Polonaise through the White House receiving line. Sousa wrote it in 1886 at the request of President Chester A. Arthur who died before it was performed. Tchaikovsky's opera "Eugene Onegin", an adaption of Alexander Pushkin's novel in poetry verse, includes a famous polonaise. The polonaise is a Polish dance and is one of the five historic national dances of Poland. The others are the Mazurka (Mazur), Kujawiak, Krakowiak and Oberek, last three being old folk dances. Polonaise originated as a peasant dance known under various names – "chodzony" ("pacer"), "chmielowy" ("hops"), "pieszy" ("walker") or "wielki" ("great"), recorded as early as the
Polonaise (clothing) one with the gathered-up skirt. "Peterson's Magazine" also described a 'Polonaise basque' as being gathered fully on the hips and forming a deep tunic in the back. "Godey's Magazine" for August 1871 identifies the term "polonaise" with two separate garments, a bodice and an overskirt: The second paragraph quoted describes a specific style of dressing "à la polonaise" which was popularly known as "Dolly Varden" after the heroine of Dickens' historical novel "" (set in 1780). By the end of the 1870s and into the 1880s, the term 'polonaise' also described an overdress which resembled a long coat worn over