By purchasing Antonio Stradivari’s violin from 1685 and handing the instrument over for use to violinist Janusz Wawrowski, Roman Ziemian not only renewed the age-old Polish violin tradition (in 1715 King August II ordered a dozen or so instruments from the famous master of violin making, but none of them survived), but it also enabled the Polish violinist to appear on the great world stage of classical music. The last copies of the Polish Stradivarius were lost during World War II, and the country, dominated by communism for the next 50 years, did not manage to raise funds for the renewal of the stock of top-class instruments.