe, it penetrated all social strata. It was sung both by officers and also by Dąbrowski’s legionnaires, drawn from the populace, and in the next generation by participants in the November Uprising; it was equally popular among the gentry and the townsfolk. It has remained a constantly living oral tradition, acting with delayed effect on musicians inspired by it, who have documented its musical contents through their scores.’

‘This song penetrates all the layers of culture. Its huge reception potential influenced the anthems of other nations. We find it cultivated in the works of amateur musicians and minor composers, and also in compositions by the leading lights of their era. It penetrates musical battle pieces, incredibly popular at that time, we find it in vaudeville and in student choral songs, and also trivialised in the form of little waltzes, fantasies and morceaux in bourgeois salons as a manifestation of Trivialmusik. It also has its circle of artistic sublimations, encroaching into the domain of classical musical genres: sets of variations and elaborate vocal-instrumental works. Altogether, a body of composers and works now completely forgotten that are connected by the musical theme of the “Song of the Legions”. Is that not reason enough to restore them not only to the awareness of scholars, but also to concert life?’

from the introduction