“Papushi Harp”

Who was Papusha? Bronisława Wajs, called Papuszá — “doll” — was a Romani poet who did not go to school, but learned to read by herself, from people she met, from books and newspapers. She grew up in the camp, among music, forests and incessant wandering. She was able to save with words a world that most of us have never had the opportunity to see. For the courage to describe this world, however, she paid a heavy price.

In 1949 she was met by the poet Jerzy Ficowski. He saw the extraordinary value of her improvised songs and persuaded her to write them down. Her poetry became one of the most important testimonies of the world of Polish Roma — a world that was irreversibly changing at that time.

Papusha wrote about the forest, fire, rivers, freedom and the lost life of the rolling stock. Her poems, simple and extremely pictorial, carried the memory of a world going into the past. After their publication, however, she was accused by part of the Roma community of betraying the secrets of her own world. Rejected, she withdrew from public life, and at the end of her life she stopped writing.

Her poetry was heard by Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz — a composer from Nowy Targ, co-creator of Anawa and author of symphonic, film, theatrical and great oratorical music. In 1993, he composed the Papuša Harp for poems by Bronisława Wajs. Initially, only the Gypsy Mass was to be created, but the idea grew into a great vocal and instrumental form for solo voices, choir and orchestra, performed in the Romani language. A year later, the piece premiered in Kraków's Błonie in front of a crowd of thousands.

Papusz's harps are not an attempt to recreate traditional Roma music. Pawluśkiewicz creates a musical picture of the poet's world — full of space, movement, lyricism and dramatic contrasts, following the rhythm and phrase of her poetry.

The piece also gained a second life in the 2013 film “Papusz” by Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauz.

For the music for the film Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz received the Polish Film Award Orzeł. Papusz's harps are therefore not only an encounter with the music of an outstanding composer, but also a story about a poetess who tried to save her world with words — and an artist who turned those words into music.