May Days and the famous Constitution of 1791

"Welcome, May, beautiful May,
 Poland is paradise today..."

So say the words of the May 3rd Mazurka. The lyrics do not refer to the chance of a nine-day weekend (see footnotes), but to the introduction of our first Constitution.

In Poland, May begins with a series of important holidays. May 1st is International Worker's Day, obviously very popular in our socialist years, and still an official day off. On May 2nd, we have Flag Day, when all flags should be up, if they weren't for May 1st  already. And on May 3rd, Constitution day. Displays of patriotism which are practically obligatory today were forbidden under socialist rule. Your flag had to be out on May 1st, or you would suffer repercussions, but if you dared to leave it up until May 3rd, you'd find yourself in much bigger trouble…

So, what was this Constitution, why did it bother Russia so much, and why is it still so important?

Manuscript of the Constitution

Let's go back a few centuries. Since 1385, Poland had been a sprawling empire often referred to as the Republic of Two Nations:  The Crown and Lithuania.  As the name itself suggests, it was a federal union between the two countries, precipitated among other things by a desire to strengthen the nations against the usual suspect: Russia.

The idea wasn't bad, but almost four hundred years later, the union was not faring so well. In 1772, the edges of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were sliced away and divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. That was the first partition.

Partitions were a direct result of the country being weak and unable to perform the reforms necessary to strengthen its military position. Why was this so? Well, the Polish nobility have a history of being a stubborn band of anarchists, and the great number of privileges they enjoyed under the Commonwealth made ruling the country in a unified manner troublesome. Nobles had immunity. Nobles could not be taxed. Nobles could not be controlled. Nobles came and went as they pleased, attending meetings of the Sejm (the Polish version of Parliament) with the pleasant certainty that they had more executive power than the monarchy. The law even allowed them the right to rebel against the king if he should violate any of their privileges!


But worst of all was the deputy right of liberum veto, which allowed any noble in the Sejm to end the current session and nullify all legislations passed. All he had to do was shout out: "Nie pozwalam!" (I do not allow this!)

The veto was not entirely a bad thing; in fact, in origin, it had served to curb the powers of the (elective!) monarch and keep noble landowners in control of the country. It was also a crucial tool in the upholding of religious tolerance, a weighty matter in a place as diverse as the Commonwealth, and especially important in contrast with the rest of Europe, where the faith of each country depended on the faith of its monarch. But the Republic could not function properly with every decision at the mercy of whim and veto. With the magnates enjoying their so-called Golden Age of Privileges, reform was all but impossible.

Szlachta- Polish nobility in the 2009 Constitution Day Parade in Warsaw.

So, imagine you are radical political thinkers nobleman Ignacy Potocki and priest Hugo Kołłątaj, and you are sick of seeing your country fall prey to its neighbours while the magnates bicker among themselves. Imagine you have sat down and prepared a lovely new Constitution which decreases the privileges of the nobility and abolishes the liberum veto. How do you possibly get it legislated?

You get crafty and call a Confederate Sejm- a special kind of parliament meeting during which the liberum veto is prohibited and majority vote rules. And you call this meeting in secret, right after Easter, knowing a great number of the deputees most likely to oppose you haven't returned to the capital from their holidays yet.

Snap. May 3rd, 1791, the first codified Constitution in Europe (second in the world after the US) was declared in Poland.


So, what did the Constitution change?

• It reformed the government, dividing it into legislative, executive and judiciary branches (after Montesquieu's model). It also decreed that ministers could be tried and judged.

• It improved the rights of the peasants and decreased the privileges of the nobility, doing away with the liberum veto. The Sejm and Senate would now pass legislations by simple majority vote. The voting rights of landless nobles were also taken away, thus making it impossible for wealthier magnates to purchase their votes.

• It made the peasants and townspeople political equals, and placed peasants who had previously been completely at the whim of their noble masters under the protection of the government. It also declared that refugees and new settlers would not be bound to any landlords.

• It gave the citizens of royal cities the right to hold posts previously reserved for nobility, such as public offices and military commissions and even seats in the Sejm. It also guaranteed them the right not to be arrested without warrant. These rights could be extended to citizens of private towns.

• It abolished free elections; the throne was now hereditary, with elections occurring only at the end of a dynasty. This was an attempt to decrease foreign influence on the choice of rulers (it was  starting to get silly). The instution of pacta conventa - a document each monarch had to sign to pledge his respect for the laws of the Commonwealth- was also preserved. 

• It established Catholicism as the national faith, but preserved the earlier freedom of religion. 

• It transformed the union between Poland and Lithuania into a unitary state called the Republic of Poland, which meant the armies and treasuries would no longer refer to two separate authorities. The Lithuanian deputies were concerned for their rights, many protesting the decision. To appease them, it was decided that Lithuanian deputies would hold a guaranteed proportional number of seats in the new government.

Detail from Jan Matejko's 1891 painting depicting the Crown Marshall of the Sejm being
carried out of the Royal Castle with the Constitution in his hand. At the left are Hugo Kołłątaj
and Ignacy Potocki, who helped shape the document. On the ground, deputy Jan Suchorzewski,
an opponent of the Constitution, threatens to kill his own six-year-old son if the document
is ratified. The painting may be full of symbolism, but, yes, this actually happened.

Unfortunately, the Constitution was short-lived. Fourteen months was all it took for the pot to boil over; not only was there a strong opposition within the country, but our neighbours did not take too kindly to our liberal reforms, either. Why would they? They liked Poland weak and chaotic, and thought of it as of a sort of land reserve with which to replenish their losses on other fronts. Catherine the Great found the idea of free peasants especially appalling- she feared a massive exodus from Russia.

So, in 1792, Russia attacked. Unable to push back, King Stanisław Poniatowski thought to stop the conflict by surrendering and agreeing to hand the reform over to a conservative confederacy mounted under the protection of...none other than Catherine the Great. (and just as a side note, the whole reason he was king in the first place was because Catherine, his former lover, supported his candidacy and staged a coup to get him the throne. The tsarina giveth, the tsarina taketh away...)

The results were disastrous. The Constitution was torn apart, almost all of its reforms scrapped, and many supporters forced into exile. Worst of all, Poland was once again forced under foreign heel and partitioned for a second time, losing over 100,000 square miles of territory to Russia and Prussia. Even the conspiring confederates hadn't predicted this one! The additional documents the creators of the constitution were working on- namely, a 'moral and economical constitution' which was to address the civil rights of all citizens, including the most overlooked peasants and Jews, were never completed.

Though the original Constitution was not a success (even its co-authors ominously called it "the last will and testament of the expiring Country"), May 3rd is now an extremely important national holiday in Poland, celebrated since 1918.

Riders in historical uhlan uniforms on parade for Constitution Day, 2009

Not unusually, we applaud the Constitution for what it stands for rather than what it actually achieved. In most of its decrees it was a revolutionary and progressive attempt at reform and strengthening our position on the map, and the way it was subsequently taken away from us by foreign forces makes it into a powerful symbol of the fight for independence.


Meta information:


Wikipedia entry on the Constitution of May 3rd:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_May_3,_1791


Wikipedia entry on the Second Partition of Poland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Partition_of_Poland


Photo of the manuscript taken from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manuscript_of_the_Constitution_of_the_3rd_May_1791.PNG


A detailed analysis of Matejko's painting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_May_3,_1791_(painting)


About the nine day weekend:
Since May 1st and May 3rd are official national holidays, if May 1st falls on a Tuesday, all you need to do is convince your employer to give you Wednesday and Friday off in order to bag a nine day weekend. Yes, people do take advantage of this.

The legend of Besiekiery Castle

Castles. There are a lot of them in Poland, some ruined, some perfectly preserved, and all interesting. At times, we will travel the country and stop in a seemingly insignificant village- there to find ruins or foundations which reveal that the tiny settlement was once home to a great lord, or even a king.

I am rather fond of castles, so you will be hearing more about them soon. Today, I want to tell you about my favourite one.

The castle ruins of Besiekiery

The castle ruins in Besiekiery are not a very well known attraction, overshadowed by the nearby king's town and castle of Łęczyca. Their popularity is further diminished by their location in a very small village with no other tourist attractions. A few houses, a small school; Besiekiery is tiny, but it dates back to the 13th century.

Here's where it gets interesting. The name suggests that its original settlers were Scandinavian- viking mercenaries in the service of our first dynasty of kings, the Piasts. 'Besiekr' is a nordic word meaning 'man wearing a bear skin', and king Mieszko I did indeed purchase the services of a number of Scandinavian mercenaries. Not unusual, considering the strong hypothesis that his daughter married Swedish King Eric the Victorious, and later Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard. The princess eventually ended up in Norse mythology as Sigrid Storrada.

Such is the most probable history of Besiekiery; archaelogical findings of scandinavian remains in Poland support the theory. But in Polish, 'siekiera' means axe, and so there is also a legend about the devil Boruta (who also dipped his claws in the history of the nearby Royal Castle in Łęczyca) striking a deal with a local noble. Diabolical tricks are a common theme in Polish folklore, and such stories usually feature one of the lesser minions of Hell being outwitted and humiliated by the clever landsmen.

Look closely, at the top. That's a stork's nest.

Not so in this case. Boruta is an eminent character in the region's legends, appearing way back in slavic paganism as a forest and swamp demon. His name is an old Polish term for 'pine tree'. He would not be so easy to outsmart!

In the Besiekiery legend, a noble knight made a bet with Boruta. Perhaps the devil had disguised himself, or perhaps the knight was just that foolish, but he bet the demon that he could build a whole castle without using a single axe. In polish: 'bez siekiery'!

Presumably, the knight was promised riches and immortality if he won; upon losing, he would have to surrender his soul. And he would have won…except the poor man didn't know that one of the labourers working on the construction of his castle was named 'Siekierka'. The castle was built, but the bet and the soul was lost, and the Devil Boruta still haunts the area on his days off from guarding the castle in Łęczyca.

But that's only a legend. The castle is neither demonic nor Norse in origin, being somewhat younger than the settlement. It was built around the year 1500 by a court official named Sokołowski, and used to have a large tower which held the main gate and a chapel, an open courtyard and a three storey house in the back. It was modified several times over the years, but has been abandoned since the mid-19th century.

Currently, the municipality is gathering funds to revitalise the ruins and make them a safe and welcoming tourist attraction. So far they've strengthened the remainders of the main house and rebuilt the moat. There's a little beach, but swimming isn't a good idea as there is a lot of duckweed and leeches. Yuck!

Oh, another interesting thing about this castle is that it's home to a pair of storks. They come every year to build their nests on top of the ruins. Storks are very popular in Poland, we consider them to be one of our national symbols.

The stork is a bird that brings luck, and it's very good to have one on your property- they say lightning will not strike where a stork has his nest. And because storks like high places, many landowners will set up a special post or build a platform on top of the barn roof, or in the branches of a dead tree, to encourage storks to make their nest there. No wonder they appreciate the ruins of Besiekiery!

Meta information:

Location of Besiekiery on Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=besiekiery,+poland&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=52.151239,18.973475&spn=0.042921,0.131836&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.981213,135&hnear=Besiekiery,+%C5%81%C4%99czyca+County,+%C5%81%C3%B3d%C5%BA+Voivodeship,+Poland&t=h&z=14

A page with drawings of the castle's original layout and shape:

http://www.zamkipolskie.com/besiek/besiek.html

Information about scandinavian presence in Poland (in Polish):

http://www.norwegofil.pl/norwegia/historia/slowianscy-wikingowie-o-wiezach-slowiansko-nordyckich.html

Święconka, or the blessing of the food

Święconka (rough pronounciation: shi'ven-tson-kah) is a Polish Easter tradition first recorded in writing in the 13th century, but which is definitely several hundred years older.

On Good Saturday, Catholic Poles will take a basket of food to church for a blessing. The most common traditional basket contains eggs, meat, cake, bread, salt and pepper, horseradish and beetrot sauce, and a  small lamb, made of cake, bread, butter, or sugar.

They represent all the food which will be eaten on Easter Morning, after the Resurrection, as well as all the food that will be put on the table that year. It's like saying grace before a meal, but with a long-term warranty.

The foodstuffs have their own particular symbolism. The eggs represent new life (adopted as they were from Slavic Pagan rituals). The bread, strongly symbolic in the Christian faith, stands for the body of Christ and the community which comes together like so many grains of wheat.

Children in particular like Święconka as they are usually the ones to carry a little basket. :) It's also a lot of fun to decorate- with boxwood leaves, lace, ribbons, little toy chicks...

After the short blessing, families will go pray at the grave in the church. Easter is also the usual time to refill the household holy water supply; churches sell bottles of it, or allow you to fill your own from a special vessel.

With this, I wish a peaceful and meaningful Easter to my Christian friends, a lovely Passover to my Jewish friends (the dates coincide this year!) and to everyone else, a sunny spring weekend :)

How to make a Mazurek Easter Pie

Mazurek- a traditional Polish Easter pie


The mazurek cake  is said to be a variation on a Turkish recipe, and has been a firm element of Polish Easter tradition since the 17th century. 'Mazurek' is also the name of a traditional dance, and Mazury (Mazuria in English) is a region in the North-East of Poland, green with forests and blue with lakes.

As usual, the pluralisation gets tricky when translated. Mazurek is one cake, mazurki are many.

Here is how to make some mazurki:


500 grams of flour
250 grams of butter
150 grams of powder sugar
3 egg yolks

Mix the flour and butter until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs.
Mix in the sugar and egg yolks until you have a dough. If it is too dry, add a little cream.
You can use an electric blender.
Wrap up in cellophane, refrigerate for about an hour.

This is your pie and cookie dough. Roll it out thin, tuck it into a pie pan, and be careful that it doesn't burn in the oven. And let the crusts cool before you take them out of the pans and pour in the filling.

The filling can be jam, caramel, kaymak... our family standard is chocolate, and you're on your own there- it's a matter of preference. The general rule is to sit a pot inside a saucepan of simmering water, and melt down a combination of dark and milk chocolate. You can add nutella, you can add fudge spread- just be careful that it doesn't get too hot and start clumping.

Pour it into the pie crusts, shake them gently to spread it evenly. And then start decorating.

Done? Congratulations! But you can't eat any of it until after the Resurrection!

Since the mazurek was supposed to be the crown of the feast which the family would wait for all through Lent, the idea is to make it as pretty as possible. As a child I used to play with cookies and that horrific coloured icing which comes in little tubes and requires samsonic force to be squeezed out...until somewhere around 2007 I discovered seeds.

Seeds look classy. They look sophisticated. They look rustic, quaint, traditional.

They taste better than the icing...though they are a mite less colourful!

So, for your appreciation and inspiration, here are all the Easter treats baked at my house in the last few years:

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

How to make pisanki

Poles didn't invent the celebratory decoration of eggs, but there's a lot to be said for how the tradition developed on the Slavic territory. The oldest decorated egg specimens found around here come from the 10th century, and they were made by painting a pattern of wax on the shell, then dipping the egg in a dye.

At the end of the post there's a tutorial that shows you how to make Easter eggs using that very technique. But first, let's talk semantics.

There are several types of decorated eggs in our tradition, and they all have their particular names.

Kraszanka (crash-an-kah) is an egg which has simply been dipped in dye.

Pisanka (pee-san-kah) is an egg which has been painted on with wax, and THEN dipped in dye.

Drapanka (drah-pan-kah) is an egg which has been dipped in dye, and then had a pattern scratched out on it.

Oklejanka (oh-clay-an-kah) is an egg which has been covered in a pattern made from pieces of plants, fabric, and wool.

Rysowanka (ree-so-van-kah) is an egg which has been drawn on.

If this is too much to take in, don't worry. Nowadays, you can get away with calling all of these eggs 'pisanki'. Why does it end with i? Because that's the plural of pisanka. Yes, Polish is hard.

The symbolism of the egg varies from culture to culture, but it is always powerful. For Slavic Pagans, the egg was generally a portent of new life and good luck. It is said that a meal of eggs was shared as part of one spring ritual, and the crumbled shells were sprinkled on tilled ground to guarantee a good crop. (modern composters will know that this is actually a very good way to nourish the soil)

With the arrival of Christianity, attempts were made to eradicate belief in the egg's magical properties. Well, a two hundred year ban on eating eggs during Easter didn't help much- the Church had to give in and repurpose them as a symbol of the Resurrection.

In Poland, to this day, the custom of sharing eggs at Easter persists. On Easter Monday, before any other food is consumed, a plate of egg slices is passed around. As we eat the eggs, we also exchange kind words and well wishes- much like we do at Christmas with blessed wafers.

I shot this tutorial with the help of my friendly neighbourhood folklorist Mariza Nawrocka-Teodorczyk (dziękuję!). Decorating eggs using wax and dye is actually quite easy! Have a look for yourselves:

Palm Sunday in a country with no palms

I thought about posting a tutorial, but it would take all year.

In the Christian tradition, Palm Sunday is the last Sunday before Easter. It commemorates the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and people greeted him by waving palm fronds and crying out 'Hosanna!'. A remembrance of that day is still practiced in most Christian faiths by bringing palm fronds to houses of worship.

But there is a slight problem. We do not have palm trees in Poland.

We do, however, have extremely rich folk traditions which date back to pre-Christian times, and which have largely survived in the Catholic custom. Such a tradition has evolved from the colourful Slavic decoration of twigs and branches in anticipation of Spring to the Christian weaving of palms.

Łyse, in the Kurpie region.

Two places are particularly well worth visiting in Poland for Palm Sunday: the village of Łyse in the Northeastern region of Kurpie, and the village of Lipnica Murowana, just Southwest of Cracow.

Only there will you find such elaborate palms made out of crepe paper and dried flowers, so tall that they cannot be carried upright.


Łyse, in the Green Kurpie

The village of Łyse holds a contest for the tallest and most beautiful palm. People from all over the region work hard for the fourty days of Lent to make their entries.

Contest-winning palms set up around the old church in Łyse.

The day begins with a mass and a procession and is then occasion for a market where the locals sell their handmade wares- palms, painted eggs, lacework, pottery, carvings, as well as regional food such as honey, bread, meats and beer.

You can buy handmade palms and little dough goats and deer. For luck.

Łyse is in the Green Kurpie Forest, a lovely area.

But be not mistaken. These palms are not only a testament to the rich folklore of Kurpie, but also a sign of religious devotion. Palm Sunday does not mark the beginning of a feast, nor is it a festival, but is the first day of the week in which the Christian God was killed by the very people who first greeted him with such joy. These amazing palms are first and foremost an offering to Jesus and a hope that believers may be strong enough not to betray him again and again as his first followers did, and modern Christians have no doubt done many times in their lives.

Lipnica Murowana, Lesser Poland

A slightly different type of palm can be found in Lipnica Murowana, a small village in the southern mountains. They are less stocky than Kurpian palms, with different patterns, and show more green twigs, boxwood and dried flowers than their northern counterparts. And most of all, they are much, much taller.

These are the short ones.

This is the tall one.

Like Łyse, Lipnica Murowana has its procession, market, and festivities. And like Łyse, it holds its own contest for the best Palm Sunday palm.

There are several categories, but the one that has everyone biting their nails is the Contest for the Tallest Palm.

This gets VERY competitive. And there are rules that make it all extremely exciting. For starters, no nails or other metal elements can be used in making the palms- only wood, willow, reeds, green branches and paper flowers are allowed.

In the photo above, the second-tallest palm of 2011 is raised, with great care and caution.

Wires, ropes and lines from synthetic materials are also forbidden. In order to qualify in the contest, the palm has to stand upright without breaking, it has to be raised with no help from machines (hence the men in the trees guiding the lines, and those on the ground, pushing with special long forks), and the author must be able to wrap his hands around the trunk.

The palm in the photo above is the first prize winner of 2011, at 36.4 metres- that's almost 120 feet! I heard someone say the whole thing weighed about 600 lbs. It took about a dozen men half an hour to get it upright.

Here are some of the shorter palms, arranged around the statue of St. Szymon:

And for a height comparison, this is me with the palms I bought. They were made by local schoolchildren:

As an aside and a link to pre-Christian Poland, to which we owe a great deal of these colourful customes, it's worth taking note of the little wooden gothic church of St. Leonard which stands in Lipnica by the Uszwica river. If you go inside and walk around behind the altar, you will find that it is suspended on a worn, wooden pillar.

This pillar is supposedly a Slavic Pagan totem which once represented Svetovid, a four-faced god. Though the building as we see it now was built in the 15th century, the first church on this site was originally built in the early 12th century, in a Pagan holy grove. Instead of being destroyed, the sacred statue was used as a support for the altar. Poland had only been Christian for a few hundred years, and the old Slavic faith was still very much present. But here as everywhere, the new religion replaced the old one- albeit with an unusual amount of respect.

The old religion and the new.

Meta information:

Location of Łyse:

http://maps.google.pl/maps?q=%C5%81yse,+Mazowieckie&hl=pl&ie=UTF8&sll=52.322433,20.761276&sspn=0.171024,0.528374&oq=%C5%82yse,+mazowi&hnear=%C5%81yse,+ostro%C5%82%C4%99cki,+Mazowieckie&t=m&z=13

Location of Lipnica Murowana:

http://maps.google.pl/maps?q=Lipnica+Murowana&hl=pl&ie=UTF8&ll=49.858349,20.524864&spn=0.090193,0.264187&sll=53.364151,21.564928&sspn=0.083484,0.264187&hnear=Lipnica+Murowana,+boche%C5%84ski,+ma%C5%82opolskie&t=m&z=13

Drowning the Marzanna

Marzanna is an ancient pagan Slavic goddess, and one of her domains is Winter. On the vernal equinox which falls on March 21st, we make an effigy of her, set it on fire and then drown it in the river so that Spring will come.

My Marzanna from last year

So, where does this tradition come from?

Slavic Pagans, of course.

Although Christianity in Poland has worked hard for the last thousand years to assimilate and conceal the multitude of wonderful pagan traditions within its Catholic celebrations, the drowning of the Marzanna persists despite many attempts to eradicate it. In fact it's traditional for pre-school children to make the effigy in class and then have a little field trip to drown her. Sometimes, older children will cut out paper numbers- symbolising their bad grades- and throw them in the water as well.

Your typical Marzanna should be made of straw, and dressed in white- or, as they do it in some regions, wound out of rags and wearing a colourful maiden's dress. The puppet would be paraded through the village so that she might draw out misery, hunger, sickness, and all the evils of the cold seasons out of every house. Once that duty was fulfilled, she would be set on fire and dropped into the water- and woe be unto those who looked back at her on their way home. Even torn to shreds, the goddess could still take vengeance with a curse.

The burning of Judas which was meant to replace it somehow never really caught on...and I am glad. Marzanna must die as the Winter cedes to Spring, but she will return next season to live again. Her burning is a symbol of the natural order, while tormenting a straw effigy of Judas only serves to translate guilt into angry righteousness.

Another ancient tradition would have us greet Jaryła, the god of Spring and fertility, with dances and rituals. Slavic religion persists in several modern-day faith groups, but so far my attempts to get in touch with them have been fruitless, so alas I can't give you an account of anything more authentic than the secularised drowning of Marzanna.

So. I haven't done this in a while, for lack of good company, but last year I found two friends who thought it was a great idea. We made our Marzanna from wood, rags and hay, so she should decompose well. The Ner river is pretty dirty already, but there was no need to contribute to the pollution.

Hello, Spring, goodbye, Winter!

You do have to set her on fire before you drown her.

As a bonus, here's a rather lovely video of the traditional drowning, shot last year by some Poles in...Glasgow. ;) Apparently they're doing it again this year, on March 25th. If you're in Glasgow, go join in the fun!

Meta information:

Wikipedia entry on Slavic Paganism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_paganism


COSMOPOLIS- the authors of the Drowning Marzanna video:
http://cosmopolis10.blogspot.com/


Literary source: Polskie Obrzędy i Zwyczaje, Dr. Barbara Ogrodowska