Chopin's heart exhumed in secret, like a relic
WARSAW, Poland — As Frederic Chopin gasped for air on his deathbed in Paris in 1849, he whispered a request that became the stuff of musical legend: Remove my heart after I die and entomb it in Poland. He wanted the symbol of his soul to rest in the native land he pined for from self-imposed exile in France.
Ever since then, the composer's body has rested in peace at the famed Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris — while his heart has endured a wild journey of intrigue and adulation.
First it was sealed in a jar of liquor believed to be cognac. Then it was smuggled into Warsaw past Russian border guards. Once it arrived in his hometown, Chopin's heart passed through the hands of several relatives before being enshrined in a pillar in Holy Cross Church. During World War II, it briefly fell into the hands of the Nazis. The organ has been exhumed several times, most recently in a secret operation to check whether the tissue remains preserved.
Chopin's heart inspires a deep fascination in Poland normally reserved for the relics of saints. For Poles, Chopin's nostalgic compositions capture the national spirit, and the heart's fate is seen as intertwined with Poland's greatest agonies and triumphs over decades of foreign occupation, warfare and liberation.
“This is a very emotional object for Poles,” said Michal Witt, a geneticist involved in the inspection. Chopin is “extremely special for the Polish soul.”
Chopin experts have wanted to carry out genetic testing to establish whether the sickly genius died at 39 of tuberculosis, as is generally believed, or of some other illness. But they remain frustrated. The Polish church and government, the custodians of the heart, have for years refused requests for any invasive tests, partly because of the opposition of a distant living relative of the composer.
This year, however, they finally consented to a superficial inspection after a forensic scientist raised alarm that after so many years the alcohol could have evaporated, leaving the heart to dry up.
Close to midnight on April 14, after the last worshippers had left the Holy Cross Church, 13 people sworn to secrecy gathered in the dark sanctuary.They included the archbishop of Warsaw, the culture minister, two scientists and other officials. They removed the heart from its resting place and carried out the inspection — taking more than 1,000 photos and adding hot wax to the jar's seal to prevent evaporation. Warsaw's archbishop recited prayers over the heart, and it was returned to its place. By morning, visitors to the church saw no trace of the exhumation.Polish officials kept all details of the inspection secret for five months before going public about it in September. They have not released photographs of the heart, mindful of ethical considerations surrounding the display of human remains, said Artur Szklener, director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, a state body that helps preserve the composer's legacy.“We don't want this to be a media sensation, with photos of the heart in the newspapers,” Szklener said. However, to prove that the heart is in good shape, he showed The Associated Press photographs of the organ, an enlarged white lump submerged in an amber-colored fluid in a crystal jar.Steven Lagerberg — the American author of “Chopin's Heart: The Quest to Identify the Mysterious Illness of the World's Most Beloved Composer” — believes international experts should have been involved in the inspection. He said he wishes that the exhumation had involved genetic tests on a small sample of tissue to determine the cause of Chopin's death.
