A Literary Guide to the Polish Mountains

dolina_pieciu_stawow_forum.jpg, default, Долина пяти прудов в Татрах. Фото: Войцех Матусик / Forum

‘My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here, My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer’, wrote the outstanding Scottish poet Robert Burns. His Polish poetic colleagues dedicated many excellent verses to the theme of the mountains. Especially as Poland is hardly lacking in beautiful mountains: the Tatras, the Karkonosze, the Beskids and the Świętokrzyskie Mountains...

Giewont, the stone knight

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Giewont, photo: Marek Podmokly / AG

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The Tatras are not only the highest mountains in Poland, but also the most romantic. Amongst Polish authors and poets, there arose a genuine cult of the Tatras, and hundreds of literary works were dedicated to them. This romantic love of the Tatras began in the mid-19th century. Since, at that time, Poland could not be found on the map of Europe, Poles used to joke that it was only up in the Tatras that one could sing the Polish national anthem ‘Poland is not yet lost’ out loud without fear of serious consequences. It was then, too, that the writer Konstanty Majewski created the legend that one fine day, the army of King Bolesław the Brave would descend from the Tatras to once again restore Polish independence. On the peaks of the Tatras, it is quite beautiful and quite windy – it is not without cause that one of the most popular Polish rhymes for ‘Tatry’ (the Tatras) is ‘wiatry’ (winds).

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Giewont, photo: Wikimedia Commons

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The best-known peak of the Tatras is, of course, Giewont. It is something more than just a mountain. Giewont is a holy site for Poles; that’s why in 1901, a metal cross was erected upon it, produced by the Górecki foundry of Kraków. Many say that visiting the Tatras without ascending Giewont is like visiting Rome and not seeing the pope. From the vantage point of Zakopane, the shape of the mountain resembles a sleeping knight. Polish poets in particular loved Giewont and dedicated many verses and even lengthy poems to it. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – in the Young Poland era – the vogue of writing verses about Giewont assumed the scale of an epidemic. The exceptionally prolific poet Wacław Wolski wrote sonnets about Giewont in wholesale quantities. Making light of those writers who had lost all sense of proportion, the poet Franciszek Mirandola published on the pages of the Kraków satiric journal Liberum Veto a playful poem with the telling title The One Thousand Six Hundred Twenty-Third Sonnet About Giewont. His satire was spot on. In spite of the obvious parody, his description of Giewont was quite effective:

Text

The peaks of Giewont rest upon granite boulders
I look and admire the setting sun and my lips
Tremble with a hymn of praise as the small rocks tumble down,
Like stalactites – boulders frozen in motion!

The iron cross glitters in the distance, the knight’s cigar,
An eternal symbol for the world and the gentians are blooming ...
The sky turned a tanned-blue color - malachite-silver-gold-gray.

From afar, the melancholy tone of juhasa pipes flows,
Sparks erupt from the mountain bush and smoke blows from the fire,
It would be quiet if Giewont were still standing in the corner,
And yes? ... The granite mass turns gray in the darkness
And you can bet your life on this certainty:
They will find you and describe poor Giewont to you yet again!

Author

Trans. YR

The watchful eye of the sea

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Morskie Oko, photo: Jan Grachiński / East News

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Morskie Oko (the Eye of the Sea) is a true gem of the Tatras. It is known not only for its dimensions (it’s the largest lake in the Tatras), but most of all for its exceptional saturated colour whose hues change constantly: from a silver-blue to a delicate cornflower blue. The local highlanders insist that the lake is connected by a sort of underground umbilical cord to the Adriatic Sea and that that explains its irreproducible colour. The exceptional beauty of this place, which Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer called ‘a brilliant diamond in a steel ring’, has hypnotised Polish poets from time immemorial. Dozens, if not hundreds, of lyrical verses, sonnets , odes and poems have been written about Morskie Oko.

Poet Adam Asnyk, photo: Wikimedia / public domain

Another lover of the Tatras who praised their beauty was Adam Asnyk. He looked upon the mountains not only with the eye of a poet, but also of a nature lover and philosopher. He was also a capable climber. In 1876, he became only the second person to achieve the summit of Wysoka. In that same year, he wrote a cycle of sonnets entitled Morskie Oko. He dedicated them to the lake, which was to him the object of an almost religious respect, bordering on awe:

Text

Above the mantles of the forest, restrained by a dam
Gigantic walls, woven close together,
Dark waters spill over a gloomy lake
Reflecting, in the bosom of the boulders, a frozen world.
Chunks rolled down from the peaks, moss covered with bark,
Their rubble spread along the banks,
Upon it, bent, crooked, dwarf mountain pines
Here and there cover the naked wilderness.

Granite boulders carried away in the clouds
Rarely let in there the sun’s most vivid rays...
And the mysterious depths are cloaked in a gloomy shadow.

Silence: only far away can the splashing streams be heard
Or the winds, flying over the dead forest,
With their whistle magnifying wild nature.

Author

Trans. YR

Zakopane – the Polish Athens

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Zakopane, photo: Martin Szkodziński / Forum

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Zakopane is the southernmost city in Poland. Nowadays, each winter, thousands of skiers come here, but even when skiing didn’t enjoy great popularity, the resort never lacked visitors. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Zakopane drew writers and artists like a magnet. In those years, it was known as the ‘Polish Athens’. Cultural life flourished; the cafes were filled with bohemians from morning to night, and at the ‘Tatra Station’ – Zakopane’s first ‘cultural centre’ – exhibitions, concerts and literary soirees took place.

Kazimierz Psherwa-Tetmeyer, photo: nac.gov.pl

A fan of these venues was Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer. Stanisław Wyspiański wrote about him that ‘he bears the pain of the mountains and wraps himself in the sound of words’. Przerwa-Tetmajer did indeed wander through the Tatras for their entire length and breadth. In his debut novel Rekrut (Recruit), he addressed the theme of the mountains and he expanded on that in his story ‘Legenda Tatr’ (The Legend of the Tatras) (1910-1911), which tells of the legendary bandit Janosik. Przerwa-Tetmajer wrote around 50 works about the Tatras, of which the best known is Widok ze Świnicy do Doliny Wierchcichej (A View From Świnica Over the Wierchcicha Valley), which begins as follows:

Text

There is such peace there... Onto the slopes
Light pours through the translucent fog
Onto the somnolescent greenery of the mountains.
Burbling far away through the stones,
A stream sparkles in the sun and becomes
A silver-rainbow line.

Author

Trans. YR

Ян Каспрович. Репродукция: Петр Мечик / Forum

Wonderful poems about the Tatras were crafted by another representative of Young Poland, Jan Kasprowicz. He came to the Tatras for the first time in 1892 with his fiancée, Jadwiga Gąsowska. He soon wrote a cycle of poems about that visit entitled Z Gór (From the Mountains), which later appeared in his book Love (1895). Ten years later, he settled in Poronin and, in 1923, he moved to ‘Harenda’, a villa at the edge of Zakopane. Today, a museum dedicated to the poet is located there. Kasprowicz’s best work about the mountains is a cycle of sonnets titled Krzak Dzikiej Róży w Ciemnych Smreczynach (The Wild Rose Bush in Ciemne Smreczyny). In it, the poet demonstrates his sniper-like powers of observation and his virtuosity in describing colours:

Text

In the gravel of the stones of Ciemne Smreczyny
Where the peacock-eyed ponds sleep,
The wild rose bush casts its bloody crimson
Into stains upon the grey rubble.

Author

Trans. YR

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‘Sirena’ (Siren) boat on Lake Morskie Oko, photographer unknown, photo: from the collection of the Tatra National Park

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However, as is usually the case, for each valued poet of Young Poland, there are dozens of mediocre writers and amateurish wannabes. They overcompensated for their lack of talent with pseudo-romantic bathos, endowing the Tatras’ wave of popularity with a clearly snobbish character. Polish modernism began to turn into a parody of itself. So it is no surprise that the rotting vessel of ‘Young Poland of the Tatras’ would eventually collide with the reef of literary parody. This occurred in 1913 when the popular newspaper Wiek Nowy (New Age) published as a serial Andrzej Struga’s tale Zakopanoptikon, Czyli Kronika Czterdziestu Dziewięciu Dni Deszczowych w Zakopanem (Zakopanopticon, or a Chronicle of 49 Rainy Days in Zakopane).

Thumbnail — Cover of ‘Zakopanoptikon’ by Andrzej Strug

In Zakopanoptikon, Strug mocked all of the Polish literature of the time with its messianism and hypersymbolism. A particular target was Tadeusz Miciński, author of the well-known poem Purple Mountains, who appears in Strug’s work as the poet Woziwoda, and Wincenty Lutosławski (called Skawulin by Strug). The author also made fun of social organisations and associations bearing absurd names, of which there were many in Zakopane. In ‘Zakopanopticon’, one finds the Committee of the Mountains’ Majesty, the Rational Mushroom-Gathering Club, the Spirit-Raising Circle, the Society for the Promotion of Vegetarianism, the Calming Committee, the Sudden Death Brotherhood, the Tatra Enthusiasts’ Group, etc.

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Andrzej Strug with his wife Nelly, 1929, photo: Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (NAC), audiovis.nac.gov.pl

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Andrzej Strug z żoną Nelly Grzędzińską, 1929, fot. Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (NAC), audiovis.nac.gov.pl

It was a malicious, yet joyous book, written with talent: a puzzle-tale. Strug toyed with the reader, suggesting that the reader should decipher the author’s pseudonyms and discover which poets, authors and journalists were disguised under invented names. Aside from that literary masquerade, the book is filled with delightful descriptions of Zakopane, its cafes, restaurants and inns... It is those descriptions that guaranteed the book’s longevity, though today’s reader might have a hard time interpreting the many literary allusions with which the book is filled.

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Witkacy with his cousin Maria Witkiewicz, in costumes created by her, photo: published with the permission of the Tatra Museum Library in Zakopane

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During the Interwar period, Zakopane ceased to be the favoured haven of the Polish Romantics: skiing gained in popularity, and the Tatras were overrun with crowds of winter sport enthusiasts. The ‘Polish Athens’ became the ‘Polish Davos’, and the city’s slogan (Zakopane was designated a city in 1933) became ‘Dancing, skiing, bridge’. The silence of the mountains gave way to the sounds of jazz-band trumpeters. Not everyone was happy with that change. The new character of the city offended its noted resident Kornel Makuszyński, although he managed to gain some benefit from it: the eccentric behaviour of its wealthy residents gave him wonderful material for his essays. In spite of these changes, Zakopane did not entirely lose its charm, and members of the creative world kept coming there to relax. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (‘Witkacy’) described the city’s charm in his piece ‘The Demonism of Zakopane’ (1919):

Text

For weak people, Zakopane is almost as deadly as an encounter with a truly demonic woman. For genuine Titans of the Spirit (to the degree that such still exist), it is a place in which their essence is condensed, new horizons open to them and artistic, social or scientific creativity develop new forms and build new values. […] In the air of Zakopane, a subtle narcotic is wafting about, a hundred times more offensive than the smoke of opium and hashish marmalade. […] Zakopane was once called ‘Poland’s spiritual capital’. We would call it something else: the lab which produces a unique, purely Polish narcotic – zakopanine.

Author

Trans. YR

Not one to shy away from experimenting with ‘mind-altering’ substances, Witkacy took ‘zakopanine’ in massive doses. His contemporaries said he had an ‘unwavering Tatra charisma’. He spent most of his life in Zakopane, walked extensively throughout the mountains, skied well, painted mountain landscapes, and took photographs. His most important works – The 622 Downfalls of Bungo, or the Demonic Woman (1910), Farewell to Autumn (1927) and especially Insatiability (1930) – are deeply imbued with a specifically Zakopanian aura.

Two giants

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Gavran & Muran, photo: Marek Podmokly / AG

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Władysław Broniewski was also a consummate, passionate lover of the Tatras. As his friends have recalled, he would choose the most dangerous and difficult trails through the mountains, avoiding the routes frequented by tourists, and would usually return in the middle of the night, whistling and carefree. Broniewski’s best-known work dedicated to the Tatras is Hawrań i Murań (Hawrań i Murań), about two adjacent twin peaks. Broniewski wrote the poem in 1935, and it was published in the monthly Skamander in June 1939. Before the war, Broniewski, a diehard socialist, befriended the founders of the ‘Vagabonds’ Inn’, a leftist collective which had its own tourist base in the Tatras. His trips to the area inspired him to create one of the finest Polish poems about the mountains:

Text

Litworowe valleys –
black ponds dreamed.
Clear weather above
And below white water
Amongst the mountain pine.
It called out and sang,
Blown by a green wind,
A white cloud blew in
And the sun shone through it,
Illuminated it, chased it away.
It turned green , it blossomed,
It boiled with a deep blue,
A snow-fluffy springtime,
elusive, transparent,
unreal, unusual.
Through the valley in the distance
cries are heard of sylvan joy
and, attracted by the call,
Hawrań and Murań stood
Like two men in a hall.

Author

Trans. YR

Stanisław Lem’s mountains

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Stanisław Lem, photo: by Wojciech Drusch / Reporter / East News

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Stanisław Lem often went skiing in the Tatras. He would also come to Zakopane every year in June. He would usually stay at the ‘Astoria’, a creative arts centre from whose windows one could see a magnificent mountain panorama. It was there that he wrote many of his stories and, while the word ‘Tatras’ never actually appears in Lem’s books, he surely drew inspiration from them – and they appear from time to time, unnamed, on the pages of his works.

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A still from the film ‘Test Pilota Prixa’ (Inquest of Pilot Pirks), directed by Marek Pestrak, 1978, pictured: Zbigniew Leseny, photo: OKO Film Studio / National Film Library / www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

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Кадр из фильма «Дознание пилота Пиркса», реж. Марек Пестрак, 1978 год. На фото: Збигнев Лесень, фото: Киностудия «OKO» / Национальная фильмотека / www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

For example, in his story ‘Undefeated’ (1964), the events play out in a mountain setting, albeit on another planet. By way of contrast, in his story ‘Return From the Stars’ (1961), the mountains are completely terrestrial and actually play a definitive role in the outcome of the plot. The main character of the story, the astronaut Hal Bregg, returns to Earth after a 10-year space mission. Unbeknownst to him, a dilation of time takes place on Earth, causing 120 years to elapse during his absence. Bregg, like the legendary Rip Van Winkle, finds himself feeling out of place in the new society, especially since all those he had known and loved had already passed away. His colleagues, who also can’t find their place in the new reality, decide that they will return to their more familiar ‘home’ in space and depart anew for the stars. But Bregg has fallen in love with a woman on Earth and chooses to remain. He reaches this fateful decision while walking through the mountains – the mountains tell him what he should do:

Text

The snows of the summit were ablaze with gold and white; he stood above the valley filled with a lilac shadow mighty and windless and I, not closing my tear-filled eyes, breaking up the light, I rose slowly and began to descend along the scree to the south towards my home.

Author

Trans. YR

One of the best Polish stories about a dangerous ascent to a mountain peak is Lem’s tale ‘The Accident’ in his collection Tales of Pirx the Pilot (1968). The story supposes that in the distant future, robots will be subject to emotions and that the mountains will be able to affect them emotionally. A team of astronauts is conducting research on a faraway desert planet very similar to Earth. Amongst the research team is a robot named Aniel, whom they send off into the mountains to conduct some measurements. But the robot doesn’t return to base, so the astronauts go off to find him and to find out what happened. Lem describes Pilot Pirx’s climb up the mountain, which resembles a giant stone pillar, in a quite evocative fashion, indicating considerable knowledge of mountaineering:

Text

The power of the challenge that he felt in the stone peacefulness of the cliff was exceptional; it really wasn’t a challenge as much as something more like an outstretched, inviting hand – with a conviction that arose at once that it must be accepted, that it was the beginning of a path which must be taken. […] They were already on the upper portion of the pillar. The rock, still rough, gradually began to cunningly repel the climbers, with an ever greater overhang which could not be overcome without serious ropes and, a few metres higher, the fissure which had been broad began to narrow sharply. Pirx still had about five metres of loose line and he instructed Massena to take it and have a look around. The robot went off in the direction indicated – without hooks, without support lines and without safety equipment. ‘So I could do that, too’, Pirx thought.

Author

Trans. YR

Following in the footsteps of the robot Pirx, one can begin to understand that the machine is more similar to its creators than they were inclined to think. When he found himself alone, facing an inaccessible mountain, he suddenly felt an irresistible human desire to conquer the summit and thus to test his own mettle. He was, after all, ‘created to solve intractable problems, that is to play games, and here he was presented with no mean challenge – and with the highest odds’. So the mountain terrain can awake a conqueror’s instinct even in an inanimate machine.

A mountain mystery

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Villa Koliba in Zakopane, photo: Petr Guzik / Forum

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Paraphrasing the famous tirade from Conan Doyle’s ‘Hound of the Baskervillles’, we implore: don’t go into the mountains after an alcohol-fuelled party, when irrational forces can take control. Otherwise, you risk stumbling into a vortex of unforeseen and dangerous events, as happened to Anna Serafin, a doctor of anthropology and the protagonist of Małgorzata and Michał Kuźmiński’s detective tale Śleboda. Anna arrives in the village of Murzasichle to visit her cousin. After an evening of festivities that lasts through to the morning, she takes a walk in the mountains to get over a major hangover in the fresh air – and she comes across a dead body in the forest.

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Cover of the audio version of the novel ‘Śleboda’ by by Malgorzata & Michal Kuzminski, photo: publisher’s promotional materials

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The victim is soon identified as an old highlander whose dark past is tied to the Goralenvolk – that was the name of the Germanisation program conducted amongst the highlanders by the German occupation authorities during the Second World War. In those days, the murder victim was a member of the voluntary collaborationist Highland Legion of the SS, so the villagers believe that the murder may have been a delayed form of revenge. Since the police are unable to find a perpetrator, the young anthropologist, on an impulse that she herself doesn’t fully comprehend, decides to launch her own investigation.

Śleboda (which means ‘freedom’ in highland argot) is a fascinating ethno-mystery in whose plot an interesting tale of the Tatras, their residents, local customs and language are intricately woven. The Kuźmińskis also present a very suggestive image of the contemporary social problems of the highland folk, who stand before a choice: to definitively commercialise their culture to meet the needs of tourists or to isolate themselves from the outside world in order to preserve their identity. The choice is not simple, because what is on the line is the highlanders’ most precious treasure: their freedom.

The Low Beskids: in the footsteps of Andrzej Stasiuk’s characters

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Lemko Orthodox Church in the Low Beskids, photo: by Daniel Pach / Forum

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The heavily forested Low Beskids are characterised by their delicate, discreet, haunting beauty. One gets the impression that these mountains have frozen not only on the borders of space (the borders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia run nearby), but also somewhere beyond time: here, a person can sense a subtle breeze of timelessness. Once, the Łemkos lived here and called themselves Rusins; they were a Ukrainian ethnic sub-group. Today, there are hardly any of them in the Low Beskids – in 1947, as part of ‘Operation Vistula’, they were massively deported along with Ukrainians to western and northern Polish lands.

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Andrzej Stasiuk, photo: Adam Golets / AG

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The Low Beskids have their own genius loci: Andrzej Stasiuk. Born in Warsaw, he moved to the mountains in 1987. The then-27-year-old writer already had to his credit solid, non-conformist experience (rock music, prison time for draft resistance). The move to the isolated countryside was a logical continuation of his resistance to official power. In the beginning, Stasiuk lived in the Beskid village of Czarne; he then moved to the village of Wołowiec, where he lives to this day. As if he were following the path recommended by the author and naturalist Henry Thoreau, who believed that a free and independent life in the bosom of nature ennobles a person, Stasiuk counted only on himself: he maintained a farm to meet his own needs, raised sheep, and, in the late 1990s, he established, along with his wife, Monika Sznajderman, the Czarne publishing house, which is viewed today as one of Poland’s most prestigious literary presses.

Cover of the Russian edition of ‘Biały Kruk’ (The White Crow) by Andrzej Stasiuk

If you intend to visit the Low Beskids, you must absolutely take with you what I believe to be Andrzej Stasiuk’s best books, White Raven and Dukla. The story White Raven (1955), in which one can sense the influence of the American beatnik writer Jack Kerouac, is called an existential drama, though it also has within it elements of a crime thriller and even of a Bildungsroman (tale of growing up). The characters of White Raven – three now-grown schoolmates undergoing their midlife crises – go into the Beskids in search of adventure to shake off the lethargy of their senseless, routine existence. However, in their attempt to cross the boundary between their boring, drab existence and the fireworks of a true life, the three break the law, and their innocent hike into the hills soon morphs into a gory nightmare. White Raven was written in such a fascinating manner that sparks seem to fly off its pages, and the masculine tone and restrained narrative in the style of Hemnigway give the exciting tale a special atmosphere.

Text

We came to the edge of the forest. The gorge opened onto a treeless, broad valley and only the junipers, like frozen human figures, cast deep blue shadows. A kilometre lower down, in the middle of a gentle slope, a few trees darkened the scene and, amidst them, a small light shone like a remnant of a just-extinguished sky.

Author

Trans. YR

Dukla, in turn, is a book with an entirely different rhythm and breath. It has no plot as such; the plot is just daily life with all of its shades and details. Only when we notice those do we become truly alive. The eponymous Dukla is a small Beskid town, established already in the 14th century, from whose streets there is a magnificent view of Cergowa Mountain. Describing his visits to the town, Stasiuk displays a rare talent of slowing the flow of time and, making use of this pause like a sweet dream, tells about what is most important. ‘Whenever I come to Dukla, something is going on’, he writes. But what are these events? Political intrigues, massive unrest or, in the worst case, looting? Not at all. ‘Most recently, there was a frosty December light at dusk’, Stasiuk explains with disarming calm. Indeed. What could be more important , more interesting, more beautiful than such ‘events’ as light which drives away the darkness?

The Giant Mountains (Karkonosze)

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Szklarska Poręba, Karkonosze Mountains, photo: Jacek Trublaevich / Reporter

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The Karkonosze are the highest part of the Sudetes mountain range; the tallest peak of the Karkonosze is Śnieżka (Snowball). If the weather allows, you can even see the lights of Prague from the peak late in the evening. The Polish poet and artist Bogusz Zygmunt Stęczyński (1814-1890), a lover and expert on the Tatras and the Sudetes, wrote about that remarkable characteristic of the famous mountain. Stęczyński was a ‘professional vagabond’ and spent his entire life struggling unsuccessfully with poverty; he died in poverty in Kraków, leaving behind him a wealth of excellent mountain landscapes and poems about the mountains. He dedicated two poems to the Sudetes: ‘Silesia’ and ‘Sudetes’. This is what, in Stęczyński’s opinion, you could see from atop Śnieźka:

Text

The guide points out many points through the fog,
There’s Wrocław, Poznań, Dresden, Prague. Vienna, Kraków.
There’s Zgorzelec, Jaurów, Ostrowiec, Lignica,
Kładsko, Lendak, Sambice, Drzenowo, Świdnica.

Author

Trans. YR

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Alpine Meteorological Observatory on Snieżka, photo: Jerzy Pavleta / Forum

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If that’s an exaggeration, it’s only a small one: the view from Śnieżka, on whose peak a meteorological observatory was built in 1974, is indeed extraordinary. But this type of artistic expression only works once. When Stęczyński repeated it in his poem The Tatras, writing that you could see the spires of Kraków’s churches from the peak of Łomnica, no one believed him. One critic even wrote wryly, ‘It seems to me that the poet saw that landscape not from the peak of Łomnica, but rather in his own rich imagination’.

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Szklarki Waterfall in Karkonosze, photo: East News

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Hiking through the Karkonosze, one must see its chief tourist attraction: the 13m Szklarki waterfall on the Szklarka Creek. This natural wonder was immortalised in the poetry of Tadeusz Różewicz. In 1950, he composed Wodospad Szklarki (The Szklarki Waterfall). And, although he decided to do away with the regional context of the poem and to publish it under the more universal title Wodospad (Waterfall), anyone who has visited Szklarki will undoubtedly recognise this lovely spot:

Text

The water is peeling away
from the stone bed.
It falls with a crash
and wears away the walls

And white foam
like big butterflies
they are swimming, flying.
The stones are lying
in pools of sunlight
like abandoned black tables.

The tree cracked open the boulder
Like a shell with a sharp edge
And the birds sing

Author

Trans. YR

The mysticism of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains

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Świętokrzyskie Mountains, photo: Przemyslaw Zemacki / East News

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The Świętokrzyskie Mountains (the name means Holy Cross Mountains) are not very high, but it just takes a glance at them to sense that they hide within them some secret. This mountain range is not only the oldest, but also the most mystical one in Poland. No other Polish mountain range has as many folk legends and horror stories told about it as does this one.

Its highest peak is Łysica, rising 612m above sea level. However, better known is its neighbour, Łysa Góra – only slightly smaller in terms of height, but with a far greater reputation as a place of nefarious undertakings. Folk tradition has it that Witches’ Sabbaths take place regularly atop Łysa Góra. Witches are said to light bonfires here, stirring up magical brews and potions and celebrating through the night. At the first cock’s crow, they shout out ancient curses and fly off on their brooms to wreak havoc.

The woods that cover the Świętokrzyskie Mountains are thick and impenetrable. To this day, people believe that deep in the pine and fir thickets, made famous by Stefan Żeromski in his poem The Fir Forest, there reside evil, dark forces.

Another Świętokrzyskie legend which has made it to literature is that of the stone pilgrim. At the feet of Łysa Góra, there stands a curious stone statue of a man with his hands folded in prayer. Historians believe that it was erected there in the 14th century to honour King Władysław Jagiełło’s pilgrimage to the region. But folk tales say that it represents a knight who came to the Holy Cross region to repent his sins. But, they say, he was unable to achieve repentance and, as punishment, he was turned to stone. The stone pilgrim is still climbing the mountain, they insist, but he is doing so extremely slowly, at the rate of one grain of sand per year. Eventually, he will reach the summit and, on that day, his sins will be forgiven. Unfortunately, that day will also mark the end of the world.

Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Cracow, 1994, photo: Elżbieta Lempp — Gustav Herling-Grudzinski, Krakow, 1994, photo: Elżbieta Lempp

Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, who came from this region, used the legend of the stone knight as the background of his story ‘The Tower’. ‘The Tower’, with allusions to the work of Edgar Allen Poe and Henry James, was published by Jerzy Giedroyć’s Instytut Literacki in the anthology Horns of the Altar in 1960. Years later, in his Journal Written by Night, Herling-Grudziński wrote about the stone pilgrim: ‘I willl remember him longer than I will remember the landscape in which he stands’. And he added:

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I believe in the existence of mythogenic landscapes. I might be fooling myself after all these years, swayed by childhood memories, but I’d swear that in Poland, the Świętokrzyskie Mountains are just a such a fertile region.

Author

Trans. YR

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Still from ‘Sowizdrzał Świętokrzyski’ by Henryk Kluba, 1978, photo: Studio Filmowe Kadr / Filmoteka Narodowa / www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

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The rich folklore of the Świętokrzyskie region certainly had an influence on the author and poet Józef Ozga-Michałski, born in 1919 in the Świętokrzyskie village of Bielina. During the Second World War, he fought in the resistance as a partisan of the Peasant Battalions, and during the Polish People’s Republic, he made himself both a literary and a political career. His first book, an anthology of Świętokrzyskie regional oral traditions and folktales, was published even before the war, and it was written in local dialect. His best-known work, in which he exhibits the broad array of myths of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, is Sowizdrał Świętokrzyski (The Świętokrzyski Scallywag, 1972). In 1978, Henryk Kluba produced a rather amusing film based on the book and bearing the same title, with Beata Tyszkiewicz and Olgierd Łukasiewicz in the leading roles.

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Still from ‘Sowizdrzał Świętokrzyski’ by Henryk Kluba, 1978, photo: Studio Filmowe Kadr / Filmoteka Narodowa / www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

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Jan Kolasa, the protagonist of this funny book, is described as a classic roguish figure resembling the main character of Charles de Coster’s epic work. Having inebriated the priest who is en route to serve one of the Świętokrzyskie area parishes, Jan dons his cassock and claims to be the new priest. After this, he ascends the altar and declares that all church lands should be distributed to the poor – a prank worthy of the legendary Till Eulenspiegel himself. The book also contains a shocking dose of fantasy that might even elicit the envy of Gogol – let’s take, for example, the incredible scene in which one of the characters goes flying over the Świętokrzyskie Mountains... on the back of a giant dog. One could choose to shrug one’s shoulders and say, after all, this is a folktale. But lovers of the Gothic aura of these parts would decidedly have something about which to dream and fantasise.

Originally written in Russian, Jan 2020, translated by Yale Reisner, Jan 2021

Language English

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polish literature