National Dances in the Canon of Polish Culture

The following dances are most commonly considered nowadays as national dances (or emblems of Polish national culture): the polonaise, the mazur, the krakowiak, the oberek and the kujawiak. These dances form the cultural canon as defined by Andrzej Szpociński (i.e. a constantly revised part of tradition which carries significance outside the domain of dance and is obligatory for all the community members). In Polish musicological studies it has been emphasised that the phenomenon of stereotypisation of native folklore has played a major role in the formation and emergence of emblematic national phenomena. However, some of the phenomena and processes that have taken place during the formation and revision of the national canon cannot be reduced to the idea of creating a stereotype. The author of this paper draws on Maria Janion’s treatment of the categories of myth and phantasm, which can be much more useful for the interpretation especially of borderline or clearly alien phenomena that have frequently found their way into the Polish national dance canon and played a very important role in that canon. The author also discusses the changing functions of dances from the canon, which resulted from external circumstances determined by political events and social processes.