The Legacy of the Dziady: Poland’s Wandering Beggars & Their Songs

zebracy_w_telszach_1896_107166478.jpg, default, Beggars in Telšiai, 1896, photo: the National Digital Library Polona

For centuries, the wandering beggars known as ‘dziady’ roamed Poland, carrying songs and stories that blended history, spirituality and social truth. As messengers between worlds, ‘God’s chosen ones’ held a unique place in folk culture, offering both entertainment and moral insight.

At the turn of the 20th century, dziady remained a constant feature of the Polish cultural landscape. Wandering from village to village, they could often be found at popular sites of religious worship. But who were these itinerant figures, and how did they occupy themselves? As Oskar Kolberg wrote:

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To encourage passers-by to acts of mercy and generous sharing of worldly goods, these individuals sang legends and songs with religious or historical themes […] which, thanks to their astonishing memories, they would recite almost all day long in a measured, usually monotonous and mournful tone; yet so emphatic and penetrating that – in their view – it could even move rocks to pity and crumble.

The status of these wandering singers in rural life was unique. A dziad – a stranger from ‘who knows where’ – was seen in the folk imagination as a messenger of God or a link between worlds. As Piotr Grochowski writes in his book Dziady: Rzecz o Wędrownych Żebrakach i ich Pieśniach (Dziady: A Tale of Wandering Beggars and Their Songs), the most important modern monograph on the subject, ‘The evangelical idea of voluntary poverty was undoubtedly a key influence on perceptions of itinerant beggars as God’s chosen ones.’

The special respect shown to such visitors was reflected in the proverb, ‘a guest in the house is God in the house’. It was widely believed that the prayers of the poor were especially pleasing to God. Alms given to beggars were, then, a fee for intercession with a higher power. As the sociologist and folklorist Stefan Czarnowski remarked, a peasant ‘[…] in minor matters gives a few pennies to a beggar to say the appropriate prayers for him. Having thus entrusted his affairs to those who know the way to God better than he does, he is at peace with himself.’

This belief in the good fortune a beggar might bring was connected with many customs. For example, in Old Polish times, it was thought that choosing a beggar as a godparent could protect a child from illness or premature death.

As Piotr Grochowski notes in the work cited above, ‘The status of a wandering dziad was therefore significantly higher than the social position usually occupied by a local pauper, someone known to all in the village. This seems to be the fundamental reason why people preferred to “go begging” elsewhere, rather than ask for alms within their own community or immediate surroundings’.

Nevertheless, attitudes towards dziady in traditional folk culture were mixed. Numerous tales have been preserved of their tricks and deception – for example, pretending to be disabled – as well as of the instrumental use of religious sentiment and occasional petty theft. Quite remarkable stories also circulated about them: tales of witchcraft, clandestine societies, and a secret language known as ‘dziady gibberish’, along with legends of hidden dziady treasures and extravagant and debauched dziady balls.

A folk dziad from the Vilnius region, interwar period, photo: the National Digital Library Polona

Although known as dziady, a word connoted with dziadek or ‘grandfather’, these individuals were not necessarily elderly men. At times, the term was applied to relatively young people who, due to disability or illness, were unable to perform physical work and thus had to beg. The role was not exclusive to men – women dziady could also be found along main roads and pilgrimage routes.

Often, older peasants who could no longer work on the land became dziady. After transferring their property to their children, they were either driven out of the house or would periodically leave when the family was particularly struggling with poverty during the pre-spring period. Ethnographer Henryk Biegeleisen, writing in the 1920s, remarked:

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Young people in Kuyavia have considerable respect for their elders. However, this does not prevent the younger generation from sending useless old people, who are only capable of looking after their grandchildren, to earn a living as dziady, as they are unwilling to feed them for free. This is viewed as a normal state of affairs and is not considered a disgrace by anyone.

Another famed ethnographer, Jan Stanisław Bystroń, offered a different perspective: ‘Until recently, it was quite common for a farmer who no longer felt strong enough to work to hand over his farm to his children and go begging, treating this as a rest after a lifetime of hard work, as a desirable opportunity to visit famous churches, sites of pilgrimage and parish festivals, and, finally, as a way of enjoying freedom in his old age.’

This diverse group also included those who had lost their homes to fire or gambled away their possessions. Veterans returning from war with disabilities, or soldiers left without a home after many years of service – for example, in the first half of the 19th century, Tsarist army service lasted 25 years – often became wandering dziady. Some who mutilated themselves to avoid conscription similarly ended up as dziady. In old Poland, many beggars roamed the villages claiming to be survivors of Turkish captivity, including both genuine prisoners and con artists appealing to Christian sympathy with such tales.

Despite this, these wanderers were a vital source of worldly knowledge for settled peasants, many of whom never ventured beyond their parish. Bystroń described them as:

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People who had been around and seen a lot, begging for their bread, were like walking chronicles of the area; they knew everything and spread news among the manors and cottages. […] Among them, as everywhere, were individuals of varying merit; many were social misfits, but there were also fascinating people with unusual talents and great intelligence.

In another work, Bystroń added:

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They were primarily people curious about the world, active and restless, for whom the confines of the monotonous serf-village were too restrictive; there were also misfits from other trades and towns, especially former students of parish or monastery schools, who, finding no other occupation, sold their knowledge for alms while wandering […].

These itinerants had a distinctive appearance. Their beggar’s kit typically included a bag slung over the shoulder, a whip to drive off stray dogs, a staff covered with hedgehog skin, and a turtle shell used as a money box for collecting donations. Items emphasising their piety were also important – dziady wore rosaries, medallions and scapulars.

The means by which dziady earned a living were more varied than mere begging; they also practised quackery and herbal medicine, as well as trading in supposed relics. Among the fake pilgrims’ wares were such items as ‘Jerusalem palms, […] rings rubbed against miraculous paintings, […] soil from Golgotha, and sand from the house of the Virgin Mary in Loreto’.

Their prominent place in the Polish imagination is reflected in their presence in numerous literary works. They were mocked in satirical literature, in works such as Tragedia Żebracza (The Tragedy of a Beggar), dating from the mid-16th century and surviving in fragments, and Peregrynacja Dziadowska (The Dziady Peregrination), written in 1612. Ukrainian lirnyks, itinerant musicians who will be discussed further below, were particularly beloved by Romantic poets. The myth of the Ukrainian bard Wernyhora was shaped in Polish culture by, among others, Słowacki’s Sen Srebrny Salomei (The Silver Dream of Salome) and Wyspiański’s The Wedding. Rural beggars also appear in Reymont’s The Peasants, represented by the characters of Anna and Roch.

Dziady-related themes also recur in the works of writers associated with the so-called peasant movement. In Redliński’s novel Konopielka, a wandering dziad (memorably portrayed by Franciszek Pieczka in Witold Leszczyński’s film adaptation) brings news of the moral decay wrought by the modernisation of the countryside. Meanwhile, Wniebogłosy by Tadeusz Nowak tells the story of a family where begging is passed down through generations, set against the tumultuous backdrop of the 20th century. The image of a beggars’ ball held on All Souls’ Day by the walls of Warsaw’s largest cemetery is depicted in Stanisław Swen Czachorowski’s short story Dziady Bródnowskie (The Dziady of Bródno). A dziad-musician, a visitor from the beyond, appears in Wit Szostak’s story Oberki do Końca Świata (Obereks to the End of the World).

Below is a list of the most important themes addressed in beggars’ songs – a kind of dziady chart of top songs.

‘Listen, Christians…’

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Lirnyk by the Orthodox church in Lutsk, 1931, photo: the National Digital Library Polona

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As Piotr Grochowski aptly observed: ‘[...] almost all the themes addressed in songs from the dziady repertoire share a certain uniqueness and, if I may say so, effectiveness. There is no place here for everyday life, mediocrity, or descriptions of minor social details. On the contrary, the narrative always centres on unusual, momentous, dramatic, and sometimes even sensational events.’

This also applies to songs with religious themes, which often draw on hagiographic and apocryphal stories. Many feature especially vivid descriptions of the elaborate tortures endured by saints, as well as the miraculous events in which they were involved. As Grochowski highlights, even in the song about Saint Onuphrius, a hermit said to have spent sixty years in seclusion, the emphasis is primarily on fabulous occurrences:

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And the palm tree bowed down to him,

And the cruel lions buried his body

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Trans. AM

The dziady song repertoire naturally includes songs about miraculous paintings and shrines linked to apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Songs were sung about Our Lady of Gidle, Studzianna, Leżajsk, Piękoszów, Bralin, Kodeń, Leśna and, of course, the Jasna Góra Monastery.

Listen carefully to the sky that cries so hard

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Oh, Polish crown!

What is heard of thee?

Precious jewels

You have squandered.

The earth no longer bears fruit,

As it did before,

Has it been neglected?

Has it been sucked dry?

Neither has it been neglected,

Nor has it been sucked dry,

The earth has done,

As God commanded it.

Oh, previously, the people

Were disgusted by sins,

But now the young

Commit them in the thousands.

[...]

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Trans. AM

An important theme in dziady songs was the announcement of the end of the world, heralded by a widespread decline in morals. Such a bleak picture of human relationships emerges in the subsequent verses of the song quoted above: a daughter disowns her mother, a sister is ashamed of her poor sibling, and an elderly father dies on the doorstep of one son’s house after being turned away and refused support by his other descendants.

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‘O Polska Korono, Co Słychać o Tobie [O Upadku Obyczajów]’ (Oh, Polish Crown! What Is Heard of Thee? [On the Decline of Morals]) by Stanisława Gwiazda

This song, like many others from the dziady repertoire – such as Zegar Bije (The Clock is Striking), Dusza z Ciała Wyleciała (The Soul Flew Out of the Body), Pamiętaj Człowiecze, Jak Żyjesz na Świecie (Remember, Man, How You Live in This World), and Jest Tam Dróżka Udeptana (There is a Well-Trodden Path Up There) – was sung during the ritual of the ‘Empty Nights’, a prayer vigil for the deceased.

Many of these songs were also included in church songbooks, with some having Baroque or even mediaeval origins, as is the case with Dusza z Ciała Wyleciała. Many explore apocalyptic themes with particular vividness, depicting terrible judgement, the final trumpet and the Antichrist, as in the song Posłuchajcie Proszę Pilnie, Jak Niebo Płacze Usilnie (Listen Carefully to the How Much the Sky Is Crying). As Piotr Grochowski states in the work quoted above, beggar-singers ‘tried to guide the emotions of their audience primarily in two directions: pity and fear’.

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Liwiec · III Posłuchajcie Proszę Pilnie Jak Niebo Płacze Usilnie - Barbara Osik, Barbara Soczewka

Orphans also frequently appear as characters in the dziady universe. For example, a well-known song begins: ‘An orphan girl was walking through the village, and evil dogs fell upon her’ – only for Jesus himself to rush to her rescue. In many variants of songs about orphans, a cruel stepmother (and in some versions, a child murderess) is captured and taken to hell, where she expresses belated remorse for her sins. Such texts carry a distinctly moralising aspect, which was likely intended to inspire greater generosity among listeners.

‘Oh, the Most Holy Virgin, what times befell upon us?’

The dziady’s repertoire also includes songs about (often loosely interpreted) news and historical events, such as the Swedish Deluge, the Battle of Vienna, and the Toruń Tumult of 1724. Characteristically, each of these songs addresses sacrileges and atrocities committed against the Catholic population by people of other faiths.

In the 19th century, a genre of songs for fairs and church festivals began to develop, sometimes associated with dziady songs. Wandering stallholders sold penny pamphlets containing songs with sensational titles such as ‘The Latest Song About the Terrible Flood That Struck Us on 16th July 1934’ and ‘the Miraculous Rescue of the Kusioł Family in the Village of Klęczany near Sącz’ or ‘A New Song About the Great Murder That Took Place Near the Town of Szenkielberk in 1863’. These small publications, filled with gruesome and terrifying tales, could be seen as the equivalent of today’s tabloids. Other headlines included: ‘The Terrible Crime of a Mother Who Killed Her Son for Dollars’ and ‘God’s Terrible Punishment for the Ungrateful Daughter Who Hit Her Mother in the Face and Had Her Hand Stick to Her Mother’s Face’.

Printed songs sometimes found their way into dziady repertoires, but Grochowski clearly distinguishes between the two: ‘[...] while dziady sought to show typical situations (transcending time and place) relevant to everyone, street vendors emphasised the uniqueness and sensational nature of the events they presented’.

Portrait of a dziad, 1960s, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, photo: Piotr Gan / Muzeum Etnograficzne / National Digital Library Polona

Echoes of these new songs persisted into the second half of the twentieth century. Andrzej Bieńkowski, in his book Ostatni Wiejscy Muzykanci (The Last Village Musicians), recounts how, shortly after the war, the community of a certain village learned of the bombing of Hiroshima through the songs of an itinerant dziad. The 2022 album Pieśni Wędrowne – an anthology of songs of dziady origin that have survived in rural singing traditions, released by the In Crudo record label, includes two songs in a news-song style, which ‘were created in a cultural landscape where dziady were no longer present’: one about Stalinist repression and another about the plane crash at Okęcie Airport in 1980. The curator of this compilation, Remigiusz Mazur-Hanaj, mentions two other well-known news songs from the latter half of the 20th century: one about the assassination attempt on John Paul II, and another about the murder of the priest Jerzy Popiełuszko.

Modern incarnations of this news-song tradition also reached the Polish diaspora overseas. A prime example is Mały Władzio, aka Li’l Wally (real name Walter Jagiełło), a self-taught musician born in Chicago, celebrated as the king of polka. His repertoire included, among others, a song in this style about the assassination of Robert Kennedy:

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On the sixth of June, the whole world was sad

We had a senator who did not come back

He ran for president of our beloved country

He wanted to free us from the enemy,

But did not live to see the day.

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Trans. AM

‘та нема в світі правди’ (There is no truth in the world)

A lirnyk under a cross, circa 1900, photo: National Digital Library Polona

Finally, it is worth mentioning the lirnyks. Primarily associated with regions of present-day Ukraine and Belarus, their legend also significantly influenced Polish culture – for example, the aforementioned myth of Wernyhora. Romantic ethnographers and poets sought a ‘folk Homer’ in these figures: both Polish, as shown by nicknames such as Teofil Lenartowicz calling himself the ‘lirnyk of Mazovia’ and Władysław Syrokomla the ‘lirnyk of Lithuania’; and Ukrainian, led by Taras Shevchenko, who elevated wandering singers to the status of national symbols. In old ethnographic sources, lirnyks were often equated with dziady, though they were distinguished by their instrument – the hurdy-gurdy (dziady in present-day Poland typically performed their songs either unaccompanied or accompanied themselves on the fiddle).

During their travels, lirnyks traversed lands now within Poland’s borders. Kolberg’s records reveal that some lirnyks had bilingual repertoires, singing in both Ukrainian and Polish. In Warsaw in the first quarter of the 19th century, a well-known lirnyk was Mateusz Dziubiński, known as Niebieski Płaszcz (Blue Coat), who performed near Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery amongst other places.

The art and craft of the lirnyks had a somewhat elite character, even organising into fraternities that resembled guilds. The lyricists used a secret jargon known as Łebijska speech. These associations often operated under the auspices of the Orthodox Church and were linked to specific places of worship. Young apprentices underwent an apprenticeship under experienced lirnyks, learning the canon of songs before undergoing a ritual of liberation (vyzviłka), after which they were permitted to practise independently. Notably, many lirnyks were blind – in some fraternities, blindness was even a prerequisite for membership. This allowed blind children to acquire life skills from lirnyks that their families could not teach. For completeness, it is worth noting that wandering blind singers who played the gusli were also characteristic in southern Slavic countries.

М. Гай "Та нема в світі правди"

The lirnyk repertoire included religious songs, epic dumkas, and songs addressing social issues. The latter category includes the aforementioned song Nie Ma w Świecie Prawdy (There Is No Truth in the World), the public performance of which frequently led to arrests during the Tsarist era. However, the lirnyks’ world met a tragic end under Stalin’s repressions: in 1934, the NKVD executed 225 itinerant artists in Kharkiv after luring them to the city under the pretext of a national music festival. A similar culling operation occurred in Lviv in 1939.

The Ukrainian lirnyk tradition experienced a revival in the late 1980s with the decline of the USSR. One prominent figure in this movement was Mykhailo Khai, also known as Lirnyk Stefan – the recording above features his interpretation of a song about the triumph of hypocrisy. An ethnomusicologist, lirnyk and bandura player, Khai reconstructed a canon of forgotten songs based on his research and source recordings. To keep the tradition alive, he sometimes performed outside Orthodox churches and on the streets.

Sources: ‘Dziady. Rzecz o wędrownych żebrakach i ich pieśniach’ by Piotr Grochowski, Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2010; ‘Dziad wędrowny w kulturze ludowej Słowian’ by Katia Michałjowa, Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2010; ‘Karnawał dziadowski. Pieśni wędrownych śpiewaków’ by Stanisław Nyrkowski, Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1977.

Originally written in Polish, translated by Agnieszka Mistur

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