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Chapter 1. The Muszyna Almanac 1991-2012
We launched publishing the first "Muszyna Almanac" under the auspices
of the Friends of Muszyna Region Society back in 1991. In 2010, the Society
of Friends of Muszyna Almanac became the publisher of this periodical.
In the first year, the Almanac comprised 40 pages and for several last
years we have been struggling not to exceed 400 pages.
We have always focused on the history of the Muszyna region and its people.
Several hundred texts by dozens of authors covered these subjects. We
have often visited our neighbour towns, also in the Slovak Spis and Saris.
Pages of the Almanac carry texts by professional historians, archaeologists,
biologists, geologists as well as many others who may not be professional
writers but do various public duties. People who are fascinated by history,
study the past of Muszyna and its region to share their discoveries with
the Almanac Readers.
Thanks to contacts with the local communities, we have been quite successful
in searching around to reveal manuscripts, chronicles, and photographs
often forgotten and sitting in deep drawers. We have looked for family
stories and memoirs which are usually beyond the reach of research institutions.
History is a field of study worth promotion among the younger generation
who should be aware of their birth place's past and the past of their
neighbours. This is why we often try to present the history of Spis in
papers written by our southern neighbours and in their own language.
Below, we invite our Readers to visit the pages of the
Muszyna Almanac which has been published over 22 years in the Polish,
English, German, and Slovak languages.
Muszyna Almanac 1991
Our first Almanac comprised only 40 pages and carried
an outline of the history of Muszyna, its castle, and the associated legends,
as well as the history of churches and cemeteries within the municipality
boundaries and, eventually, the mineral water springs and the Museum.
We also described several interesting walks or longer hiking tours and
we recommend our Readers to get familiar with the poetry by Jerzy Harasymowicz.
We have also drawn from the knowledge of historian and ethnographer Professor
Roman Reinfuss, an outstanding expert and admirer of the Lemko culture
whose custom and rituals were also presented on our pages.
Muszyna Almanac 1992
We invited the friends of Muszyna people to visit the
town's archives and see the life of its residents as it was in several
past centuries, to read about the origins of the Muszyna crest, and learn
the findings of excavations atop the Castle Hill. We also encouraged the
Readers to take hiking and car excursions for which Muszyna is an ideal
starting point. Wherever you walk or drive outside Muszyna, you always
come across old orthodox churches called "cerkiew,". Therefore we published
brief background notes explaining the role played by the interior outfit
in the Greek-Catholic religious ritual.
Poetry lovers could find in the Almanac some verses by
Muszyna-born poet Adam Ziemianin and by some other amateur poets, too.
Muszyna Almanac 1993
We published a story by Jacek Zaremba who presented many
interesting places in Muszyna's "big brother" town Nowy Sącz, which
celebrated its 700th jubilee that year.
The Readers were also invited to a droshky (horse-driven
taxi) ride along the old Kościelna Street, past a charity centre Ochronka
run by Sisters of Saint Elizabeth, towards the village of Powroźnik and
its historical "cerkiew" dating back to the 17th century. In
an interview with the Mayor of Muszyna's "little sister" Krynica, which
celebrated its 200th jubilee in 1993, we were told about the
problems and dreams of the fathers of this magnificent resort. But we
also looked farther on, to the more remote neighbours, among them such
villages as: Čirč, Podolinec, Hniezdne, and Stara Lubovla, to find out
Polish traces in the Slovak part of the Spis region.
Having absorbed some historical knowledge, we went on
to take a breath of the fresh mountain air by walking along the Muszynka
and Poprad rivers where you may be lucky to spot the black stork. For
those who love fiction, we included in the Almanac Adam Ziemianin's story
about "grandma" Anna who had owned a guest house and, next to it, we published
a little bit of poetry. In our series presenting famous and merited personalities
who were born in Muszyna, lived somewhere else but always kept their home
town in their hearts, we published an interview with composer Zbigniew
Bujarski.
Muszyna Almanac 1994
Our proposal was: why not to travel back in time and
look at the Muszyna Starosty in its prime, taste some wine with Jan Kochanowski
of Czarnolas at the Castle, pop in to an old Muszyna school which kept
training local children in reading and writing skills amidst many ups
and downs over centuries. When hiking the hills around Muszyna, we could
see the place of a legendary battle on the Garby and the trenches used
by the Confederation of Bar guerrillas at the village of Muszynka, where
Kazimierz Pułaski is said to have spent some time. When we took a tour
of old Uniate Catholic churches, the true jewels of architecture still
surviving in the area, we visited one of them at Izby where we admired
a copy of an icon of the Protective Mother of God, widely worshipped there
in the past.
We also visited the town of Bardejov in Slovakia, a place
known for its long history and so very colourful that many claim it is
as beautiful as Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula River. We also visited
other places in Slovakia, like the hot springs outside Kežmarok where
you can have a swim in sulphurized water, or escape summer heat and noise
by walking into chilly caves.
Muszyna is all criss-crossed by railroads running in
various directions. Passers-by and motorists are safe thanks to the crossing
guards who work 24-hour shifts like decades ago, although they can use
new technologies developed at the end of the 20th century,
as Edward Drozd wrote. The old railway station in Muszyna did not survive
to our time but at least we could move several decades back when reading
Adam Ziemianin's story that features an old-fashioned chuff-chuff in Muszyna,
among other things.
Muszyna Almanac 1995
This Almanac carried an outline of the town's history
with a special focus on the time of World War I and the two decades separating
it from World War II. We mentioned Mayor of Muszyna Antoni Jurczak, who
performed his office in the years 1912-1938. Fifty years since his death
passed in 1995 and on this occasion we published his grandson's reminiscences
full of very warm words. In another tour of the history, we looked closer
at the insurgents of the Confederation of Bar trying to solve the mystery
of a distinction they used to confer on people. A story by Tadeusz Trajdos
guided the Reader to the iconostases painted by Wiktor Zomph in the churches
in Andrzejówka and Leluchów. We also wrote about Ignacy Medwecki who discovered
and developed the resort village of Żegiestów, and then we went to the
cemetery in Muszyna to find the graves of his family members. On the way,
we stopped over at the graves of soldiers who died 1914.
In the nearby Krynica, we went to see an exhibition of
paintings by Nikifor, a Lemko and a genius-primitive painter whose 100th
birthday fell in 1995. While in Krynica, we listened to Jan Kiepura's
belcanto in the Deptak promenade where music festival commemorating
the great "singer from Sosnowiec" are held every year. Our pages dedicated
to literature offered a meeting with a fictitious resort goer Benek in
a text written by Adam Ziemianin, and with a figure named Południca in
a story written in the local dialect by Franek Kmietowicz who for years
lives in Canada but loves the local folk culture and history.
Muszyna Almanac 1996
We started with a review of literary works about the
Muszyna region which was often described by great masters, among them
poet Jan Kochanowski of Czarnolas, who admired the sophisticated taste
of the Starost of Muszyna and his expert knowledge of wine. Then we invited
the Readers to Żegiestów celebrating its 150th jubilee at the
time and those who take interest in history, were invited to the place
known as the Muszyna Castle and allowed to look at the Greek-Catholic
parish records to find the traces of the Krynicki family who are so well
rooted in the region. We also published the story of the Co-operative
Bank in Muszyna and the people who worked for it. Another merited institution
we described was the Centre of the Polish Association of the Blind which
celebrated its 60th anniversary in 1996.
The Muszyna Market Square was guarded by two saints in
their white little shrines: St. Florian, and St. John Nepomucene. The
St. Florian's figure, which originally stood in the square, was moved
to a shrine in Folwark, a Muszyna district on the left bank of the Poprad
river. The history of the statue and the method used for its conservation
were all described on the Almanac pages by a resident of the Folwark neighbourhood
and a professional art conservator. Since St. Florian is a patron saint
of the Fire Brigades, we should mention here Ferdynand Palej, a long-time
and highly merited person for the local fire-fighters, and his great hobby
the Baszta Cinema.
Just a short walk from the Market Square is the St. Joseph's
parish church with its three magnificent historic sculptures dating back
to the 15th century. From there, we walked to the cemetery
to see a shrine founded long ago by the Krynicki family.
For people who love reading fiction, we published a story
about the Baszta Cinema, a local legend written in the local dialect and,
in addition to that, we included a little bit of poetry, too. Music lovers
could find in this Almanac a few words about the Old Music Festival in
Stary Sącz. We presented several folk artists born in Muszyna in a reminiscence
about Kunegunda Jeżowska. Another attraction we proposed was seeing a
local wedding party as it was organized in the old times with all the
occasional rituals, music, and songs.
The Almanac also carried a text by the rev. Stanisław
Pietrzak who challenged the credibility of a 1209 document often quoted
by historians as the first written record of Muszyna.
Muszyna Almanac 1997
This Almanac presented the current problems of the Resort
Municipality of Muszyna, took us for a trip to a neighbour town of Levoča,
Slovakia, and offered some good fiction and poetry devoted to local topics
of Muszyna. It is worth to note, that the jewel of Spis, Levoča, was presented
in the Almanac by a Slovak writer Jan Skupin. We also dedicated a special
article to the history of Muszyna's town library. The library is highly
merited for the cultural development of the town and it celebrated its
50th jubilee in 1997, despite the fact that it is much older
than that. The text was written by long-time library manager Łucja Bukowska.
There were also a few texts about the fascinating history
of the town. They discussed the first surviving written record mentioning
the vicar of Muszyna, the founder of the parish Church bishop Trzebiecki,
and spoke about St. Swierad whose figure can be seen in an external niche
at the church's wall and who might have visited Muszyna once during his
life.
We also offered to our Readers a text discussing many
local place-names and phrases. Like most other communities, the local
people in Muszyna also use lots of phrases and words which are known and
spoken only here. This time we mainly focused on place-names.
Żegiestów is almost as important in the local chain of
resorts as Muszyna, so we wrote a little about it too. A short distance
from Żegiestów is the village of Wierchomla to which we dedicated a warm
reminiscence with some Muszyna associations. This issue of the Almanac
continued the last-year's story of the Krynicki family. But this time,
we had two authors: a historian and a member of the family who is well
versed in its fascinating history.
Muszyna Almanac 1998
The Almanac 1998 is largely devoted to the writings of
Adam Ziemianin, a poet born in Muszyna who often writes about his home
town. This issue carries a dozen or so excellent poems by Ziemianin, a
funny short story, and an article on the poet's writings and traces of
Muszyna present in his poetry.
As has been our tradition, we also wrote about the history
of our town. We described the many floodings and fires that had troubled
Muszyna in the past centuries and showed the buildings which did not exist
anymore. We examined the inscriptions in the parish church, went back
to the written chapters of the Krynicki family history, visited the War
Veterans' Circle, and called in to the Jewish guest house "Bristol" that
existed before the WWII.
But above all, in this issue we recalled many outstanding
personalities who are merited for the town and its area. The work of Franek
Kmietowicz was covered in the Almanac by his brother's son Witt Kmietowicz.
Another article presented Franciszek Kmietowicz senior, a public activist,
a medical doctor, and a long-time Mayor of Krynica. Our next reminiscence
was about another activist and artist Karol Rojna who was the founder
of the Muszyna Museum. In our series "From an old album" we present a
Muszyna council member living before World War II Wawrzyniec Wójcik. Reverend
Father Grzegorz Gołyźniak of Muszyna wrote an article dedicated to prelate
Kazimierz Zatorski, a long-time vicar in Muszyna who celebrated his 90th
birthday in 1998.
Muszyna is part of the life story of many extraordinary
people. One of them is US Army General Leo J. Dulacki, a grandson of Antoni
Jurczak, the distinguished Mayor of Muszyna. Other texts in the Almanac
carried some more reminiscence about the "Villa Szwarcówka" hidden among
lovely trees and also about the Lime Reserve.
As we walked towards the village of Leluchów along the
Poprad river which so often floods the fields around, we could see what
had remained of the old, deserted Wapienny quarry and when we searched
some old archives, we found documents that carried us to an even older
quarry called Dubne. We invited also to a bit longer hike atop the Jaworzyna.
Since it is our intention to protect local names and
expressions, we continued writing about some place-names and we opened
a series of texts on the most typical local words and phrases.
Muszyna Almanac 1999
Author Zbigniew Wolanin introduced our Reader to the
fascinating and colourful world of paintings by Nikifor who liked to call
himself the Matejko of Krynica. The real Matejko was also present on our
pages in an article about his visit to Krynica and in which we could read
how it happened that he sketched the Old Municipality in Muszyna. While
writing about art, we also presented Józef Sikorski, a sculptor living
in Muszyna.
For the first time, we published a text by a Slovak historian
without translating it into Polish. The author, Ivan Chalupecky, is a
long-time manager of Levoča archives. This paper opened a section in the
Alamanac devoted to the Roman Catholic Church and its problems. Subsequent
texts cast light on people associated in various ways, also indirectly,
with the bishop's town of Muszyna, its churches, and the complex symbols
still present in them as well as graves of Poles that came from Muszyna.
We could find out from these texts that Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, now blessed
John Paul II, had once hiked around the Muszyna area. During one of the
pilgrimages to Poland as the Pope of Rome, he canonized Cunegundes the
Lady of Sandeck.
The Reader also had an opportunity to reflect on the
plight of Muszyna Jews expelled by Germans from on the Poprad river, which
they thought to be also their home town. After a walk along Ogrodowa Street
towards the old Jewish cemetery, having seen some of the guest houses
built before World War II, visited the Museum where we were shown around
by custodian Barbara Rucka, and after a long hike towards a place called
Hala Pisana, we could go to Krynica by train once used by Nikifor who
later copied the railroads and stations in his enchanting drawings.
While in the jewel of Polish health resorts Krynica,
it is worth taking a stroll along the Pułaski Street, well above Jan Kiepura's
"Patria" villa up to the Pułaski Mound just at the exit of the road from
Krynica to Tylicz. We decided to write about it out of respect for the
then Mayor of Krynica Dr Franciszek Kmietowicz and for many other outstanding
residents of the town who devoted much of their time, effort, and private
money to build the Mound and monument to Kazimierz Pułaski.
Our adventure with the Muszyna dialect started in the
Almanac two years earlier. The 1999 issue added a handful of original
words and expressions to our little Muszyna dictionary, and we also proposed
some rules for its grammar.
In their warm stories presenting the charms of Muszyna,
other authors wrote about their friends and relatives, and they reached
deep into their old memories by re-discovering their family photo albums.
Among the figures described in the Almanac, we found the 17th-century
owner of the Muszyna State, bishop Piotr Gembicki; Jan Piróg, Mayor of
Muszyna who lived on the turn of the 19th century, a forest
ranger Michał Witowski, a deputy to the Sejm of the 2nd Republic
of Poland Jan Pawłowski, a teacher from the Folwark neighbourhood Maria
Heilman, and an old man named Wawrzek Bukowski.
Also for the first time, we published a list of people
who donated money to the Muszyna Almanac Scholarship Fund. The first scholarship
was extended to talented young people of Muszyna by friends of the Almanac
in 1999.
Muszyna Almanac 2000
Like many other border towns and villages, Muszyna for
centuries lived on the junction of different states, nations, and cultures.
And we wanted to show how economic and cultural wealth of this region
depended on those different people, nations, and religions. The beautiful
reminiscence of Mirjam Bottlob written by her US-born son Jelus is an
excellent example of that.
As usually, we invited our Readers to study a bit of
Muszyna history and walk the nearby forests along local rivers and creeks,
past Muszyna region shrines. One can see interesting natural objects and,
on the road to the Malnik hill which offers a magnificent panorama of
the town, its Market Square, the Baszta tower, and Ogrodowa Street one
can stop for a while at the old matzevahs in the Jewish cemetery.
Having read about the adventures of the Carpathian highland
robbers who used to operate around Muszyna too, we switched to a text
on the life of the last Starost of Muszyna and the history of the Tarnów-Leluchów-Orlov
railway line, and then to an article about the inter-war era, the years
of German occupation, and the nearest past. We wanted the Reader to take
interest in such things as the history of the Muszyna court of law by
presenting the evolution of this important local institution.
We also paid a visit to Krynica twice, a hundred years
ago and today, then we travelled to Andrzejówka, Dubne, Wierchomla, Żegiestów,
and to several places in Slovakia, beyond the Polish border because we
wanted to take a closer look at the Roma people living there. Apart from
that, we visited Plavec, a village right behind the border about which
we wrote in Polish and the Slovak languages.
Romantic travellers who used to move along the Poprad
valley long time ago admired the beauty of this land and included their
impressions of the place into their poems and art. The beauty of the land
was still there to be admired but some things had changed, indeed. The
grouse birds did not live at Jaworzyna peak anymore, some landscape features
were lost forever and the air was not as clean as it had been long ago.
But the forests once belonging to Count Stadnicki were still there and
the Popradzki Landscape Park was gradually getting richer in nature monuments,
clean water springs, and "mofetas" (springs emitting CO2 which
comes from inside the Earth).
We never forgot about the key historical monuments in
Muszyna. So we took a walk to the Castle ruins and to the St. Joseph Church
so nicely renovated in the recent time. And there was a surprise: the
conservators unearthed the lost portraits of two bishops, Andrzej Trzebicki
and Andrzej Załuski. Both personalities were presented in the Almanac
two years earlier.
Some other texts were that year dedicated to the memory
of: Jerzy Udziela, Jerzy Harasymowicz, an outstanding public activist
and nature protector Count Adam Stadnicki, blacksmith and Mayor of Muszyna
Stanisław Porth and, Kazimierz Miczulski, a police officer murdered by
the Soviets at Ostaszków. Many Muszyna-born people would travel far! On
the way, they got into unusual adventures, like the last Starost of Muszyna,
the war-time plight experienced by many of those mentioned above, and
by soldier Wiktor Borzemski who fought in World War II.
We presented the efforts and work done to the benefit
of the youngest generation on the example of the Extra-school Education
Centre which had just turned 20-years old and we covered the ceremony
of awarding that year's Muszyna Almanac scholarships.
Muszyna Almanac 2001
It has become our tradition to write about the history
of the Muszyna State and the people who had some direct or indirect influence
on its destinies because of their occupation or role in public life. This
time we started with the presentation of founder of Polish balneology
Professor Józef Dietl, a person of great merits to all Polish health resorts.
The story is told to us by his brother's grandson, Professor Jerzy Dietl.
We also wrote about several other outstanding personalities: historian,
writer, and artist Szczęsny Morawski, painter Wojciech Gerson, and actor
Jerzy Roland who was buried at the Muszyna cemetery.
Our articles on history guided the Readers far back into
the past when Muszyna's army would triumph (or lose) in battlefields as
it fought in support of the bishops of Cracow, to the time when Muszyna
was born as a health resort, and to the grim years of World War II. Several
stories by Rafał Żebrowski and Leszek Hońda described Jewish fates. The
history of our town may have been full of ups and downs but all its ethnic
and religious groups lived here in piece for centuries.
We suggested taking a stroll along Kościelna Street which
had suffered several conflagrations in the past, and to walk up to the
St. Joseph Church to see the meticulously renovated statue of Virgin Mary
which was shown, in the company of the statues of St. Hedwig of Silesia
and St. Odilia, at a jubilee exhibition in Cracow in 2000, as a historic
relic originally belonging to Wawel Castle Cathedral in Cracow.
From that church, it was only a short walk to the cemetery
with its tall lime trees and graves of many merited residents of Muszyna.
We stopped and bowed to the grave of sister Rajmunda of the Sisters of
Saint Elizabeth convent who was famous for being always ready to extend
the helpful hand and who died in 2000.
While strolling here and there in Muszyna, we often came
across old and new roadside crosses and Witt Kmietowicz wrote about them.
Then we walked to the Zapopradzie neighbourhood where the old "band pavilion"
does not exist anymore but some forgotten tunes still seem to sound there.
Years ago, Muszyna residents and health resort visitors, men, women, young,
old, and those of various creeds, would peacefully spend their time there
enjoying the pleasures of the river-bank beach. That atmosphere could
be now found in a text by Miriam Akavia who wrote about her last summer
holiday in Muszyna just before the outbreak of World War II.
If you happen to come to Zapopradzie in May, you will
hear a trumpet playing tunes dedicated to Virgin Mary atop the Castle
Hill. That is a real true "Muszyna serenade..."
Or if you walk along the Poprad river, you will go past
some charming old villas, one of them is called "Nasz Domek" (Our Home)
and belongs to the Peszkowski family. If you walk just a few yards on,
you we will find yourself in Legnava, Slovakia, where legends interweave
with history inside an ancient monastery. Opposite the monastery on the
other bank of the river, you will see a Polish village of Milik, next
to it another one Andrzejówka, and further on, Żegiestów whose pre-war
glory can be seen in old post-cards copied on the Almanac pages. Walking
back, upstream the Poprad river, we got to the border village of Leluchów
where cherry trees are most beautiful when flowering. It is not very far
from there to Stara Lubovla and we had a story about it, this time written
in Slovak. When exploring the geological features of the Muszyna landscape,
we looked at its extremely interesting boulders, rocks, and caves.
The last part of the Almanac carried a report on the
previous year's meeting of the Friends of the Muszyna Almanac, an account
on a panel discussion titled: "Muszyna on the borderline of cultures,"
and on the distribution of that year's scholarships to students of the
local Senior Secondary School.
Muszyna Almanac 2002
When writing about the history of the region that time,
we went much farther back than before. Jarosław Stolarski showed us the
traces left on Muszyna soil by animals living here thirty million years
ago!
But we also explored a less remote past, between the
15th century and the beginning of our 21st century.
We published a story about bishop Jan Muskata and presented one of the
Muszyna State owners, bishop of Cracow Jakub Zadzik. And we described
the beginnings and history of the Greek-Catholic Church in the Muszyna
area and in Slovakia. The time between the World Wars is also shown in
the reminiscence of the Muszyna power station, the sawmill, and in the
text about the Jewish organisation B'nai B'rith. Much attention was devoted
to Krynica in an article on old post cards featuring the streets of the
town.
And we recalled the air-crash in Krynica in May 1930.
We carried a few accounts on the facts from World War II and the German
occupation: the first days of the September 1939 campaign, attempts of
some people to secretly sneak across the border, long days in a German
jail in Muszyna where one of the inmates was a great theatrical personality
Józef Szajna. A story of the war-time plight of the Kmietowicz family
members and Antoni's days during the battle of Monte Cassino was extremely
interesting. Judge Adam Bień, one of the 16 top commanders of the Polish
Underground State who were indicted and tried in Moscow, had spent holidays
with his family in Muszyna in the years 1938-1939.
Just for a change, we invited the Readers to the world
of poetry where we picked up from the Biblioteka Sądecka library resource
the story of painter Bolesław Barbacki and one about Slovak women's rights
advocate Terezia Vansova born Medvecka (this text was written in the Slovak
language).
The Youth Visegrad Clubs were organised in Muszyna and
Stara Lubovla in 2001 and the young people who took part in the initiative
now present their work and plans for the coming summer holidays. The Club
sessions were this time attended also by young people from Hungary and
the Czech Republic. We were proud to mention the well-developing idea
of the Scholarship Fund.
The Muszyna Library and Regional Museum organized a number
of interesting events during the former year and the Almanac carried a
brief record of those exhibition inaugurations, concerts, and a meeting
with Israeli writer Miriam Akavia.
Muszyna Almanac 2003
At first, we went to the village of Kolačkov
in the Spis, not far from Stara Lubovla, where traces of Polish settlements
can be seen even today. We stayed a bit longer in the area to study the
history of the nearby Podolinec and to describe the local folk garments
(article written in the Slovak language). Back to Poland, we wrote about
the times of bishop Jan Małachowski and about the religious people of
Muszyna and the local custom heritage which has survived to our time.
The masterly writings of 19th century scholars
and writers helped us to present the life of the Lemkos in the past and
we also had an essay on the Greek-Catholic parishes in the Muszyna Church
district. Then we looked into the minutes of municipal meetings held in
the village of Andrzejówka in the 1930s and we went on another hike, this
time to Leluchów and the surrounding hills.
A stroll to the Muszyna Jewish cemetery invites a reflection
on the plight of the Holocaust victims, among them, those who were brought
by the Germans to work in the sawmill, a part of the Muszyna labour camp.
You cannot study culture without studying the language.
The Almanac often wrote about local dialect phrases, unseen anywhere else
and, sometimes, very funny. This time we printed an extensive excerpt
from a dialect dictionary written several decades ago by Professor Eugeniusz
Pawłowski.
We visited the region's principal town of Nowy Sącz to
find out about the dramatic history of its medieval castle and to visit
the J. Szujski Library. From there, we drove along the curly Poprad river
valley and its ancient merchant route to Rytro to explore the local castle
ruins for treasure. We continued our journey to Krynica along the same
route people had once travelled to the medicinal waters in their coaches
or by rail via Muszyna, where the train had a stop and the visitors could
see the railway station building.
We recalled the pre-war times and the years just after,
and we went to see some interesting places like a scout camp and the Muszyna
power station. The Almanac presented a set of 19th century
press reports from Krynica and Muszyna and excerpts from old tourist guides
advertising the charms of the two towns.
Once we focused on old documents, we directed the Readers'
attention to the abundance of information often contained in a small piece
of paper, such as, a recorded letter slip from the post office. Having
looked at it closely, we were able to reconstruct quite a bit of historical
facts, also those important for Muszyna alone.
The Almanac carried a good deal of fiction, stories and
poems by Adam Ziemianin and other authors, some of them very young who
are just about to become mature writers.
Our present time brings about not only successes but
disasters too. The destructive power of nature struck Muszyna in July
2002. The successes include, in the first place, the construction of a
border-bridge over Smereczek and opening two medicinal water centres called
"Antoni" and "Wanda" on the other bank of the Poprad river, and also "Milusia"
in the old "Mineral Baths" built by engineer Krówczyński at the Piłsudski
Street. Another success was certainly the new Muszyna Branch of the Fine
Arts Association and a magnificent exhibition of works by its members
titled: "Nosi mnie" staged in Warsaw. We mention those facts adding some
information about the attainments of the Youth Visegrad Clubs in Stara
Lubovla, Muszyna, the Hungarian town of Nyíregyháza and in Vsetin, the
Czech Republic.
Muszyna Almanac 2004
We became true Europeans on May 1, 2004! Looking at the
history of our little town in the mountains which was, nevertheless, always
present and visible in Polish history chapters, we could realize we had
always been part of Europe... We welcomed joining Europe as warmly as
we could at a meeting with our Slovak friends on the Visegrad Bridge.
The main figures in the ceremony were young members of the Visegrad Clubs
from Muszyna and Stara Lubovla, who actually gave the name to the Leluchów-Čirč
border-bridge.
This Almanac's first pages were about Krynica. An article
by Jacek Purchla covered the 150th birth anniversary of a Cracow-based
architect Jan Zawiejski who designed many buildings so typical of Krynica,
among them, the Stary Dom Zdrojowy and the parish church in the spa district
of the town. Then we examined the resource of the Muszyna parish library
and some old documents bought at auctions or found in other museums. Then,
we went back to Krynica to absorb some culture by listening about Jan
Kiepura and the beginnings of the music festival named after him, and
to visit the gallery "Pod Kasztanem." We also followed up our 2002 article
to write more about the life of an airman who had crashed in Krynica in
1930.
We devoted much space to our Slovak neighbours and the
first days of World War II which were so dramatic on both sides of the
state border and we presented the Kołaczkowski family of Kolačkov,
Slovakia, whose records go back to the 16th century, and we
wrote about Chmielnica (Hobgart) a village close to Stara Lubovla populated
by German settlers several centuries ago (article written in the Slovak
language).
The ruins of the Starost Castle dominate over Muszyna.
How many mysteries and puzzles are still hidden in the ruins, despite
extensive archaeological excavations and scientific research to-date?
Coming back from a walk to the Castle Hill, we thought what should the
Muszyna crest look like today to meet all the heraldry requirements.
Several native Muszyna residents told us about the inter-war
era. That time was also covered by the article on problems the then Jewish
community in Krynica had with the legal status of the ritual animal slaughterer,
the shochet. The other articles took us to Nowy Sącz and its White Monastery,
then to Żegiestów, Andrzejówka as it was in the 1930s, Złockie, and Izba
where we could still find relics and memorabilia of the Confederation
of Bar insurgents.
Finally we went back to Muszyna, visited its Zapopradzie
district and the old mineral baths, then we looked through old memoirs
and photo albums kept by the Medwecki family. The old Muszyna vicarage
once again witnessed the visit the then Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal
Karol Wojtyła paid there over 30 years ago.
We presented the result of a photo competition organized
by the Krynica Photographic Society and the editors of the Muszyna Almanac,
titled: "Architectural detail in Tylicz and its area."
Muszyna Almanac 2005
The death of Pope John Paul II had its impact on all
of us. The stories of great people and the small ones with great hearts
explains the value of life and the meaning of the passing time. Therefore,
we kept trying to save from oblivion as much of our little motherland's
past as we only could...
By describing the lives of Muszyna residents, especially
the Bujarski family, we demonstrated why it pays off to dig into old documents
and try to restore at least a bit of the family history. We discussed
the archaeological finds on the Castle Hill and the mysterious walls incidentally
unearthed on the Muszynka creek bank. We inspected the historical records
of the Lubomirski family so closely associated with the Sądecczyzna and
Spis regions, we went back to the work of a painter from Bardejov whose
icons are found elsewhere in the Muszyna area, especially in Andrzejówka
and Leluchów. While in Andrzejówka, we read some minutes of the local
council meetings held in 1935 and we took a glance at some older documents
discussed in a text about beer-brewing industry in the Muszyna State of
the early 18th century and also mentioned in an article about
Antoni Schneider's Files. We tried to reconstruct a camp of the
Confederation of Bar insurgents at Izby, then we looked at some more documents
of the Kołaczkowski family and their relative Jakub Łomnicki.
The Almanac also wrote about the people called Black
Highlanders of Piwniczna and their Slovak neighbours who invited us to
the Slovak villages of Cigeľka and Bušova. We also published a brief calendar
of events going on in the Stara Lubovla county during the Slovak anti-German
uprising in the years 1944-1945.
Architecture was the main subject of texts covering the
1926 competition for a design of a guest house in Krynica, discussing
the work of a Slovak architect Dušan Jurkovič, and the building regulations
which were in force in Krynica before World War II. We paid a visit to
Krynica also in connection with our story about the Spa Band conductor
Adam Wroński.
The topic of the Muszyna Jewish community came up again
in the form of a photograph showing a poor garlic and onions seller included
in our series From an old photo album and in a poem by Adam Ziemianin.
We also published some memoirs mentioning people who devoted all their
lives or, sometimes, just a short time, to our town. Among those were:
Professor Leon Marchlewski, great artist Jan Matejko, Józef Łepkowski,
Zdzisław Krawczyński, Professor Adam Mściwujewski, Zygmunt Syguliński,
and members of the Medwecki family.
Further pages of the Almanac took us to a hunt with an
old forester, told us about the jubilee of the school at Złockie, allowed
the Visegrad Youth to share their achievements and ideas with us and the
Reader.
And, of course, we also carried some poetry. Apart from
Ziemianin's poems, we also published other authors whose hearts belong
to Muszyna and its region.
We kept the word given in Almanac 2004 to deliver to
the Poor Clare Sisters of Stary Sącz the document published on our pages
last year. We also printed a brief photo report on the occasion.
Muszyna Almanac 2006
This time we began with art, non-professional but excellent
art which grew from the bottom of the artist's heart. Zbigniew Wolanin
wrote about brothers Jan and Stanisław Niewola, sculptors and painters
in Muszyna, and Bogdan Karski made references to Nikifor in his essay
on attempts to forge his most single paintings.
When going back into the history of the Muszyna State
and its surroundings, we tracked down the origins of the place-name Krępak,
we examined the tough law imposed by the Muszyna criminal court, and we
studied the history of a certain curse. Our pages also carried the history
of the Voluntary Fire Brigades in Krynica and the foundation of the Krynica
hospital fifty years ago.
Wars would rummage close or far from Muszyna but they
always influenced the life of the community. The battles fought in the
Carpathian range in World War I left many traces in the Muszyna cemetery
and the years of World War II still bring dramatic memories to the minds
of the older Muszyna generation.
And again, the Almanac dedicated its pages to such personalities
as the great Polish geographer and traveller Maciej Bogusz Stęczyński
and Jakub Łomnicki, known for his papers on the Kolačkov village
in Spis. But some names were mentioned for the first time, among them,
Professor Napoleon Cybulski who studied the dietary habits of the Małopolska
population, the people of Muszyna included, at the end of the 19th
century.
When standing in front of Virgin Mary's figure atop the
Castle Hill, we explained to our Readers the destinies of the statute
before it ended up in the Muszyna Castle ruins. And we told the story
of the never-materialized plan to build a Pułaski monument in Krynica.
Then we set off to look for some more contemporary samples of ceramics
application in the construction of various buildings in Krynica.
Doctors, teachers, and judges used to make an elite of
the small-town communities in the past. Chemists also belonged to that
group. That year, we started a series of stories about old-time chemist's
shops in other towns not far from Muszyna. The first was a pharmacy in
Żegiestów where we stayed a little longer to learn some more about the
glorious past of this resort on the Poprad river. We continued our journey
along the river stopping over at Andrzejówka to read the council meetings
minutes of the 1930s, then we crossed the state border to visit some Slovak
towns which have many close relations of all sorts with Muszyna. Having
reached Stara Lubovla and Podolinec, we went on to identify the traces
of the Lubomirski Starosts and while in Bardejov, we probed into the history
of the local Jewish community. We also called in Gabołtów, a destination
of Slovak Gypsies going on their Marian pilgrimages.
We recommended to our Readers the Carpathian Almanac
"Płaj" and the second volume of the "Rocznik Sądecki" almanac whose all
printed copies were destroyed by the censorship in 1949 but which was
reprinted last year owing to our initiative cooperation of the Nowy Sącz
Town Hall staff.
Next, we invited the Readers to a walk among the "singing"
mofetas, or CO2 emitting springs, along the Złocki creek
and to an excursion with our friend, the forester. Accompanied by Adam
Schwarz-Czarnowski, we recalled the 100th jubilee of the Polish
Tourist Association which often played the role of the "Department of
Polish Character."
The female volleyball team from Muszyna gave us a great
deal of fun last May by winning Champion of Poland title after a year
of hard work! The road they marched to the victory was described by Andrzej
Koszucki.
Muszyna Almanac 2007
This Almanac's front-pages offered an article from the
series dedicated to the history of chemist's shops in this land on the
Poprad river. This time, Maciej Bilek presents the past and present of
the "Pod Aniołem" pharmacy in Muszyna. We made another effort to explain
the mystery of the beginnings of the Muszyna parish and we took a closer
look at the consequences of Franciszek Krasiński's becoming the bishop
of Muszyna, and we studied an old geological map of the Galicia province.
Our next proposition was to walk along the footpaths near the village
of Wysowa to identify the traces of the Confederation of Bar insurgents,
from where we went to Krynica to see the construction of a funicular on
the Góra Parkowa hill in 1937. And we continued hunting for the connotations
of the place-name Krępak in the nearby Beskidy mountain range,
also on the Slovak sied of the border.
We visited two museums in Slovakia: a magnificent bourgeois
house in Stara Lubovla and a parish museum in the village of Čirč right
behind the border. From there, we went a little farther up to the Hungarian
town of Szekesfehervar to find the grave of Ścibor of Ściborzyce, a Polish
knight who served Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg.
The memories published in the Almanac showed many people
who had some impact on the history of this region, among them, Maciej
Bogusz Stęczyński, Leon Nowotarski, Edward Steczowicz, Aleksander Rojna,
Leon Czmiel, Łucjan Machniewski. Some of them were well-known, others
who were not, deserved to be recalled and kept in the public memory. A
great Polish tobogganist Maria Semczyszak-Haszczakowa described her sports
successes. We also published a moving letter from Israel.
Further on, we presented the history of the Sądeckie
Fine Arts Association, we gave an account on a photo exhibition dedicated
to Krynica, and on the aftermath of a photo competition "Architectural
detail in Żegiestów" which was organised in collaboration with the Krynica
Photographic Society. We invited the Readers to a stroll around Muszyna
to see ceramic applications in the architecture of the local sanatoriums
and, next, to a short trip to Żegiestów, Folwark, and Szczawnik. Then,
we went to Andrzejówka to make one more search of old documents from the
1930s. And we studied the Krynica town budget made 110 years ago.
Once we were in the mountains, we had to write about
the Voluntary Mountain Rescue Service GOPR, just for our safety. So, there
was a report on the jubilee celebrated by the Krynica GOPR Branch.
Then we came back to our old Muszyna where we could try
excellent water in the Zapopradzie neighbourhood, listen to some music
played in the amphitheatre, and look for the evidence of Kazimierz Wierzyński's
visit to Muszyna. We hoped to hear the trumpet play on the Baszta in May...
Curiosity made us inspect the unique icons from the collection
of Małgorzata Bajorek, we published a few photo reports on various cultural
events held in Muszyna in the recent months with a concert by our scholarship
beneficiaries in the first place.
We also published a note saying that a new public initiative
in Muszyna crystallized in a new Association whose aim was to honour the
memory of Pope John Paul II by building his memorial in Muszyna.
Muszyna Almanac 2008
The Almanac started its journey with studying the traces
left by our ancestors on the Baszta hill, a long-time seat of the Starosts
of Muszyna. Having seen the Castle Hill and its mysterious corners, we
moved to more cosy archives to study old documents. We inspected a forged
document allegedly made in 1209 to finally close the dispute over the
date of the first written record of Muszyna. It should be kept in mind,
however, that the 1288 documents which underlay an agreement between Comes
Mironieg, his wife, and the Cracow Bishop Paweł of Przemanków, are all
authentic.
The text written by Tadeusz Łopatkiewicz allowed us to
accompany Stanisław Tomkowicz, a great 19th century history expert and
relic's conservator in his outstanding work of describing the local historical
heritage. After that, we examined the records in the Book of arrivals
in the town of Muszyna, we learnt about the local craft guilds and
unions of which only some tradition and a flag have survived. The flag
is now carried in the Corpus Christi procession every year. While in the
Slovak village of Podolinec, we tried to find out in the old books kept
by the Piarist Fathers which sons of the Muszyna bourgeois were educated
in the Piarist College. Back on the Polish side of the border, in Piwniczna,
we studied the history of the "Under Providence" pharmacy and when in
Slovakia again, we studied an 18th century map of the Lubovla
lower castle (article by Filip Fetko written in the Slovak language).
On further pages we described a little-known episode
of the Slovak platoon's fights in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and we gave
a painful account on the tragic destinies of an anti-communist guerrilla
detachment fighting in the Beskid Sądecki mountain range.
We were always interested in people, hence our stories
of those who used to live here permanently, and those who only occasionally
came to the medicinal waters. Among those visitors was once very popular
writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski.
We went on a hike to the "Bacówka nad Wierchomlą" hotel,
we recalled some of our childhood memories from Krynica and Muszyna, and
for the last time we went to inspect the minutes of the village council
meeting in Andrzejówka. In the company of Piotr Osóbka, we also visited
Żegiestów to find out with sorrow that the spa part of the village had
crumbled into pieces.
Next, we arranged a "trap" with the intention to catch
a regional poet and then we rushed to the ceremony of the 40th
jubilee of Adam Ziemianin as a poet and his 60th birthday.
We devoted some space to the Muszyna Public Library, a meeting place for
many people, a venue of seminars and exhibitions which was marking its
60th jubilee.
We then left the universe of word to move into the universe
of image where we saw the works by a non-professional painter Czesław
Czmiel who died in 1998. We recalled an art exhibition at the Muszyna
Regional Museum and the collection of old post-cards featuring Krynica,
Muszyna, and Żegiestów staged at the Library building. The previous year's
edition of the photo competition focused on gravestone details at the
historical cemetery of the Muszyna State. We printed the aftermath of
the competition. How impressive!
Muszyna Almanac 2009
A monument to Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was built in Muszyna
in spring 2008 on a public initiative. On 2 August, the monument was unveiled
and consecrated. From that time on, it would be seen by all visitors entering
the central part of Muszyna. It is worth stopping there for a while and
recall what Pope John Paul II had done for our country.
The Almanac is not just a yearly printed publication.
It is also a variety of initiatives which are described on its pages.
One of those initiatives the previous year was an exhibition organised
in cooperation with the Krynica Photographic Society, summarizing the
several editions of the Architectural Detail competitions, staged at the
Museum of the Earth, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
The Almanac invited us to a walk to the Muszyna church
where the Virgin and Child, often called here the Lady of Muszyna, reigns
in the main altar. Author Piotr Łopatkiewcz told us more about the provenance
of that beautiful medieval sculpture and two other sculptures of St. Hedwig
and St. Odilia.
Then we left the church and walked up to the Castle ruins
to see the progress in excavations. Like in the previous years, we were
shown around the digging area by Barbara Chudzińska. In the Greek-Catholic
parish of Čirč, Slovakia, vicar Jaroslav Popovec allowed us to see the
church flags painted at the end of the 19th century, most probably by
an artist from Muszyna! From there, we went to Stara Lubovla and Podolinec
guided by a historian from the Lubovla Castle Miroslav Števík and nearly
a century-old photographs. We were also told which craftsmen worked to
keep the Castle residents in good mood centuries ago... Later on, we read
about wings fashioned by a mysterious monk from the Red Monastery who
used them to fly as far and high up as over the Tatra Range rocky peaks.
When speaking on the history of Muszyna, one must not
skip the Border Guard force which protected the frontiers of the Second
Republic of Poland. Border Guard officers from the Jasło district fought
and died in the Muszyna area in the first half of September 1939. Where
are they buried? Have they been exhumed later and, if they have, where
are their graves now? Can anyone answer the questions asked by Waldemar
Bocheński?
Two gentlemen of the Christian name Mieczysław were presented
on our pages. Their surnames were Orłowicz and Karłowicz. They were rather
different characters but they had one feature in common the love for
the mountains. Since we were always keen on digging in old Muszyna documents,
we were keen on doing so this time too. First, we took the Town Book
to read the names of persons accepted for the Muszyna town law 1601-1833,
then we looked into the draft records of the mid-17th century.
Having moved into the inter-war era, we inspected the Memoirs of medical
doctors' conventions in Krynica.
The local Lemkos went through a heart-breaking experience
when forced to leave their native mountains forever during the "Vistula"
campaign. We had an opportunity to read about one of the expelled families,
the Tyliszczaks of the village Jastrzębik.
We kept taking interest in historical and cultural relics
in our region. Rafał Żebrowski described the destinies of paintings by
Feliks M. Wygrzywalski and Kazimierz Sichulski which had once decorated
the walls of the "Lwigród" guest house in Krynica. We mentioned the Kazimierz
Pułaski Mound and monument, as well as an obelisk commemorating poet Juliusz
Słowacki in Żegiestów-Zdrój.
And we presented a collection of photographs from the
Art Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw featuring the churches
in the area of Muszyna and Krynica; we also learnt about the Muszyna-related
documents kept in the Polish Museum at Rapperswil.
Then we introduced to our Readers a Muszyna-born composer
Zbigniew Bujarski who celebrated his 70th birthday in 2008.
We conveyed the best jubilee greetings to Adam Czarnowski, a geographer,
photographer, collector, and writer associated with Muszyna in his young
years who still loves to come over to Muszyna whenever he can.
We joined local scouts to an excursion along small local
rivers and creeks and we got as far as Rytro. While on our way, we carefully
bypassed a plant called atropa bella-donna because expert Maciej
Bilek told us a lot about it. We also called in to Andrzejówka to see
some old school registers, after which we went on our traditional stroll,
and eventually visited the villa called Nasz Domek in the Zapopradzie.
Muszyna Almanac 2010
We were extremely sorry to announce that the long-time
school master of the Muszyna Senior Secondary School and the Mayor of
Muszyna Waldemar Serwiński died in a car crash in July 2009.
This jubilee issue of the Almanac as usually followed
its familiar and historical trails around the Muszyna region. We discovered
some new facts or dispersed myths, like the one of the cordovans in the
St. Józef's Church in Muszyna whose real age was established owing to
a profound analysis done by Ojcumiła Sieradzka-Malec. We went to the Baszta
again to see last year's excavation finds and to learn the latest news.
We also finished, thanks to the work of Kazimierz Przyboś, reviewing the
record of people accepted for the Muszyna town law in the years 1601-1833.
We looked into the parish books to find traces of an unknown Muszyna-born
composer Wojciech Pankiewicz, we presented the works of an old and familiar
painter Wiktor Zomph, we studied the provenance of such place-names as
Beskid and Bieszczad and, assisted by Tomasz Borucki, we
tried to locate them in the maps. Being interested in the political life
of Muszyna and its area before World War II, we also did some reading
on the subject in the regional newspapers of the time. As we walked about
in the beautiful Krynica, we popped in the charming "Gallery under a Horse-Chestnut
Tree," visited another exhibition of the Krynica Photographic Society
arranged in the Pijalnia Główna building, and we looked around to spot
some old Krynica chemist shops.
Assisted by Maria Zajączkowska, we reached as far as
over the ocean to find any traces of the Tyliszczak family. While on the
other hemisphere, we ran across the traces of Władysław Kluger of Krynica,
a representative of the Polish 19th century intelligentsia.
Then we examined the pages of the minutes of the Muszyna
council meetings held in the 1930s in which we were helped by materials
compiled by Małgorzata Przyboś. We met with Nikifor in an article by Bogdan
Karski and accompanied the artist into the Poprad valley aboard an old
railway coach. We travelled to Krynica "by rail" using a railroad built
a hundred years ago by engineer Ferdynand Gisman. Krynica used to be a
destination of prominent visitors, often members of aristocratic and royal
families and we described one of such visits which rocked the town.
Our agenda also included an excursion to Spis and Saris.
We were curious to know when the Polovtsy first came to that land because
some place-names around Muszyna seem to have been left for us by that
tribe. Then we presented the work of a Kežmarok-based sculptor of Silesian
origin Johann Feeg, we went back to our investigation of civilian settlements
on the Stara Lubovla Castle (these papers were written in the Slovak language).
We published some reports on the war-time battles fought
by soldiers from Muszyna on the Western front in World War II and on the
experience of those who spent the German occupation years in death camps.
We recall a hero of two nations, Michal Strenk, a Slovak from the nearby
Jarabina who fought as a US Army soldier and was killed in the battle
of the Iwo Jima island.
It so happened that the year 2009 brought about a couple
of local anniversaries and jubilees. A hundred and thirty-five years passed
since the beginning of the Krynica Spa Band, 50 years since the Krynica
Music School was established, and the first post-war secondary school
was opened in Muszyna 65 years ago. The following cultural and educational
institutions in Muszyna also marked their jubilees: the Jan Kochanowski
Senior Secondary School, the Municipal Culture Centre, and an Extra-school
Education Centre. The 600th anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg
was also marked in 2010. We wrote very briefly about traces left by the
ceremonies marking its 50oth anniversary in Muszyna region.
Muszyna Almanac 2011
One hundred years passed in 2011 since the railway line
Muszyna-Krynica was launched. It was a major event in the history of both
towns. Although many residents of Muszyna who made quite decent money
on taxiing visitors to Krynica in their horse-driven vehicles and ardently
protested against the railway project, the line was completed and largely
strengthened the development of the jewel of Polish resorts, Krynica.
The Almanac also presented the history of the Muszyna-Krynica railway
line in a text written by Leszek Zakrzewski, and the ups and downs of
the Railway Joint-Stock Company in a story by Leszek Koziorowski.
All of us would like to know more about our ancestors.
Where did we come from? Who came to populate the banks of the Dunajec
and Poprad river ages ago? We were introduced into the meanders of an
innovative method for genealogical research by Stanisław Pietrzak who
wrote an article on the subject.
But the traces of the very first people living here are
really very scarce. Only sometimes we were lucky to unearth something
in the Baszta ruins and on the site where the Starost's residence used
to be at the foot of the Castle Hill. The results of the excavations were
described to us in texts written by Barbara Chudzińska and Radosław Palonka.
Articles by these young academics from the Jagiellonian University told
us what were the dietary habits of the people who once lived in the Muszyna
Castle and how they solved the problem of fresh water supply.
But the residents of Muszyna by no means drank water
alone. The Castle people and the general population of Muszyna loved stronger
drinks too. Guided by Witt Kmietowicz, we looked inside dark, stuffy interiors
of inns and taverns to see what they were served to eat and drink in the
Muszyna area.
Moving on along the Poprad river towards the town of
Nowy Sącz, we took a glance at Żegiestów, which had flourished so nicely
in past years, we inspected an old pipe unearthed in Piwniczna-Zdrój,
and we studied the crest of Nowy Sącz, the principal town of the county.
Having spent some time on the Dunajec river, we went back to the Poprad
river valley and to our Slovak neighbours. We first stopped at Čirč to
see an intriguing 17th century icon of God's Mother, we tried
to find some traces of a mysterious medieval settlement, and studied the
business relations between the Lubovla Castle and other towns in the Spis
region (these texts were written in the Slovak language). Our trip to
Slovakia this time ended in Vyšné Ružbachy where we arrived in the company
of Waldemar Oszczęda who told us more about a few important figures in
Orava and Spis.
On return to Muszyna, we paid our attention to the 20th
century. Kazimierz Przyboś described the outbreak of World War I in Galicia
and explained the context of developments in Muszyna in the first days
of the war. The article discussed the notes made at the time by the then
vicar Father Józef Gawor which reflected the fears of the local people
in autumn and winter, 1914-1915.
That year's Almanac also discussed the political activities
of the Lemko and Jewish people once living in Muszyna and around it, and
we published some more minutes of the Muszyna Council meetings held in
1933, whose texts were edited by Małgorzata Przyboś. An article written
by Małgorzata Reinhard-Chlandy examined the Chronicle of the Zdrojowa
Restaurant in Krynica which was full of entries made by the visitors.
The World War II was discussed in a text on the articles
published in Pharmaceutical News, a periodical coming out during the Nazi
General Governement. Editors of that paper in 1940 devoted much space
to Krynica which was turned into a resort reserved for German soldiers
and officials.
The years of war and German occupation was a time of
fighting for the Homeland on the frontlines or in the underground. And
it was a time of ordinary people who would never think of themselves as
heroes but they suffered and behaved like heroes anyway. Some of such
people are mentioned in the Chronicle of the Muszyna War Veteran's
Circle.
Old documents, which represent no real value at a first
glance, sometimes refer to important matters and carry a huge load of
information. Example: the importance of seals often impressed on official
and court letters, post-office slips, etc., is explained to our Reader
by Ryszard Kruk.
The Lemko families living in the Muszyna area suffered
the plight of the expelled people at the end of World War II and after
it was over. The Lemko deportations to Ukraine and their deportations
under the "Vistula" campaign, are all described and the numbers of the
expelled are given in an article by Izabela Cywa.
Muszyna is getting more beautiful every day, despite
the fact that the town was stricken by a heavy flooding in early summer
last year. Mayor Jan Golba told us about his plans, dreams, and key objectives.
There is a tiny little street in Muszyna. Nothing special
at the first sight. But its name is unusual: Zefirka. The name commemorates
a Club of Modellers in Muszyna which celebrated its 50th jubilee
in 2011. The Almanac recalled the fact and reviewed the Club's achievements.
Once again we presented the results of a photo competition
organised in collaboration with the Krynica Photographic Society and its
Chairman Juliusz Jarończyk. This time, the photographers focused on details
of old farm buildings in the area once called the Muszyna State.
Muszyna Almanac 2012
Karolina Grobelska rocked Krynica and inspired our imagination
by writing in Almanac 2010 about the visit paid there by the heir to the
Dutch throne and her husband back in 1937. When the present Queen of the
Netherlands was born 12 months later, Poland offered a cradle to the Dutch
Royal Family. The author travelled to see the cradle not long ago and
she now wrote an article about it, which the Almanac published on its
front pages.
We had another conversation with Mayor Jan Golba about
the present day and future of Muszyna. We continued our usual occupation
investigating the history of the Muszyna area. So, we walked to the
top of the Castle Hill but this time we could only read the historical
papers about the ancient fortress.
Tadeusz M. Trajdos prepared an important and interesting
source material. It is the Inventory of the orthodox church in
Krynica-Village written in Ukrainian in 1941 by the then Krynica rector
Father Eugeniusz Chylak who described the condition of his church a few
years before it was taken over by the Roman Catholic Church soon after
the Lemkos had been deported.
The pre-war guest house "Lwigród" and its decorations
were discussed on Almanac pages in the previous years. But this time,
Rafał Żebrowski wrote about Kazimierz Sichulski's painting The Defence
of Lwów to recall the conditions in which it was painted, how it was
lost during the German invasion, and how it was recovered in a relatively
recent time.
When looking for the Confederation of Bar traces, we
were guided by Maciej Śliwa into a Slovak border village of Frička, from
where we moved on to the Poprad river valley to meet Przemysław Polakiewicz
and find out whether a guard station could ever exist in the village of
Łomnica. We also tried to solve the puzzle of an old gravestone inscription
on the northern slope of the Kicarz hill.
Piwniczna is just a few steps from Slovakia. Accompanied
by Gabriel Kurczewski, we paid a visit to Hniezdne where the first Fukier
wine cellars operated. Then we left Hniezdne to follow the trail of the
Zamoyski family up to the Stara Lubovla castle where we were shown around
an 18th century brewery, the oldest such relic surviving to
our time in Slovakia. Our guide there was Miroslav Števík.
Having come back closer to Muszyna, we called in Krynica
once more to join Leszek Zakrzewski and learn about "Barwiczówka," a pre-war
guest house of the Railway Family, and then to read about Nikifor's artistic
presentation of landscape in an analysis written by Jan Grudnicki. We
mentioned the Krynica visit of the Dutch princess very briefly again just
to remember the repercussions of the tactless - as the then state authorities
claimed - but funny comments made on it by authors of the Polish Radio
"Joyful Lwów Wave."
The World War II was referred to in several other articles.
Kazimierz Przyboś recalled the local couriers who risked their lives to
illegally sneak across the border many times in both directions. Artur
Ochał, an expert in the history of the Border Guard Corps tried to reconstruct
the last hours of soldier Piotr Dwojak, and Stefan Małecki invited us
again to read the War Veterans' Chronicle. Rafał Ojrzanowski presented
to the Readers his unique photographs shot during World War II by the
German invaders, soldiers stationed in Muszyna.
Do the times of the Galicja province deserve a warm reminiscence?
What of the Austro-Hungarian cultural mix has actually survived to our
time? What would an alternative course of events have been, had the Habsburg
Empire never fallen? These alternatives were analysed by Witold Kaliński
in a little paradoxical way.
We must remember that poverty dominated in most highland
villages during the long years when Poland was partitioned. A lot of people
had to emigrate in search for a better life, most of them to America.
Maria Zajączkowska did a research in the US immigration archives and now
she wrote about the dramatic destinies of many people who had left Muszyna
forever.
Małgorzata Przyboś discussed some more minutes of the
Muszyna Council meetings held in the 1930s. Father Stanisław Pietrzak
took up his last year's topic of the fast-developing genetic genealogy
and its efficiency in casting light on the obscure origins of the population
living in the Dunajec immediate and more distant catchment area.
The Almanac carried its usual columns, such as photo
reports on events organized by the Society of Friends of Muszyna Almanac
and its befriended organisations and institutions, the memoirs of forester
Tadeusz Petrowicz, and a report on the annual Szczęsny Morawski Prize
awarded to the best book on the Sądecczyzna region.
The Almanac, in collaboration with the Krynica Photographic
Society, had long organized photo competitions to record the disappearing
architectural details. But there was a new similar initiative, the Nation-wide
Jan Kochanowski's Poprad Laurel competition organized jointly with the
Cyprian Norwid Literary Society and its first edition was held in spring
this year. The idea is to have this competition every second year.
Much of the Almanac space was dedicated to people who
have their family roots in the Muszyna area. We accompanied Father Franciszek
Sikorski in his work as a priest, visited Piotr Serwiński in Żegiestów
in the 1960s, followed the achievements of Władysław Nowotarski, brother
of Leon Nowotarski who was so merited for Krynica, and learnt about Tadeusz
Krynicki, one of the heroic defenders of Lwów. Then we hiked the Beskid
Sądecki hills with Agata Tobiasz to re-discover the traces of Szczęsny
Morawski, while Maciej Bilek showed us some local water sources which
were studied by Professor Irena Turowska in 1920s. Again at the Muszyna
cemetery, we gave respects to the souls of the 19th century
family of the Mayor of Muszyna Józef Medwecki, this time in the company
of his great-great-grand daughter Ewa Tarkowska. We went to the village
of Jastrzębik, so famous for dancing parties in the 1950s and 1960s, we
remembered our childhood years at Kościelna Street, and in the pre-war
Piwniczna.
Finally, we gave an account on a happy event in the collaboration
with our Slovak friends: following our request, Gabriela Malastová was
decorated with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic
of Poland granted to her by Polish President Bronisław Komorowski.
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