Kraków is one of the oldest cities in Poland and the former capital of the Kingdom of Poland. Two facts alone suggest that we should have many preserved artefacts from its rich, centuries-old history. There are at least a dozen of them in the ‘Arms and Armour’ exhibition, but it is worth paying attention to some of them, suggested in this tour.
The Sword of Justice, with its characteristic star-shaped pommel at the top of the hilt, has many meanings and symbolisms. But it is also linked to a legend that relates it to one of the greatest scandals of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century.
When this sword first appeared in literature in the mid-19th century, it was described as belonging to the ‘Kraków Executioners’. According to legend, it was the tool used to behead Samuel Zborowski, the Cossack hetman.
Samuel Zborowski made headlines in 1574 when he killed another nobleman during a scuffle at the coronation of Henry Valois. While a man of lesser birth would have faced the death penalty, Zborowski was only sentenced to banishment, which he spent at the court of Stephen Bathory. When Bathory found himself on the Polish throne, Zborowski returned to the kingdom and, notwithstanding the fact that he had already avoided the ultimate punishment, began to conspire against the king with the Habsburg family and to carry out activities that sabotaged Batory’s foreign policy. Captured in 1584 on the orders of Chancellor Jan Zamoyski, he was beheaded in the courtyard of Wawel Castle. According to witnesses, the executioner who was to carry out the sentence hesitated at the last moment and fled from the place of execution, leaving his sword behind, and the sentence was carried out – in a way that subjected the condemned to unnecessary suffering – by one of the people who assisted in this bloody event.
Will there ever be sources, other than the legend associated with the exhibit, to prove that it is an authentic souvenir of this event?
Large, two-handed swords were characteristic of the Swiss and German Landsknechts of the 16th century. The two in the exhibition, however, have a Kraków history. The first, with a visible smith mark on the blade, was made outside the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but was a gift from Polish King John Casimir to the Kraków butchers’ guild. It was a symbolic gratitude for defending the city against Swedish troops in September 1655, although the city was eventually surrendered.
The second sword is even more ‘Cracovian’. It is a copy of the first sword, but it was made at the end of the 18th century by the Kraków Swordsmith Guild.
Both swords, decorated with flowers and wreaths, have been carried by guild elders in the annual Kraków Corpus Christi processions since at least the end of the 18th century.
The book and mace accompanying the swords are also associated with the Kraków butchers’ guild. The book, which has a drawing of swords on one of its pages, refers to a special event – the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald.
The ‘Arms and Armour’ exhibition repeatedly draws attention to the role of historical figures and events in the lives of our ancestors and their commemoration through decorative weapons. Although the exhibition focuses mainly on the Battle of Vienna in 1683, it is impossible to ignore the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410, one of the largest battles in medieval Europe, which ended with the defeat of the troops of the Teutonic Order and its coalition partners and the victory of the Polish-Lithuanian forces led by King Jogaila (Władysław II Jagiełło) and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Vytautas the Great.
Kraków, which had been under Austrian rule since 1795, had enjoyed considerable freedom since the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to cultivate the Polish language and traditions. This made it possible, among other things, to establish the first national institution dedicated to the past – the National Museum in Kraków. In 1910, taking advantage of these freedoms, the city organised a magnificent centenary celebration.
The present book is a modest but historically valuable souvenir of this event, documenting, among other things, the names of the members of the butchers’ guild and events connected with the establishment of the guild’s banner. The history of the book did not end there. In 1922 a handwritten entry was added about the participation of the members of the guild in the Katowice ceremony of the unification of Upper Silesia with the Polish lands, which gave the book the character of a chronicle documenting the process of regaining Poland’s independence.
The parade partisans presented at the exhibition are probably the most recognisable – they were used by the Noble Guard of Augustus II of Wettin family. The characteristic feature of this weapon is above all the appearance of an blade, which symbolism refers to the figure of the ruler. Based on the traditional shape of the partisans, the side blades took the form of two eagles facing in opposite directions, with their wings spread and their tongues stretched out. Between the eagles there is a four-field shield with the coat of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the White Eagle and the Lithuanian Pahonia. Above the eagles there is an image of a cross surrounded by gilded flames on a background of crossed swords, crowned by a royal crown.
The Noble Guard of Augustus II was established in 1703 and the partisans were publicly used in September 1719 at the wedding of Frederick Augustus II (later King of Poland – Augustus III) with Maria Josepha Habsburg (1699-1757) in Dresden.
But there is a mystery. In the museum’s collections, as well as in other collections around the world, these partisans can be divided into two different types. Some of them are highly decorated, while others, as can be seen in the illustration, seem to have been made carelessly – especially in the reproduction of the coats of arms, where both the eagles and the Pahonias are sketchy. What could be the reason for this difference?
One theory points to a possible forgery, e.g. in the 19th century. But would it be possible having these partisans in so many collections around the world? The forger would have had to produce a very large number of these items.
Or perhaps these partisans were not made in Dresden, but in Kraków? We know that they may have been used by the Noble Guard at the coronation of August III at Wawel Castle in 1734. Perhaps instead of bringing partisans from Dresden, it was decided to produce them locally?
One of the less obvious Kraków exhibits in the exhibition is a bronze cannon mounted on a painted carriage. While the carriage is a reconstruction, the barrel is an original product from the second half of the 18th century. It is linked to Kraków by the place where it was found. It was unearthed in 1904 in Kazimierz district. Therefore, we can accept the theory that this small cannon was used by the citizens and guilds to defend the town of Kazimierz or the city of Kraków, and that it was found in Kazimierz as a result of war circumstances. There was no shortage of them, especially at the end of the 18th century: in 1792, 1794, and finally during the Partitions and the Napoleonic period. It is also possible that the cannon was deliberately hidden at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries in order to protect it from Prussian or Austrian requisition.
Ignacy Höfelmajer (1825-1889) is one of the Kraków personalities worth mentioning. Coming from an Austrian Polonised family, he founded his own gunsmith’s workshop and store in Kraków, where he offered hunting weapons. He was not afraid to experiment and brought technical solutions for firearms from different parts of the world to the city. Although he called himself a gunsmith, it should be remembered that his main activity was selling and repairing guns, rather than making them himself. An example of this is one of the two guns in drawer 15 that bears his name. The one described has a lock designed by the famous German designer and inventor: Nicholas von Dreyse, for ammunition fired by a needle hitting the ammunition cartridge. During the January Uprising in Krakow, it was certainly one of the most modern examples of firearms, although it was invented 30 years earlier, in 1836. The name of the Kraków craftsman on the barrell is just a formality, indicating the place of purchase. The entire gun was imported from Germany, where identical guns had been in use since around 1850.
General Franciszek Maksymilian Paszkowski (1778-1856) is another figure from Kraków’s history represented in the exhibition by authentic relics.
He became famous in Kraków as a writer and author of the biography of Tadeusz Kościuszko, the leader of the 1794 uprising and, before that, a general who fought alongside George Washington for the independence of the United States. It was General Paszkowski who was one of the initiators of the creation of the famous Kościuszko Mound, which still rises above the city. Why such a tribute?
Franciszek Paszkowski had been associated with the commander of the isnurection since 1801. Tadeusz Kościuszko, who had befriended Paszkowski, bequeathed him his property, most of which was donated to the National Museum in Kraków in 1923, together with General Paszkowski’s legacy.
We have already seen in the exhibition pistols made in the workshop of the Kraków gunsmith Ignacy Höfelmajer. In the showcase there are two karabela sabres made by him in the 1860s, when he started making commemorative and costume sabres instead of firearms. Their blades with the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa and the coats of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became the trademark of the Kraków workshop.
Thanks to the inscription on the back: “COMPATRIOTS FOR NIKODEM BĘTKOWSKI, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT”, we know that it is a commemorative sabre given to Nikodem Felicjan Bętkowski (1812-1864), another figure of Kraków’s history whose memorabilia can be found in the exhibition. He was a medical doctor and lived in Wieliczka near Kraków, but in the city he was involved in independence activities. He took part in the 1846 uprising that briefly broke out in the city. The inscription on the sabre mentions him as a member of parliament, which means it must have been made after 1861, when Bętkowski went to the National Sejm and then to the State Council in Vienna.
Captain Józef Patelski (1805-1887) was one of many military figures who decided to tie their fate to the city of Kraków, seeking a safe haven from the harassment of the Russian government.
However, before settling in the former royal city of Kraków in 1852, Józef Patelski joined the army of the Kingdom of Poland at the age of 18, and in 1831 he joined the November Uprising in Warsaw. He fought at Grochów and Ostrołęka battles. For his bravery and heroism in the Ostrołęka battle, fought under the command of General Jan Skrzynecki, he was awarded the Golden Cross of Virtuti Military. which can be seen in the showcase and with which Patelski portrayed and photographed himself until the end of his life.
The tsarist regime sentenced Patelski to death for his participation in the uprising. He fled, first to Kwaczala, where he hid until he emigrated to Paris and finally settled in liberal Kraków.
Despite defeats and the threat of a court sentence, he did not give up the fight for independence. When the January Uprising broke out in 1863, he began to train insurgents in Kraków.
After the fall of Napoleon, as a result of the agreement between the partitioners, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 approved the existence of the Free, Independent and Strictly Neutral City of Kraków and its District, also called the Republic of Kraków. The city-state, with a population of almost 100,000, had its own constitution, a Senate, a police force and an administration in which, in keeping with the custom of the time, officials wore uniforms, of which buttons were an essential element!
In the drawer no. 30, among numerous examples of official, military and civilian buttons, you can see several with the coat of arms of Kraków: a gate with three towers, with an eagle in the open door.
These buttons date from the period between 1815 and 1846, when the Kraków Uprising sealed the fate of the city’s autonomy. More than 30 years and belonging to different civil services explain the difference in the appearance of each button and the coats of arms reproduced on them.