Krzysztofory. Zeszyty Naukowe Muzeum Historycznego Miasta Krakowa
Czasopismo skierowane do odbiorcy specjalisty, zainteresowanego kulturą, sztuką i historią Krakowa, jak też do szerokich kręgów publiczności rozmiłowanej w cracovianach i w dziejach miasta.
Szczegóły zob. w zakładce Prawa autorskie i udostępnianie.
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Kronika działalności Muzeum Historycznego m. Krakowa za rok 1991
Z cyklu: Znani kolekcjonerzy krakowscy — rozmowa z Ryszardem Kucharskim
AN INTERVIEW WITH RYSZARD KUCHARSKI Ryszard Kucharski was born on October 5, 1934 in Cracow. He began school during the Second World War at Primary School no. 11 in Miodowa Street. After the war he completed courses at the High School of Economics. His material situation forced him to abandon further studies and take a job. He tried many occupations. His longest employment was with the State Automotive Transport, in a variety of positions. He took early retirement in 1982. In 1977 he was a co-founder of the Cracow Collectors’ Club, and since then he has continued to be President of the Club. In 1981 he was one of initators of the Federation of Collecting Organizations in Poland and an organizer of their First Convention in Cracow, June 18-21 of that year. At the Convention he was elected President of the Polish Federation of Collectors’ Organizations; he is now serving another term (1992-1955) in that office. R. Kucharski has been organizer of various activities for the preservation of Cracow’s historic monuments, including restoration of the statues in the Planty park, restoration of military graves at the Rakowice Cementery, and antique fairs and auctions providing funds for historic monuments. Porcelain, faience, glass, medals, Art Nouveau items, patriotic jewellery, jewellery from times of national mourning, and Judaica prevail in R. Kucharski’s collection. He has been awarded the following distinctions for his work for the community: Meritorious Service to Culture, Gold Medal for Service to the City of Cracow, Gold Medal for Service to the Cracow Region, and the Friend of Education Medal.
Kronika Teatralna Krakowa. Sezon 1964/1965
Przewodniki po Krakowie i jego okolicach. Od najstarszych do 1945 r. Charakterystyka, bibliografia
GUIDES TO CRACOW AND ENVIRONS, FROM THE OLDEST UP TO 1945. CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES, LITERATURE Cracow, a treasury of a thousand year history of the Polish nation, centre of culture, science and art, and an important industrial centre has always attracted tourists from all over Poland. The oldest detailed guide-type descriptions of the city date from the 17th century. They were for pilgrims, who visited Cracow, where many sacred places and relics of saints were housed. The purpose of such visits was religious, involving indulgence of sins. The first guide to Cracow was published in 1603. It was called by Jakub Siebenyher the Przewodnik abo Kościołow Krakowskich y rzeczy w nich widzenia godnych krótkie opisanie (A Guide or a Short Description of Cracow Churches and Things Worthy of Notice in Them). Based on descriptions contained in this Guide, the second guide entitled Stołecznego miasta Krakowa Kościoły y kleynoty (Churches and Treasures of the Capital City of Cracow), was written. It had three editions; the first edition was in 1647, the second in 1650. A copy of the third edition of the Treasures, from 1745, is in the collection of the Cracow Historical Museum. After 1815, Cracow became also a sightseeing place, in addition to religious pilgrims’ journeys. Cracow’s historical monuments were a theme of many literary pieces published at various periodicals, and of many paintings. A treshold date in promoting Cracow’s history and culture was 1822. It is the date of the first edition of Ambroży Grabowski’s guide, entitled Historyczny opis miasta Krakowa i jego okolic (An Outline History of Cracow and Environs). This publication promoted the town’s history in a very modern way, characteristic of that kind of publications, and rised patriotic spirit. The guide was republished successively in 1830, 1836, 1844, 1866, 1900 and 1905. From the second edition its title was Kraków i jego okolice (Cracow and Environs). At the turn of the 19th century a great role in promoting Cracow’s history and culture was played by the Society of Lovers of Cracow’s History and Monuments. From 1897 it published the Biblioteka Krakowska (Cracow Library), and from 1897, the Rocznik Krakowski (Cracow Annual). Also the Polish Tourist Association’s role should not be neglected. After 1918, tourism began in Cracow at a large scale, along with many publications, enclosed in the bibliogrpahy. Specially worthy of notice are Najnowszy zwięzły przewodnik po Krakowie (The Newest Concise Guide to Cracow), published in 1920, and Kraków w paru dniach (Cracow in Several Days), a guide by Józef Rostafiński, with its second edition containing Cracow’s stories and legends. In 1932 Karol Estreicher’s guide, Kraków. Przewodnik dla zwiedzających miasto i okolice jego (Cracow. A Guide for Visitors to Cracow and Environs), was first published. It was generally renowned as the best guide to Cracow. Further editions are — 2nd ed., 1934; 3rd ed., 1938. Plan tury styczno-orientacyjny miasta Krakowa wraz z przewodnikiem po Krakowie (Cracow Map for Tourists with a Guide to Cracow), published in 1936, is also an interesting publication. The book entitled Przewodnik po Polsce — Od Tatr do Bałtyku (A Guide to Poland — From the Tatras to the Baltic Sea), and especially its first part published in 1939, Kraków i ziemia krakowska (Cracow and the Cracow Region), by Z. Madalińska and E. Garbacik, is one of the lat guides published before the Second World War. The Nazi occupation interrupted any kinds of tourism for five years. The guides Germans published during the war were to show that all cultural heritage of the Cracow was due to Germans only. After the Second World War, efforts to write and publish guides to Cracow were taken again. The bibliography of guides to Cracow and environs, including a brief characterization of 1945-1977 can be found in the Bibliografia Krakowa (Cracow Bibliography), published by the Municipal Public Library, as well as in the Bibliografia Turystyki Polskiej (Bibliogrpahy of Polish Tourism) by A. Jackowski.
HISTORY OF THE POSTAL SERVICES IN CRACOW The post as a symbol of communication has been with the humanity for many centuries already. As it enabled contact and helped circulate information, it contributed much to the development of civilization. Cracow has the most eventful history of the post of among all the cities in Poland. In 1846 Austria abolished the Free City of Cracow. After annexation, the occupying authorities set to adapting the postal system in Cracow to the Austrian system. A year later the first train left Cracow, which began the era of railway transport. The Cracow postal services faced the problem of reorganizing and adjusting the postal dispatch system to the requirements of rail transport. Cracow was the first city in the Austrian Empire to which a postal lorry was directed from Vienna, therefore numbered 1. In 1850 postal stamps appeared here for the first time. The development of Cracow required the opening of new post offices in the city and neighbouring communities and suburban settlements, which where then successively incorporated into the city proper. The main goal of this study is to give the most exhaustive information possible about those post offices. In 1918 Cracow was one of the first cities worldwide to have regular airmail connection with other places. The activity of the Cracow Post during the First World War is especially well documented thanks to its involment in services to Polish military units fighting for independence; first to the Riflemen and later to the Polish Legions. The variety of forms of these activities enriches our knowledge of military events at that time, and justifies the thesis that the history of the Post is determined by the history of our city.
Żydowskie szkolnictwo podstawowe, średnie i zawodowe w okresie II Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem Krakowa
JEWISH PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS DURING THE SECOND REPUBLIC OF POLAND, WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO CRACOW The aim of this article is to acquiant the reader with the Jewish school system of 1918-1939. Used in this article were mainly archival materials in the the Archives of the Polish Academy of Science in Cracow, Official Journals of the Ministry of Religions and Public Enlightment, school statistics of the Central Statistics Office, Cracow school reports and articles published in Alamanach Szkolnictwa Żydowskiego w Polsce (Almanach of Jewish Schools in Poland), the Nowy Dziennik (New Journal), the Głos Gminy Żydowskiej (Voice of the Jewish Congragation), the Sprawy Narodowościowe (Nationality Matters), the Biuletyn ZIH (Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute) and the Miesięcznik Żydowski (the Jewish Monthly). For clarity, the collected material has been divided into three sections: — first, a brief characterization of the Jews who lived in Poland; — second, the whole of the Jewish school system, divided into traditional schools, elementary lay schools, and secondary and vocational schools; — third section is devoted to Jewish schools in Cracow divided into public elementary schools, private elementary schools without public rights, and high and vocational schools. I. Reborn Poland was a multinational state in which one third of the population were national minorities. The Jews were one of the most populous groups, second largest among the national minorities. During the period of the Partitions of Poland between three occupying nations, they were subject to various political and administrative influences, which were clearly reflected in the language they used in everyday life (Russian, German, Polish), but the common „Jewish language” was Yiddish with local loan-words. As a consequence, the multitude of languages was sure to cause disputes, and with time to sharp struggle for the national language. Another problem was that the Jews were dispersed all over Poland and nowhere were they the majority of the local population. They were associated in independent and equal religious congregations and were not subject to any higher authorities. The Jews who lived in small towns and villages remained faithful to their own culture and religion, and the main regulations of the Jewish community were the commandments included in the holy books; in contrast, in large cities, the abandonment of tradition and the secularization of the Jewish community was very clear at that time. II. Traditional schools — heders, Talmud Torahs, reformed heders, yeshivas and Bet-Yakov schools. Boys went to heders from the age of five, and every Jewish child had access to learning no matter what property status their parents enjoyed. Heders and Talmud Torahs in small towns and villages did not teach secular knowledge, and for that reason the children who attended them had to be taught general subjects in public elementary schools. This was a big problem, considering that about 25% of the Jews lived in towns and villages in which the teaching and education of children were limited to heders. In the first years after the war, an additional difficulty was the lack of a uniform school administration in the land incorporated into the Polish state. At last, the situation was significantly improved after the issuance of the decree „On Obligatory School Attendance”, in force all over Poland form the school year 1922/23. Pursuant to the decree, Jewish children who were students at religious schools were obliged to attend public schools, with an option to complete their religious education at heders. That way, heders would have lost the importance they had thus far, and the Jewish children would be under the undivided influence of the public school. Because the Central Organization of Orthodox Jews which supervised all religious schools did not want that to happen, it began a broad campaign for so-called reformed heders, incorporating secular subjects in their curriculums. The matter was finally settled by the Law on Private Schools and Teaching and Educational Institutions of March 11, 1932. These same traditional and orthodox religious schools which kept the old teaching and educational patterns were to be the places where hundreds thousands of Jewish children were taught. Schools of such kind, exclusively for boys, were everywhere were Jews lived. They came to be under the Horev Central Educational Organization which supervised all heders, Talmud Torahs and yeshivas for older boys; the goal of these schools was to educate more apt students as rabbis, religious judges, religion teachers and Talmud students. In 1920 Tahkemoni Jewish college was created in Warsaw to teach official rabbis; it taught its students religion and moral as well as secular knowledge according to the high school curriculum. Other yeshivas were organized mostly in central and eastern Poland; they were less frequent in southern Poland. Such schools also included schools for girls, called Bet Yakov, whose aim was to educate girls in both a religious and a national spirit. Teaching staff for such schools was trained in a teachers’ college established in Cracow in 1925. Among religious schools, the Yeshivat Hanai theological university, for about 500 students, founded in Lvov in 1924, had an important role. Secular elementary schools: Yiddish, Hebrew/national and bilinguial. Secular Jewish schools teaching in Yiddish could be found all over the country, but they were the most frequent in the Warsaw, Wilno and Łódź districts. In March 1921 a conference of organizations supporting Yiddisz Jewish schools was held in Warsaw, with the participation of about 600 delegates, at which the Central Yiddish School Organization (CISZO) was brought to life. Promotors of such schools had, apart from general ideas on secular schooling, some socialist ideas. However, Yiddish schooling did not find support from the Jewish community. Religious parents considered a school without religion the worst of evils, while the Jewish intelligentsia did not accept the proletarian character of the school. A characteristic feature of the CISZO schools was that girls were in the great majority; they were 2/3 of the total number of students in elementary schools, preschools and secondary schools alike. Schools of such kind were created mainly in the Białystok and Wilno voivodeships. Apart from the traditionally religious type and the Yiddish type of schools, there was also the Hebrew national type, based on a renaissance of the Hebrew language and culture and on the Jewish movement for Political rebirth (Zionist movement). It was not uniform and could be divided into: — Utarquist tendencies a) Polish/Hebrew (Social Association schools, Mizrahi schools) b) Jewish/Hebrew — a radical Hebrew tendency within the central Tarbut organization. Secondary schools The great majority of Jewish religious youth attended public secondary schools, apart from which there were private schools, many of them only for Jewish youth. With time the number of Yiddisch language schools decreased, while the number of schools with Polish- nad Hebrewlanuage instruction increased: where in addition to compulsory secular subjects offered in Polish, Jewish subjects in Hebrew were introduced on a larger scale. In the school year 1938/39 there were 81 private Jewish middle schools in Poland, with Polish as the language of instruction, among which 67 were certified as public schools, and 66 high schools, including 42 certified as public high schools. Vocational schools The picture of Jewish students would be incomplete without vocational schools. Private vocational schools that prepared young people for emigration to Palestine were organized. Special social organizations were created, supported by foreign and Polish foundations for the development of Jewish vocational schools. Among the leading organizations were: The Society for Support of Agriculture and Crafts (ICA); The Society for the Promotion of Technical and Agricultural Work among Jews in Poland (ORT); and The Association for Promoting Education among Jews in Małopolska (Wuzet). The extracurricular institutions that were created to support vocational schools, were often conted as vocational and technical training institutions. There were also vocational schools providing courses for young employees, for whom vocational training was compulsory until the age of 18. Typically, Jewish youth met that obligation not by attending private schools; the great majority went to the public schools that provided additional education to all youth. One cannot ignore the role of numerous organizations which, out of concern for the adolescents, made efforts to facilitate acquisition of vocational qualifications for them and at the same time encouraged them to join their organizations and to win them to their political viewpoints. The Zionist organizations were also active. The most powerful organization of this kind was the Hechalutz youth organization, established in 1920, with a membership of about 12,000 young people in several hundred provincial divisions. III. Jewish schools in Cracow During the Second Republic of Poland there were two groups of elementary schools for Jewish children in Cracow. Public shools: Kazimierz the Great school no. 5 at 3/5 Wąska Street; Józef Ignacy Kraszewski School No. 8 at 36 Miodowa Stret; Mikołaj Rej School No. 14 at 2 Dietla Street; Klementyna Tański Hoffmanowa School No. 15 at 36a Miodowa Street; and Jan Długosz School, No. 22 at 7 Wąska Street, belonged to the first group. The second group were private elementary schools run by Orthodox organizations — Talmud Torah at 6 Estery Street; Talmud Torah II at 30 Rękawka Stret; and the orthodox Yesodai Hatorah School at 64 Dietla Street. The Ivri Heder at 26 Miodowa Street, where the Tahkeomi seconadry school for boys was open in addition to an elementary school for boys, was the only school in Poland in its kind to join general knowledge and modern public education with Jewish learning in the spirit of faith and tradition. In 1936/37 the Ivri Heder Society opened a one-year Commercial School for youth aged 13 to 18. The Jewish Coeducational Community and High School, Haim Hilfstein Hebrew Secondary School at 5 Brzozowa Street, added the building at 3 Brzozowa Street, and in 1930 a third building at 8 and 10 Podbrzezie Street. The Bet-Hamidrash-Nahlat Avot school prayer house, created at the initiative of the students themselves, was located there. The Private Crafts School of the Jewish Society for Community and Secondary Schooling was housed initially at 5 Brzozowa Street on the ground floor and in the basement; in 1937-1938 a new two-storey building at 3 Podbrzezie street was constructed, to house the Crafts School exclusively. In 1938 the school authorities decided to turn it into the three-year Private Mens’ High School of Mechanics. The Private Jewish Coeducational High School of Commerce at 10 Stradomska Street. In line with the reorganization of the school system and the obligation to reform vocational schools into high schools, in 1938/39 the school began to operate as the Private Jewish Coeducational Commercial High School at the Cracow Merchant Association. Thanks to the Association’s efforts, the Coeducational College of Administration was opened on October 3, 1938, for high school graduates. There were also two vocational schools for girls only. One was the Private Vocational High School for Jewish Girls at the Ognisko Pracy Society. From 1936 the school was housed in a modern four-storey building at 7 Skawińska Boczna Street. The second was a Bet Yakov school from which the Bet-Yakov movement for girls’ education began. From 1929 the school had at its disposal a four-storey building at 10 Stanisława Street. In addition to those there were also: The High School for Girls at the Jewish New School Society, at 1 Starowiślna Street. In 1937/38 the Coeducational High School at the Jewish Society for Community School at 17 Main Market Square; Private College for Girls, teaching religion and housekeeping, in Paulińska Street; Private School of Dance Exercise and Fine Arts; Special school for mentally disabled children, at 7 Wąska Street. When the Germans unleashed the Second World War, the fate of the Jewish people in Poland was decided. Soon after the beginning of the occupation, repression against Jewish religion teachers and youth started. On December 11, 1939, the Jewish schools were eliminated by order of the Cracow district governer Wachter.
Mikołaj Sarmat-Szyszłowski (1883-1915), artysta malarz i żołnierz Legionów Polskich. Zarys biografii
MIKOŁAJ SARMAT-SZYSZŁOWSKI (1883-1915), PAINTER AND SOLDIER OF THE POLISH LEGIONS. A BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE In the collection of the historical Museum of the City of Cracow there are two exhibits connected with the painter and graphic artist Mikołaj Sarmat Szyszłowski, who fell during a campaign of the Polish Legions. One exhibit is a drawing by this artist The Post on the Nida River from March, 1915; the other is a portrait of Szyszłowski by Kazimierz Witkiewicz at the beginning of 1916. All the output of that artist, known to this days consists of seven works. Beside the drawing at the Historical Museum of the City of Cracow, there are two works kept in the National Museum in Cracow; there are also two Easter cards after Szyszłowski design printed by the artist himself at the front in March, 1915. They are in the Jagiellonian Library. Mikołaj Szyszłowski was born in Kroszyn near Grodno on October 20, 1883. He began his higher education in Vilna and Warsaw, studying thanks to financial support from the Radziwiłłs of Nieśwież. In 1902 he fleed from the Kingdom to Galicia, where, after one year at the Royal Imperial State Technical School, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts, in the atelier of Józef Mehoffer. The drawings in the collection of the National Museum in Cracow date from the period of his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, 1903-1906. They represent views of demolished Cracow city towers and the Grodzka gate. They are copies of the woodcuts by Koenig that illustrate the book The Guardian of Our Archaelogy by Ambroży Grabowski. The woodctus were based on Jerzy Głogowski’s watercolours from 1802-1809, when the artist participated in the conservation work of gates and towers of Cracow’s fortifications. Szyszłowski started his political activity early. During the revolution in the Polish Kingdom he organized shooting exercises for a group of artists in Rybniszki in the Ukraine. Suspected of participating in a terrorist organization, he was forced to leave Galicia. In 1906-1909 he travelled to France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland. In 1910 he came back to Cracow and joined the Z.W.C. (Active Struggle Association) and the Riflery Association. A year later he resumed his studies and came back to Mehoffer’s atelier. In 1911-1912, in the Fine Arts Society, he exhibited several lithographs he himself executed during his travel around Europe. From c. 1911 he was a member of a left-wing student organization called Promień (the Beam). As one of the most active members of the ZWC and the Strzelec (Rifleman) organizations, he took part in the officers’ council in Lvov in 1912, and in the maneuvres of the summer school at Stróża in 1913, were he recruited volunteers to the Riflery Association and organized riflewomen’s divisions. In 1913 Józef Pilsudski appointed him head of the Krzeszowice district of the Riflery Association. His activities for independence from 1912 and his employment as a drawing teacher in the 5th High School and R. Nowodworski High School could not be reconciled with continuation of his studies. In 1912 Szyszłowski left the Academy. After the outbreak of the war, Szyszłowski organized a bivouac for over 2,000 riflemen and volunteers who set out for the Kingdom. After he sent out all the rifle divisions, he broke the camp and joined the line on September 21. In the campaign of 1914 he took part in all its battles — Nowy Korczyn, Laski, Krzywopłoty and Podhale — as commander of the 3rd and after that the 5th infantry batallion. He distinguished himself in the battle of Łowczyki covering the retreat of the brigade’s battalions on the last day of the battle of December 25, 1914. He was twice promoted in the Legions; in October to second lieutenant and in 1914 to lieutenant. In January 1915 he was elected member of the honorary court of the 1st brigade. During the brigade’s positional battles in March 1915, Szyszłowski made the drawing The Post on the Nida River, now in the collection of the Historical Museum of the City of Cracow. The drawing realistically depicts military service in the trenches in the vicinity of Pińczów. Humorous Easter cards produced in the Art and Lithograph Workshop of the 5th Batallion, which Szyszkowski established date, from the same time. In May 1915 the artist began publishing the Batallion Veteran trench periodical, addressed to soldiers on the front. Lieteutenant Mikołaj Szyszłowski fell in an attac of his company in the village of Kozinek near Konary, south-west of Sandomierz, on May 21, 1915. In Independent Poland he was postumously awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross and the Cross of Independence.
Tadeusz Sulima-Popiel — życie i twórczość. Motyw sybirski w malarstwie arty
TADEUSZ SULIMA-POPIEL, CRACOW PAINTER. THE SIBERIAN THEME IN THE WORKS OF THIS ARTIST Tadeusz Sulima-Popiel was born in Szczucin in Tarnów county, in 1863, the son of Antoni, clerk in the Royal Imperial Central Office, and Antonina, whose maiden name was Stanicek. Having completed high school in Brody, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in 1876. He was an extremely conscientious and talented student. He enjoyed much sympathy and support from the school director, Jan Matejko, the most popular Polish painter in the second half of the 19th century and creator of the Polish school of historical painting. After graduation from the Cracow sschool, Popiel set off to Vienna and then to Munich for further studies (1885-1888). In Vienna he studied under the direction of Hans Makart, and in Munich under Karl Piloty and Aleksander Wagner. When he came back to Poland, he devoted himself intently to creative work. As he was very hardworking and talented, he soon gained popularity and was recognized among critics in Poland and abroad. Among the greatest achievements of the young artist at that time was a bronze medal at the Paris Salon in 1890 for the painting Moses Returning from Mount Sinai, and the gold medal at the World Exhibition in San Francisco, 1892; and then, in the same year, gold medals in Chicago and Philadelphia, for his painting After the Tempest. Popiel was also highly regarded by the critics for landscapes he painted on the most famous, collectively made, Polish panoramic paintings form the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, such as Racławice (1893-1894), Captive Women (1894), Bem at Siedmiogrod (1896), The Calvary (1896) and, in 1910 The Battle of Grunwald. He was renowned as an oustanding landscape painter, and his illusion-creating landscapes were considered the best parts of the panorams. In 1897 the artist won the contest for wall painting in the St. Stanisław’s Chapel in St. Anthony’s Church in Padova. It was completed in 1900 and praised by Italian and Polish connoisseurs, which brought the painter dozens of orders for polychromy in churches and secular buildings in Poland and abroad. For his polychromy he became renowned as one of the best Polish fresco painters in the beginning of the 20th century. Among the best of Popiel’s works in this field are wall paintings in the St. Stanislaw’s Chapel at St. Anthony’s Basilica in Padova; in the Dutch Chapel in Padova Cathedral; in one the most beautiful courtyards of the Vatican Palace, Cortile San Damasco; in a chapel in Ponte di Brento, Parish Church in Aracella; polychromy for the Franciscan Church in Cracow; the polychromy in the parish church and Bernardine Church in Dukla, in the church and the cloister of the Carmelite Nuns in Przemyśl, in the St. Florian’s Church in Jeżyce in Poznań, and in St. Joseph’s Church in Lvov. Popiel also produced forty paintings for the iconostass of the Narodny House in Lvov, two wall paintings for the Tretiakov Palace in Moscow and paintings on the walls of the Municipal Theatre in Lvov. Besides these commissions, he made many oil paintings, including portraits, historical and biblical scenes, allegories, genre paintings and landscapes. Only two paintings on Siberian themes can be found in the rich and varied work of Popiel. One of them, Deportees, belongs to the Cracow Historical Museum; the second, Siberia, belongs to the artist’s family. The paintings are not dated, but closer examination indicates that they were made after 1905 or at the turn of 1912/1913 for a large exhibition commemorating the January Uprising, entitled The Year 1863, which was to be held in Lvov in September 1913. The paintings, though not completed and not up to par artistically, are worthy of notice for their iconographic value. It can be said that they are among the most beautiful and clear explanations of the Polish messianic philosophy to be found in Polish painting of the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Tadeusz Popiel died on February 22, 1913. He bequeathed abundant, eclectic work as a famous, skillful academic style painter, sensitive to the formal achievements of the impressionists and of Art Nouveau. Though popular and appreciated while alive, today he is almost forgotten.
Z dziejów Galerii Akademii Sztuk Pięknych w Krakowie
FROM THE HISTORY OF THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS GALLERY IN CRACOW, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF ITS CLOSING The history of the Academy of Fine Art Gallery in Cracow, called the museum from 1985, begins with the beginnings of this, Poland’s oldest arts university, in 1818, as in that year the School of Painting and Drawing was created within the Department of Philosophy and Letters of the Cracow Academy. Both chairs, painting and drawing, were occupied by the creators of the design and organizational structure of the school, painters Józef Brodowski and Józef Peszka. Right away, plaster casts began to be collected, gradually enriched by donations and purchases, to form an interesting collection. As the school became independent and detached from the University, and with changes in the curriculum, paintings also were gathered. The history of the Gallery at the Academy of Fine Arts not only illustrates the development of the school, its trends or artistic styles, but also is perfect proof of changes in teaching methods. Unfortunately, it has proven as well that the school rectors of directors did not care enough for the heritage of generations. They did not succed in making the gallery at the Academy a museum to rank with Vienna, to make the dreams of the Academy’s founder a reality. Up to the present time the collection has remained without proper academic supervision, in a place not adapted to function asa museum storage, while a decision of the Rector’s Council of the Academy of Fine Arts has halted all activities of this institution.
CENTENARY OF JORDAN PARK 1989 was the centenary of the oldest in Poland (and one of the oldest in the world) parks for children and youth, Jordan Park in Cracow, established by Dr. Henryk Jordan (1842-1907), a Cracow doctor, professor at the Jagiellonian University, community leader and outstanding teacher. In this park, education went hand in hand with outdoor recreation and play. Forty five busts of great Poles placed there had an important place in a program of patriotic education. Choral singing in the park, lectures on the history of Poland, symbols on uniforms, distinctions, and cultivation of national traditions, all helped to keep up the Polish spirit in the young generation during the Partitions. After the death of its founder in 1907, the park slowly changed in appearance, and the activities there changed as well. Finally, with the outbreak of the First World War, the park ceased to function for some time. During that time some playing fields, green areas, trees, busts and postuments were destroyed. The Second World War was even worse yeat for the park. Most of the trees were replanted near a Hitler-Jugend stadium then under cosntruction; the occupiers intended to destroy the statues exposed by this operstion, and it was only thanks to one of Dr. Jordan’s pupils that they were saved. After the Second World War, work on restoring the park’s previous appearance gradually went forward. The central circle with its statues was reconctructed after its former design; te rescued busts were placed, and several missing statues were reconstructed. Presently, Jordan Park, rich in historic values, a worldscale monument and a monument of Polish culture is, unfortunately, losing its former functions. Though the Dr. Henryk Jordan Park Society, established in 1957, has made efforts toward the restoration of Jordan’s traditions, youth activities were not restarted, and only occationaly have cultural and recreational events taken place in the park.
Kraków prawobrzeżny. Przemiany historyczno-kraj obrazowe krakowskich Łagiewnik
RIGHT-BANK CRACOW. HISTORIC AND SCENIC CHANGES IN CRACOW ŁAGIEWNIKI Łagiewniki is a former village, once some four kilometres south of Cracow, then incorporated into Cracow as a district. Since as early as the Middle Ages, settlement has been going on in the southern part of the village along the Wilga River bed, as confirmed by archeological findings from this area. From the 11th century Łagiewniki was a settlement providing services to the duke’s castle at Wawel Hill. In the 14th century settlement reached the castle area near today’s Sobótka and Myślenicka streets. At the end of the 15th century and from the mid-16th century the village belonged to the Cracow Castellany. The first reference to the Łagiewniki castle is from the 16th century; a trade route from Cracow to Hungary passed near the castle. During the First Partition of Poland (1772) Łagiewniki fell under the Austrian occupation and was incorporated into the so called „Ekonomia Myślenicka”. From that time to 1939 the village was in the hands of private owners, including the Baruch family (second half of the 19th century). Over the 19th century the village evolved from a traditional agricultural seltlement with some additional crafts into a housing suburb with industrial role (1st half of the 20th century). The present character of Łagiewniki was determined by the location of factories and industrial plants, mostly connected with the construction materials industry (the Baruch family’s brick and tile factories, gypsum mines, ceramics plants). The dominant element of the village landscape since the end of the 19th century has been the cloister of the Sisters of the Holy Mother of Charity. A cemetery for the soldiers of the First World War adjoins the wall of the cloister complex. Now Łagiewniki is composed of three urban complexes: the Cegielniania neighnourhhod, Łagiewniki (historic centre) and Wola Duchacka Zachód. The southern part is covered with the industrial waste dumps of the Soda Plant in Borek Fałęcki; the landscape of this part of the village have been disfigured and the picturesque environs of the Wilga River have been ruined. The beauty of the landscape has been affected by new buildings, large in size and uninteresting in form, erected beside semi-detached houses from the 1930s. New urban elements foreign to the local tradition, were introduced when housing estates of high apartment blocks were built. Despite the continuing process of urbanization, and at the same time deterioration, Łagiewniki has reserved some elements of its historic medieval town layout, historic houses and complexes. Such a complex is the district centre, with a palace (end of the 19th century), manor house and auxilary outbuildings; the complex replaced the initial 15th-century manorial and agricultural estate. Nearby are buildings from the beginning of the 20th century (a school from 1906) near the manor, serving for small-business, services and educational purposes. In the vicinity of Strumienna and A. Fredry Streets is an enclave of wooden country architecture from the 1920s.
O bramie Pobocznej w fortyfikacjach Krakowa
THE POBOCZNA GATE AT THE CRACOW FORTIFICATIONS The Poboczna gate at the foot of Wawel Hill leading towards Zwierzyniec, was erected c. 1340, together with defensive walls which linked the chartered city with the castle. Initially the tower probably bore the name „Zwierzyniecka” or „Grodzka”; at the end of the 14th century it was referred to as the „porta Dimitrij”, as it neighboured the manor of Dymitr of Goraj. It was also described as leading „to the Vistula”. Finally, in the second half of the 16th century it began to be called the Poboczna (sideway) Gate. The last of the names should not be associated with a minor role, but rather with the site to which the road out of this gate led; it was Poboczna Island, situated in Zwierzyniec at the mouth of the Rudawa River at the Vistula River. Iconography and maps do not permit accurate reconstruction of the appaearance and location of the medieval gate, which was destroyed during the reign of August II in the beginning of the 18th century. It was probably reconstructed c. 1740, without defensive features. It survived in this shape until 1822, when it was finally demolished. Exavation work may give answered to the question of the precise location of this structure.
POLITICAL ROLE OF ZAWISZA OF KUROZWĘKI This work is an attempt to show political career of one of Małopolska noblemen, who was elevated to the highest rank during the reign of Louis d’Anjou, King of Hungary. The twelve years of the rule of this king of d’Anjou dynasty in Poland have not been often described in historical studies, since that period did not distinguish itself in our history. For that monarch, the most important issue was to ensure succession of the throne to his daughters, and all activities of this king were aimed at the fulfillment of this goal. Cracow noblemen helped Louis to achieve this, which had significant impact on the history of Poland. Zawisza of Kurozwęki was among the most active in that field. He was from the Poraj Różyc family, son of Dobiesław, the castellan of Cracow. During the reign of Casimir the Great he achieved the dignity of Cracow archdeacon; he also participated in developing the statutes of the royal salines. The death of the last king of the Piast dynasty divided recently united Poland into two parties. The Wielkopolska noblemen and part of the clergy were agianst Louis and supported Kazimierz’s grandson Kaźko, Prince of Słupsk, as pretender to the Polish throne. Małopolska nobles supported d’Anjou dynasty. One of the results of this conflict is an account by Janko of Czarnków, Gniezno archdeacon, vice-chancellor and author of a chronicle, in which Zawisza is said to plot against him to deprive him of his office. For a long time this chronicle was the only source referring to this matter, and Zawisza was shown as an unscrupulous man, who did not hesitate to accuse the innocent to achieve the position he wanted. However, a sentence against Czarnkowski found Jan Dąbrowski by in Hungary, cast some light at that event and caused a more critical view on what the archdeacon said. As vice-chancellor, Zawisza accompanied the regent Elisabeth, daughter of King Władysław the Short, entrusted with the mission to carry into effect the succession for d’Anjou. After Janusz Suchywilk achieved the office of archbischop, Zawisza was appointed chancellor. In September 1374 a compromise between the king and the Polish noblemen was achieved in Koszyce. Zawisza is attributed the charter which was issued at that meetings in which the Budzin treaty was abolished, and the kings’ daughters were appointed successors of the throne for some concessions on behalf of Polish nobles the king accepted. In 1376 Kurozwęcki took part in a campaign against Władysław Biały, and successfully negotiated the peace with this prince. The death of Princess Catherine designated for the Polish trone, brought up the matter of succession once again. In the convention in Koszyce in 1379, opposing Wielkopolska noblemen refused to pay homage to another daughter of the king. They were forced to surrender, however, when the city gates were closed, a solution suggested by Zawisza. In 1380 Kurozwęcki became Cracow bishop. Shortly after the death of Elisabeth in March 1381, Louis, at the meeting in Buda, appointed governors to rule the country as his proxies. Zawisza Kurozwęcki was at the head of them. They succeded in establishing an agreement with the clergy in the autumn of 1381. Kurozwęcki died on 12 February, 1382. He was buried with great pomp in the Cracow Cathedral. After his death Loouis did not appoint any other person to the office of the king’s proxy.
Ukryte treści godeł i rzeźb architektonicznych na elewacjach kamienic krakowskich
HIDDEN MEANING OF EMBLEMS AND ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTURES ON CRACOW TOWNHOUSES One of the oldest identification signs on Cracow’s townhouses were emblems. They were usually sculptures in stone, stuccoes, and, more rarely, paintings. The oldest date from the 14th century. Despite changing times, styles and testes, this tradition survived as long as up to the 20th century. The reasons for placing emblems on houses were varied. Most often their purpose was to advertise an inn, a pharmacy, a shop or a craftsman’s workshop. In other events, they referred to the owner of the house. In such cases it was the patron saint, who was supposed to protect the house. In the 19th century new symbols appeared, but despite their symbolic and alluding character, they did not win the name of „house emblems”. There may be different reasons for this. When they appeared on the houses which had older names, naturally the tradition prevailed. Symbols were widely used in emblems, and in many cases today their meaning is not clear to us. The example of this can be the Pod Jaszczurką House (the Lizard House). It dates from the end of the 15th century. The name was distorted in the 20th century, and now it is popular under the faulty name „Jaszczury” (the Lizards), which clearly shows that meaning of this name was not understood. Assuming that the emblem can be explained as a symbol of a salamander, which used to be called „jaszczurka” (the lizard) in older times, the author tries to explain three meanings of the symbol of a salamander, two Christian, and one pagan and magic. In addition, the article discusses two other sculptures on the façades of Cracow townhouses, one from the turn of the 18th/19th century, and the latter from the first half of the 19th century. These sculptures cannot literally be called emblems of the houses, but the symbols and allusion in them has not be explained so far. This article is the first attempt at such an explanation.
„Rychtrady” Grzegorza i Katarzyny Przybyłów z 1534 r. w Muzeum Historycznym m. Krakowa
THE RYCHTRADY OF GRZEGORZ AND KATARZYNA PRZYBYŁO, 1534, IN THE CRACOW HISTORICAL MUSEUM Rychtrady is a name used for burghers’ portraits, carved in boxwood. The rychtrady of Katarzyna and Grzegorz Przybyło, dating from 1534, are exhibited in a room dedicated to guild mementos at the Cracow Historical Museum. These reliefs are among the eraliest burghers’ portraits in Poland. It is difficult to tell what their purpose was. They may have been models for silver portraits, or designs for the sarcophagus of the Przybyłos. No matter what their purpose was, the portraits of Katarzyna and Grzegorz Przybyło are outstanding works of art of great historical and artistic values. Cracow rychtrady drew attention as early as the middle of the 19th century. Leonard Lepszy, an outstanding expert on goldsmithery, suggested that their author was Maciej Stwosz. In 1927, in his work on artistic output of medallist Maciej Schilling, Maciej Gumowski attributed both carved portraits of the Przybyłos to this artist. He based this assumption on the monograms on them. However, neither M. Gumowski nor Leonard Lepszy provided firm evidence to support their views. In many publications from later times, various scholars shared the view Gumowski presented. Plaques with portraits of the Przybyłos are rectangular, 91 x 73 mm, and 13 mm thick; they are in a diptych from. The figures are represented including their hands. Three quarters of the bodies are shown, with the faces en profile. The artist did not neglect costly details of Renaissance burghers’ costume, though he focussed on the faces of the husband and his wife, featured as noble and couragous. To acquaint the viewer with the figures on the portraits, some more detailed interest should be drawn to the Przybyło family itself. It is belived that they came to Cracow from the Oświęcim or Łagów areas. The Przybyło’s high status is confirmed by many important functions he held in the guild. In 1534 he was a second senior of the guild, and in 1537-38, 1541 and 1542 he was the senior of the guild. He trained many apprentices in his workshop, also from abroad. He was also a benchman and a member of the Cracow City Council. His property status was very good. He bequeathed a house in Bracka Street to the Goldsmithers’ Guild. As to the suggested author of the portraits, Maciej Schilling, he probably came from Cracow. Medals with portraits of the Boners (1532-33), and with portraits of King Sigismund the Old and Prince Sigismund Augustus (1533) are also attributed to this Master. In 1529-35 he was the manager of a mint in Toruń, and in 1540 he worked in a Gdańsk mint. This artist has an important place in the history of Polish art of medal engraving, as he was probably the first native artist active in this field. In the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw there is a portrait of Grzegorz and Katarzyna Przybyło, which, when compared with Cracow reliefs, suggests that the paiting was probably modelled after them. It is difficlut to set the date of the portrait. There are no examples of Polish paintings on canvas, know to be from the first and the second third of the 16th century. Perhaps the portrait was painted as late as the 17th century. Burghers’ portraits is present in several domains of Polish art — in painting, scelpture, print art, or even in goldsmithery. Most of burghers’ portraits can be found in epitaphs and sarcophaguses. There was even a special type of epitaphs, called burghers’ epitaphs. Characteristic features of such sarcophaguses are portraits of the deceased, in the from of a bust or a medallion, with the head en profile or three quarters. Sevsral dozens of such epitaphs have survived in Cracow. The highest achievement in this field are busts of the statues of the Montelupi family (before 1613) and the Cellari family (before 1616) in St. Mary’s Church in Cracow. Epitaphs with busts and medallion burghers’ portraits were popular up to the second quarter of the 17th century, when they were replaced by portraits on metal sheet. To summarise, boxwood reliefs of Grzegorz and Katarzyna Przybyło from 1534 are extremely valuable historic items, one of the most significant burghers’ portraits in Cracow art.
Kronika działalności Muzeum Historycznego m. Krakowa za rok 1990
Z cyklu: Znani kolekcjonerzy krakowscy — rozmowa z Matyldą Selwą
INTERVIEW WITH MATYLDA SELWA Matylda Selwa was born in Cracow. She is a lawyer by profession. Presently she is a vice-president of the Cracow Collector’s Club. She is also a member of the Board of the Polish Federation of Collecting Organizations. She became attracted to collecting passion in her family home; her father, Stanislaw Selwa was a well known philatelist. He also collected exotic butterflies. The principal role in M. Selwa’s collection is played by the patriotic jewellery and a special jewellery from the time of the national mourning before, during, and many years after the January Insurrection (1863-1864), popular on the whole territory of Poland and especially on the lands under the Russian rule. Coral beads, brooches, tie pins, bracelets, rings and crosses worn as mementos can be listed as examples. There is also an abundant collection of ceramics. Matylda Selwa collects Cracow faiences from Dębniki and Skawina factories. She also has some items manufactured in other ceramics factories, including Bochnia, Ćmielów, Baranówka, Potyliczna, Pacyków and Vilna. There is also a rich collection of western ceramics, especially French and English, in her collection. Another important collection includes fashion accessories. These are kontusz and other buttons, lace, snuff-boxes, hatpins, belt buckles, fans and many other items. Matylda Selwa has shown her collection at many exhibitions. She was awarded a special medal for her merits for culture and for the community.
Dzieje krakowskiego domu przy ul. Krupniczej 26
HISTORY OF THE PALACE AT 26 KRUPNICZA STREET IN CRACOW The author presents the history of the palace and its origins. At the turn of the 15th century there was a large house on this site, with a pottery inside. Later, in the 17th century, there was a suburban guesthouse there, then replaced by a little wooden manor surrounded by a garden. According the Cracow City Map of 1820, made by Ignacy Enderle, it was the estate No 127, district IX, and it belonged to the Solecki family. The building and its courtyard were 150 and the garden 525 Viennese fathoms (ancient area measures). In 1826 the estate was a property of the Grzybowski family. After several years it belonged to a Cracow merchant Mateusz Rogowski. The Rogowski’s house was destroyed by a fire in 1850 — the most severe fire of Cracow. In 1854 another house in brick was built on this site by Rogowski. It was a one-storey house designed by Dr Ignacy Hercok. One of the greatest Polish 19th-century poets and painters, Stanislaw Wyspiański, was born in that house on 15 January 1869. In 1873 the house was remodelled to form a residence of Professor J. Szujski. He was an outstanding Polish historian and playwright, the Rector of the Jagiellonian University and a co-founder of the Academy of Arts and Letters in Cracow. The residence was designed by architect Antoni Łuszczkiewicz. The palace housed a magnificent scientific library and works of art. Szujski played an important role in Cracow’s scientific, cultural and political life, so the house was always full of guests. Szujski lived there for 10 years. He died prematurely at the age of 47, in 1883. In the 1880s the house got number 26, the same as it has toady. In 1896 the real property was passed to countess Róża Tarnowska, born Branicka. She turned the palace into a tenement house. In 1932 it was bought by an outstanding Polish painter Józef Mehoffer, the Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. He had the palace reconstructed and furnished with many works of art, including his own works — paintings, cartoons for polychromy, drawings and stained-glass. The palace was called te ‘Under the Cones Palace’ and became the Mehoffer family residence. The residence in the city centre, with a big Mehoffer family coat-of-arms over the gate, surrounded by a large garden, became the artist’s home, being at the same time a sort of museum and a place for artists’ meetings. Mehoffer lived there for 10 years. He died in 1946. Forty years later, on the Mehoffer family initiative, ‘The Józef Mehoffer’s House’ was established here as a branch of the National Museum in Cracow.
THE KOSSAKÓWKA The article is the first in our literature to deal with the history of the Kossak family house. They settled down in Cracow 123 years ago (in 1869), in a house called the Kossakówka. Three masters of battle-piece painting and painting representing horses — Juliusz Kossak (1824-1899), Wojciech Kossak (1856-1942) and Jerzy Kossak (1886-1955), and Wojciech’s two daughters — poetess and playwright Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzeska (1891-1945) and satirical writer Magdalena (pen-name Samozwaniec, 1894-1972) came from that family. The whole estate was composed of two old manor houses of a villa type and painter ateliers, surrounded by an English-style park, full of green trees and flowers. The home, always open, welcomed guests and enjoyed the renown of ‘Cracow’s most interesting home’. From 1870 to 1956 the Kossakowka was an artistic and literary salon; painters, writers, poets, actors, musicians, hunters, and officers used to meet here as it was a meeting place for Cracow intelligentsia. It enjoyed justified fame for its unforgettable atmosphere and unique charm. The article also describes the history of the houses architecture from its construction (1836-48) through its successive development and additions, improvements, embellishments, the times of standstill, negligence and deterioration, until the years of its decline, leading straight to its total ruin. There was even an intention to demolish the Kossakowka altogether, to pull down both manor houses, to cut off the trees in the parks and to construct huge skyscrapers and concrete blocks of flats on the site. In fact, persently they surround the site. However, the two manor houses survived, were partially renovated in 1961 and were qualified as 4th-class historical monuments; the park also survived, though it has been reduced from all sides and badly neglected. Presently the fifth generation of the Kossak family lives here. The last year brought some changes for better. The new generation is enthusiastic and has courageous and ambitious intentions to rebuilt and restore their family house and to arrange the Kossak family biographical museum here. Cracow authorities and museums should support this initiative. The author of this work, researcher and the best expert in the history of the Kossaks’ biography and their work, has included for the first time the plans for development of the former Kosskówka he found in archives and a collection of documentary photographs.
Sypialnia Art Deco ze zbiorów Muzeum Historycznego m. Krakowa. Uwagi o meblach i stylu wnętrz lat dwudziestych
AN ART DECO BEDROOM IN THE COLLECTION OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM IN CRACOW. SOME REMARKS ON FURNITURE AND INTERIOR STYLE OF THE 1920S The article An Art Deco Bedroom in the Collection of the Historical Museum in Cracow. Some Remarks on the Furniture and Interior Style of the 1920s, is an attempt at determining a role and contribution of Polish designers in the development of European cabinet-making and designing in the first half of the 20th century. The publication was arranged to best serve that purpose. It covers a short history of the style together with characteristics of various trends within the style, the achievements of modern decorative art at the Paris Exhibition of 1925, Polish artists’ contribution to the formation of a new aesthetics in applied art, and finally, the history of the Polish type of the Art Deco, followed by a description of a set of furniture from the Historical Museum collection. The article shows different possibilities of dating the style with reference to its aesthetic origins. It presents different criteria that may be applied. The idea of functionalism and simplification allows to use as reference the precursory achievements of Thonet (following le Corbusier); a sort of ‘historism’ in the ‘high’ Arto Deco reminds the eclectic style od the 19th century. Despite the fact that the symbolic beginning of the style is 1907, the date on which Picasso completed his Maids of Avignon, the article shows that many cabinet-makers consciously continued the Neo-romantic aesthetics and the manufacturing techniques developed at the turn of the 19th century along with team work methods characteristic of modern furniture making in the 1920s. This view applies especially well to the Polish version of the Art Deco which may be treated as natural continuation of the achievements of modernist artists — Stanislaw Wyspiański and Karol Tichy. Referring to folk and historic art the artists were seeking an archetypical model of decorative art. That created excellent climate for adopting the ideas of futurism and cubism. The article presents a thesis that Polish modernists’ ideas were innovative and independent. Their striving for simplification of the object, their conscious use of contrast between the furniture and the background, a trend toward making decorations more abstract, and their care for the interior dynamics based on contrasts between horizontal and vertical lines and dark and light areas, were the artists’ contribution to art. However, this issue requires separate research and more in-depth study. Now it can be stated, however, that the Polish Art Deco at its early stage developed as a separate trend in cabinet-making, at least equivalent to such phenomena as Wiener Werkstatte or Deutsche Werkbund. This situation brought high appreciation from critics, and prizes awarded to Polish artists at the Paris Exhibition in 1925. The article also answers why Polish decorative art, with such splendid prospects for future, was left aside. Despite its genuine values it did not have an impact on European furniture designing, and remained perhaps not marginal, but virtually unknown. That was caused by the lack of capital investment or government support, needed to compete with well known French and German companies, and later by the world economic crisis. A separate subject of the article is the presentation of the development of modern aesthetics in decorative art. The author refers to the creation of such artistic groups as the English Arts and Crafts, through Wiener Werkstatte, Deutsche Werkbund, De Stijl and French furniture manufacturers, to Bauhaus and the early constructivism; in Poland it refers to the achievements of modernist artists associated in the Polish Applied Art Society in Cracow, then to Cracow Workshops, the Ład Cooperative and the W. Nowakowski’s firm in Poznań. The article describes the bedroom in detail, including proportions, decorations, kind of wood used, manufacturing techniques, and finally, which is the most important, a reconstruction of the bed’s original outlook. The set of furniture has been remodelled, which changed its original form. However, it seems a good idea to place this particular set of furniture in a separate room in an intended interior branch of the Cracow Historical Museum; the room should be arranged according to Polish design from that time, to strengthen the effect. The set is dated by the author to the late 1920’s (1926/27-1929), at the peak of the development of the Art Deco in Poland. The author also characterizes outstanding French designers, including Ruhlmann, Sue, Mare, and Leleu. This is so, because the presented set of furniture is clussified as a „high” Art Deco, and its originality is demonstrated using criteria similar to those applied in Western Europe, based on homogeneity of the interior aesthetics. Therefore the article is a proposal to undertake comprehensive research on dispersed Polish furniture from the first half of the 20th century.
Fabryczna produkcja mebli w Krakowie od końca XIX do połowy XX wieku
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION OF FURNITURE IN CRACOW FROM THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY TO THE MID-20TH CENTURY In the 1880s and 1890s first factories producing construction joinery elements and furniture were established in Cracow. These were the Stanislaw Burzyhski’s Electric Carpentry Factory at 44/46 Długa Street (1887), and the Steam Flooring and Carpentry Products Plant at 14 Dajwór Street, owned by brothers Roman and Leonard Muranyi (1890). The Cracow factories production was complementary to the production of craftsmen carpenters, prevailing in Cracow over the whole period of Galician era. In the early 1920s the new plants were established, including Stanislaw Iglicki’s Furniture Factory at 12 Kolejowa Street and S. Manne’s Furniture Factory in Łagiewniki. The existing firms — S. Burzyński’s furniture factory (moved to 4 fabryczna Street) and Muranyi’s factory at 7 Pola Street, were developed. Szczepan Łojek, a businessman from Kalwaria, made an attempt to open a furniture factory in Królowej Jadwigi Street. The rapid growth of wood production and furniture factories in the early 1920s stopped in the early 1930s, during the economic crisis when most of Cracow producers of wood products and furniture closed their factories. In the late 1930s there were only two large firms operating: the Maurycy Grunberg’s UNITAS Steam Wood Products Factory and S. Manne’s Furniture Factory. Just after the end of the war, all wood processing factories were closed. The S. Manne’s factory and the Roman Muranyi’s factory were on the list of companies taken over by the state on 19 October 1946. M. Grunberg’s factory was on a similar list of November 9, 1946. In the second half of the 19th century products imported from Berlin, Dresden, Wroclaw and Vienna and cheep local production prevailed on the Cracow furniture market. In the 1920s Cracow manufacturers supplied about 20% of the total amount of furniture sold in Cracow. The production was strongly supported by local designers and artists (Cracow Workshops, the Municipal Industrial Museum carpentry workshop). However, industrial production of furniture in Cracow was rather modest from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. That is clearly indicated by the amounts of company capital, the employment rates generally less than 100 people and the size of the plants. A chance for the development of that industry in Cracow appearing in the early 1920s was cancelled by the great economic crisis, and later by the Nazi occupation.
Wystawa architektury wnętrz w otoczeniu ogrodowym w Krakowie w 1912 r.
THE EXHIBITION OF ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIORS IN GARDEN SETTING, CRACOW 1912 On 4 June 1912, an Exhibition of Architecture and Interiors in garden setting was opened in Cracow on the site of a former fortress between the Błonia and the Dr Jordan Park. It was open for four month and a half. The scale of the event and the idea that lied behind it were unprecedented in Poland, and in the whole Europe. There were three smaller complementary exhibitis within the framework of the main exhibition. Those were: an exhibition of construction materials and industrial products used in construction, an exhibition of designs and three- dimensional models of residential houses affordable for families from different income groups, and the exhibition showing full-scale models of a suburban manor house, working class house, craftsman house and peasant house, complete with furnishings. The exhibition was very popular and brought visitors from all parts of Poland, then partitioned among three occupiers. Press was also much interested in the exhibition. As a whole, the exhibition was an interesting revue of a modern, functional architecture and crafts, based on old Polish architectural traditions and on the folk art from various regions of Poland. It well advertised Polish industry from all three parts of Poland and the local manufacturers. The exhibition was organized by the Delegation of Polish Architects and the Polish Applied Art Society.
Wyposażenie wnętrz klasztornych i kościelnych w Krakowie jako źródło do wiedzy o kulturze mieszczańskiej XV—XIX wieku
INTERIOR FURNISHINGS OF CRACOW CLOISTERS AND CHURCHES AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION ABOUT BURGHERS’ CULTURE (15TH-19TH CENTURIES) The monuments of the artistic and material culture of Cracow burghers are very scarce today. Old inventory lists and burghers’ testaments along with guild mementos, mainly chests, counters and special chalices (wilkomas) in the collection of the Historical Museum of the City of Cracow can give some idea about those monuments. Some items registered during the forty year — work on the Catalogue of Historical Monuments of the City of Cracow may help to bring back the old burghers culture. Four parts of the catalogue (eleven volumes) have been published since 1965. Apart from architectural details (doors, panellings, wall cabinets), especially interesting are cabinet-making products in cloisters and churches. These include benches, chairs, tables, cupboards and chests from the 15th through 19th centuries, which survieved until the present day. They were manufactured locally in Cracow or were imported from other places (e.g. from Gdansk). Jewellery and goldsmithery form another important group. Jugs, kettles, and bowls dating back to as far as the 15th century, can be listed among items that may have also served secular purposes. Jewellery is important for the research on the burgher culture. We can find works of jewellery on reliquiaries, monstrances and silver robes made for the holy icons in the Baroque times. In cloister and church treasuries and sacristies there are many canonicals dating back as far as the 15th century. These are not only chasubles, copes and dalmatics, but tabernacle curtains, tapestries hung on church walls on special occasions, and other kinds of weaving works as well. At least part of them, mostly from Italy and France, may have been donated by burghers and were originally adorning Cracow burghers’ houses; that refers also to locally manufactured embroidery. Very important collections of historical mementos preserved in Cracow churches and cloisters belong to the heritage of material culture. These are various articles in wood, copper and other metals, glass and marble. Old kitchen utensils have been preserved, including vessels and moulds; tools used in spinning and embroidering; sand-glasses; and pharmacy eguipment including mortars and vessels. Unfortunately, many of such items, especially from the 19th century, have been destroyed due to lack of understanding. It is sometimes difficult to say whether paintings and prints kept in churches and cloisters come from burghers’ houses or not. Small paintings on religious subjects may have come from burghers’ houses. Genre paintings, landscapes or paintings on historic subjects (the Dominican cloister and the cloister of the Visitant Sisters) are even more likely of the same provenance. The similar things can be said about prints preserved in Cracow cloisters. There are many of them, mostly on religious subjects. Complete cycles representing scenes from the life of saints have been preserved. The oldest prints date from the 16th century. Large in size copperplates decorate cloisters even today, hanging on the walls in corridors. As it is known that burghers’ houses were decorated with prints, the prints from cloister collections can be used as material for comparative studies on Cracow burghers’ houses. The issues presented in the article may serve as an introduction to a monographic research which should be done on burghers’ house furnishings and which should cover various fields of art and material culture. However, even today it can be stated that Cracow cloister collections are an excellent source for research on Cracow’s cultural heritage.
Budowniczy krakowski Dominik Pucek i inwentarz rzeczy po nim pozostałych
CRACOW MASTER-BUILDER DOMINIK PUCEK AND AN INVENTORY OF HIS BELONGINGS In Cracow’s municipal records there are many inventories of items left by deceased citizens of Cracow. In 18th-century inventories there is a list of movable and immovable property left by Dominik Pucek. Pucek had already attracted attention of Stanislaw Tomkowicz who studied a map of Cracow executed by Pucek. Tomkowicz was specially interested in a large library catalogue in the inventory, including a rich collection of books on architecture, collected by the owner from his professional angle. Such extensive book collections cannot be found in burghers’ property inventories very often. Pucek did not spare expenses on books, as well as on various paintings described in the inventory as ‘painting stock’. The number of paintings is also very large, when compared with other burghers’ properties. Therefore the owner himself seemed interesting; the inventory says a lot about the owner, his material status and the furnishing of his home. Dominik Pucek (1723-1789), Cracow burgher, master-builder and land-surveyor, was, in modern terms, ‘professional engineer’. Master-builder himself, he was also builder’s son. His father’s name was Wojciech. Pucek run a workshop, performed various construction works in and outside Cracow, trained apprentices and journeymen who wanted to become master- builders. As a member of the Builders and Stone-Masons Guild in Cracow, he was elected president of the Guild. He performed construction works at Wawel, and in 1766 was appointed a supervisor of ‘the royal castle manufacture’, i.e., in fact, the manager of construction works. He supervised Wawel buildings till the end of his life; in the Wawel Cathedral there are still architectural details of his design. Pucek did also land-surveying work, sometimes with quite good results — he made several important situation maps of Cracow and Kleparz. The first was a map of Kleparz of 1744, and the last was the map of the Cracow Main Market Square of 1787, with detailed architectural drawings of buildings on and around the Square. The work was done with ‘engineering proficiency’ and is a valuable material for researchers. Pucek’s property listed in the inventory was all he accumulated during his life. The property included the house where he lived at Mikołajska Street (today number 3), the Rich Stall at the Main Market Square and the furnishings of his home. There was quite a few pieces of furniture in his home. Some of them were veneered, with rounded legs, or covered with leather. However, there was only one carpet damaged by moths, though other craftsmen sometimes owned several carpets. Pucek had large amount of jewellery and silver, though silver table sets are not mentioned in the inventory; neither it mentions faiences, though they were used from the mid-18th century. However, on the whole the home was quite well furnished, including many tin and copper vessels. The majority of the inventory are lists of books and paintings. The library was quite impressive, as it included 190 items and some of items comprised several volumes. In the case of ‘various booklets’ there were as much as twenty or so for each item. Though the majority of books were on religious subjects, there are many books on history, travel, medicine etc. Books on architecture form a separate collection. These were mostly works by foreign, mainly German, authors. Among them there is an interesting work Polish Architect by Stanisław Solecki, architect and an outstanding scientist and engineer. The collection of paintings is also very rich, including 126 items; each item has several pieces. Traditionally, the religious themes prevail, but there are also portraits and landscapes. The paintings are in various techniques and on various materials, sometimes with richly decorated framings. The inventor of Pucek’s property clearly shows that he preferred to collect books and paintings than other items. His property, including furnishing of his house, did not keep up with that of rich merchants or wealthy members of the city council.
Wnętrza mieszkalne mieszczan krakowskich w XVII i XVIII wieku
THE INTERIORS OF CRACOW BURGHERS’ HOUSES IN THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES It is inherent in human nature to modernize and change furnishings of interiors of their homes, which results in a complete obliteration of a cultural picture in that field. A reconstruction is possible only to a certain extent, with a certain probability, using written sources, iconography and the items which survived to the present time. No source is complete in itself, and needs to be verified or compared with other sources. An interior of a dwelling house reflects every-day and cultural life. The 17th century, an era of the sarmatyzm (old-Polish style), favoured the national style based on Polish tradition in art. In the house interiors, the style manifested itself the use of traditional beam-framed or casetone ceilings, covered with polychromy, not specially originally decorated, and painting the edges under the ceiling, as it used to be done in preceding centuries. It was also manifested the use of old forms of furniture, such as shelves, benches, and other painted basic furniture. Primarily the style was reflected in the liking for colourful polychromies and decorative tapestries. In the 17th century the walls were often covered with ranges of tapestry or gores of a two-colour tapestry hanging down on the walls. Painted or wood-printed paper and canvas hangings (koltryna) were also popular. Rich decoration of walls and ceilings was enhanced by a wide use of rugs, carpets, kilim tapestries and embroidered tapestries. The furniture was varied. New pieces of furniture were added to the old ones. Traditional local furniture, including shelves, attached-to-the-wall benches, side-boards, chests, and other simple painted pieces of furniture, stood side by side with Gdańsk furniture, massive and richly decorated in the baroque style (characteristic features of the Gdańsk furniture were well established around 1700). Beds were different in type; they ranged from simple painted beds manufactured by local carpenters, to large upholstered couches or posted beds, sometimes very richly decorated, used by wealthy burghers. The 18th century brought many changes in interiors of residential houses. Propagating foreign influences (of Dresden, France and England) suppressed olden tastes and tradition. Since the housing culture had increased, the demand for more sophisticated furniture was born. A range of new types of furniture was developed. The interiors began to differ according to their use. Local cabinet-making developed, including Kolbuszowa workshops. Large amounts of furniture manufactured there reached Cracow. The character of polychromy used for interior decoration was also changing. Its role increased, and as the ranges of hangings began to be out of fashion, the whole walls started to be covered with polychromy. Decorations responded to the new trends in art. In the mid-18th century the walls were decorated with rococo motives, while in the last quarter of the 18th century classicist pantings became popular, using decorative motives, landscapes and allegory, or scenes of ancient history. Furniture in wealthy burgher’s houses was also diverse in the 18th century. The Gdańsk-type furniture, characterized by traditional, Baroque shape was used until the end of the century. However, in time, their design started to be lighter, and the rococo style manifested itself, mainly in the decorations. The Ludwików furniture went along with the Gdańsk furniture. The furniture painted ‘marble’ or green, red and blue, was also fashionable. New types of furniture appear, such as corner cupboards, writing desks, sofas, popular chests of drawers, various kinds of small tables and poster beds, including a Saxon-type bed, called in France lit á la Polonaise. New, fashionable furniture replaced gradually the old one, at first in more representational rooms. Slowly Polish interiors were losing their traditional old-Polish character.
THE HISTORY OF THE SHOE HALL IN CRACOW The permit to build a shoe hall at the Cloth Hall was granted by Bolesław the Chaste in the Cracow charter act (5 June, 1257). The shoe hall was mentioned for the first time as the jatki in the Kazimierz Jagiellończyk’s document of 23 June, 1468, in which some matters concerning property rights and use of the jatki were settled. The term was a translation of the Latin macellum meaning the stall, stand and the market place. The shoe hall was wooden at first, and then after a fire it was reconstructed in brick. After another fire it was reconstructed again in brick in 1599. It was built along the western façade of the Cloth Hall, in south-western part of the Main Market Square, close to the Town Hall. The hall was designed and built by Augustyn Litwinek who spent 10 years on that job. The building was long, with barrel-vaulted ceiling, dark interior, and the centrally placed octagonal copula. In the copula walls there were small windows letting some light in. The copula had painted internal decorations and a stone cartouche with the shoemakers’ guild emblem and a date of completion of the building. Today the cartouche can be seen in the National Museum in Cracow. In the hall which housed 84 stalls, shoes were sold by shoemakers’ wives, sometimes violent and rather shrewish women, so the sources report frequent conflicts. Also the guild members themselves were often conflicted. In time, the hall became encumbered with several donations for various institutions (the University, hospitals). The municipal authorities grew interested in the hall in the last quarter of the 18th century. However, some concrete steps towards buying the hall from private owners, as the restoration of the Cloth Hall was intended, were taken not earlier than during the period of the Free City of Cracow. These had hardly any effect, however, as the owners strongly resisted. However, the reviews made on that occasion provide a very interesting source material, i.e. the list of the owners. Obligatory sale of the stalls was executed at the time when the final projects for the renovation of the Cloth Hall was ready. The project provided that the renovation would be accompanied by the demolition of many surrounding ruined buildings, including the shoe hall. The exact date of the demolition is unknown but it must have been done in mid-1876 at the latest. Today the only traces of the building can be found in several views of the Cloth Hall from before 1875 (e.g. Kozakiewicz’s, Piątkowski’s), some old photographs (I. Krieger’s, W. Maliszewski’s) and the only painting (by T. B. Stachowicz) representing The Interior of the Shoe Hall in Cracow in about 1870.