One of the songs sung by our Polish tutors & Andrzej, camp director (they knew so many songs, & loved to sing them...) has become my favorite; brings great memories back to me. It's call Hej Sokoly, which translates as..."Hey, Falcons," and was sung by soldiers in the Polish-Soviet war of 1920 and again during WWII.
Here's a real nice version --
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCXcfDli3y0&feature=related
and a squeezebox version:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pngta-dI-kgo&feature=related
My favorite version, tho, was done by the Bielorussian group at the Podlasie Octave of Culture in Bialystok. I've a video of it & will see if I can upload it onto Youtube.
What a great song!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A memorial in the Powazkowski cemetery
This cemetery, a block from my Warsaw hotel (the Hotel Maria), is one of Warsaw's oldest & largest, & contains the graves of some of Poland's famous artists, etc. During WWII & the Warsaw uprising, battles were fought within the cemetery.This memorial, on the grave of Jerzie Kolanowski, is an appropriate memorial to end this year's blog on: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi -- Thus passes the glory of the world.
My trip is more than a week behind me, already, and has taken on something of the flavor of a dream, remembered not in detail but in disconnected bits, which somehow are supposed to make up a meaningful narrative. But as I try to piece those bits together into that narrative, it all crumbles apart, like an ancient artifact recently dug up out of the ground.
I suppose there is no meaning outside the doing. On the Aga Zaryan CD I bought in Torun -- she's this really sultry jazz singer, a Warsawian but she croons seductively in an accent-free American idiom -- on the cover of her CD is this:
"The world is not something to look at, it is something to be in."
And, that world whether we look at it or be in it, is soon gone. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
But what glory, eh?!
Warsaw supermarket
This display is PART of their vodka selection...those are all vodka, and there was a somewhat smaller shelving opposite the aisle from this...
Warsaw, the Arkadia mall
This huge, glittery mall seems impossibly far in time & substance from much of Poland.
It could be Cairo, Vancouver, Minneapolis, Sydney. It is the geography of nowhere.
But it was just a couple blocks from my Warsaw hotel, & had an internet cafe...
Warsaw, in front of the Presidential palace
In April of this year Poland lost its president, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others, many of them important government or armed forces officials, in an airplane crash, ironically on their way to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn murders.Every day small crowds gather at this memorial, with vigil candles, kiosks, flowers, and written statements of grief & condolences. I think this will happen for years...
Warsaw, downtown, near the Centralna train station
Warsaw's a big city, with big-city attractions, and problems.
The Talkowskis of Sztabin
The woman 2nd from the left is Melanie Talkowski (ne Parejko) whose grandfather was Ron & my grandfather Julius' brother. To her right is Andrzej Talkowski, her son, to his right his wife Basia. The woman on the left, who I'd never met before, is Melanie's daughter-in-law.Melanie is sister to Szygmunt & Stanislaus Parejko, who show up in last year's blog, when I visited them.
We really need to get a bunch of us Parejkos over to Poland and soon...Melanie said that Stanislaus, who lives in Vilnius (& is our email correspond Remi's father) is not well...
Tatarstan group on parade
The day before the festival (which featured by my count 29 troupes) some of the groups paraded into Bialystok's (triangular) square.The Tatars are muslim. There's a long history of them helping the Poles, e.g. in Sobieski's defeat of the Turks outside Vienna in the 1600s. There are several small villages not far from Bialystok with mosques (now, I believe, museums) & muslim cemeteries.
There are several wonderful thing about this 5-day "Podlasie Octave of Cultures" (Podlasie the region of Poland, an Octave of Cultures because they feature 8 different cultural groups, each of which may have more than one troupe.) First, it is such a slice of cultures -- East European, Russian, gypsy, even here Indian & a small Nepalese group. Secondly, like Bialystok in general, it hasn't been discovered by the outside world. So I really believe I was the only, or almost the only, American at the entire festival. No Swedes, no Germans, even no Japanese! It's a festival done for the people of Podlasie, who are 99% of the audience. This was the 3rd annual...it's something NOT to miss!
If you go to this website, & click on video, you can see performances from past years.
http://www.oktawa.woak.bialystok.pl/Default.aspx?pid=76&aiid=3339
A Polish troupe
During Easter? one ancient Polish tradition is to act out a kind of medieval everyman play, with characters like doctors, who come to deliver a baby, bears, storks & horses...I found (& video'd part of) a film of this ritual, as actually performed -- rather than for tourists -- in a small Polish village.
Bielorussian -- or Adygean? -- troupe
They show up in a later photo, where I called them Bielorussian. There were so many groups it was hard to keep them separate.The girl in the middle, and the guy, on the right, were clearly the most charismatic of the 20 or so dancers. She's a real charmer, and knew it!
Polish gorale dancers
From the Tatras, far south Poland...Polish Highlanders.
Ron made a highlander felt hat, years ago. The white felt pants are typical, and I've worn them to dance in at Folklore Village.
John wore them, along with a felt jacket, at his Carleton graduation.
Polish highlander dances are unique, lots of shouting, foot-stopping, and clashing & waving of small axes.
Half of Caci Vorba
Last year John asked me to buy a Caci Vorba CD, if I could find one. I did, at the Krakow folk festival.They're a Polish gypsy band, playing everything from ancient Polish music to standard gypsy fare, to gypsy-fusion. The fiddler is absolutely incredible...
A Polish group doing the Krakowiak
Thirty years ago or so, when Ada Dziewenowska taught Polish dances at Folklore Village, we did the Krakowiak, in costume. It was one of the best moments of my life. What a wonderful dance!
A gathering storm above the folk festival
This storm was the inspiration for a July 28 post, when I tried to describe it in words:
Did you ever stir up one of those big anthills you sometimes find along the road or in a pasture, and watch them suddenly scurrying about? It's what happened last night at the Podlasie Folk Festival, when a dark, threatening storm rose up over the horizon, and the audience fled helter-skelter for their homes, bus-stops, and cars; and above them, a sudden mayhem of crows.
Did you ever stir up one of those big anthills you sometimes find along the road or in a pasture, and watch them suddenly scurrying about? It's what happened last night at the Podlasie Folk Festival, when a dark, threatening storm rose up over the horizon, and the audience fled helter-skelter for their homes, bus-stops, and cars; and above them, a sudden mayhem of crows.
photo of a photo
In Bialystok's (triangular) square there was a big exhibit of large-format (about 4 x 5 feet) photos done by a renowned & local photographer, whose name I have to confess I didn't write down.The photos highlight some of Podlasie's (that's the equivalent of our state, in far NE Poland) landscape & flora & fauna. Podlasie has become my favorite part of Poland, though I've yet to visit the far SE part of the country, said to be very much off the beaten path.
There must have been 60 or so of these big pictures in an outdoor display. I took photos of some of them.
When we first visited Poland, in 1974, horse-drawn vehicles were very common, in cities & on rural roads. They've been replaced, in the cities, with new cars & trucks, and one almost never encounters them even in the countryside. But the photographer found one, here, in the backwaters (literally) of Podlasie.
photo of a photo
Like N. Wisconsin & Minnesota, much of Podlasie is lake...here, as they've done from time immemorial, farmers gather marsh-hay, paddling narrow boats...that's a rick, drying, upper right.
Main Hall of Branicki Palace
Completely rebuilt after WWII. The Germans blew up the palace as they were retreating from the Russians in 1944.This year is the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth. All over Poland there were concerts & celebrations. He's a real Polish hero -- like Davy Crockett in the U.S.
There was a free concert in the Palace, featuring a small orchestra & pianist Micaj (Michael) Dembrowski, who played Chopin, no easy task, so very elegantly...I've begun to appreciate Chopin. As I've mentioned to some of you, I always thought he put too many notes in there, but I've begun to understand why they're there.
Enigma machine
During WWII it was a team of Polish crypologists (no, they didn't live in crypts...) who broke the incredibly complicated German code system called "Enigma." That it was actually broken seems almost impossible.This is one of the copies of Enigma made by Poles & distributed to Allied forces during the war, used to decode German messages. It was in the Podlasie Regional Museum, in Bialystok, and part of a larger display about the breaking of the code.
Arguably w/o Polish pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain & kept the Germans from invading Britain, & the Polish breaking of the Enigma code, Germany would have won the war.
Rynek Kosciuski
Bialystok's main square -- actually a triangle -- of course completely rebuilt since WWII, the city having been pretty well destroyed, with the stage just going up for the folk festival.My favorite haunt....
In the Bialystok city museum
Furnishings in one of the reconstructed wealthier citizens' rooms -- in the mirror you can see the kind of ceramic stove used to heat houses throughout Poland & Russia, this one very ornate. They held the heat nicely.
Reconstructed dining room, Bialystok museum
There were a few nouveau riche in Bialystok a hundred years ago. In the city museum they've reconstructed rooms from some of the city's merchant-class. Several families made their wealth here in textiles.
Model of Bialystok
A huge (20 x 20 ft.) model of the city, in the museum, showing it around 1750.Income distribution is a problem in the U.S., with a growing divide between the very wealthy & the rest of us.
It's got a long history, too, in Poland & other European countries. The formal gardens in the center of the picture are at the Branicki Palace. The nobility (& the church!) siphoned huge chunks of wealth off the ordinary, poor working folk...
Fountain in Bialystok
There's a small park in Bialystok where seniors seem to hang out, between my hotel & the internet cafe I frequented, so I passed through it often. They've this fountain with a big granite globe almost sealing off a vertical stream of water. The globe rotates slowly. It's quite ingenious... and birds come here to drink.
Storks
This picture is out of sequence, but who isn't these days?Storks are quite common throughout Poland, and yes do build their nests near & on houses...they seem to like us.
But there are not so many as before -- which maybe explains the precipitous decline in Poland's birth rate?
An urban crow, Bialystok
They've several species of crow in northern Europe. These were all around town & in the parks.
Countryside between Warsaw & Bialystok
Poland is, after all, a mostly rural country -- the name means "Land of the Fields." And the countryside looks so much like Wisconsin...
Friday, August 6, 2010
Armored vehicle outside the Solidarity museum
Of the type used by the Polish military against their own people, during Solidarity strikes & actions.
Entrance to Gdansk shipyards
You can see the cranes to the left. Still building them here.Beyond these gates, in the 1970s, a group of long-haired idealists formed a union, Solidarity, which after much struggle, and members killed & tortured, won the right to free elections, and in so doing brought down the Soviet Union.
Street vendors in Gdansk
More amber here than anywhere else in the world, rough, polished, jewelry...and other gift-items aimed at tourists, including matryoshka dolls....
Pivo, pierogi, pierniki & Pliny!
I can't seem to escape him...here in the Gdansk museum, they quote him on amber.I pulled out my "Natural History." He has several pages on amber..."There can be no doubt," he says, "that amber is a product of the islands of the Northern Ocean...produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from the cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine...one great proof that it is the product of a tree of the pine genus, is the fact that it emits a pine-like smell when rubbed, and that it burns, when ignited, with the odor and appearance of torch-pine wood..."
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