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Chopin Biography

Click here for Chopin's quotes and quotes of others about Chopin >>> the Polish composer and pianist, was born on 1 March 1810, according to the statements of the artist himself and his family, but according to his baptismal certificate, which was written several weeks after his birth, the date was 22 February. His birthplace was the village of Zelazowa Wola near Sochaczew, in the region of Mazovia, which was part of the Duchy of Warsaw. The manor-house in Zelazowa Wola belonged to Count Skarbek and Chopin's father, Mikolaj (Nicolas) Chopin, a Polonized Frenchman, was employed there as a tutor. He had been born in 1771 in Marainville in the province of Lorraine in France, but already as a child he had established contacts with the Polish families of Count Michal Pac and the manager of his estate, Jan Adam Weydlich. At the age of 16, Mikolaj accompanied them to Poland where he settled down permanently. He never returned to France and did not retain contacts with his French family but brought up his children as Poles. In 1806, Mikolaj Chopin married Tekla Justyna Krzyzanowska, who was the housekeeper for the Skarbek family at Zelazowa Wola. They had four children: three daughters Ludwika, Izabela and Emilia, and a son Fryderyk, the second child. Several months after his birth, the whole family moved to Warsaw, where Mikolaj Chopin was offered the post of French language and literature lecturer in the Warsaw Lyceum. He also ran a boarding school for sons of the gentry.

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