Helena Paderewska Memoirs, 1910–1920

by Siekierski, Maciej

• ISBN13: 9780817918651
• ISBN10: 0817918655
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2021-09-02
• Publisher: Hoover Institution Press

Summary

The celebrated pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski was the rave of Paris, London, and New York audiences in the early twentieth century, with annual concert tours across the continents. But during World War I, Paderewski set music aside and turned to politics, becoming an eloquent spokesman for the country of his birth, Poland, then occupied by the empires of Russia, Germany, and Austria. Through his fame as a musician, Paderewski gained access to the top political leadership of France, Britain, and the United States. His devoted wife and collaborator, Helena, facilitated and accompanied virtually his every move. She is one of the key sources on the historical events in which she participated or her husband told her about.

Author Biography

Maciej Siekierski is emeritus senior curator of European Collections at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University. Over thirty-six years, he was central to building Hoover’s Polish and Eastern European collections, the most preeminent of such holdings in the United States. Helena Paderewska was born Helena Rosen in 1856 in Warsaw. In addition to joining in her husband’s accomplishments, she founded and directed the Polish White Cross, which enlisted almost twenty thousand members in bringing assistance to victims of war, a humanitarian and patriotic effort on a scale previously unknown.