Zakopane was called “the navel of the world” and a multidimensional capital of Poland: under the partitions, it served as a “spiritual” one, where “Polish thought strengthened itself and hardened into steel”. After regaining independence, along with the development of tourist infrastructure, it turned into a “summer” and finally a “winter” capital – thanks to its extensive winter sports facilities, such as cable cars, ski lifts and ski jumps.
According to Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Zakopane in the interwar period was a demonic and hellish city, “a monstrous little town, which crept like mould at the foot of the mountains”, an enchanted land that turned life into art, an appendix of the Polish organism, a paradise for great artists, “a terrible orangery in which they grow like monstrous plants, deteriorating from the inside”, a breeding ground for Polish psychopaths and “a general factory of a specific, purely Polish drug, zakopianina”. According to Witkacy, zakopianina induced a specific kind of psychosis, which had characteristic symptoms: navel-centricity, or omphalopsychism, i.e., morbid analysis of one’s own “metaphysical navels”, a pathological focus on one’s inner life (Dementia praecox zakopianiansis), composing life in the shape of art, an inclination for pseudo-contemplation and idle contemplation, exploiting the problems of collapse (mainly internal), inability to soberly assess the value of works of art (especially one’s own), delving into the metaphysics of billiards or chess, an experience of contradictory feelings (simultaneous hunger and saturation, especially in the spiritual sphere), the transformation of love into mutual oppression of two beings, which is also a mad mystery.
The legendary founding act of Zakopane is considered to be the settlement privilege from 1578 issued by Stefan Batory. In the second half of the 19th century, the settlement began to attract tourists. In a guide to the Tatra Mountains from 1870, you can read that it is a nicely situated village full of drunks, idlers and thieves, to which more and more guests (referred to by highlanders as cepers) are coming from Warsaw and Cracow, “lovers of beautiful nature or in need of fresh air”. However, the guests were daunted by the “lack of convenience and comfort”. Rafał Malczewski recalls that “sometimes beautiful houses, such as some highlander huts and craftsmen buildings, were virtually impossible to live in”. In addition, the village was poorly connected, there were no roads nor a railway line (it took two days to ride a cart from Cracow to Zakopane on bumpy roads), and all kinds of services were missing.
The settlement gained the status of a health resort (or a climate station) in 1886, thanks to Tytus Chałubiński – a famous doctor, and forefather of climate treatment. Chałubiński contributed both to the development and popularisation of Zakopane, because, as Malczewski recalls, “he could do as good publicity as the one of Coca-Cola advertising”. As a result, “lungers, aristocracy, rich bourgeoisie, poets, writers, musicians and painters” began to quickly appear nearby Giewont. In 1899, the railway line was completed, thanks to which Zakopane was connected with Chabówka, and at the same time with the entire railway network in Galicia. The Zakopane municipality grew and, in 1900, it was promoted to the status of a small town.
In the next edition of the guide to the Tatra Mountains from 1891, Zakopane is described in more detail and with a greater dose of affection: “With his generous hand, the Creator has equipped the area of Zakopane, which people have chosen for some time as their summer habitat, that it is enough to sit in front of the hut and look at the mysterious Tatra Mountains in the South to enjoy the wonderful mountain nature”. The author emphasised that most of the people who came to Zakopane were patients enjoying the health benefits of the surrounding nature.
The number of people visiting Zakopane began to increase steadily. Visitors needed not only descriptions of the beautiful nature of Podhale, but also practical and logistic advice. A guide from 1904 provides all this information: railway timetable, horse-drawn cart price list, list of guesthouses, hotels, health facilities, restaurants, shops, public institutions, attractions, industrial and service facilities of all kinds, including piano rentals.
However, Zakopane lacked infrastructure, mainly waterworks and sewer systems, but also electricity. The waterworks were completed at the beginning of the 20th century (1906–1908), in the 1920s there was electric lighting in the streets, and the sewer system was partially completed only in 1938. Despite such deficits in infrastructure, in the 1920s, Zakopane became one of the most popular resorts in the country, the “summer capital of Poland”, “the largest and most famous Polish health resort”. Visiting it and getting to know it was “a duty of every Pole who loved the beauty of their native land”. Crowded in the summer months, Zakopane also began to attract tourists in winter. Skiing and group tours gained popularity. The author of the 1912 guide predicted that “Zakopane will soon become a first-class winter sports destination”. These predictions came true in the 1920s when a ski jumping hill was opened on the slope of the Krokiew mountain (1925), and Zakopane was chosen to host the Nordic World Ski Championships (1929).
The dynamic development of the city was also worrying: “The image of Zakopane and its soul are changing: a swirl of intrigues, conflicting private interests, materialism and shady deals spoil the existing harmony. This is one feature of the modern city of Zakopane”. Once a peaceful and secluded village, the place turned into a city teeming with life. The number of inhabitants was constantly growing: in 1870, it was 2,500, in 1901, 4,452, in 1911, 7,928, in 1927, about 12,000, and in 1938, about 23,800 inhabitants. More and more tourists and patients came to the resort. In 1900, 7,518 people came to Zakopane. In 1903, 10,463 people visited the place, including almost 8,000 in the summer months. In 1910, over 12,000 tourists stayed there for more than 48 hours. In 1926, there were already 35,205 tourists, and in 1938 – about 60,000. According to Ilustrowany informator, in 1938, Zakopane was visited by 158,000 tourists, but the number seems exaggerated.
It is unknown when Bruno Schulz first visited Zakopane, but the fact is that he visited the city at the base of the Tatra Mountains often and regularly. At least six of Schulz’s visits to Zakopane are certain and well-documented. Others remain in the realm of conjecture, guesswork or legends. We can assume that he was fascinated by the artistic atmosphere of the city more than by nature. Besides, he could not walk in the mountains because of his fear of space, which could paralyse him.
Schulz’s first visit to Zakopane that we know about took place in August 1926. The testimony of this journey is the dedication on the portrait of Halina Drohocka (“For Miss Halinka / Bruno Schulz / Zakopane August 1926”) and her recollections, which she expressed in a letter to Jerzy Ficowski. During this time, Schulz probably also met Władysław Riff – his friend, a poet and prose writer, who was in Zakopane for treatment. The next summer, between July and August 1927, Schulz visited Riff again in Zakopane. At the time, they both met Adam Ważyk, who, years later, described the meeting in Życie Literackie.
In December of the same year, Władysław Riff died of tuberculosis. In Ważyk’s account, he and Schulz came to Zakopane in the spring of 1928 to say goodbye to their deceased friend and to take care of his manuscripts; unfortunately, all of them were burnt during disinfection carried out for sanitary and epidemiological reasons.
In the summer of the same year, Schulz probably visited Zakopane once again. Janusz Degler and Tomasz Pawlak speculate that it was then, in 1928, that a meeting with Witkiewicz and Debora Vogel might have taken place – as evidenced by Witkacy’s letter to Zofia Fedorowiczowa and a mysterious mention of “the Schulzes”, who could be Bruno and Deborah. However, this meeting might have happened just as well in 1929 or 1930.
Moreover, in 1928, Schulz probably drew the “Portrait of a Girl” (Toni Sachs-Mehl), the signature of which (“Bruno Schulz / Zakopane 1928”) is another proof that he visited Zakopane in 1928.
On the next summer vacation, on 19 or 20 July, 1929, Schulz returned to Zakopane. He brought his nineteen-year-old nephew, Zygmunt Hoffman, and his cousin, Juliusz Schloss. They all stayed at the Piast guesthouse.
Schulz’s next documented visit to Zakopane took place in the winter, in January 1934, when Bruno Schulz met Zofia Nałkowska and got to know Maria Kasprowiczowa. At that time, he probably also visited Rafał Malczewski, who recalls: “Zofia Nałkowska used to travel to Zakopane, always having an artist under her patronage, like Bruno Schulz and others; Zofia was blue-eyed and had a great artificial simplicity about her that reminded one of her prose”.
In 1935, during the summer season, Schulz came to Zakopane. In the villa “Na Antołówce” he met his friend Witkacy, as well as Roman Ingarden, Debora Vogel, Jerzy Eugeniusz Płomieński, Kazimierz Czachowski and Józef Wittlin. Thanks to Witkiewicz, he also met Maria Chasin. While in Zakopane, he corresponded with Zenon Waśniewski, whom he tried to persuade to come to Podhale. Schulz’s fiancée, Józefina Szelińska, stayed in Zakopane with him. They would walk in the park in Zakopane, visit friends, and sometimes also see Maria Kasprowiczowa in the famous villa “Harenda”. However, the joint trip almost ended with the engagement break-up due to growing misunderstandings around the planned move to Warsaw. Schulz was probably also disturbed by a bigger than usual crowd from the Festival of Mountains, which did not interest him personally.
There is an anecdote related to Schulz’s last documented trip to Zakopane. According to Jerzy Płomieński, it was at that time, i.e. in the summer of 1935 in Zakopane, that Witkacy invented a joke aimed at Schulz’s masochistic tendencies. He persuaded an actress to slap the author of The Street of Crocodiles, which was to give him inexpressible pleasure. The actress eventually refused to slap him, but the whole situation was reported to Schulz, probably amid general amusement. Schulz, however, “smiled faintly and had a slightly indistinct expression” and Witkacy patted him on the shoulder, saying: “Well, Bruno, a great treat passed you by”.
Schulz probably visited Zakopane also after 1935, but there are no sources which confirm this.
See also: Witkiewicz Stanisław Ignacy, August 1926, July – August 1927, December 25, 1927, July 19 – 20, 1929, April 15, 1933, before January 4, 1934 – January 15, 1934, January 4, 1934, January 15, 1934, January 25, 1934, February 15, 1934, February 28 – March 1, 1934, March 3, 1934, March 9, 1934, March 11, 1934, April 12, 1934, June 5, 1934, April 4, 1935, April 11, 1935, June 24, 1935, July 13, 1935, after July 13 1935, July 24, 1935, July 25, 1935, July 31, 1935, August 3, 1935, August 7, 1935, August 14, 1935, August 24, 1935, between January 13 and 22, 1938, April 23, 1938. (ts) (transl. mw)
