Reflective vests shimmers in the sun, piercing with difficulty through the clouds. Brightly dressed young people care about the order during the Third National Congress of former residents and their descendants Polesie. Patrol the parking lot, are rubbish, set off the bench. Life jackets are on the back the words "Duty Parish." Teens are not ashamed or dress, or parish functions. On the contrary, help during the event is treated like a mention. Only young people enjoying a good reputation in the village was entitled to inherit. Radkiewicz Alice, Agnes Łozowska, Carolina Gielement, on duty during the day. Evening during the feast Polesie licealistki replace older colleagues. Service changes in protection.
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| Girls in parish ministry |
Ujma girls does not produce or familiarity with the parish, or roots. They say they come from Polesie, but immediately adds: "We live in Białkowie." whoever lives in this village, that the family does not extend to the nearby Oder, but somewhere in the swamps of the river Jasiolda in Brest in Belarus. Poleszucy, cut off from their roots, they brought in 1945 in the western territories retain their own culture and its many elements to this day. Alice, Agnes, and Carolina is a grandmother provided some unusual customs of the local villages, the younger generation thread tied to the history of memory Polesie land. I wytłumaczyły when it is "like at home."
When holding cold and smoke from the chimney glides straight to heaven, then there is "at home". On Tuesday after Easter, when pryświatok falls, the day which are not allowed to work in the field, because the hail will come and destroy crops in the spring, is also "at home". Or on the arrival of storks. That same fall, during pig slaughter, when the butcher a dead animal care on a straw fire, and then doing a "kumpiak" or cured and smoked ham. "Like home" tastes, "cortical" yeast cake, "pierogi" Polesie "," pancakes "with the sop, that is gravy." How in the house "punches to the head" charm Polesie "secretly forced moonshine recipe known only in Białkowie ( hosts in the nearby villages rarely been brewing moonshine.) Organizers are trying to be "at home" was when Congress Poleszuków.
Similar to previous years, most visitors came to the protein from the Western provinces. Group of Gorzow Wielkopolski, where it is based Society for Polesie, hired coach. Stand in the parking lot of cars, license plates from Bialystok. Nad Odra Poleszuk came from Belarus. Hung on the neck board with lettered names of the places: Czernicze, Łozowo, Sielec. Maybe Białkowie find countrymen?
Third Congress of the inhabitants of Polesie and their descendants had to take place before, but did not come to fruition. Residents do not hide disappointment, however, are reluctant to talk about the reasons for the resignation of the Polesie holidays. On the Internet forum, but you can find the anonymous entries disagreement with the pastor. priest, who initiated and engaged in the preparation of the two previous events, he saw no sense, and by malicious comments, the interest in the preparation of the Congress. The event was organized by the Association of Friends of the Earth itself Polesie. Mass celebrated bishop of the Green Mountains, not in church, as before, but on the municipal square in the middle of the village.
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| Poleska Chamber Oder ... |
Soon the place where the altar stood, and now is the bandstand, the rise of once open-air museum - the holding of Polesie. Animator project is Eugene Niparko, Poleszuk of protein. When Congress returns the regional dress and white beard. Guests posing for pictures before a shed for tools that you personally made from wooden beams. The material came from Bialystok, and the opinion of Mr. Eugene looks "at home". People we hate equipment. Someone threw chomonto at night, the second masielnicę, another suspended harrow on the wall. "It is not the Polesie, only post-German" - one of the guests of the convention, showing the cast-iron pan with a handle. Next to the shed is a haystack, held down with long, protruding above the fence poles. "Opposite the barn will be there next state of the cottage. Already planted walnut, and soon we will build a well with a crane "- explains Mr. Eugene. Young people with their own eyes see that the grandparents lived in wooden thatched huts without electricity and running water.
hosts themselves built in the Polesie homes, which they called "haspoda. In no event "hut" because in their language, the word signified shelter, the final coffin. Wooden houses were cramped and small, made up of one or two chambers with no court, but it is a huge furnace, which serves the whole family for the winter den. The interiors of the day enveloped dimness, because the small windows inside wpuszczały little sunlight. Here and there one could encounter, "Damn," hut, without ovens, a bonfire, burning in the middle of the Chamber of blackened and drenched smoke, which came out through a hole in the wall or through the cracks under the eaves. Compared with Poleski pens, holding Białkowie palaces appear to be nothing for people and livestock.
Just watch reproductions of pre-war photos, which the Society of Lovers of Polesie publish on its website. Crushed old age homes of bleached wood stretching along the street sinking in the mud porytym by running loose pigs. The peasants are dressed in fur hats and sheepskin coats, women wear flowery skirts and usually go barefoot. I guess not much has changed since the time when they traveled Polesie Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, "Country of the forest, sand, mud, poor people, shivering and shattered bridges, dams, followed by driving, you need to call my teeth for fear that all the bones are not potrzaskały, sad forests, pine, [...] immense beard, sands intransigent, sometimes cross at a crossroads, an old orthodox church supported on crutches, mogiłki cottage on the tombs, reminiscent of pagan times, [...] hut in the middle of the land, people, skinny half-naked " (Kraszewski, Memories of Volhynia, Polesie, Lithuania , Warsaw, 1985).
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| in search of their |
Polesie before World War II was a backward and poor. missed battered roads and waterworks, and the illiteracy rate among the largest in Poland. Poleszucy, by nature, isolated from the outside world, there developed a Polish national identity. Although by the authorities of educational and awareness RP in the census of 1931 year about 700 000 inhabitants of the region to define the Polesie their nationality as " local." ethnographer and sociologist Joseph Obrębski, which in the interwar period, he led an expedition to explore the Polesie wrote about the "people without a homeland", which divides society into "their" and "foreign." "People Polesie - in its vast weight - are neither Ukrainian nor the Belarusians. Cease to be Poleszukami. They become people without a country "- noted Obrębski in the book "Polesie". (p. 234 Obrębski Joseph Polesie , Warsaw 2007 ). Barbarism, savagery, primitiveness, backwardness - Oberski lists the characteristics attributed to Poleszukom by neighboring peoples. The negative image of marsh-dweller, which is fixed by the researchers and travelers in distant parts of the country Polesie, intensified the need for residents Polesie hostile isolation from the surrounding world. Climate and landscape favored exclusion.
"In the middle of Europe, in the twentieth age - a very strange, exotic country. (...) The country little known, in many ways mysterious, and largely trudnodostępny his part - almost unpopulated! "It's the Polesie - posted turn, Anthony F. Ossendowski in published in 1934 in his book" Polesie ", one Part of the popular series' Polish Wonder. " Reclusive country has always lived a wild people, although that changed habits, but has retained character, until the present writer. Woe to him who grew up in a space the other day and quaking bogs of Polesie. Ossendowski paints a frightening picture of a former inhabitant of the swamp. "I do not inhuman creatures such as mermaids, or wodzianki Topielica constituted a threat, but the most terrible enemy, however, was a taciturn, enigmatic and always wary inhabitant of this country - Poleszuk. He did not want, the neighborhood was afraid of people, somewhere, and when something is arriving, and unknown to him, so they cut off and could czem. After a night attacked with an ax to sleep in shacks improvised shacks - kureniach and "szatrach", introduced in the ambush, and suddenly thrust in to the abyss, they let the arrow to be sure poisoned "czemierem" or "blekotem" reconciling "bone spear hunting or fishing. Thus, newcomers are not maintained for a long time in the lands of Polesie.
From the Poleszukach take up such characteristics Ossendowski wonders? And then he answers. "Over the centuries, all of them demanded something from Poleszuków, pulled them into an alien to them, incomprehensible, and sometimes quite dangerous accident for which they then had to pay long and dearly. That made Poleszuk became suspicious, and stubbornly passive, and when it does not help, vindictive and bitter. Trim the horse's fetlocks spętanemu on pasture, steers secretly injure a neighbor, set fire to the hut and let the smoke full granary of the enemy, drain obszarnikowi pond with fish, and even from an ambush attack on the gamekeeper, or, as until recently - prowl the roads and make seizures - knows and is usually silent, suspicious Poleszuk, imbued with eternal hostility to outsiders, but who knows how not to betray to them from their feelings. "
Poleszuk, pagan traditions survived until the present day author. Ossendowski writes that the ancient customs of the Polesie never lapsed. "In any event, at the beginning of the twentieth century Slavic pagan religious practices have been noted here several times, causing even sending missionaries to the Orthodox Polesie (...)". "(...), Divination, omens do - as they probably once held the pagan priests on the estates of the old men of the ancients, drewlańskich. - The ratio of man to nature has not changed. "If it is true what they wrote the researchers, writers and travelers Poleski nature of people and saved until the thirties of the twentieth century, this means that they brought it with him and passed over Odra genes in children - residents of the protein.
Petelewo Selo and stags in the county Prużana turned out in a set at the railway station Kartuska in Bereza. Załadowały family possessions for freight furniture, agricultural tools, livestock. The train started, and by two week went to the west. The road stretched like a slug. Locomotive trailing, often doing stops, during which trailed wagons with residents of neighboring town. The route crossed the passage of the new borders of Poland, exactly in half. After driving 700 km train stopped at a station named Reppen. The presence of wopistów testified that lies near the German border and not allowed to go further. The soldiers, however, forbade the unloading. The elders of both villages has chosen a group of horseback riders and sent her on a reconnaissance around the "Wild West". Men had to select homesteads for their families and livestock. They returned after two days, and soon the train started again, but after a while stopped for good. In Cybince ended tracks and the protein it was necessary to go on foot and organize transportation. It was early November 1945.
Białkowie Houses stood empty, nieopalane. The Russians drove the family last summer. Many Germans fled in January, before the arrival of the Red Army. Balkow other residents, the Russians evacuated before front approaches. Men were separated from women and children who were interned in one of the estates near Cybinki. After the capitulation of the Reich returned to the mother farm. Soon again went to the farm Buschvorwerk, where in winter 1946 years were decimated by the epidemic typhus. In 1945, died 60 women and children from villages Balkow.
Men - too young to join the army and the elderly and the sick, unfit even to volkssturmu, czerwonoarmiści formed into columns, numbering a total of 30-40 people, and they drove to Poznan. Not everyone survived Bialkowski death march. The Nazis even defended Poznan citadel and prisoners above the Oder River at the station already loaded into wagons, and then through the days and nights were taken deep into Russia. In the last year of the war, along with fallen soldiers at the front, 108 men lost their lives. Counting the liberation of women and children unable to attend every fifth German resident protein. With no other village in the municipality of Ziebingen, fate has not walked so cruelly. ( estimates authors of the book "Ziebingen und der Umgebung-Wendisch Sternberger Winkel im Land" Gerhard Jaeschke, Manfred Schieche )
Generations Radkiewiczów, Weryszków, Kondarewiczów and others residing in a solid, brick houses that had belonged to the families of the names of Walter, Nemack, Ulrich, Gebert. In the war village had 825 people. The same number lived here at the end of 1945. "People took all the farm and lived at home, next to each other" - recalls the Wladyslaw Kondarewicz sixteen. Bounds shared the same owners headlands, behind the fence lived well familiar neighbor. You can say Petelewo and stags moved to protein.
first years after the war, people wear it yet, so "at home", exposing themselves to derogative remarks and jokes with his neighbors. Villagers from Polesie not know any other fashion. The coolness men donned fur coats and fur hats, shirts przewiązywali patterned strip called "perewiaska. "Sztany," or put their pants with legs in "postoły - rag shoes, tied ropes around the feet and calves. Joseph is the only man Niparko in the village, which on special occasions donned traditional attire Poleski. "Like home" wear only women and is also the occasion of the feast, such as Congress or a concert Poleszuków local regional assembly "Kryniczeńka.
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| Euganiusz Niparko museum organizes Poleski |
Petelewa Historical Population and cuckolds and their descendants Polesie identity brought together over 65 years. "Białkowcy" stick together "- Joseph Sidorenko said the three kilometers away Thundering -" mess with one, the entire village is your head. " Solidarity solidarity of the rural population is primary clan. "Białków is one big family" - explain licealistki. "Hello, uncle, aunt hi. Everyone here knows. " Name Radkiewicz carries dozens of people in the village. Identification with "their" still plays a role in human relationships much more than in other cities of the western frontier. In Białkowie solidarity ever conceived very literally. Apparently bachelors looking for wives only in their own village. - "It is better to take your enemy, than a foreign friend" - Caroline does not quote the characters' Swoi, "but the words of its mother. Schoolgirl ensures that there is now no matter where it comes from a spouse.
Until recently, people observe the wedding tradition. At the house of the future wives, including dances and songs podjeżdżał car with the groom's dowry. Before there was a wedding held zapoiny, or engagement. Nażeczony exceeded the threshold of his family home wybranki, accompanied by the matchmaker. The future groom asked their parents to marry his daughter. Parents, for fun, bargained with him and banter, rozpytując knight who he is, what he can do what he has. After that it was a wedding, and even after nine months of tanning christening.
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| Poleszucy above the Odra |
girls from the "service of the parish, like most residents of the protein has never been in Belarus. Ancestral land of the people familiar with the stories, films and photographs. They do not want to go for the eastern border. Irena Kulczyńska of protein from the land of the fathers know the stories of parents and grandparents, but not selected on a tour of the Bug. - "I want to keep in mind the image of the stories their parents" - he says. Those who were in Polesie, returned depressed, a view of what they found. A friend who went to Belarus said that the villages there is no trace. Eugene Niparko also not eager to revisit state Lukashenko. 12 years ago looking for traces of his native village. "This is no longer Polesie" - says Niparko.
Licealistki reprocess school romance, and probably because they imagine Polesie as idyllic and mysterious land, like the poem Wladyslaw Syrokomli.
Nieprzemierzone eye marsh areas
Sqnują I sometimes dream-like nightmare.
dark and dense forests, caves, though;
River, which the vine, and sieving liquid; (...)
Secret a charm in my eyes obwiewa
Polesie Yellow Sands and gloomy wood,
Black, torn huts on the sand or mszarze,
straw covered rural churches and cemeteries,
fir or pine tree adorned with oblique
Where to bulge a little hut on each grave.
There is no line Polesie nineteenth successor, nor the world described by F. Anthony Ossendowski. Bulldozers ran over wooden pens Petelewa and cuckolds, Aligning the ground for the collective farms of maize crops. Rivers, canals and marshes - an essential element of the landscape was filled Polesie, melioranci drained marshes and built dams, after which they are asphalt roads. People living in swamps scattered for themselves in an alien element, "post-German" towns and villages. Real traces the historical land of Polesie can be found today, not on the Prut, but Białkowie near the border with Germany.
May 2010
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