Ignacy Jan Paderewski Centre for the Documentation of 19th- and 20th-Century Polish Music
Institute of Musicology
Jagiellonian University
ul. Westerplatte 10
31-033 Kraków
Tel. (12) 663 16 76
www.paderewski.muzykologia.uj.edu.pl/osrodek
j.szombara@uj.edu.pl;
michal.jaczynski@uj.edu.pl
Free admission
Mondays – Fridays 11 am – 4 pm
Group visits (advance booking is essential).
Staff: Justyna Szombara MA, Michał Jaczyński MA
The idea to establish a centre at the Jagiellonian University to carry out research work on the biography and oeuvre of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, one of the university’s greatest donors, dates back to the early 1970s. At the time Elżbieta Dziębowska (alias Dewajtis), the then head of the Faculty of the History and Theory of Music at the Jagiellonian University, was granted permission for the faculty to acquire Paderewski’s private book collection, which had ended up at the Jagiellonian University due to legal proceedings regarding his estate following his death. Shortly after, on 30 June 1973, the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Research Centre was established as an auxiliary unit in the Faculty of the History and Theory of Music. The centre was officially inaugurated on 16 October 1974, a few months after the book collection had been transported from the stores of the Jagiellonian Library to the Pusłowski Palace, the seat of musicology in Kraków. In 1999, when the Faculty of the History and Theory of Music was restructured and became the Institute of Musicology of the Jagiellonian University, the centre’s scope of activities was extended and its name was changed to the I. J. Paderewski Centre for the Documentation of 19th-century Polish Music (now the I. J. Paderewski Centre for the Documentation of 19th- and 20th-Century Polish Music). Since its inception, the centre has been carrying out tasks which include documentation, academic and research work as well as providing information and popularizing the subject. The core of the centre’s collection is the aforementioned private library of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, which includes books, music prints and manuscripts as well as Paderewski’s own work. Many of the copies have hand written
inscriptions of the authors or other donors, often important representative of the world of art, politics and business, including Henryk Sienkiewicz, the composer Mieczysław Karłowicz, Józef Piłsudski, Roman Dmowski, Władysław Sikorski, and also – Eva Curie, Jaques Dalcroze, Andrew Carnegie, Carine Robinson Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt’s sister). These dedications are a unique testimony of an era, and proof of the famous virtuoso’s contacts with both better- and lesser-known artists, politicians and academics. Among its collections, the centre also has valuable archival materials concerning Paderewski’s political activities, documents on social life – concert programmes and posters, photographs and other souvenirs.
Justyna Szombara MA
