PDF

The Polish Tatra Mountains through foreign eyes
Zoltán Gyalókay
The Tatra Mountains along with the town of Zakopane constitute a crucial element of the Polish
identity, which is obvious to Polish people. A guest visiting this country faces a fact which is not
easy to understand: a nation of 40 million people adores a small town that is surrounded by
mountains. There is probably no other place in the world which is visited by millions of tourists
every year who literally tread it out, leaving the vast mountain ranges stretching along the whole
southern border of the country in a striking disproportion as far as turnout is concerned. This
would be hard to explain with the fact that the highest mountain peaks are here, reaching more
than two thousand metres above sea level. After all, most people do not venture into the Slovak
part to embark on the Tatra peaks, which are even higher than those surrounding Zakopane.
Such a concentration of people is characteristic of pilgrimage sites. But how is this place sacred?
The following short reflections are only several comments made by a foreigner who has been
trying to understand the phenomenon for twenty years, which is perhaps accepted in a natural way
by the Poles he spends with every day.
PRIEST KAROL WOJTYŁA’S SPORTS SHOES
Cardinal Karol Wojtyła Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow
(Muzeum Archidiecezjalne Kardynała Karola Wojtyły w Krakowie)
Struggles imprinted in leather.
Do walking shoes suit a cassock? Is it right for a priest to hike in the mountains?
Today we see him as a good man with a smile on his face looking on from millions of portraits. We
also know that he suffered, struggled with life and probably with himself. However, the image of a
Great Personage seems to remove the memory of the difficulties he had to face with in his lifetime.
Hiking in the mountains is not only the exertion for the body, but also an exercise for the spirit. We
all know it very well. However, while looking at these shoes we feel it in a more condensed form.
“BY THE LAKE OF MORSKIE OKO” PAINTING
Dr Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum in Zakopane
(Muzeum Tatrzańskie im. dra Tytusa Chałubińskiego w Zakopanem)
Funny.
Young ladies from good families wearing elegant dresses in the midst of great, wild, inaccessible
mountains. The figure of a highlander fits here, but the girls they do not.
(a close-up of a signature and an inscription below)
Yeah. Right. Morskie Oko Lake. They probably did not hike, but they travelled in a horse-driven
cab.
(end of a close-up)
However, the connection of these two worlds had a fundamental significance in those days.
www.muzea.malopolska.pl
Everybody believed that the highlander culture was a pure, primary form of Polishness. They
supposed they had found the deepest roots of their identity and created a national style
different from the styles promoted by neighbouring invaders. The Zakopane style did not spread
throughout the whole country as it was desired by its creators, yet it thrives continuously in
Zakopane.
Do tourists visiting the Tatras nowadays wonder where the source of their fascination comes from?
MODEL OF POD JEDLAMI (UNDER FIR-TREES) VILLA
Dr Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum in Zakopane
(Muzeum Tatrzańskie im. dra Tytusa Chałubińskiego w Zakopanem)
Witkiewicz was not the only one.
Edgar Kováts, the headmaster of the Vocational School of Timber Industry in Zakopane (Szkoła
Zawodowa Przemysłu Drzewnego w Zakopanem), published at that time a pattern-book which
included motifs inspired, among others, by highlander ornamentation. He did not call it a style,
but only “the Zakopane method.” Witkiewicz fought hard against Kováts and eventually won.
In this case, building the model was something more than just a simple intention to present a
three dimensional project. It can be regarded, along with the Koliba villa, as a manifesto of the
“Zakopane Style.”
The Zakopane Style is a characteristic, autonomous world of imagination inspired by highlander art.
The original world of forms of high aesthetic qualities, which is nice to be inside…
…and even live in.
CHAIR
Dr Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum in Zakopane
(Muzeum Tatrzańskie im. dra Tytusa Chałubińskiego w Zakopanem)
What a great influence these chairs must have had at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, in the
epoch of heavy furniture, designed in historical styles!
Light and simple, but so beautiful.
This model of a chair, simple in production, spread in the time of socialism. Many of us know it as a
part of a kitchen set designed for small rooms in blocks of flats.
Today we do not like blocks made of large slabs. We are annoyed by their gargantuan proportions.
Proportions are also disturbed in the case of mass produced chairs. It is especially evident when
the beautiful work of art created by Wojciech Brzega is seen from all sides.
CLOCK IN THE FORM OF A HIGHLANDER HOUSE
Dr Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum in Zakopane
(Muzeum Tatrzańskie im. dra Tytusa Chałubińskiego w Zakopanem)
A real house and a real clock inside.
A mass produced object of “everyday decoration.” Can we imagine an apartment without these
www.muzea.malopolska.pl
objects? Maybe a follower of minimalist functionalism in interior design would say “Yes, we can.”
Let him look around while sitting in his favourite armchair. He will find that object for sure.
At least a souvenir brought back from the holidays. For example from last year’s holiday in
Zakopane.
Zoltán Gyalókay – he studied art history at the Catholic University of Lublin and the Jagiellonian
University. He is interested in old art and is still looking for undiscovered contexts, even those
connecting the world of past centuries with the present.
www.muzea.malopolska.pl