The magic mountain

The 'Zakopane Myth' formed an important element of the powerful 'Myth of Return' so cherished by Polish intellectuals abroad after 1939. Between the World Wars, Zakopane was indeed the best place to be seen, to live and to create. All sorts of intellectuals, artists, writers, and athletes chose this place - until then, an insignificant mountain village - to define the new lifestyle: intense, attractive, and sometimes dangerous.

The emphasis on sport in the Zakopane Myth - visible in the numerous posters from the period advertising the place as a ski resort, as well as photographs of sporting events - was equally dictated by the need to banish the 'tragic snobbery', as the war with Germany was drawing near.

Yet the strongest were not always the fittest. The melting pot of Zakopane knew passion, jealousy and madness. Even between the artists, the fight for independence and inspiration was not always fair. The events and affairs in this strange society were chronicled by an outsider-artist, Rafał Malczewski, son of the great Polish painter Jacek Malczewski. A climber, writer, reporter, satirist, painter and designer, he was a man who knew everyone who counted. Affected at an early age by the deaths of his first love and his best friend, and nearly taken by the mountains himself, Malczewski chose to generate portraits of his friends and snapshots from his own life.

The value of his art, often questioned, was to be confirmed by a major exhibition in the National Museum in Warsaw in 1938, which was postponed until today.

Rafał Malczewski and the Zakopane Myth is at the National Museum, Al. Jerozolimskie 3, Warsaw, until June 26

Ewa Meducka/

Warsaw Insider