In America, and in many other countries, people have listened with wonder and enjoyment to strangely beautiful music played by, probably the greatest of all pianists of today, Ignace Jan Paderewski. For years he has traveled from country to country and from city to city, playing the piano in a manner no other has been able to imitate, although Chopin's playing, it is said, had much the same effect upon the audiences. In Paderewski's playing as in his composition there is always an undercurrent deeply sad and weird. No one but a genius from the martyred land of Poland, or from some other that had equally suffered, could play as Chopin and Paderewski played or could compose music such as they composed. All the old glory of Poland in the ancient centuries, her grievous losses, the terrible wrongs done her, and the long-treasured dreams of a new and happier day for her people, live in the soul of Paderewski, and vibrate through his very finger tips as they move over the keys of his loved instrument. Today the dreams of the Polish people are coming true. Hopes cherished since about the twelfth century are through the World War being realized in a new Poland. The tenth century saw the formation of the first kingdom of Poland in central Europe to the east of the Germans. The country grew and prospered for two hundred years. Then, lacking kingly leadership, it became weak, and was finally divided into many principalities. At that time came the terrible Tartar invasion across Russia and into Poland, resulting in shocking desolation and ruin. When complete destruction was threatened from hostile peoples, on the north and east, the Poles summoned aid from the Teutonic Knights, a German crusading order. The Germans drove out the hostile neighbors, promptly taking control of their lands. Then Poland learned that she had even worse enemies to fear in those she had called to help her. She watched them build up military power to conquer her own lands. But by joining with the Lithuanians, she managed at length to defeat the Germans at the famous battle of Tannenberg in 1410. For over three hundred years the kingdom possessed great power. But at last it again began to weaken, and the year 1772 "saw the beginning of the end." The three great nations, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, then joined against Poland and began to divide the kingdom among themselves. By 1795 Poland had ceased to exist as a nation. The terrible misfortunes of the Polish people under these hostile foreign powers served really to bind them together with one common purpose--to win back the kingdom and to reestablish a free country. This was their dream.