Because in Krakow on Bracka … – a review of the book “Neolegendy krakowskie”

When the mystery of existence makes me think

What in Krakow moves the imagination? For example, a cave near Wawel! It’s impossible to tell classic or new legends about this city without mentioning the scales, fire breathing, stuffed sheep and all this reptilian must-have set. It’s no surprise that they appear not only in the blurb of Neolegend’s cover , but also in a large proportion of the stories.

Sometimes the dragon motif is treated very classically. In Living Fossils, the heroes of the city are monuments, including the most touristic one. Szarkań is a historical fantasy with the central figure of King Jadwiga. This text elegantly mixes linguistic registers and stylizations. The whole thing has been archived, but the girl in power cannot submit to the rigors of some old speech. Thanks to this, Baczyński added a lot of charm to it, and dynamics to the dialogues. Finally, Dragoncatcher is a reflective, very touching childhood memory that may never have been, but each of us has a similar puppy drama in our heads.

A huge wagon fell from the sky

There are also great apocalypses! There is no legend more interesting than the one about the end of the world. Paweł Majka spins a slow, dangerously engaging story about possible cities and a real architect. There is terror in this story, an exercise in loss and, above all, a great love for Krakow. Even more extreme is And one day longer , which could happen in the world of the bailiff , even if stylistically very different from it.

My two favorite stories in this volume fall into this darker category. These are Olga Niziołek ‘s Town Dimensions, where distant echoes of The End of Death are heard , and they are an amazing urban horror film with elements of post- apo , written in an interesting language, starting with the title. And it’s all concentrated in less than ten pages! My second favorite is a text by the originator of the anthology, Paweł Dybała. It is apparently the story of an amateur bugler. To be honest … without revealing too much, it’s a romance and a full-blown fantasy inspired by modern myths (but I’ll be silent here, so as not to spoil your joy). Translators rule! And if you are curious what else they wrote, you will find them, for example, in the free anthologies of the Alpaka Publishing Group. Six tips on how to run in the dark by Olga Niziołek, published in one of them , was nominated for this year’s Zajdel award.

Silent in the streets

I have already mentioned Gąsienic Street , it is another great neolegend. The text by Katarzyna “Ophelia” Koćma, which you may associate with the anthology for Ukraine on February 24, 2022 , is a somewhat elusive story, slipping from the reader’s hands, about a very specific place on the border of the worlds. The airiness of this text is intentional, it is also very visual, full of colors prose.

You will find even more good in Neolegendach . There will be real urban legends in the form of The Legend of Slawek Radiant, The Stairs or the dark All Sins of Valeria Schulz. Maybe a bit by force, but I will also subscribe to this category also the archeological horror film Mammoth Time by Agnieszka Bar. In the anthology, from time to time you will come across references to sacred art, so characteristic of Krakow, these will be the important motifs of Dybała’s Enchanter of Light and Noise , but also crowning Piecie Tomasiewicz’s anthology. Finally, the great Polish alchemist Michał Sędziwój will also appear in About how King Zygmunt moved the capital to Warsaw.On the other hand, apart from Krakow, along the Vistula route, you will set out on the last voyage of “Jonasz”.

I go out to the city for reconnaissance

I am sincerely delighted with the Krakow Neolegends , which I swindled a bit spontaneously and without much expectations from Paweł Dybała at Pyrkon. I got a very elegantly published book with illustrations by Katarzyna Szewioła-Nagel , sewn (seriously!) And well-edited. As you have already read, with really interesting texts that frighten, entertain, move, radiate love for this extraordinary city. But my dear, there is also an anthology of introductions! And there, for example, Artur Olchowy will make you cry over the lost legends of Masuria and other regions affected by displacements in the 20th century. Aleksandra Klęczar and Michał Cetnarowski (his Gnozais also nominated for Zajdel). A specific introduction to the introductions is a word from Dybała himself, who dreamed up this whole collection.

Olchowy wrote that it is thanks to the spinning of urban and rural legends about strange places and people that we declare that this is our territory. We populate them with ghosts, which makes them closer to us, takes on personality, begins to live. It sounds like a paradox, but it works. Especially if we manage to make these stories repeat, like we carry on with fairy tales or anecdotes of our grandmothers and grandparents.