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EN
The second half of the 19th and the early 20th century were marked by extremely significant changes in mountaineering, tourism and literature, changes which can be described metaphorically as the vanguard of 20th-century modernity. Of great importance to the development of both mountaineering and mountain tourism was the creation of associations bringing together tourists and mountaineers, mountain lovers. The associations focused mainly on promoting mountain tourism, making the mountains more accessible (building paths, trails, hostels) and trying to protect the mountains against the effects of human impact and other civilisational processes — economic, social and technological. The increasingly evident division into mountaineering (exploring the mountains by climbing them) and tourism, and the spread of this tourism in all mountain ranges in Europe made mountaineering aspecialised form of communing with the mountains, requiring special qualifications and equipment. At the same mountain tourism became amulti-layered phe­nomenon, as it encompassed, in addition to the “classic” tourism “with backpacks”, resort tourism involving walks, atype of tourism playing an important role in socialising and styles of behaviour, completely different from the models characteristic of tourism in the first half of the 19th century. This led to the emergence of characteristic styles of this tourism, which was becoming an important element of bourgeois popular culture, aprocess that immediately resonated in literature. In the second half of the 19th and the first decade of the 20th century the substantial growth in the number of tourists arriving in mountain villages led to their rapid civilisational and economic development. However, the concept of building mountain railways that were to bring people closer to the most precious asset of the mountains — their intact primeval nature — was asimple extension of the sedentary lifestyle. The development of mountaineering consisted in traversing increasingly difficult routes. This involved not just the ordinary climbing of peaks, but traversing mountain walls. In 1880 and 1881, Albert Frederick Mummery, climbing Grands Charmoz (3,455 m) and Grépon (3,482 m), became the first man to traverse extremely difficult routes (Grade 5 in the Welzenbach scale). In 1884 Walter Parry Haskett Smith decided to traverse agrade 3 (difficult) route on his own and two years later he climbed the twenty-metre Lapes Needle in the Lake District, England, which gave rise to competitive climbing, adiscipline distinct from mountaineering. Mountaineers also produced literary works (Eugčne Rambert). The so-called “Alpine literature” (“la littérature alpestre”) encompassed, as its unique variety, par excellence Alpine literature providing an image of the mountains from the point of view of mountaineering and way of approaching mountaineering. Its leading exponents were Edward Whymper and Leslie Stephen; Albert Frederic Mummery (1855–1895) won considerable renown as the author of My climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1895) as did Henry Russel-Killough (1834–1909) regarded as excellent writer and aman who made a great contribution to the exploration of the Pyrenees (Souvenirs d’un Montagnard, 1908). On the other hand, the ideological motivation of Polish mountaineering echoed with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Henri Bergson, introducing the subject of mountain climbing into highbrow literature.
EN
The aim of the paper was to investigate health aspects of high altitude trekking such as preparation for the physical exertion during trekking at high altitude, the impact of mountaineering on the daily life before and after the expedition, the effect of high-mountain conditions on health and well-being. It was found that in the pre-departure period trekkers commonly train to ensure that they are physically fit for the expedition. They train alone or under the supervision of a trainer. Self-prepared workouts may turn out to be insufficient due to the lack of appropriate training plans. The most challenging aspects of high altitude trekking for the body include carrying too heavy equipment, dealing with illegibly marked routes, wearing inappropriate clothing, having an unbalanced diet, not having enough water, which can lead to dehydration and infections. Misconduct by other people poses a risk. The specific type of effort involved in mountaineering requires balanced nutrition in terms of both micro- and macro-elements. To find the right combination, one has to either experiment or seek advice from a dietitian. However, relatively few people consult a nutrition coach. Among sanitary problems, the most serious one is inappropriate human waste disposal, the resulting lack of drinkable water. Some of the observed problems result from insufficient regulations regarding the conduct in the mountains and from trekkers’ lack of awareness regarding good practices in such extreme conditions.
EN
The article offers a reading of Jacek Hugo-Bader’s controversial reportage Długi film o miłości. Powrót na Broad Peak (2014), which is frequently viewed as a story about the tragedy in Karakorum. The author of the article emphasizes that this piece may be also read in a more universal way as a reflection about non-fulfilment. She analyses the literary representations of multidimensional spatial experiences in the highest mountains such as sensual responses to extreme altitude and temperature, the life-and-death threshold experience as well as the spiritual relationship with the mountains. She also remarks other literary aspects of Hugo-Bader’s work, for instance the extreme “embodiment” reportage of Gonzo style.
EN
The geographical location within the Kashubian region is of particular significance for the symbolic role of mountains and hills in the regional identity building. The most important of them, described in the literature and journalistic writings, are to be found in the current Kashubian lan­guage area, mostly in its geographical centre, primarily in Kashubian Switzerland and Kashubian Lake District. The exception is Rowokół, which is not located centrally. This mountain symbolically marks the border of the area in which the Kashubian language is used and which was settled by the Kashubians in the modern period. It even symbolises a retreat of the language as well as the decline of the Slovincian language. However, it is this particular mountain which since the 19th century has been associated with relatively new content mixed with older religious and folk tradition. The mountains and hills appearing in the Kashubian literature in 1880–1930 probably never existed only for themselves and in themselves. They were always part of a broader picture of Kashubia. The contribution offers a typology of four groups of symbolic relevant hills and mountains, accordingly to their function in the Kashubian discourse and tradition: 1. abstract imagination of a “hilly landscape” as typical for the Kashubian country; 2. groups of hills with similar names and connected to similar folklore or literary traditions; 3. unique mountains with special significance for the all-Kashubian discourse; 4. hills as Kashubian places of pilgrimage.
EN
In his lecture “Beauty in nature from the point of view of spiritual and bodily hygiene”, delivered in 1896 at the Tytus Chałubiński Museum, Henryk Nusbaum described the vividness of the mountain landscape as the object of aesthetic experience, which had apositive impact on the physiological processes of the human body. Emotions stemming from asense of beauty reduce suffering and pain, bring comfort and relief in everyday worries, strengthen the body and make it more resistant to the causes of disease. Nusbaum calls this beauty of nature, alleviating the negative impact of sorrow and suffering, ahygienic factor, which is sometimes of therapeutic nature. In addition, the experience of the beauty of the mountain landscape is something more than just an aesthetic sensation — it is apremise of contemplation, which elevates human beings morally and prompts them to fight for the ideals of love, wisdom and justice.
EN
Tourist ascents of mountain peaks before sunrise are increasingly popular. Babia Góra (Western Carpathians) is a peak on the Polish-Slovak border frequently visited by a great number of tourists at sunrise. The main objective of our research, based on the case study of Babia Gora, was to answer a more general question whether the sunrise can be considered a tourist attraction. The research included the observation and description of every sunrise at summer holiday weekends during 2012 from the peak of Babia Góra as well as the collection of data on the number of tourists and weather conditions. Survey interviews, using questionnaire, with randomly selected hikers present on the peak of Babia Góra at sunrise (269) were conducted. The investigation showed that during summer holiday sunrises there were a maximum of 130 people on the summit of Babia Góra at the same time. Most of the surveyed people (84%) agreed that the opportunity to observe the sunrise was one of the pull factors for them. This confirms the hypothesis that sunrise constitutes a tourist attraction.
EN
The East, its culture and literature were always part of the rich, erudite poetic imagination of Tadeusz Łada-Zabłocki (1811–1847), a tsarist exile to the Caucasus. He spoke Oriental languages (Georgian and Persian) and had a thorough knowledge of the Koran, a short fragment of which he even translated (probably from French). Although today we only have his poetry inspired by the Caucasian mountains, he was also no stranger to extensive travel accounts (unfortunately, his Dziennik podróży mojej do Tyflisu i z Tyflisu po różnych krajach za Kaukazem (Journal From My Journey To and From Tiflis Across Various Countries Beyond the Caucasus) and notes from his Armenian expedition were lost). An important source of inspiration for Zabłocki, encouraging him to explore the East, were the Philomaths’ translations of Oriental poetry by Jan Wiernikowski and Aleksander Chodźko, while his model of reception of the Orient were the oeuvres of Mickiewicz (primarily his Crimean and Odessa Sonnets), Byron and Thomas Moore (especially the fragment of Lalla Rookh — Paradise and the Peri). The exile brutally brought Zabłocki into contact with the real Orient, terribly dangerous and diametrically different from the one described by Western travellers. It is, therefore, not surprising, that their superficial and simplified accounts were criticised by the Polish poet and soldier. Zabłocki’s oeuvre, both pre-exile and Caucasus period works, is full of various Oriental reminiscences: from the Biblical topos of the Paradise ab Oriente, through numerous splendid images of Caucasian nature, scenes from the life of Caucasian highlanders, poetic imitation of the metre of Caucasian folk dances, apt ethnographic observations in the verses, borrowings from Oriental languages, extraordinarily sensual eastern erotic poems, to translations of texts of Caucasian cultures (Tatar, Azeri and Georgian songs). Zabłocki drew on both folk culture of Caucasian tribes, and on Eastern mythologies as well as universal culture of the Islamic world. He presents an ambivalent image of Caucasian highlanders in his poetry: sometimes they acquire traits of noble, free, valiant and indomitable individuals, typical of the Romantic idea of highlanders, on other occasions the label “Son of the East” becomes a synonym of Asian barbarity. Freed from the service in the tsarist army, Zabłocki planned travels across nearby Persia, Asia Minor, and even Arabia, Nubia and Palestine. However, the plans never became a reality, owing to a lack of funds and the poet’s early death of cholera. Zabłocki’s “Eastern” oeuvre fully reveals the “liminal”, demarcational nature of the Caucasian mountains, for centuries constituting the limes between Europe and Asia, the East and the West, a meeting place of the Christian and the Muslim Orients.
EN
Mountains are stable and evident phenomenon, especially in contrast with large lowland, as in case of Poland. They determine separateness of the greatest West Slavonic nation from its southern neighbours. On the other hand, in the past Carpathians and Sudeten were a scarcely populated area, entered by the German (from the west) and Walachian (from the south-east) migrants, with important cultural and political consequences. The effect was the diversification of ethnical landscape, with consequences for the process of shaping of modern nations, especially in the case of Slovak nation, which absorbed the great part of eastern, shepherd imigration. For Czechs and Hungarians mountains were protection from German or Slavic environment. Slavic nations after the second World War were situated, as an effect of ethnical cleansing, in national states with large “Wild Camps” in depopulated German or Ukrainian highlands. In this situation especially valuable is the old community of Polish highlanders, perceived abroad as stereotyped Poles with great love for homeland and liberty.
EN
When describing the Glacier du Bois seen for the first time, Wiliam Windham (1741) compared it to a lake suddenly bound by ice. In a similar function Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1786) compared the glacier to a suddenly frozen sea. These descriptions gave rise to the name Mer de Glace, popularised from the early 19th century. In some respects an analogous phenomenon in poetry was the use of a metaphor in which a sudden arrest of an ascending motion of a being (flood waters, space rocket) constitutes a poetic image (Adam Mickiewicz, Julian Korsak, Wincenty Pol, Wisława Szymborska).
EN
Most of the inhabitiants of Krkonoše made their living by agriculture, brought by the colonists from the Alps in the second half of the 16th century. A demanding climate and low fertility of the soils did not make possible a cultivation of many products in higher altitudes. The local inhabitants were dependent on animal husbandry, and the animals fed mostly on hay. This commodity was of crucial importance for the inhibitants of Krkonoše and influenced, among others, their economic activities, the way of management of grasslands, and also the landscape.
EN
After the end of the First World War and rebirth of the Polish state, one of the most important objectives in visions of social education was the formation of a lasting system of moral concepts of Poles, a system that was the basis of constructing a “new” citizen. Inspirations for actions undertook by Polish teachers and tutors, which were to bring about a strengthening of values like patriotism, freedom, friendship, tolerance, respect for work, were ideas promoted by national and international organisations, e.g. League of Nations, International League of New Education, Society of Teachers from Schools and Higher Education Institutions, Polish Teachers’ Union or youth organisations of e.g. scouts. Methods of upbringing described in Polish pedagogical literature and applied in practice, which were appreciated by European scholars, included various forms of working with students outside school. These included excursions, trips, hiking camps, also in the mountains. The value of being in the mountains, the effort involved in climbing them, the need to educate a generation of young tourists respecting the natural environment were discussed in guides for tutors, teachers, regional studies specialists, and in the tourist press. The author examines selected publications, primarily tourist press addressed to young readers (Orli Lot, Młody Krajoznawca Śląski, Młody Taternik) in order to reconstruct the means used to functionalise the topic of mountain hikes in the interwar period.
EN
The aim of the article is to present views, published in selected periodicals of the inter-war period, on the exploration of the mountains and, above all, the experiences associated with it. The author uses as her examples articles published in specialist periodicals like Pamiętnik Towarzystwa Tatrzańskiego, Przegląd Turystyczny, Taternik, Wierchy — published by the Polish Tatra Society — and in periodicals dedicated to broadly defined tourism and sightseeing, i.e. Turysta w Polsce — periodical of the Polish Tatra Society, Polish Skiing Society and Polish Kayaking Society; Ziemia — monthly of the Polish Sightseeing Society. She points to the polemic concerning classical Alpine mountaineering and competitive mountaineering as well as elements of transgression present in both kinds of high mountain exploration. She also discusses how the model of mass mountain tourism emerging in the inter-war period was described.
EN
The literature of the Czech national revival produced a unique type of cestopis (travel account), which, from a Polish point of view, could be regarded as an equivalent of accounts of Polish Romantic travels of fellow countrymen across their country. In the Czech literature we can distinguish a clear thematic group associated with the Karkonosze mountains. It includes M.S. Patrčky’s O Krkonošských horách (1823), Josef Myslimír Ludvík’s Myslimír, po horách krkonošských putující (1824), Karel Slavoj Amerling’s Cesta na Sněžku (1832), Karel Hynek Mácha’s Pouť Krkonošská (1833–34), František Tomsa Přátelské dopisy z cesty na Sněžku (1845), Josef Frič’s Cesta přes Friedland na Krkonoše (1846), and Karel Hanuš’s Cesta na Sněžku (1847). These works testify to an expansion of themes tackled by literature during the so-called national revival. Characteristic forms of the period conformed to the Classical, pre-Romantic and Romantic conventions. One of the most interesting themes tackled by literature in those days were the mountains. In line with the spirit of national revival, the Czech cult of the domestic was expressed in the linking of the homeland and its landscape with important aspects of Czech national identity. This convention of referring, as means of self-identification, to spatial symbolism and its vocabulary was visible in the Czech and Slovak culture in several aspects. The vocabulary of Czech national symbols now included the Karkonosze mountains, Šumava or the Bohemian Forest, the Tatras and the Blanik hill. František Palacký referred to landscape-linked symbolism in his ode Na horu Radhošť, added to his youthful work, written together with Pavel Josef Šafařík, Počátkové českého básnictví obzvláště prosodie (1818). The poem formally served as an example illustrating theoretical analyses of poetry included in the study in question. Using the fact that Radhošť was a mountain in Moravia, Palacký included the mountain as a motif in a rather unique founding myth associated with the local Moravian patriotism. Thus mountains became a representative motif of the literature of the Czech national revival. When it comes to Czech poetry, mountain motifs were introduced into it on a broader scale for the first time by Milota Zdirad Polák (Matěj Polák, 1788–1856) in his descriptive poem Vznešenost přírody (1819). Polák’s novelty lay in his introduction into Czech literature of a new genre, descriptive poem, as well as linguistic experiments (neologisms) thanks to which he developed his own poetic language. Using the category of the sublime as a tool to interpret the natural phenomena he described, Polák sought to demonstrate the richness of the forms of the world, their complexity and diversity. That is why the catalogue of motifs he used is vast. It accorded an appropriate place to the mountains with a brave attempt to concretise their motif: fragments of the poem deal with the Alps, a description of the Karkonosze mountains is highlighted and there is also a motif of volcanic eruption. Undoubtedly the most interesting and artistically the most valuable is an extensive fragment of the poem devoted to the Karkonosze mountains. The fear of the horror of high mountains, the Alps, described in the poem, found its equivalent in the writings of Jan Kollár (1793–1852), who presented his emotions associated with his stay in the Alps in an account of an 1841 journey to Italy (Cestopis obsahující cestu do Horní Italie a odtud přes Tyrolsko a Bavorsko, se zvláštním ohledem na slavjanské živly roku 1841 konanou, Budin 1843). Both writers, Polák and Kollár, were hugely impressed by the mountains, but this did not lead to any Romantic reflection on their part.
EN
The history of Polish tourism in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains as well as the literary and artistic reception of the landscape and culture of Saxon Switzerland have never been discussed in detail. The present article is a research reconnaissance. The beginnings and development of tourism in the region came in the late 18th and early 19th century. The 1800s were marked by the emergence of the first German-language descriptions of Saxon Switzerland, which served as guidebooks at the time. From the very beginning Poles, too, participated in the tourist movement in the area. The author of the article seeks to follow the increasing interest in Saxon Switzerland and the appearance of the first descriptions of the region in Polish literature and culture. She provides a detailed analysis of Polish-language accounts of micro-trips to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains by Andrzej Edward Koźmian, Stanisław Deszert, Antoni Edward Odyniec, Klementyna Hoffman née Tańska and a poem by Maciej Bogusz Stęczyński. As the analysis demonstrates, in the first half of the 19th century Poles liked to visit these relatively low mountains in Central Europe and tourism in the region is clearly part of the history of Polish mountain tourism. Thanks to unique aesthetic and natural values of the mountains, full of varied rocky formations, reception of their landscape had an impact of the development of the aesthetic sensibility of Polish Romantics. Direct contact with nature and the landscape of Saxon Switzerland also served an important role in the shaping of spatial imagination of Polish tourists, encouraging them to explore other mountains in Europe and the world, including the Alps. On the other hand thanks to the development of tourist infrastructure in Saxon Switzerland, facilitating trips in the region and making the most attractive spots available to inexperienced tourists, micro-trips to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains marked an important stage in the development of mountain tourism on a popular-recreational level. Polish-language accounts of trips to Saxon Switzerland from the first half of the 20th century are a noteworthy manifestation of the beginnings of Polish travel literature.
EN
The article attempts to shed light upon the evolution of Gary Snyder’s “mountains-and-rivers” philosophy of living/writing (from the Buddhist anarchism of the 1960s to his peace-promoting practice of the Wild), and focuses on the link between the ethics of civil disobedience, deep ecology, and deep “mind-ecology.” Jason M. Wirth’s seminal study titled Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis provides an interesting point of reference. The author places emphasis on Snyder’s philosophical fascination with Taoism as well as Ch’an and Zen Buddhism, and tries to show how these philosophical traditions inform his theory and practice of the Wild.
EN
The article indicates how the mountainous space is articulated in Cosmos in its “logical-underground” manner. The gradual occurrence of random improbabilities permeates the novel. In addition, the book reveals marked differences in how tangible matter is represented in its first part (the guest house events) and in its description of the Tatras. Eventually, the journey of the living protagonists ends under the mass of inanimate matter, thus obliterating the cohesion of human and animal world, and even of corporeality as such. This is how the human polarity – the improbable – demonstrates itself and how it multiplies indefinitely.
EN
Mountaineering in the Tatras, dominated as it was in the inter-war period by Polish climbers, was elitist, which stemmed from the climbers’ relatively high social standing and the dominant role played by the climbers within the “people of the mountains” circle. The Tatra mountaineers made the biggest contribution to the development of Polish mountaineering, of writing about mountains and popularisation of the Tatras. The most colourful period of inter-war mountaineering were the years 1928 to 1933. It was the height of the activity of the most distinguished climbers of the day. The group included Wincenty Birkenmajer, son of Ludwik Antoni Birkenmajer, a Jagiellonian University professor, and Zofia Birkenmajer née Karlińska. Wincenty Birkenmajer worked in secondary schools in the Wielkopolska region, teaching Polish and introduction to philosophy. He became interested in mountaineering in the Tatras relatively late in life, but quickly became one of the leading Tatra climbers, writers and ideologists. In the Tatras he was the first to set about fifty climbing routes, about forty of which he set in the 1930 summer season. His most important achievements include a new route via the western side of Łomnica, a new route via the eastern side of Gerlach, the first traverse of the north-eastern pillar of Ganek, the first traverse of the eastern side of Rohatá veža and a new route via the southern side of Kežmarský štít. Birkenmajer also participated in the first expeditions of the Tourism Section of the Polish Tatra Society (ST PTT) to the Alps, in 1931 and 1932, where he contributed to the greatest successes of Poles in high mountains at the time. For example, he made the third traverse of the 900-metre southern side of La Meije and the first traverse of the south-western ridge of Aiguille du Moine. Wincenty Birkenmajer died of exhaustion on the terrace of Gáleria Ganku on 17 April 1933 when attempting the first winter traverse of the north-eastern pillar of Ganek. He was buried in Zakopane.
EN
“To be everywhere” and “see everything” is a declaration by Father Euzebiusz Franciszek Stateczny, a well-known Silesian writer from the turn of the 20th century, and an extraordinary monk and tenacious traveller, who in a true positivist fashion valued the truth about the world based on one’s own experience. By outlining a comprehensive need to get to know the world, Stateczny acted as a cosmographer, which prompted the author of the article to try to establish whether this declaration also applied to other travellers from the region and how this completeness was supposed to be expressed. The author’s overview of Silesian accounts of trips to the mountains (by Karol Miarka, Rev Antoni Stabik, Fr Henryk Aulich, Rev Michał Przywara and Józef Gallus) confirms that those Silesian travellers barely felt the spirituality of these spaces, because they did not become harmonised with them in their experiences. As clergymen, they headed mostly to pilgrimage centres, with the mountains providing only an obstacle to be overcome on their way there. That is why deep in their hearts they were not ready to experience the beauty of the mountains, nor did they open themselves up to contemplation of mountain landscapes on account of external circumstances (the physical effort of travel was in conflict with the old and exhausted bodies). They were “everywhere”, intending to see “everything” that attracted them, or wherever their pastoral duties took them, but their travelling, though dominated by learning, was dissociated from nature’s clichés. That is why the Silesians’ mountain trips were characterised by “spiritual blindness” to the value of mountain sights. The travellers were not shocked by the rocky landscapes, because they did not experience the pleasure of walking in the mountains, which is why they lacked an aestheticising stimulus. More importantly, by remaining close to the everyday problems of the region and supporting their compatriots in their everyday struggles, the priests were not poets in their lives. That is why their accounts were dominated by somatic descriptions, physiological responses and psychological reactions, reduced mainly to illustrating fear and physical clumsiness. However, this “spiritual blindness” to the beauty of nature was not an inherent characteristic of Silesian travel writers, for they reacted completely differently to sea landscapes seen from the board of ships carrying them to distant corners of the world. When they did not feel the hardship of travel, they were able to find the force and charm of nature in the rich contents of these spaces.
EN
In various legends and literary works the mountains often served as a place where time travel was possible, as they provided security for protagonists falling into deep sleep for years. It is no coincidence that legends of sleeping knights often place them in the mountains. In 1826 a rumour spread that Roger Dodsworth, who had been buried in an avalanche over 100 years earlier, came to life. The news was circulated by the press across Europe and attracted the interest of Mary Shelley, who devoted a short story to it. The present article is an analysis of press stories concerning the famous hibernatus and the story by the English writer, who saw the popular rumours as a background for reflections on a man from a different period transferred into the future, as well as an attempt to define the role of the mountains in the writings on Dodsworth.
EN
In the history of culture and religion the mountains, owing to their verticality that makes them stand out in landscape, their massiveness and imperturbability, generated, from time immemorial, a lot of interest associated with their origin; they played an important role in beliefs, mythology, cult and symbolism. On their summit, sometimes also inside them, were located dwellings of supranatural creatures of varied provenance, character, activity and attitude to people. The mountains were also hierophantic, objects of pilgrimages and experiencing the sacred. In addition, they constituted a boundary between the ecumene and anecumene as well as the place where the spirit world was to be found. Sometimes the mountains were also regarded as a home of evil creatures and forces.
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