Musicology Today 2012 100 Years of Polish Musicology

Łucjan Kamieński as an Ethnomusicologist and Man 113
were just a daily occurrence. Denunciations were the order of the day. Anyway, now
came the witnesses. No witnesses could be found for the denunciation. 31
As I have mentioned, all the musical world, including Prof. Chybiński,
turned their backs on Kamieński because of his signing the Volkslista. In a
letter to Jerzy Młodziejowski of 11 th May 1945, Chybiński clearly distances
himself from his old friend: “I would be very glad if until that time [i.e. till
Chybiński took over the directorship of the Faculty of Musicology in Poznań
(1945–1952) — my note] the “case of Dołęga” came to its close, and not
during my stay there (be mindful of my thin skin).” In another letter, of 22 nd
January 1946 to Ludwik Bronarski, he claimed that he took the Chair over
from Kamieński, “who turned out a Volksdeutscher”. 32 In 1960 Kamieński
was eventually cleared by the court of all charges, but never regained his
good name in the academic circles (Tatarska 1988).
Unable to continue an academic career in Poznań, Kamieński moved to
Toruń, where he worked as a teacher in the State Secondary School of Music
(in 1949–1957), composed and continued independent research on Kashubia
folk music, recording 150 soft discs. In 1957 he left Poland, travelling to his
son in Canada. A year later he returned to Toruń, where he stayed until his
death. He died after a long illness on 29 th July 1964.
Though Kamieński’s output comprises only short articles (in their original
versions: reports with musical illustrations), introductions to song collections
and reviews, it presents a comprehensive vision of the new discipline
that he practised and popularised during his work at Poznań University. In
Guido Adler’s classification, this discipline is the domain of systematic musicology
and therefore rightly called “Musikologie” by the Professor (without
any other qualifiers), as it constitutes the “musicology par excellence”,
“musicology proper” (Kamieński 1936: 129). Kamieński himself used different
terms for his discipline: “comparative musicology,” “musical ethnology,”
“musical ethnography”, or “ethnomusicology.”
31 From the interview conducted by Barbara Kamienski.
32 Both letters have been made available to me by Krystyna Winowicz, who was presented with them
by Chybiński’s family.