Double Anniversary of Kaziuki – Wilniuki: Because there is Vilnius in my heart

The Kaziuki marathon lasted three days in Warmia. The holiday revived 30 years ago by those who came to those lands and had never forgotten the abandoned land.

The memories left, however. Reviving in dreams and such events that let return to those – so far, yet still so close – years.

The memories you cannot rip out of the souls. The memories so heavy, yet so clear, as being daydreaming – these winding streets, sloped roofs that, unfortunately, had to be abandoned many years ago.  That is why you select, with such reverence, photos from the album – yellowed, barely visible, yet meaning so much. Those photographs – a kind of relics passed from generation to generation.

Such a great „photograph” evoking the memory is Kaziuki annual festival, born in Lidzbark thirty years ago and being continued to this day. 25 years ago the Vilnius team stood for this “photography” and despite the facts that other artistic teams have been joining it every year, it have been recalling memories every year, letting enjoying it and celebrating during the annual Kaziuki Fair which is in Warmia – a traditional Kaziuki-Wilniuki event.

It is all thanks to the organizers – the two women on both sides – Jolanta Adamczyk, the director of the Community Centre in Lidzbark, and Krystyna Adamowicz, the Vilnius team coordinator.

-I thought I could have refrained from tears this time – says, after the gala concert in Lidzbark the director of the Warmia Episcopal Castle in that city Wladyslaw Strutynski (the director of the Community Centre in Lidzbark for many years). –But it did not happen, because such pictures that were presented by the youth from “Switezianka” could not be forgotten.

For many years other cities have joined the Kaziuki-Wilniuki route: Ketrzyn, Olsztyn, Orneta, Bartoszyce.

And in none of them is any hall that would not be crowded, that the applause would fall silent, where many viewers would not carry a palm, or other product bought there, in their hands. Because it has been like that for many years, that the Vilnius artists team has been accompanied by folk artists who have not only sold their products, but also have found their families. Such a person is a sculptor Michal Jankowski, and a palmer Leokadia Szalkowska. And Danuta Wiszniewska says that she also has got her relatives – not with respect to blood, but rather to a friendly heartbeat.

But, of course, there would not be any Kaziuki without artists. This time on stage performed: “Switezianka” band, coming from the Vilnius school the name of Szymon Konarski (the first band at Kaziuki-Wilniuki 25 years ago), “Kapela Wilenska”, and “Perla Warmii”. The last was born almost six years ago under the guidance of Jolanta Adamczyk and it has presented itself beautifully even far       from the Polish borders.

When having that band announced, Aunt Franukowa (Anna Adamowicz) pointed out facetiously that is was the “child” of Wincuk (Dominik Kuziniewicz), who has been at Kaziuki from the very beginning (and even before it as he was there as the artist from the Polish Theatre in Vilnius), and the hostess of this holiday – Jolanta Adamczyk, who has been just like a real “mother”, watching her “child” and developing it successfully. She has been able to unify the enthusiasts so much that, for the rehearsals,  they could bring their small children. The evidence for that was a pretty Zosia, listening to Kashubian melodies (performed in a dance so professionally by her parents Ewelina and Piotr Bartonski) peacefully in her basket-cradle.

Do we have to wonder that the love for those being folk, owned by, and close to us has been with a person for their whole life.

It is impossible to describe everything that happened during those three days in Warmia and Mazury, where the Kaziuki team went. How many touching, additional moments were there, the moments that matched that event perfectly.

These may include: the distinction of Krystyna Adamowicz, Anna Adamowicz, Dominika Kuzniewicz and the undersigned with the jubilee medals “Knowledge and Belief” the Association of the Admirers of Vilnius and the Vilnius Land – made by the chairman of the AoAoVatVL Zygfryd Gladkowski.

Giving the speech on the opening of the celebration, the president of the City Olsztyn Piotr Grzymowicz said i.a. : “I know that on this favourite event in Olsztyn there are going to be special emotions, the joy of the spirit, because it is all about the people from Olsztyn, those people that had to survive repatriation, those who ended up here, but did not forget the melodious Vilnius tongue that can be heard here to this day.”

„We have known each other for the quarter of the century, although we had met in fact much earlier than at Kaziuki-Wilniuki – said Krystyna Adamowicz. – Since even in 1980s the activists of Association of the Admirers of Vilnius and the Vilnius Land: the professors Zbigniew Jablonowski, Antoni Drozdowski, Henryk Dawnis, Jerzy Dudo had been coming to us.

More than twenty years ago we started bringing to you, my fellows, everything we have the best, everything with which we can warm your longing hearts, as you had to leave your motherland. We stayed there and we are happy that we could reborn what has been Polish – the Polish song and dance.”

But still, before anything there was faith. Thus it is also a beautiful tradition that the Kaziuki gala in Lidzbark starts with the Mass in the church of St. Peter and Paul. So it was this time.

The parson of this church Roman Chudzik, when welcoming the Kaziuki team, said: “Today we pray for the Wilniuki people present here, for those who left there, for everyone forced to have leave their land, entrusting their needs to God”.

The tradition of Kaziuki-Wilniuki is an exhibition in the Castle of the Warmian Bishops.

This time, the president of the Vilnius “Elipsa” Association Wladyslaw Lawrynowicz, and the member of the above-mentioned association Stanislaw Kaplewski, had the opportunity to present their paintings.

And of course, as usual, the most significant part took place in the Community Centre in Lidzbark which could not have accommodated all the interested.

Many guests have arrived for the jubilee celebration: the marshal of Warmia and Mazury Voivodship Jacek Protas, the chief specialist of the Protection of Intangible Cultural Goods in the Office of the Marshal of Warmia and Mazury Voivodship Waldemar Majcher, the Lidzbark District governor, the mayor of Lidzbark Artur Wajs,  the village head of the Lidzbark-Warmia Community Artur Jankowski.

The Polish Supporters of Pilsudski Association was represented by Jozef Zysk.

When handing the medal over to Krystyna Adamowicz, he said: “Handing such an honorable medal over to the coordinator of this celebration on the Vilnius side, to Mrs Krystyna Adamowicz, is a way we give the greatest respect to all that have been upholding the memory and taking care of all those who had fought for Polish affairs over the centuries.”

This is such a celebration on which there are happy and colourful things, as it used to be on Kaziuki, but there are also many incredible experiences, emotions from the meeting of more and more, from the memories of those childhood years.

But Kaziuk would not be Kaziuk if it were not for the lively and cheerful melodies, or the small talks    of Aunt Franukowa (Anna Adamowicz) and Wincuk (Dominik Kuziniewicz) – of this wonderful couple of storytellers able to improvise in the blink of an eye.

A violin maestro Zbigniew Lewicki is also a great improviser-storyteller. He can beautify each performance of “Kapela Wilenska” , which is still brilliant itself (and the evidence for that is       the fact that it had won the first place at the National Backyard Bands Review in Piotrkow Trybunalski).

„Perla Warmii” had chosen its name not for nothing as it can masterfully perform the Polish national dances, dances of Warmia and suites of various Polish regions, such as: Spisz, Kurpie, Kashubian, Bilgoraj,

This time it  performed very well the complex Spisz and Kashubian suites compositions as wellm as the beautiful mazurek that unified our cities once again. Because after all, Stanislaw Moniuszko wrote the song for “The Haunted Manor” in Vilnius.

A spectacle presented by „Switezianka” was of quite a different character than this. Both the founder and the director of it was Beata Kowalewska. On stages of Ketrzyn, Olsztyn, Orneta, Lidzbark, Bartoszyce, and anywhere else visited by the Vilnius team, the viewers had the opportunity to see some part of the Vilnius region with its rich, although sad, history.

Joyful Vilnius “For Kaziuk” in the interwar period. This how varicoloured and peaceful world is destroyed by the turmoil of the war, and consequently leads to the desolating of our land. As from an old photography those who were expelled from their motherland will look at us.

-That lasting more than an hour show was a great history lesson – said Barbara Jagodowska, a retired Polish teacher, having lived in Lidzbark since 1946.

-The history lessons can be different. They can not necessarily be done in the classroom, completing with sitting and reading a textbook. On the contrary. Those memories read from the old photographs, songs, people’s fates  arranged like a mosaic have proved much more effective – not only our mind, but also our heart forces to work.

Those would be the words of more than one viewer, moved, leaving the hall in which the Kaziuk spectacles had been performed. And for all of this we should give a loud applause to the artistic manager Teresa Andruszkiewicz, the choreographer Jurgicie Jurgaitienė, the director and stage designer Beata Kowalewska and, of course, the young actors.

At the end of this moving spectacle, to the accompaniment of the guitar, Urszula Chomiakowa sings    a touching song “There is such land”. This “Place when the roads cross/ Where the East meets the West”…

There is such place where the Vilnius region meets Warmia and Mazury every year.

This place, for us, is Lidzbark – the initiator and follower of this wonderful phenomenon.

When thanking for the 30^th anniversary of Kaziuk Jolanta Adamczyk said:

-These 30 years is not only the party. It’s the people that have been creating it. Those first Wilniuki people are not present here today. But their children, grandchildren, that have been giving their love to other generations so successfully. Remembering their fathers and grandfathers is why we make such events. Because, as said John Paul II: “A man is great not by what he is, not by what he has, but by what he shares with others.”

For the 25^th time the Wilniuki people shared with what they had, what they have, and with what they have lived today, what they, with such shyness, planted to germinate, what they have been so carefully looked after and what has been enjoying them today. They shared with their compatriots, people that still had their hearts open, who 30 years ago, from a huge nostalgia for the land they had abandoned, made this holiday reborn. The holiday that, thanks to people such as the hostess of the whole project – Jolanta Adamczyk, and for us, all the Wilniuki people, our dear Jola – still lives. It develops and will live without fail.

Source: http://kurierwilenski.lt/2014/03/14/podwojny-jubileusz-kaziukow-wilniukow-bo-wilno-w-mym-sercu-jest/

Tłumaczenie by Roksana Kasperek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Roksana Kasperek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.