Artist No Longer. Powrót Ignacego Jana Paderewskiego do Polski w grudniu 1918 r. na łamach francuskiej i brytyjskiej prasy

Abstract

This publication is devoted to the mission undertaken by Ignacy Jan Paderewski in December 1918, his arrival in Poland, through his visit to Poznań, until the successful political talks with Józef Piłsudski and the formation of a coalition government, which led to the recognition of the Warsaw authorities by the Entente countries and establishing the composition of the Polish delegation to the Paris peace conference shown the French and British press. The chronological scope of the article covers a relatively short period, which is, however, crucial for the reconstruction of independent Poland. For its needs, the outgoing press in France and Great Britain was reviewed and articles describing Paderewski’s activities at that time were analyzed. To achieve this purpose, the French and British newspaper titles were selected that represented different political circles and achieved a significant circulation. This publication is mainly based on the method of analyzing press sources, using the philological method, which in this case involves translating the texts of press articles from French and English. However, the key research method used to write this article is the comparative method, consisting in juxtaposing information relating to the same events at the turn of 1918 and 1919 in the French and British press, and pointing to similarities and differences in the terminology used and the assessment of Ignacy Paderewski and its activities.