Left: An aerial view of Mazowsze taken last week, less than ten minutes after take off from Warsaw Okęcie airport. Click to enlarge, then note:How flat the landscape is
How narrow the fields are
How villages are strung out along roads, lacking focal points (village green, church, pub etc.)
This is what makes Poland the country it is. Ideal for mobile warfare, from the Mongol hordes to Hitler's panzers. Lack of primogeniture ensured that feudal landowners subdivided their holdings ad infinitum among all their sons, their sons to all their sons, and so on, until we end up with this patchwork of ribbons. Note also that Stalin failed to collectivise Poland's peasant smallholders and merge their lands into rationally-shaped state farms.
Gaze long and hard upon this photo and see in it the very essence of Polishness. This landscape is near Żelazowa Wola, birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin, his childhood inspiration.
I've done some aerial photointerpretation here, locating the photo and added place-names. We're a few kilometers to the east of Łowicz, a better-known centre of Polish folk tradition. Very much Mazovian heartlands (even though today in Łódzkie province).
This time last year:
Goodness! It was raining!
Ul. Nawłocka at night, night buses
are you sure this is the essence of Polishness?
ReplyDeleteps. I watched you today on tvn24 - you were v good;)
To me, Poland's essence is still rural rather than urban; I'd guess that a third of Warsaw's population has rural roots. Where would you locate Poland's essence? What's the most quintessential Polish place you can think of? (Zero originality marks for 'Wawel' or 'Starówka')
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thumbs-up on my TV appearance, Pawel!
Wonderful photo - it could be translated into a shimmering Klimt-like mosaic oil/acrylic painting. It's quite inspirational. I may well attempt it.
ReplyDeleteFrater Aesthetica III
When were you on tvn24? Can I watch you online?! I need to work on my Polish listening comprehension...
ReplyDeleteYou prompted me to look for it; lo and behold here's the first bit of my piece to camera:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tvn24.pl/12692,1552111,wiadomosc.html
(click on the second TV window).
My daughter Moni pointed out correctly a mass of grammatical errors (such as 'ten euro' rather than 'to euro'), and that I wasn't smiling, but then 65,000 people about to lose their job is not a smiling matter.
Great photo and interpretation, I've always wondered about those narrow fields.
ReplyDelete