The World and Its People, Part 42

THE MONASTERY OF CZESTOCHOWA, POLAND'S MOST HOLY SHRINE

CHAPTER XXII — POLAND
CRACOW AND THE SOUTH

There are two broad roadways by which tribes and nations have migrated between Europe and Asia, passing back and forth as Destiny, swinging in its course like some great pendulum, has turned the human movement now to one continent, now another. The southern roadway we have just traversed. It led down the Danube valley, across the highlands of Asia Minor, and so on to Persia or to the foot of the Caucasus, where we turned back, even as Alexander the Great once turned, sighing that in this direction at least there were no more worlds to conquer. Let us travel now by the northern roadway, the great Russian road. It keeps to the north of Europe's vast central mountain mass of Alps and Carpathians and Caucasus, and passes along the sea-plain of northern Germany. From Berlin the plain stretches eastward into Poland; there it crosses a low plateau, and then it reaches on over the vast low swamps and steppes of Russia into Siberia.

Poland is the land which we shall first visit as we travel eastward along this flat expanse, which spreads across two continents. Poland is in many respects one of the most interesting and also the most unusual land in Europe. It is a Slavic land; but its people are a different type from those Czecho-Slavs whom we have already visited, or from the Slavic Russians to the east of them. Poland means "the western land," 1322 because its people were the western branch of the Slavic races of old. The Poles have a legend that three brothers dwelt upon this low tableland in the midst of Europe. They separated, and one brother, Czech, went south to the mountains; another, Rus, went east into the marshes; but the oldest brother, Lech, found an eagle in the old home forest, so he took this as a promise of prosperity and remained in the home land. He was the ancestor and founder of the Polish race. The eagle became their national emblem.

In the Middle Ages the Polish kings absorbed the neighboring kingdom of Lithuania and built up a great Polish kingdom as large and as powerful as France. The mass of the Polish people, however, were reduced almost to slavery by the kings and nobles. Thus the nation became weak despite its wide expanse, and over a hundred years ago it was conquered by, and its territory divided among, its three stronger neighbors, Prussia, Austria and Russia. Here again the World War righted an old wrong by setting Poland free and making her a self-governing republic of the people. What she has done with that freedom we have now to see.

To reach Poland we need not travel all the long way back to Germany; from Vienna or from Budapest we can take a train northward across the passes of the Carpathian mountains and down from their heights to Cracow or to Lemberg, the two chief southern cities of the Poles. As we cross the crest of the Carpathians, we thus get our first view of Poland from its southern border. The mountains here descend rapidly into foot-hills and then to the Polish plateau which is but three or four hundred feet above the sea. Yet this low plateau is enough to form a watershed between east and west. Down its eastern slope the rivers flow in slow and lazy manner across the great Russian marshes. Down its western slope, moving with almost equal leisure, they gather to join the chief Polish River, the Vistula, which drifts on until it reaches the Baltic Sea at Dantzig, the former German city, which we have already visited and which has been made the great "free port" for Poland's commerce.

Poland then is chiefly what it has been often called, "the land of the Vistula." The river rises here in the Carpathians where we stand, and Cracow (krā' kō), the first city we shall visit, lies upon the Vistula's upper course just after it escapes from the mountains and begins its sluggish journey across the plains.

We shall see little to attract us as we journey down the hills to Continued 1324 1323

IN POLAND'S WOODLANDS
The Poles are passionately devoted to music. The country regions preserve this taste

1324 Cracow. Poland suffered much in the World War, and though this portion of its land was poor and desolate before, it has been stripped now of even the little that it owned. We shall see only a few scattered villages of mud huts, and a few wandering pigs and geese. These are tended by half-naked children. There are no fences, so the animals must be watched to keep them from feeding upon the few patches where the villagers are struggling to raise their crops. The country is flat and fertile, but the people are too poor for modern methods of agriculture and they still turn the earth with wooden plows, and plant by hand their little fields of wheat and oats and other grain. The few men we see wear baggy blue breeches and white jackets. The womens' skirts are also blue, but the jackets, unless the wearer has sunk into utter poverty, are of a bright red, and the low headdress is gaily colored. Thus the women give the one touch of color to the otherwise somber landscape.

A curious reminder of Poland's past is to be found in the salt mine of Wieliczka which lies on the Vistula bank a few miles from Cracow. This was for centuries a main source of Poland's wealth; but so much better salt is now gathered elsewhere that the once priceless mine has lost much of its importance. It is still famous as a show-place. Many miles of caverns have been tunnelled through the salt-rock and the miners have chiseled the walls into endless fantastic figures, sometimes accidental, more often deliberately religious. There are several holy images, and two entire life-size chapels cut in the salt. These are now illumined for visitors with electric lights, which give the salt a strange fantastic glitter. The mines are among the most noted sights of Poland.

Cracow, when we reach it, forms a much brighter picture than the country around it. The cities of Poland long since absorbed its wealth; and despite all the tragic vicissitudes of later years, they have managed to retain a considerable part of it. This is due, at least in part, to their Jewish population. Poland is the chief Jewish country of the world today, and has been so for centuries. When the Polish nobles reduced their peasants into serfhood, they themselves became increasingly rich and cultured. There was left no middle class between these two extremes. The Jews were encouraged to dwell in Poland as its merchants, taking on all the more intellectual labors for which the peasants were too ignorant and the nobles too proud. Hence from Germany, and indeed from all Western Europe, the sorely persecuted Jews drifted toward Poland. They brought with them the German dialect which, with some added Polish words, we now call Yiddish. 1325 In Poland they prospered until the days of the land's captivity. They then became, like the Poles themselves, subjects of the Russian government, and were soon deprived of most of their wealth. "As poor as a Polish Jew" became a common phrase in Europe. Some of the Jews, however, in the division of Poland, came under the power of Germany or Austria, and in these lands were not so wholly despoiled but that a considerable portion of their wealth remained. In this southern part of Poland, which was a province of Austria until the World War, the Jews still handle most of the business of the country.

POLISH HUNTSMEN ON THE RUSSIAN BORDER

Hence we shall find the Jew a common figure in the streets of Cracow. He may be very poor and miserable and dirty; or he may be wealthy and well-dressed. A modern and unorthodox Jew may have cast aside the characteristic garb of his people; but the great majority of the race, whether rich or poor, cling to the "halat" and the "peasy." The halat is a long black coat reaching to the ankles; the peasy is a lock of hair which falls down either side of the face in front of the ears. The orthodox Jew is forbidden to shave his beard; and he regards this lock in front of the ear, even though it grows on young boys, as part of the beard. Hence the peasy, even on children, is curled and cared for as 1326 an ornament. The halat of the wealthy is of richest silk, and the hat is a black cap with a border of costly fur. This garb is, in fact, the national dress of the medieval Poles, and while the upper class Poles have long since abandoned it for a more modern costume, the Jews retain it, perhaps as a symbol of their ancient Polish prosperity. The Jewish women have no orthodox dress and incline to gay colors rather than to the black of their men folk. The married Jewess, however, has an established symbol of her position. She shaves her head and puts on a heavy black wig, which becomes in effect a cap; though no one ever sees her without it, indoors or out.

Cracow is in itself a charming city. It was the capital of Poland until about the year 1600 A.D., when the Polish Court deserted it for Warsaw, and left it to be the learned and religious city of the nation. As such it escaped the worst of Poland's woes, and remained a separate little republic long after the rest of Poland was conquered. Even after Cracow passed under Austrian rule, it was protected and allowed to retain its university and its church treasures.

As we approach the city, we see on a little hill beside the Vistula the old royal palace and the national cathedral. In this cathedral the kings and queens of Poland were crowned and buried; and here we may visit the tombs of her greatest heroes. Here lies Sobieski, the king who rescued Austria from the Turks in the great battle of Vienna. Here lies Kosciusko, who fought for America in our Revolutionary War, and afterward led a rebellion of the Poles against their conquerors; and here lies Adam Mickiewicz, professor and poet, the chief patriotic singer of Poland, whose statue stands in every Polish city. From the stately cathedral and the old and crumbling castle here on Castle Hill, we look down on the main city of Cracow. Its medieval walls were long since removed, and the space was planted with trees to make a charming encircling boulevard for the busy, central city. This boulevard is called the "Planty." The celebrated actress, Mme. Modjeska, was a native of Cracow, and has left us many enthusiastic descriptions of her memories of youth in the quiet, sun-warmed city. Of the "Planty" she says, "This avenue is a favorite promenade of the people during the warm season of the year, but even in winter it is not deserted; students of the different schools find always a pretext to walk on the fresh snow of their beloved "Planty." In fact, everybody frequents the Avenue.

I remember when I was a young aspirant for dramatic honors, I used to rise at five o'clock in the morning, take my Continued 1328 1327

A JEWISH WEDDING IN CRACOW
The Jews of Cracow are often wealthy and proud of race, so that they preserve old customs in their feasts notably at weddings.

1328 part with me, and walk up and down in the shade of the wide-branched trees, studying my lines. At eight o'clock I had to return for fear of being exposed to the jests of the students."

The modern university looks out upon the Planty. It is a charming building and still retains within its grounds some of the older university buildings dating back more than four hundred years. The original university is older still than this, one of the earliest and most famous of Europe's institutions of learning. It has been the shelter and the shrine of the Polish language and of Polish culture through the ages; and in the recent modern rejuvenation of the country, the university has taken a leading part. In its central court stands a statue of the celebrated Polish astronomer, Copernicus, who first taught the true relation of the earth to the sun, moon and stars. I know of no antique courtyard so typically fitted to be the seat of learned meditation and repose as the court of old Cracow University with its Gothic arcades.

We have still to visit the heart of Cracow. Here, at the very center of the circle which the Planty encloses, lies the Rynek, which is the Polish word for the town square. This Rynek is a fascinating place indeed. We might well sit all day in one of the cafés along its edge, and watch Poland pass us by. The center of the Rynek is occupied by an ancient guild building, the "Drapers' Hall." It is an enormous low structure of such quaint and peculiar old style architecture as no description could portray. The arches along its sides are still used for the selling of clothes and gay finery to the country-folk. Around these stalls you will see all the peasantry who come to town. They can gaze even if they can no longer buy, and they will chat endlessly about the bright ribbons, the paper flowers, and the glass and coral beads.

As we sit here we can hear the hours called, not by church bells, but by a sweetly musical horn. The watchman on the tower of the city church plays a brief tune upon this horn each hour. The tune peculiar to Cracow is called the Heynel. At the hours of morning and evening prayer, it is played not by one horn, but by two, and extended into an exquisite hymn of harmony. The Poles are in fact a people of the keenest musical sense. The cheaper forms of music which flood Europe and America, can win no audience here. The musicians, even in the city restaurants, will be masters of their art. Many of the great composers of the world have come from Poland, and nowhere but in Poland has a great piano maestro been chosen as Paderewski was here, to be the first president and leader of the united nation.