Whirlwinds of Danger

Whirlwinds of Danger (original Polish title: Warszawianka) is a Polish socialist revolutionary song written some time between 1879 and 1883. The Polish title, a deliberate reference to the earlier song by the same title, could be translated as either The Varsovian, The Song of Warsaw (as in the Leon Lishner version) or "the lady of Warsaw". To distinguish between the two, it is often called "Warszawianka 1905 roku" ("Warszawianka of 1905"), after the song became the anthem of worker protests during the Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907), when 30 workers were shot during the May Day demonstrations in Warsaw in 1905. The main meaning of the word Warszawianka is the Polish word meaning “Varsovian woman/lady/girl, the female inhabitant of Warsaw and/or a woman original to Warsaw. “Warszawianka” is the Polish noun in the nominative singular form. According to one version, Wacław Święcicki wrote the song in 1879 while serving a sentence in the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel for socialist activity. Another popular version has it written in 1883, immediately upon Święcicki's return from exile in Siberia. By the beginning of the next decade the song became one of the most popular revolutionary anthems in Russian-held Poland. The music was written by composer Józef Pławiński, who was imprisoned together with Święcicki, inspired partially by the January Uprising song "Marsz Żuawów".