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- Title
Kalendarze lucimskie.
- Authors
CHMIELEWSKI, WITOLD
- Abstract
From the onset of our presence in Lucim we attempted to reach the local residents so as to inform them about our undertakings and invite them to participate. We sought many ways of accomplishing this goal. First and foremost, we were compelled to resign from methods applied in a town: printing and hanging posters, or relying on the press, radio, and television, quite useless in this particular case. After all, we wished to reach exclusively a rural community of over 600 persons. Therefore, in the autumn and winter of 1977 we used handwritten posters displayed on an oak tree in the middle of the village to inform about the first meetings to be held at the local school. During the two days long Akcja Lucim, conducted in August, our presence was announced on meticulously prepared boards and canvases arranged on sites featuring our works in the village centre. Later, when we became more recognis able and made friends with the inhabitants of Lucim, new forms – circulars and Lucim calendars – appeared next to paper and canvas posters. Lucim still cultivated the memory of the kurenda (circular) – an old way of notifying inhabitants about a village meeting by using a piece of paper circulated by neighbours and the village elder from household to household. We restored this custom and created handwritten Kurendy lucimskie, which the kindly village elder, Kazimierz Gettka, distributed among the villagers. Autumn 1989 witnessed the introduction of an exceptional novelty: all calendars addressed exclusively to the residents of Lucim were to reach every home and family. In the past such calendars used in village houses were delivered by chimney sweeps and postmen or added to popular newspapers (as farmer’s calendars). We attached importance to the fact that they were displayed on walls on a year-round basis and apart from fulfilling the usual functions of a calendar as such they could provide information about past events and those planned for the current year. Kalendarze lucimskie were inspired by an inter-war school chronicle, which I saw in Lucim and which contained diverse information about events of countrywide and local importance, the latter taking place in Lucim and at the local school – from the point of view of the village all were equally important. Such a comprehension of reality confirmed our Eliadean conception of Lucim as the centre of the world. In 1980–1991 we printed 11 editions of Kalendarze lucimskie, each composed of about 120 issues (111 and several intended for the authors) – corresponding to the number of homes in Lucim. These samizdat publications were issued outside the range of censorship and official circulation. We placed black-and-white photographs on transparent foil, with subsequent under-drawings by Bogdan; upon occasions, they included symbolic drawings executed by him. Bohdan also added our local Lucim events to the days and months copied by us or else wrote all 365 days by hand (as in the case of calendars for 1990 and 1991). The calendars were copied by using the screen-printing technique, already available at the time, and were printed in home production conditions; we lacked literally everything and, it must be kept in mind, personally financed the entire venture. Sometimes the copies were unclear and had to be corrected by hand. The foil used for preparing the screen print was exposed by Andrzej Maziec in one of the military electronic works in Bydgoszcz, where he was employed as a photographer. This was an extremely hazardous situation, especially during the martial law period, but then perhaps “it’s always the darkest under the lighthouse”? Next, the calendars were printed in a photography studio belonging to Stanisław Wasilewski, located in Bydgoszcz in one of the courtyards in a working-class district known as Londynek – this out of the way site was particularly useful after the proclamation of martial law. In the freezing winter of 1980 we delivered the first Kalendarz ourselves, walking from home to home in the village centre and reaching farmsteads scattered amongst distant fields, up to two kilometres from Lucim. Subsequent editions were already distributed with the assistance of Kazimierz Gettka. The calendars were either offered to the villagers while they were paying taxes or the village elder delivered them on his own. The printing and distribution of the Lucim calendars disclose significant areas of artistic freedom and civic liberty openly experienced in the village. We worked during a rather special period: several years prior to the August events leading to the establishment of Solidarity (1977–1980), the Solidarity era (1980–1981), the martial law period (1981–1983), and years prior to the Round Table (1983–1989) and in its wake. Fortunately, we never experienced any clashes with the militia and censorship. It turned out that even if the Security Service (secret police) knew about our existence (quite possibly someone in Lucim passed on pertinent information) it concluded that a distant village and a few artists organising harvest festivals, Midsummer celebrations and village dances do not pose a threat to the socialist homeland. In Lucim we enjoyed unlimited freedom, both as regards dependence upon state institutions, the militia, and censorship, as well as taking into account the opinion of the Church, at the time favourably inclined towards artists, but by no means open to everything. We showed Kalendarze lucimskie at the exhibition Lucim 111, held at the bwa gallery in Bydgoszcz in the autumn of last year. Seen today, 30 and 40 years on, the calendars render us aware of their exceptional form and the function fulfilled at the time. After all, with their 12 months and 365 days they are the successors of Roman and Latin calendars as well as the Gregorian calendar used for almost 500 years. Nevertheless, they simultaneously linked their universum, binding in Europe and a large part of the world, with the locality of Lucim. On a wider scale, they are part of the essence of our efforts to connect the universum of the cosmos and Nature with pre-Christian and Catholic tradition as well as free thought and art. The outcome assumed the form of an initiation and an introduction, shared with the local inhabitants, of new events, customs, and holidays, which simply could not exist in this form in any other place in the world. Just like the calendars – they too are a unique phenomenon. The last calendar was printed in 1991 – in this natural way the need for making them came to an end. The dissemination of photocopiers made it easier to duplicate the invitations which Bogdan prepared (wrote and drew) for each event. At that time, we benefitted from the kindness of the postman who distributed them together with the mail. In addition, extremely colourful and attractive wall calendars, produced on a mass-scale, made their appearance.
- Publication
Kontesksty: Polska Sztuka ludowa, 2019, Vol 73, Issue 4, p78
- ISSN
1230-6142
- Publication type
Article