News /
Polish myths. Poland is one of the countries that count in the world. [49]
Not much more really. Except for Copernicus, but he hardly counts, He's been dead for hundreds of year now.
I think you should have known Polish contribution to world music much better than me, a total foreigner. Okey, Chopin may be half-French, but then the Russian Dimitri Shostakovich had a Polish father too. Tchaikovsky in a letter to Madam Von Meck expressed his belief that he had a Polish ancestry too (just look at an extraordinary amount of his beautiful Mazurkas, Polonaises and his Third Symphony-Polska). About true Polish composers, beside Szymanowski, henryk Wieniawski was a brilliant composer and intrumentalist for violin, who even the great contemporary violinist Joshue Bell considers as 'the God of Violin'. Talking about intrumentalists, I suppose you should now that Poland has produced two of the greatest pianists of all time: Ignacy jan Paderewski and Artur Rubinstein (this one was actually a Polish Jew, marrying a Catholic Pole. One of his most patriotic act for Poland was in San Francisco conference 1945 (which founded the UN) when he played the Dabrowski's Mazurka before the whole gatherings after noticing that there were no Polish representatives whatsoever).
Anyway, I think you underestimate your own Polish heritage. Certainly, its contribution is not as influential as, say, France or Greece, but it is immensely interesting and abosolutely valuable to the whole Europe. Criticism of your own country or yourself is fine and encouraging but just make sure it will not turn into self-pity or cynicism. You want your country to be great? Cool, just make yourself great first (not necessarily materially)!
