200 Zlotys Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937) is Poland's most significant composer of the interwar period, though his reputation outside Central Europe has never matched his domestic stature. Born in Tymoszówka in what is now Ukraine, he spent his most productive years absorbing German late-Romanticism and later North African and Sicilian influences before arriving at a distinctly Polish modernist voice — most fully realized in his Stabat Mater of 1926 and the ballet Harnasie, which drew on Tatra Highland folk music.

The NBP issued this coin as part of its ongoing series honoring Polish cultural figures, the same program that produced gold pieces for Chopin and Paderewski. Szymanowski died in a Lausanne sanatorium, largely impoverished, having spent his final years as director of the Warsaw Conservatory during a period of chronic underfunding.