Silk Parachutes, or the Work of Butterflies: From Cocoons to Warplanes in Interwar Poland
Some, such as Henryk Sienkiewicz, claimed that silk could bring huge profits to Poland, while others, in contrast, mocked that a ‘silk fever’ was spreading throughout the country, affecting mainly bored intellectuals who knew this precious fabric only from their wives’ stockings.
Henryk Witaczek & his sister Stanisława in their office, Milanówek, around 1925–30, photo: Wikipedia
Exactly one hundred years ago, Milanówek became the capital of Polish sericulture. The Central Experimental Sericulture Station was established by siblings Stanisława and Henryk Witaczek. Afew years later, they also wrote a handbook on silkworm breeding and cultivation. Over time, their station grew into the largest facility of its kind in Europe. The idea of introducing silk production to Poland came to Henryk while he was in the Caucasus, initially due to being evacuated during the Great War and later while he was studying economics at the Technical University in Tbilisi. He learned the fibre manufacturing process at the local experimental station, where he also worked as alabourer.
It is reported that Witaczek’s idea was not taken seriously in Poland, resulting in alack of people willing to invest in it. However, Henryk Sienkiewicz purportedly stated that whoever gets involved in this craft ‘adds a handful of gold to the national treasury’. But the silk pioneer did not give up. One could even say that it was precisely this lack of appreciation and this disbelief that motivated Witaczek even more to realise his plans. In 1924, at his family’s home, the Józefina residence at 13 Piasta Street in Milanówek, he founded the Central Experimental Sericulture Station together with his sister, a biologist. The siblings had a knack for this craft in their blood – their great-grandfather was one of the shareholders of the Warsaw Silk Company, founded in the mid-19th century, and their mother was a graduate of a silk-making course at the Warsaw Beekeeping Museum.
The utopia of madmen
Milanówek, Sericulture Station, 1933, photo: Polona National Library
They had to start from scratch, that is, from the theory. Initially, the station in Milanówek primarily conducted scientific research focused on observing silkworm breeding and mulberry trees, as the silk moths feed on the leaves of these trees. Soon, the facility began offering silk-making courses and free counselling, as well as distributing publications, leaflets and posters to promote this activity in Poland. Rozwijajmy przemysł jedwabniczy! (Let’s Develop the Silk Industry!) was the title of a brochure published in 1927, in which it was calculated that ‘if only one person in every 2,000 in Poland bred and cultivated silkworms, we would no longer need to import silk from abroad’.
The development of this branch of manufacturing was expected to save the Polish budget tens of millions of zlotys. The publication encouraged people to start their own butterfly farms, specifying exactly what conditions needed to be met. First and foremost, it clearly indicated that mulberry trees were indispensable and that their leaves should be fed generously to the insects. Among the advantages of breeding silkworms, it was mentioned that the process is short (about one and ahalf months per year), cheap and easy to maintain (‘older women and children can do it’). How could one get started? All that was needed was to contact the Central Experimental Sericulture Station and purchase silkworm eggs at a cost of several dozen groszy per gram (i.e. approximately 1,600 eggs).
Polish silk like Persian carpets
Central Experimental Sericulture Station, 1926, photo: audiovis.nac.gov.pl (NAC)
The number of breeders grew, as did the amount of fibre ready for purchase, so a market had to be found for it. To develop not only research and breeding but also the industry, Henryk Witaczek carved wooden prototypes of machines on which thread could be manufactured and then woven into fabric. An information booklet published shortly after World War II by the Milanówek Station reads:
Once it became clear that beautiful fabrics could be made from domestic raw materials, the idea ceased to be regarded as the utopian dream of madmen […]. The breeding was introduced in some schools, prisons and care facilities. Mulberry trees began to be planted in some municipalities, and mulberry hedges were created along railway lines to prevent snowdrifts.
The Witaczek siblings embarked on a tour around the country, aiming to present the possibilities of sericulture to the broadest possible audience. They set themselves the goal of making the phrase ‘Polish silk’ as famous as ‘Persian carpets’ or ‘English wool’. ‘Polish silk must become synonymous with something beautiful and authentic’, said the creators of the facility. In 1925, the station participated in the Wieś Polska (Polish Countryside) exhibition, and two years later, the first sericulture competition in Poland was announced. The participant who ‘best and most carefully’ cultivated silk cocoons was to receive not only mulberry seedlings and the precious material itself but also awards from ministries and agricultural organisations. In 1930, the Central Experimental Sericulture Station was visited by then-president Ignacy Mościcki, who inaugurated their next series of courses.
The largest silk balloon
Preparations in Chochołowska Valley for stratospheric flight by Star of Poland balloon, 1938, photo: National Digital Archive NAC
The sericulture station established by the Witaczek siblings also became the subject of a post-war Polish Film Chronicle (Polska Kronika Filmowa) episode. ‘These are cocoons from which silk threads are drawn after steaming’, says the distinctive narrator. We observe women working at machines and the entire complex process of fibre production, as well as boards displaying the silk elements… of parachutes. ‘Precise weaving machines also work for the defence of the country’, we hear in the classic propaganda tone of Polish Film Chronicles. Indeed, on the eve of World War II, appeals were made to farmers to begin silkworm breeding, arguing that the raw material they produced was vital for the military.
In Milanówek, the production of military fabrics, powder ammunition bags and parachute lines was one of the most important branches of activity. Additionally, surgical and fishing thread, insulation fibre, scarves and ties were also manufactured. Furthermore, the technology for utilising silk proteins in cosmetics was developed, and artistic innovations, such as painted decorations on fabric, were introduced. Silk, praised by the Witaczek siblings, was also perfect for sewing church vestments, making umbrellas and weaving banners. It was of Milanówek silk (rubberised in Sanok) that the famous Star of Poland balloon was created. It was the world’s largest stratospheric balloon, whose unsuccessful launch attempt from the Chochołowska Valley was carried out in 1938.
Silk fever
‘Silk Fever’ by Józef Brzeziński, 1928, photo: Polona National Library
Interestingly, Józef Piotr Brzeziński, an eminent Kraków biologist and pioneer of phytobacteriology in Europe who died a few months after the outbreak of World War II, stated in his highly critical, at times even malicious publication Gorączka... jedwabna (Silk Fever, 1928) that the use of silk fibre for defence purposes was merely a justification for what he called ‘economic nonsense’. He mocked the idea, writing, among other things:
It must be domestic silk – and that’s final! Polish soldiers can only soar in the skies on Polish illusions. If the mulberry trees freeze some winter and fail to provide food for the silkworms, there will simply be no war that year!
Brzeziński – although he also wrote that silk production was mainly popularised by ‘unemployed urban intellectuals’ who knew silk only ‘from their wives’ dresses and stockings’ – did not stop at scathing comments but, drawing on his expert knowledge, presented estimates and analyses of the climate that, in his opinion, proved the absolute unprofitability of this branch of industry in Poland.
Transformations & repressions
Silkworm cocoon, Central Experimental Sericulture Station, 1926, photo: audiovis.nac.gov.pl (NAC)
By the outbreak of World War II, the Central Experimental Sericulture Station had developed approximately 3,000 breeding farms throughout Poland and trained several hundred sericulture instructors. At that time, its extensive industrial department produced nearly 8 square kilometres (!) of various types of materials each month. During the occupation, the station’s employees, determined to prevent the Nazis from seizing Milanówek’s silk and using it for military purposes, dismantled the machines used to manufacture the natural fibre.
After liberation, a Sericulture Secondary School was established in one of the residences in Milanówek with the aim of educating new professionals. An interesting fact is that the sports team formed after the war took the name Jedwabnik, meaning Silk Moth. The year 1948 marks the end of the history of the Milanówek factory operating under Witaczek’s supervision. At that time, the plant was nationalised, and its founder was dismissed, becoming a victim of communist repression and spending several years in prison. In the same year, Stanisława Witaczek was denied a passport, which prevented her from accepting an invitation to the prestigious International Sericultural Congress.
The work of butterflies
Caterpillars on leaves, silkworm breeding in 1st Mounted Rifle Regiment, 1936, photo: National Digital Archive NAC
‘The leaves of mulberry trees are processed annually by industrious silk moth caterpillars into exquisite real silk fibre’, wrote one popular science brochure. These ‘industrious organisms,’ as living creatures, were usually omitted from the official narrative of sericulture, as if this craft did not require the killing of millions of butterfly pupae by throwing them into boiling water in their cocoons. Today, various vegan alternatives are available that imitate traditional silk, including those made from soy, yeast and lotus. The most common type, associated with luxury, is the result of the work of insects bred exclusively for production purposes. From today’s more relational perspective, it is worth looking at the history of Milanówek silk from a different angle as well.
Sources:
Brzeziński, J. P.Gorączka… jedwabna. Kraków, 1928.
Co to jest jedwab naturalny. Industrial Department, Central Experimental Sericulture Station. Milanówek, 1918–39.
Rozwijamy przemysł jedwabniczy! Special publication. Lviv, 1927.
Witaczek-Nehring, B.‘Gdzie jest morwa, tam jedwabnictwo być może’. In Polska na jedwabnym szlaku. Warsaw, 1998.
Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Mistur
