THE GROWTH OF THE MODERN NATION 21with equal sensibility, recognizes nothing more than the 'feverish, morbid,
diseased fantasies' of a diminutive and consumptive bachelor. On hearing the
so-called 'Revolutionary Study' in C Minor (Op. 10, no. 12), the man who
knows that it was written in September 1831 during the climax of the Russo-
Polish War, may sense the composer's fury at Poland's defeat, 'full of conspir-
acy and sedition'; the next man who knows that the 'revolutionary' title was
not Chopin's own, may choose to ignore the historical context altogether. On
hearing the famous Polonaise in A Major (Op. 40, no. 1) — he Militaire, with its
'cannon buried in the flowers', as Robert Schumann once remarked, a Pole may
well feel that he is hearing the purest possible distillation of Polish culture; a
Japanese or a Jamaican, who knows nothing at all about Poland, will appreciate
the piece none the less. Chopin's musical genius is universal. His nationality
gains overriding relevance only to those who need to harness his unique talents
to their own purposes. Certainly for the Poles in their mutilated political condi-
tion, it has been of the utmost solace, not merely to share the subtle emotions of
Chopin's music, but also to claim it as their very own. For most of the world,
Chopin is just a composer of supreme genius; for Poland, he is also 'a national
poet' and a 'national prophet'.^21
Surely, Polish national consciousness must also have been encouraged by
contact with other emergent nations. In the Napoleonic Era, the Poles were thor-
oughly infected with the ideas of the French Revolution which could never be
fully eradicated, even if they could not be realized. In this connection, their expe-
riences resembled those of the Germans and the Italians, whose strivings for long
followed a path similar to their own. In the first half of the nineteenth century,
Poland was generally classified as a historic nation, whose chances of reuniting
its scattered parts and of asserting its independence were broadly similar to those
of Germany and Italy. Poles came to know the Italian Carbonari during the
Napoleonic wars in Italy, and later were much impressed by Mazzini.^22 But they
had much more intimate ties with Germany. The German universities attracted
large numbers of Polish students, and it is inconceivable that the nationalist ideas
which flourished there should not have been absorbed and translated into Polish
terms. In so far as thinkers such as Herder, Fichte, Schelling, or at a later date,
Nietzsche, played a prominent part in the development of Nationalism in
Germany, it is not usual to consider them as prophets of the Polish cause. Yet the
connection is undeniable. Lelewel's concept of the primitive democracy of the
Slavs came straight from Herder, whilst the obvious similarities between Fichte's
concepts on the moral and cultural regeneration of the nation, and those pro-
fessed by his Polish pupils at Berlin, are too close to be purely accidental. Fichte's
ideas of the Urvolk or 'Primordial people', and of the mystical union of the
nation with its native soil, are still alive, completely unattributed, in Poland
today. It would be a nice paradox, therefore, to stress the German character of
Polish Nationalism; but an objective study of the dissemination of nationalist
ideas in an era when 'Poland' and 'Germany' were still thought to be comple-
mentary ideals, would probably bring some surprising results.^23