Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Paderewski rose as a touring virtuoso in the late 1880s, composing orchestral works, an opera (Manru, the only Polish opera ever staged by the Met), and building a following that opened doors in Western salons and presidential offices. When World War I came, he largely stopped performing and threw his celebrity into the cause: fundraising, speeches, meetings with Wilson, work with the Polish National Committee in Paris. That pressure helped secure an independent Poland in the postwar settlement. Józef Piłsudski made him prime minister and foreign minister in January 1919; Paderewski went to th…