Knightly buffet
By : Celia Barnes
On Sunday, July 15, on a grassy stretch of land near the small village of Grunwald in Poland's north, a battle was about to be fought.
Knights in shining armor, some of them on horseback, and hordes of foot soldiers waited nervously for the battle cry from their leader.
But even before the first sword was drawn, everyone, including the 60,000 spectators, knew exactly who would be victorious the Polish side. They win every year.
For the past decade, the Polish Society of Knights and the Grunwald Gmina have combined forces to reenact one of Medieval Europe's bloodiest and most significant battles.
On July 15, 1410, just near Grunwald, Europe's fearsome Teutonic Knights, on their Christian crusade across Central Europe, waged war against a combined force of Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Bohemians, Moravians, Moldavians and Tartars.
History records that the battlefields literally ran red with blood and by nightfall the Eastern Europeans, led by Polish King Wladyslaw Jagiello, were the victors. It's estimated it cost his army more than 20,000 lives. The Teutonic order lost 28,000 including 209 Crusader knights and their German leader, the Teutonic Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen.
In the year 2001, the most common casualty among these modern-day knights was heat exhaustion. But the 1,600 participants some of whom wore costumes weighing up to 30 kilograms were sensible enough to finish their fighting by midmorning, before it got too hot.
According to Henryk Kacprzyk, head of the Grunwald Gmina, the event is a big publicity spinner for the tiny town, drawing visitors from across Europe, the United States, Canada and, this year, a contingent of 30 Chinese. The gmina donates about zl. 300,000 to stage the event each year. Previous requests to the Culture Ministry for financial assistance have always been denied.
For people like mechanical engineer and occasional knight Jaroslaw Struczynski, the reenactment is the biggest event on his social calendar. Struczynski has the dubious honor of playing Grand Master Ulrich at each year's battle.
"Because I represent the power of the Teutonic order, sometimes after the battle I feel that Polish people look at me with contempt," said Struczynski, whose 14-year-old son, Tomasz, fought in the artillery for the first time this year.
"But after the battle, it's time for our visitors who want to speak with the dead Grand Master and take pictures with me and my friends."
Struczynski continues his knight role-playing at work: He is the chairman of the nearby Gniew Castle company that is responsible for restoring the Teutonic Gniew Castle.
But Struczynski is careful to point out that being a modern-day knight is not just play-acting. During 1999's Grunwald reenactment, his horse accidentally crushed his leg. And at last year's mock battle, Struczynski's historical counterpart, Polish King Jagiello, who is always played by Jacek Szymanski, broke his collarbone in a fall from his horse.
And then there is all the time these knights have to spend working on their costumes, traveling to various tournaments in Poland and across Europe, and, of course, weapon practice.
"I think my friends understand that being a knight is also about lifestyle," Struczynski said.
