Polka!? You aren't Polish!

I received several responses from this post- -three of which are posted in the comments section-- so I've updated the original post, the new info is in bold type.. Im sure this post will continue to grow!

While we all had great time at this past weekend's Oktoberfest show's- the main topic of conversation that we were pulled into went something like this:

1. So you call yourselves a Polka band, but you are dressed like Germans?
2. Why are you playing at a German event when you are Polish?
3. You are playing polka? Polka was stared on the accordion! Where is your accordion?
4. Germans do not play Polka!

Let's set the record straight here folks. First off Oktoberfest is a Bavarian event. So those if you that scoffed at the leiderhosen need to brush up on your history.
The accordion was not even invented until 1822 and made it's first appearance in...Germany! Christian Friedrich Buschmann (1775-1832) put some expanding bellows onto a small portable keyboard, with free vibrating reeds inside the instrument itself. He dubbed it the hand-aeoline, and helped spread its fame in 1828 by leaving Berlin and touring with it-- 12 years before the polka was even invented!!

Secondly polka music did not originate in Poland and was not started on the accordion.
The first "pulka" (Czech for "half-step") referring to the rapid shift from one foot to the other, were played on stringed instruments- primarily the violin, by Czech peasants in Eastern Bohemia (now part of Czechoslovakia). Bohemian historians believe that the polka was invented by a peasant girl (Anna Slezak, in Labska Tynice in 1834) one Sunday for her amusement. It was composed to a folk song "Strycek Nimra Koupil Simla (Uncle Nimra brought a white horse)." Anna called the step "Madera" because of its quickness and liveliness.

The dance was first introduced into the ballrooms of Prague in 1835 and from Prague was introduced to Paris and England in the 1840's. It was the Bohemian Army band that first exposed the rest of Europe to the polka: Vienna in 1839; Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1843 and 1844 and the polka was performed for Queen Victoria in 1845 in London. And at that time it was a high-class kind of dance and thus would have certainly NOT have been played on accordion (which was primarily seen as a traveling-portable version of the piano).
The polka spread through all of Europe. It was considered a dance for the upper classes, but found it's way to the peasant classes. According to Billboard, " The trickle-down effect became a flood. Its also stimulated the interest of cutting-edge Czech classical composers such as Dvorak and Smetana, who took simple polka melodies and developed the themes for their operas. "The Bartered Bride," "The Kiss," and "Two Widows."

In 1861 in Minnesota the first Stiftungfest was held and ever since Minnesota has had it's own style of Polka music. Polka did not become the Polish "national dance" until Polish immigrants to the United States adopted it in the early 40's, and became even more popular when Lawrence Welk and other post-war bands began to play the fast music-- over 80 years after the polka had been introduced to the United States by a non-polish group! Once again to quote billboard, "The music was played by bands in the new, well-lit, family-oriented bars and dance halls that formed the mainstay of social activity in the Midwest, where close knit immigrant communities kept cultural and traditional ties with the "old country" via music. "

Each group or community that heard this "new" brand of music added their own spin, or instrumentation to it. The Czech sedska was mixed with the German landler, the Polish oberek, and the Hungarian czardas dance tunes..."and the new commercialized hybrids of the polka reflected the ethnic pluralism of the recently arrived Americans"

Not only that, but Welk's parents were Germans from Russia (like my mom - the Volga Deutsche), and Myron Floren who was the accordion player on Welk's show, and who was always featured when Welk's band played polkas and released several polka LPs himself, was of Norwegian descent. Also, the most popular polka artist in the United States during the 20th century was undoubtedly Frankie Yankovic, whose parents were from Slovenia (a part of the former Yugoslavia).  Besides Yankovic, some other very popular non-Polish polka artists of the 20th century include Whoopie John Wilfahrt and Six Fat Dutchmen (German-style), Romy Gosz (Czech-style), just to name a few.

The first American recording, and one of the first record labels--Favorite--started by Joseph Jiran and E Jedlicka, a Czech, as well as Chicago's Louis Vitak, started making records that were specifically aimed at a market of European immigrants that continued to come to the United States in larger and larger numbers- especially during the second World War. Eventually polka, or "ethnic music" was becoming popular American Music.

According to "A Passion for Polka" by Victor Greene, the most influential polka pioneer was Frankie Yankovic, calling him the "...King when polka was king..." and goes on to say he was ""symbolic of the transformation of ethnic music over the last century - Yankovic himself went through all the stages and actively helped create the culminating era of ethnic music in the '40s and the '50s."

And he was not even Polish- nor was he German- he was Slovenian!!

Today polka music is played all over the world, just as there are regional musical areas of the United States (Delta blues, Dixieland jazz, Southern rock, The Motown sound, Chicago style blues, County & Western) there are regional areas of Polka music in the U.S. as well as across Europe. The primary difference in the instrumentation.
A German band that plays polka music will have a tuba, while someone from Cleveland (Slovenian style) may use a banjo, whereas someone from Chicago will play polka on a trumpet-- so one does not have to be German or Polish and have an accordion to play Polka!!

Also, Mexicans living in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas play polkas on button-box accordions with guitar, bass, and drums in the band, though the guitar is usually a bajo-sexto (a twelve string acoustic guitar that's kind of like a baritone guitar), and Native Americans in Arizona play polkas with two saxophones as the primary instruments - it's called chicken scratch music.
There are LPs with polkas from nearly every European country (I have many of these). including Irish, Scot, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Ukrainian, and of course Polish, German, Czech, Slovak, and Slovenian.

We need to elevate polka above all of these petty ethnic differences and just play and enjoy the music! 

Thanks to Dandy Don for the additions in italic!!

Comments

[person]

go to www.angelfire.com/folk/polka/history.html and www.cwu.edu/~kuhlkenr/polka.html they have some facts supportting and confusing people even further. Germany is breifly mentioned, but not included in a mayjor arguements.

[Alan J. Sklenar]

I am a first time reader of this website.Does anyone the name of the oldest surviving polka band,and what the name is and when the came into existence.

[Peter Chrapko]

Why should the origins matter? It is clear that the polka originated among the Slavic pesants in Czech, Moravia, Slovakia and Poland. to pinpoint a birthplace is IMPOSSIBLE! not to mention pointless.

[Johnny V. Prytko]

The origin of Polka Dancing.
I believe that some of your polka information regarding this information is incorrect.
I believe that the dance, know as the polka, most probably originated in Poland. Ironically,while most dictionary information points to Czechoslovakia as the birthplace of the "polka" I find this to be incorrect. Why, because all this polka information is all based upon one same, simple, over-used paragraph defining the word "polka" found in most dictionaries, including Webster's.
I can produce evidence that seriously challenges the present notion of where polka dancing originated..in Poland.
Furthermore, I came across a copy of (polka) Polish folk music in two-four meter in the present polka style, that dates back to 1602.This information can be found in a major Music history dictionary usually found in colleges.
The dated 1602 instrumental-folk song copy was written in today's polka style and consists of two 16 measure sections. One of the parts is a familiar melody that the Connecticut Twins recorded in the late 1950s and was often played at their dances. While I fully understand that just because this piece of Polish folk music was written in 1602, it doesn't mean that people were dancing to it. However, I still believe that the polka dance originated in Poland and not Czechoslovakia as has been too often stated in the common dictionary.

I have been asked to share some of the information on polka music in a prominant Polish (immigrant) newspaper and will do so sometimes this year.

[none]

Don't you EVER update your BLOG?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[Lisa]

Polka has the power to unite the world (just like coke..... remember that commercial???). No, seriously. Think about it this way: different ethnicities has their own version of "polka," right? Well, if you get these people in a room, they will already have one thing in common and that is POLKA!

[Hamstress]

I used to work for a guy who was in a trio playing something like the Mexican style of polka. I think I still have his demo somewhere, it's a great style!

Polka on!

[Gwar]

Good Article. thanks for mentioning Chicken Scratch, I find I'm fond of that type of "polka"

Oh yeah, you guys RAWK! Come to Ohio someday