Kraków

“ Now the saddest man in Krakow at this time was Pan Andrew Charnetski—sad because he had lost, through no fault of his own, a treasure which he had intended to present to the King of Poland, and evidently a treasure of great worth since certain men seemed to envy him its possession. Jan Kanty sought to comfort him, and his wife and son and Elzbietka did much to divert his thoughts from the seriousness of the loss, but on the long nights when he was alone in the tower, moods of depression would often engulf him. ”

“ As the weeks went on, the rumors grew thicker and there began to come through to Poland, our land of the fields, the news that the country lands of the Ukraine were ablaze. Then it was heard that Kiev had fallen, then Lvov, the city of the Lion, and now there was naught between the savage band of warriors and the fair city of Krakow, save a few peaceful villages and fertile fields.
The Tartars came through the world like a horde of wild beasts. They left not one thing alive nor one green blade of wheat standing. ”

“ THE GOOD JAN KANTY Among the most remarkable personages of Krakow’s age of glory in the fifteenth century was a certain scholar-priest by the name of Jan Kanty. He had been educated at the University of Krakow in the period of late Scholasticism when the chief teachings were still mere expositions of the Seven Arts of which Grammar was the king. However, a full life and much contact with men had made Jan Kanty a well-rounded man. ”

“ It seems that Peter had opposed this pillaging from the first, because he had other work in hand, but they were tribesmen and wild, fond of robbery and theft and eager for gain.
At Tarnov, having them well in hand again, he organized them into a caravan of Armenian rug merchants and marched them—carts, horses and merchants—to Krakow, the great market of the eastern part of Europe. In Krakow they camped with their wares in the square on the east side of the Cloth Hall. ”

“ They were off in a second, leaving the stranger in the middle of the highway, turning now to the right and now to the left as if uncertain whether to pursue his horse or his enemy. And Charnetski, swinging about, picked up the sword from the bottom of the cart and hurled it into the road.
Some time later they reached the Kazimierz, the Jewish city founded by King Kazimir more than one hundred years earlier. Passing through this, they came to the bridge across the Vistula which would admit them to the city of Krakow itself. ”

“ There is no other like it in the world," said Macko.
"It is always like a fair," answered one of the rybalts; "how long since you were here, sir?"
"A very long time ago. I wonder at it just as much as if I saw it now for the first time, because we are returning from a wild country."
"They say that Krakow has grown very much since the time of King
Jagiello."
This was true; after the grand duke of Litwa ascended the throne, enormous Lithuanian and Russian countries were opened for commerce ”

“ Lights were twinkling now all over the city below him, the air was soft and smelled of the freshly cut grass which the peasants gather into piles. In the direction of the university a group of men were chanting a hymn. A clashing of iron hoofs on the stones of Grodzka Street betokened the presence of some armed men, perhaps the servitors of some nobles’ houses at the castle, or perhaps members of the royal guard. Men of the night watch could be heard banging at doors of shops with the butts of their spears to be sure that no careless apprentice or servant had left the door ajar. ”

“ And although the glory of former days is departed from the city and the kings no longer sit in the castle on the hill, there has come with the years the growth of a new glory, the glory of culture as seen in the university of fourteenth century origin, in the schools of fine arts and music and handicraft and trade. From all Poland come students to study and to live in this venerable city, which is Gothic in every corner and every gable save where here and there a bit of Romanesque wall or arch has survived the Tartar, or the Cossack, or the Swede. ”

“ KING KAZIMIR JAGIELLO Of all the wonders that the capital city of Poland possessed Joseph knew of none that stirred his imagination more than did this royal castle of the kings upon the Wawel. Impregnable through many sieges, its great rock base had stood, brick and stone heaped high above it in a great mass of towers, turrets, and walls. At its very heart, high above the winding Vistula and the town, stood a strangely built round tower enclosed and protected by the palace wings, where men in prehistoric times worshiped the old nature gods of the Slavs ”

“ Directly below them the market was still busy although it was late afternoon, for the peasants were ready to sell at small profit what remained of their stock and go home; under the arches of the Cloth Hall the crowds were still passing from booth to booth examining the laces and embroidery and fine silks that had come in from the east and south; beyond the Cloth Hall rose the tower of the Town House, or Ratusz, and in front of it two luckless wretches struggled in the pillory while a crowd of urchins pelted them with mud and decayed vegetables. ”

“ In the worst end of the street, the upper end near the city wall, clustered the squalid dwelling places that were once the homes of Jewish refugees, fleeing from persecution in all parts of the world. Terrible poverty had existed there, and when the Jewish inhabitants finally moved to their own city, Kazimierz, across the river, the buildings which they left were scarcely fit for human beings to live in. ”

“ Like most cities, Warsaw has its principal street, and, like all things Polish, this street has a terrible name—the Krakowski Przedmiescie. It is in this Krakowski Faubourg that the Hotel de l'Europe stands, where history in its time has played a part, where kings and princes have slept, where the Jew Hermani was murdered, where the bodies of the first five victims of the Russian soldiery were carried after the massacre and there photographed, and, finally, where the great light from the West—Miss Julie P. Mangles—alighted one May morning, looking a little dim and travel-stained. ”

“ Claptrap and soulless splendour are the chief characteristics of this period; they are prominent in such monuments of the time as the sepulchres of King John Sobieski, King Michael Korybut, or Bishop Soltyk, on the Wawel. They give most eloquent proof of the decay of art. During the last span of Poland's independence in the eighteenth century Cracow is entirely devoid of artistic genius, Warsaw having become a centre of attraction through the last king's liberality and taste. The short stay of the great Dane Thorwaldsen, in 1820, was of some importance for Cracow. ”

“ These relations with Prague, made evident by the works of art, are also attested by written records of the time. Most of our miniature painters probably began their career like John Klobuk, called Kropacz, who was a student in Prague University from 1398 to 1400, and there also acquired his knowledge of art, which he then turned to account at home. The records of Kazimierz town from the years 1387-1390 contain some interesting notes on prices of pictures bought from Cracow masters. ”

“ However, the financial distress of the impoverished citizens, together with the want of manufacturing activity, this having been hindered by various obstacles and impediments, made it impossible for the town to find the means of carrying out some of those reform plans. In 1872 the Emperor Francis Joseph founded the Academy of Sciences at Cracow. The town has been ever since the centre of Polish literature and art. ”

“ INTERIOR OF HOLY CROSS CHURCH. Civil Architecture only began in the fourteenth century. The enormous architectural activity of Casimir the Great, as attested by history, proves true the saying of posterity, that he had found a Poland built of wood, and left behind one of brick. Cracow architecture was regulated by a statute for masons, issued in 1367. Although none of the medieval buildings has preserved its original form, yet those that remain show many traces of medieval structure and give us an idea of what profane architecture was like. ”

“ The train carried them swiftly to Cracow—a city which has had a prominent place in Polish annals. It was the scene of several battles, and was for a long time the capital of the ancient kingdom of Poland. Frank made the following memoranda in his notebook:
"Cracow is a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom nearly one-third are Israelites. It stands on the left bank of the Vistula, on a beautiful plain surrounded by hills which rise in the form of an amphitheatre. In the old part of the city the streets are narrow and dark, and cannot be praised for their cleanliness ”

“ Their richly endowed daughters are often married to nobles and princes. The presence of so many distinguished representatives and protagonists of humanist science and culture at Cracow created an intellectual atmosphere and made the town one of the centres of Occidental civilization. The unbroken relations of Polish scholars with the heads and leaders of European learning are reflected alike in science, poetry, and historiography. The printing-press of Cracow attained to a high level of excellence. ”

“ You notice, at once, that it blocks the road along the Vistula valley into Silesia, and that an invader must capture it before he can proceed to enter that province. Cracow has been a strong fortress for two and a half centuries, and now is surrounded by a circle of forts which the Austrians have strongly garrisoned. For two and a half centuries it was the capital of Poland. The finest of its thirty-nine churches is the Cathedral of Stanislaus, which stands on a rocky hill to the south-west of the old town. ”

“ Casimir found Poland devastated by the internal troubles under Mieszko II, and saw its waning importance in politics and for civilization; he therefore endeavoured to raise the general standard of culture by means of settling foreign monks all over the country, which procured him the surname of the Monk. On the Wawel, next to his royal residence, he settled a colony of Benedictines called from Liège. The abbot of this convent, Aaron by name, became at the same time Bishop of Cracow, and bore the title of archbishop. ”

“ Although in regard to its population it is only the second place in Galicia, Cracow is the most interesting town in the whole of Poland. No other Polish town possesses so many old and historic buildings, none of them contains so many national relics, or has been so closely associated with the development and destinies of Poland as Cracow. And the ancient capital is still the intellectual centre of the Polish nation. ”

“ Others, as the Wirsings—called Wierzynek in Polish—in the fourteenth and the Boners in the sixteenth century, take also a large part in the administration of the royal domains, and thereby rise to wealth and power. The numerous magnificent sepulchral monuments of Cracow citizens (illustration 10) are lasting records of their importance for civilization, and their activity in promoting the development of art. ”

“ The murdered prelate was canonized—like Thomas à Becket in England—the monarch's power, and with it Poland's political position and authority, sank far below what they had been. The dreadful catastrophe had happened in the centre of the oldest fortified settlement at Cracow, viz., on the Skalka, and the place became henceforth the aim of devout pilgrimages. The solemn celebration of the 8th of May as the day sacred to the Saint's memory developed into a Church festival of world-wide renown, attracting people from all countries and much frequented by traders. ”

“ Even the salaried people are not able to afford that luxury more than once a week, and then it frequently happens that only the head of the house may indulge.
As night descends, our train pulls in at the depot at Dresden; but this is not Poland; a little further, and we find ourselves in the city of Cracow, the ancient city of Chief Krakus, which we find nestled snugly and boldly at the junction of the three powerful countries, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany. It is here we purpose spending a cycle of months visiting, as Cracow is most typically Polish, with its surrounding vicinities. ”

“ Warsaw has earned the flowers that grace it today. Though battered by the chaos of the second World War and stifled by the strictures of the Cold War, the people of Poland have continued to rebuild their beloved capital. Brick by brick, building by building, the beauty and majesty that defined Warsaw for centuries are being reborn to a generation of Poles who have just recently discovered the blessings of freedom. ”

“ An example of later Romanesque architecture, where use is made of brick besides ashlars, is extant in the convent church of the Cistercian monks, in the village of Mogila, east of Cracow. With these Cistercians, who came over to Poland from France in the twelfth century and built their abbeys in the course of the fourteenth, the use of the pointed arch makes its appearance in architecture, which marks the transition to Gothic style. ”

“ General culture is increasing: Polish students attend foreign universities, particularly that of Bologna; schools connected with monasteries and parishes are growing in number. But these germs of an independent civilization were soon to be destroyed, A terrible tempest of Mongolian invasion broke from the East; it swept like an avalanche over the country, changing it into a desert; Cracow, in that unfortunate year 1241, was turned into a heap of ruins; only the castle on the Wawel and the gateway buildings with the fortified church of St. ”