THE CASTLE IN SANOK, IN THE FOREGROUND THERE IS A NEW SOUTHERN WING

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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anok was men­tioned for the first time in Ipa­tiew­ski Ko­deks in 1150, which con­tained in­forma­tion about the occupa­tion of Czer­wień­skie Gro­dy by the Hun­gar­i­an king Gej­za II (d. 1162). Its ex­is­tence was record­ed once again in 1205 on the oc­ca­sion of a meet­ing held here be­tween the Hun­gar­i­an king An­drew II (d. 1235) and An­na Eu­fro­zy­na, the wid­ow of prince Ro­man Hal­ic­ki (d. 1205), and al­so in 1231, when in the Car­pathi­an Chron­i­cle its lo­ca­tion at Hun­gar­i­an gates, i.e. near the moun­tain pass­es, was in­di­cat­ed. It should be as­sumed that all these mentions re­fer not yet to the cur­rent lo­ca­tion of the town, but rather con­cern a set­tle­ment which in the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages op­er­at­ed on Ho­ro­dysz­cze hill sit­u­at­ed a few kilo­me­tres to the north. At that time, on the cas­tle hill, there may have al­ready ex­ist­ed a for­ti­fied stronghold, but of less­er im­por­tance than Ho­ro­dyszc­ze men­tioned ear­li­er. Its dy­nam­ic de­vel­op­ment should be con­nect­ed with the col­lapse of the for­mer cen­tre of the lo­cal Old Rus­sian au­thor­i­ty, pos­si­bly caused by the Mon­gol in­va­sion in the mid-13th cen­tu­ry. As a con­se­quence, the ad­min­is­tra­tion was trans­ferred to Sa­nok, which in 1339 became a town.

CASTLES SOBIEŃ, SANOK AND LESKO ON THE MAP "POLONIAE FINITIMARUMQUE LOCORUM DESRIPTIO", 1579

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he death of Bo­le­sław Ju­rij (d. 1340) was used by the Pol­ish king Ca­si­mir the Great (d. 1370), who in the years 1340-41 car­ried out an armed in­va­sion, as a re­sult of which he in­cor­po­rat­ed the Sa­nok Land and its new­ly es­tab­lished town Sa­nok in­to his king­dom. Soon, on his ini­tia­tive, a mighty tow­er with thick walls and un­der­ground prison was erect­ed in the north­ern part of the hill, and the whole was sur­round­ed by a de­fen­sive wall. The con­struc­tion of the brick cas­tle was ac­com­pa­nied by in­vest­ments in the for­ti­fi­ca­tion of the town, as well as build­ing of the Goth­ic church of St. Mi­cha­el the Arch­an­gel. The in­ten­sive brick­lay­ing ac­tiv­i­ty of Ca­si­mir the Great was prob­a­bly due to the need to en­sure the nec­es­sary de­fense of new land in the con­text of its pe­riph­er­al lo­ca­tion in the vicin­i­ty of the Mol­do­van Land and the King­dom of Hun­gary. The cas­tle was ad­min­is­tered by roy­al starosts, the first of whom we know was Piotr, men­tioned in 1352, fol­lowed by Be­ne­dik (1376-77), Tom­ko Na­shal­ka and Piotr Kmi­ta of Szre­nia­wa coat of arms, voi­vode of Cra­cow and San­do­mierz, who held of­fice in the years 1391-98. In 1366, king Ca­si­mir him­self stayed here for a long time, and dur­ing his reign he vis­it­ed Sa­nok three times.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE SOUTH, EMANUEL VON KROMBACH 1825

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he cas­tle had great mo­ments dur­ing the reign of Wła­dy­sław Ja­gieł­ło (d. 1434). This is where the wed­ding of the Pol­ish king with Elż­bie­ta Gra­now­ska (d. 1420) took place on 2 May 1417. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween Ja­gieł­ło, still with­out a de­scen­dant, and a 45-year-old wom­an met with crit­i­cism and even mock­ery of the pub­lic opin­ion, the most rad­i­cal voice of which was the li­bel writ­ten by bish­op Sta­ni­sław Cio­łek, in which the au­thor com­pared Elż­bie­ta to an old, ex­haust­ed stink­ing sow. The dis­con­tent with the king's de­ci­sion was wide­spread, as ev­i­denced by a frag­ment of notes by a cer­tain Biel­ski: The king, who was sup­posed to chase the en­e­my, pre­ferred to make a wed­ding in Sa­nok. He took Elż­bi­eta, who had been kid­napped be­fore by one Mo­ra­vian, and lat­er by an­oth­er, and then was with Gra­now­ski. No one knew why the king liked her, be­cause she was old and sick. It is not sur­pris­ing, there­fore, that when, af­ter three years of mar­riage, Elż­bie­ta died of tu­ber­cu­lo­sis, the news of her death cov­ered the roy­al court and the whole king­dom with deep joy, be­cause all were hap­py that the dis­grace of the king had been erased and dur­ing the fu­ner­al peo­ple gave a great­er ova­tion than dur­ing the co­ro­na­tion [...]. All dressed in more fes­tive clothes took part in the queen's fu­ner­al cer­e­mo­ny, laugh­ing and cheer­ing. Af­ter the death of Wła­dy­sław Ja­gieł­ło, his last, fourth wife, a Rus­sian princess Zo­fia Hol­szań­ska (d. 1461), has moved to Sa­nok. A clay tow­er was men­tioned at that time, whose name in­di­cates the use of brick as a ma­te­ri­al for its con­struc­tion.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE AND THE TOWN FROM BIAŁA GÓRA, WATERCOLOUR FROM 1847

"CASTLE IN SANOK ON THE SAN RIVER FROM THE SOUTH", MACIEJ BOGUSZ STĘCZYŃSKI 1846

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t the be­gin­ning of 16th cen­tu­ry the cas­tle be­came the prop­er­ty of Bo­na Sfor­za (d. 1557), who, al­though she had nev­er been in Sa­nok, made a de­ci­sion to re­build the res­i­dence in the Re­nais­sance style. By or­der of the queen, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Mi­ko­łaj Wol­ski of Pół­koz­ic coat of arms (d. 1548), in the years 1523-48 a mag­nif­i­cent two-storey res­i­den­tial build­ing was erect­ed, as well as a new en­trance gate and roy­al bath­room, a num­ber of util­i­ty build­ings were added and a new well carved. The scope of work was so wide that we can ac­tu­al­ly talk about build­ing a new cas­tle on the walls of an old Goth­ic strong­hold. Its lay­out changed dur­ing the of­fice of Mi­ko­łaj Ci­kow­ski, who in 1558-72 en­larged the liv­ing space by adding two wings and for­ti­fied it with a brick tow­er. Just be­fore this sec­ond re­build­ing, the res­i­dence was owned by daugh­ter of Si­gis­mund the Old and Bo­na, Hun­gar­i­an queen Iza­be­la Ja­giel­lon­ka (d. 1559). Af­ter los­ing the civ­il war and un­for­tu­nate agree­ments with the Aus­tri­an Em­per­or Fer­di­nand Hab­s­burg, Iza­be­la spent her stay in Sa­nok try­ing to re­gain the Hun­gar­i­an throne, which she suc­ceed­ed in the au­tumn of 1565. Since then, the po­lit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of sta­rosts' head of­fice has weak­ened.

WOOD ENGRAVING FROM 1863

CASTLE ON LITOGRAPHY BY NAPOLEON ORDA, "ALBUM WIDOKÓW" 1880

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es­pite the fact that some in­vest­ments were un­der­tak­en lat­er on the cas­tle hill, their scope was not suf­fi­cient to pre­serve the us­able func­tions of the starost's seat and in sec­ond half of the 18th cen­tu­ry cas­tle was in a very poor con­di­tion. Af­ter Gali­cia was seized by the Aus­tri­an in­vad­er, the new au­thor­i­ties or­dered to de­mol­ish el­e­ments of the cas­tle's mil­i­tary ar­chi­tec­ture, in­clud­ing walls, gates and the tow­er. On­ly res­i­den­tial wings left, which were re­built and adapt­ed for of­fice pur­po­ses. In 1809 the cas­tle hill was tem­porar­i­ly tak­en o­ver by the Pol­ish troops, which, un­der the com­mand of Fran­ci­szek Ksa­we­ry Kra­sic­ki (d. 1844), hero­ical­ly de­fend­ed it against at­tack by im­pe­ri­al reg­i­ment. As a re­sult of bat­tles be­tween the Rus­sian and Aus­tri­an armies dur­ing World War I, the south wing was de­stroyed, and in 1915 - de­mol­ished. The for­mer moat was lev­elled too. From that time un­til 2010, the cas­tle build­ing re­mained vir­tu­al­ly un­changed.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE NORTH-EAST, PHOTO FROM THE 1890S

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fter Poland re­gained in­de­pen­dence the cas­tle housed the Sa­nok Land Mu­se­um, which pro­vid­ed ac­cess to ar­chae­o­log­i­cal ex­hibits, works of art, crafts, nu­mis­mat­ic items, books and doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to the re­gion, ob­tained in the field or do­nat­ed by lo­cal peo­ple. For sev­er­al years in the 1930s, Bish­op Grze­gorz Iwa­no­wycz Ła­ko­ta (d. 1950) had his of­fice here. Af­ter the war, he was ar­rest­ed by Nar­o­d­nyj komis­sari­at wnu­tri­en­nich dieł SSSR and de­port­ed to gu­lag where he died. In the 1930s, the cas­tle al­so housed the Road Ad­min­is­tra­tion, the School Coun­cil, as well as apart­ment of the sta­rost. Af­ter the Ger­mans en­tered Sa­nok in 1939, they plun­dered the cas­tle, and lat­er set up in its premises the Lem­ko Mu­se­um, man­aged by Ukra­ini­an painter Leon Getz (d. 1971). At that time, un­til June 1941, the Sa­nok cas­tle was lo­cat­ed near the Mo­lo­tov Line, at the bor­der be­tween Na­zi Ger­many and So­vi­et Rus­sia. Thus, it be­came a part of the for­ti­fi­ca­tions called the Gali­cia Bound­ary Po­si­tion. One of the links of these for­ti­fi­ca­tions is a con­crete bunker erect­ed un­der the cas­tle square, which we can see to­day as part of the mu­se­um ex­hi­bi­tion.

COLOURED PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE CASTLE FROM THE 1930S, IN THE PICTURE BELOW THERE IS A CASTLE WELL
AND FRAGMENT OF THE GRAND HOUSE WESTERN ELEVATION

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t the end of the war, the Ger­mans stole sur­viv­ing mem­o­ra­bil­ia of Pol­ish cul­ture. For­tu­nate­ly, some of them were lat­er found in the vicin­i­ty of Leg­ni­ca and trans­ferred to the main ar­chives in War­saw and Rze­szów. Af­ter 1944, the cas­tle was used for var­i­ous pur­pos­es to re­spond to the ur­gent needs of its time, in­clud­ing a mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal and a gun­nery. The first re­search and con­ser­va­tion work be­gan in 1952, while in the 1960s the Re­nais­sance wing was thor­ough­ly ren­o­vat­ed and the mu­se­um ex­hi­bi­tions were re­opened. In 2010-13, the new south­ern wing was erect­ed. As part of re­vi­tal­iza­tion of the cas­tle hill, some of per­ime­ter walls were al­so re­con­struct­ed and the foun­da­tions of Goth­ic tow­er were topped up.

THE ROYAL CASTLE AFTER RENOVATION, VIEW FROM THE WEST (1970)

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he cas­tle was built on a hill, whose east­ern slope de­scends steeply to­wards the San Riv­er and south­ern to­wards the Pło­wiec­ki Stream. Due to the lack of notes re­lat­ing to Goth­ic strong­hold, its vi­su­al ap­pear­ance and spa­tial ar­range­ment can on­ly be imag­ined through ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search and to some ex­tent al­so on the ba­sis of anal­o­gy with oth­er con­struc­tions of this type built by the last Pi­asts. We know for sure that around the mid­dle of the 14th cen­tu­ry a tow­er was erect­ed in the north-east­ern part of the court­yard. It had a square plan with a side of 10 me­ters, which at the height of 6 me­ters was cyl­in­dri­cal in shape. Its height is un­known, but it can be as­sumed that it mea­sured about 20 me­ters, while the thick­ness of walls on the ground floor reached 3 me­ters. Ac­cess to the cas­tle was de­fend­ed by a dry moat and a 2.5-me­tre thick stone wall. Per­haps as ear­ly as in the 14th cen­tu­ry, a one-bay res­i­den­tial house was built in the east­ern part of the court­yard, as well as a small­er build­ing in the west­ern part, the pur­pose of which is cur­ren­tly un­know (it is pos­si­ble that lat­er on, the ar­chives were kept in it).

PLAN OF A MEDIEVAL CASTLE ACCORDING TO M. ZIELIŃSKA: 1. GOTHIC TOWER, 2. RESIDENTIAL BUILDING, 3. NORTHERN WALL

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n years 1523-48 mar­shal Mikołaj Wol­s­ki mod­ern­ized and rebuilt the Goth­ic cas­tle. The me­dieval east­ern house was prob­a­bly de­mol­ished then, and on its bases a Re­nais­sance grand house was erect­ed. It was a two-storey build­ing, topped with a gable roof cov­ered with ce­ram­ic tiles. Lat­er trans­for­ma­tions make it im­pos­si­ble to iden­ti­fy its dec­o­ra­tion in de­tail, but it is known that ele­va­tions were or­na­ment­ed with Re­nais­sance win­dow frames and door por­tals, and the coats of arms: an ea­gle, the Sforza fam­i­ly and the Li­thua­ni­an Po­goń. The in­vest­ment was ac­com­pa­nied by de­mo­li­tion of the Or­tho­dox Church of St. Dmit­ry and remo­val the re­mains of wood­en for­ti­fi­ca­tions, which were re­placed by a brick wall with a new en­trance gate. From the sta­ro­sty's in­ven­to­ries (1548, 1558) we learn that the cas­tle at that time con­sist­ed of two gates, a draw­bridge, the grand house and util­i­ty build­ings: a gra­nary, an ar­moury, a kitchen, a bath­house and a brew­ery. A bak­ery and a goth­ic tow­er were sit­u­at­ed some dis­tance from the res­i­den­tial area.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE FROM THE END OF THE 16TH CENTURY: 1.GRAND HOUSE, 2. NORTHERN WING, 3. SOUTHERN WING,
4. FOUNDATIONS OF MEDIEVAL TOWER, 5. WESTERN BUILDING (ARCHIVE?), 6. DEFENSIVE WALL, 7. WELL

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n the sec­ond half of the 16th cen­tu­ry a south­ern and north­ern res­i­den­tial wings with a tow­er were erect­ed, thanks to which the main part of the cas­tle re­ceived a plan of the let­ter C opened from the west. These wings were de­mol­ished in the 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies by or­der of the Aus­tri­an au­thor­i­ties. On­ly the old­est grand house left, where the Re­nais­sance char­ac­ter was erased by re­moval of dec­o­ra­tive stone­ma­son­ry of doors and win­dows. The south­ern wing of the cas­tle was re­con­struct­ed in 2010-13, but the con­cept of this re­con­struc­tion is far away from the orig­i­nal, stir­ring up strong feel­ings with its con­tro­ver­sial form.

THE GRAND HOUSE IN 1936 AND TODAY (WITH CONTROVERSIAL SOUTHERN WING ADDED IN YEARS 2010-13)

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he con­tem­po­rary form of the cas­tle is a re­sult of wide-rang­ing re­con­struc­tion works car­ried out at the turn of the first and sec­ond decade of the 21st cen­tu­ry. These works gave it part­ly a look re­fer­ring to the Re­nais­sance form from the mid-16th cen­tu­ry and part­ly be­ing a cre­ation of ar­chi­tects' imag­i­na­tion. From the times of the last Ja­giel­lons, the grand house has been pre­served, in which the door por­tals and win­dow stone­ma­son­ry have been re­con­struct­ed, as well as brick floors and wood­en ceil­ings. In its west­ern façade wood­en stairs with a bal­cony have been built. On the foun­da­tions of the Goth­ic Pi­ast tow­er, dis­cov­ered in the north­east­ern part of the court­yard, a ter­race was erect­ed to view the San Riv­er val­ley and the north­ern part of the town.

FRAGMENT OF THE GRAND HOUSE WESTERN ELEVATION

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n­te­ri­ors of the castle hous­es the His­tor­i­cal Mu­se­um, in which apart from ar­chae­o­log­i­cal ar­ti­facts, mil­i­taria col­lec­tions, sculp­ture and paint­ing gal­leries, a valu­able ex­hi­bi­tion of Or­tho­dox church art and the unique, largest col­lec­tion of works by one of the most out­stand­ing con­tem­po­rary artists in the world, Zdzi­sław Bek­siń­ski, de­serve spe­cial at­ten­tion. In the cel­lars there is an Ar­moury - ex­hi­bi­tion pre­sent­ing the de­vel­op­ment of ar­ma­ment start­ing from frag­ments of the Old Rus­sian war­riors' fight­ing kit dis­cov­ered on the cas­tle hill, ar­mour of me­dieval knights and the sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry Pol­ish hus­sars ride, as well as ex­hibits of cold steel and fire­arms. Among the shoot­ing weapons, it is worth to fo­cus on the iron fal­conet-type can­non bar­rel, which, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal tra­di­tion, was the spoil of war af­ter win­ning the Bat­tle of Cho­cim against the Turks in 1621. Brought to Sa­nok, it was stolen by peas­ant, trans­port­ed to the vil­lage of Odrze­cho­wa and then drowned in a pond be­cause of fear of re­pres­sion. Af­ter the serf­dom was abol­ished, the can­non was tak­en out and placed in front of the church, where it was fired ev­ery East­er Sun­day, and al­so served as a ...bor­der post.

EXHIBITION OF ARMAMENTS IN THE CASTLE CELLARS

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he ex­hi­bi­tion al­so in­cludes more con­tem­po­rary weapons, such as 19th cen­tu­ry flint­lock and per­cus­sion pis­tols, ri­fles used by the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice at the turn of the 19th and 20th cen­tu­ry and ar­ma­ments from both world wars. Mil­i­tary in­sig­nia are al­so pre­sent­ed, of which par­tic­u­lar­ly at­ten­tion is drawn to the badge of the 2nd Pol­ish Pod­ha­le Ri­fle Reg­i­ment which is ...a swasti­ka. The ex­hi­bi­tion is com­ple­ment­ed by a com­bat and ob­ser­va­tion shel­ter, which dur­ing the war was one of the points of the Ger­man line of for­ti­fi­ca­tions on the then bor­der with the So­vi­et Union.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR SHELTER

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he ex­hi­bi­tion of ar­ma­ments is ad­ja­cent to an in­ti­mate ar­chae­o­log­i­cal ex­hi­bi­tion rep­re­sent­ing three pre­his­toric epochs and based pri­mar­i­ly on find­ings dis­cov­ered in the near­by vil­lages of Ba­chórz, Trep­cza and Pru­siek, as well as in Sa­nok it­self and in area of ru­ins of the me­dieval cas­tle So­bień. The stone age is rep­re­sent­ed here by, among oth­ers, mam­moth teeth and the old­est cre­ations of hu­man hands: flint ax­es, hatch­ets, hoe and prim­i­tive mul­ti­func­tion tools. The Bronze Age arte­facts come main­ly from nu­mer­ous 'trea­sures' hid­den most­ly in clay pots, con­tain­ing sim­ple kitchen tools, weapons and or­na­ments, in­clud­ing mys­te­ri­ous twists com­ing prob­a­bly from the Bal­kan Pe­nin­su­la. The pres­ence of Cel­tic peo­ples and Van­dals in the Sub­carpathi­an re­gion is doc­u­ment­ed in the part of ex­hi­bi­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the Iron Age, where be­sides old ar­ma­ments, frag­ments of glass ves­sels and je­wel­le­ry, at­ten­tion is drawn by a gold coin with im­ages of the god­dess Athe­na and Nike and a sil­ver-gold coin dat­ing back to the times of the Ro­man Em­pire. The ex­hi­bi­tion is com­ple­ment­ed by me­dieval an­tiq­ui­ties, in­clud­ing lead seals of Kiev dukes, jew­ellery of Rus­sian no­ble­wom­en, unique coins and cross­es with a rel­ic, which turned out to be a frag­ment of me­te­orite.

FRAGMENT EKSPOZYCJI ARCHEOLOGICZNEJ

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he ar­chae­o­log­i­cal exhibition is con­trast­ed with Gal­lery of 20th Cen­tu­ry Paint­ing, al­so lo­cat­ed in the cas­tle cel­lars, the core of which is com­posed of paint­ings do­nat­ed by Sa­nok artists Fran­ci­szek and Ma­ria Pro­chas­ka. De­spite the fact that ex­posed works were made by fa­mous artists such as Was­si­ly Kan­din­sky, Jó­zef Cheł­moń­ski, Ja­cek Mal­czew­ski, Ta­de­usz Ma­kow­ski and Pa­blo Pi­cas­so, their artis­try does not de­light, and it can some­times cause con­ster­na­tion or even em­bar­rass­ment. It seems that the works pre­sent­ed with­in neigh­bour­ing the Mar­i­an Kru­czek Gal­lery meet much fonder re­sponse. It con­sists main­ly of re­mark­able sculp­tures and spa­tial com­po­si­tions, made from old ma­chine parts, gears, wire, shells, etc., found in junk­yards or bought at flea mar­kets, then shaped in­to fairy­tale and fan­tas­tic forms called krucz­ki.

GALERIA MARIANA KRUCZKA

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he hall of the south­ern wing is filled with col­lec­tion of po­kuc­ka ce­ra­mics. Orig­i­nat­ing from Po­ku­cie, a land in the East­ern Car­pathi­ans, se­mi-ma­jo­li­ca prod­ucts are char­ac­ter­ized by mul­ti­col­ored dec­o­ra­tion re­fer­ring to plant, an­i­mal and ge­o­met­ric forms, of­ten in­spired by an­cient and Ty­ro­lean art. The most valu­able item of this ex­po­si­tion is a 19th cen­tu­ry tiled stove, be­long­ing to the fam­i­ly of famous pol­ish art­ist Xa­we­ry Du­ni­kow­ski, with rich or­na­men­ta­tion show­ing scenes of ev­ery­day life. Ethno­graph­ic feat­ures can al­so be found in the north­ern cham­ber, in which the ex­hi­bi­tion ded­i­cat­ed to sa­cred art of Ca­tho­lic Church pre­sents frag­ments of dec­o­ra­tion of the no longer ex­ist­ing St. Mi­chael the Arch­an­gel Church, the old­est tem­ple in Sa­nok. The at­ten­tion is drawn here by nu­mer­ous cru­ci­fix­es with ex­pres­sive­ly sculpt­ed im­ages of Christ, a high-class sculp­ture of St. Ne­po­mu­cen and sa­cred fig­ures of var­i­ous, some­times not very im­pres­sive artis­tic lev­el, in­di­cat­ing the folk ori­gin of many of them. This col­lec­tion is com­ple­ment­ed by Ba­ro­que sculp­tures which for­mer­ly be­longed to Car­me­li­te Mo­na­ste­ry in Za­górz (now in ru­ins), as well as 17th-19th cen­tu­ry cru­ci­fix­es com­ing from Ger­ma­ny, Spain and France. A com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent style is char­ac­ter­ized by the ex­hi­bi­tion lo­cat­ed in the Re­nais­sance hall, dom­i­nat­ed by por­trait paint­ings, which in large part came here from the Za­łus­ki Palace in Iwo­nicz-Zdrój. A sig­nif­i­cant part of this col­lec­tion is rep­re­sent­ed by paint­ings de­pict­ing mem­bers of the Za­łus­ki fam­i­ly, as well as oth­er fig­ures who lived or held var­i­ous of­fices in the Sa­nok re­gion. Among them the most valu­able are the por­trait of kinfg Jan III So­bies­ki and the 17th cen­tu­ry im­age of a girl with a fan paint­ed by the Dutch painter Gi­js­bert Si­bil­la.

THE SACRED ART OF CATHOLIC CHURCH

ORTHODOX CHURCH ART GALLERY

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he Mu­se­um has one of the largest and most beau­ti­ful col­lec­tions of Or­tho­dox church art in Pol­and. It con­sists of 1200 ex­hibits, which are ar­ranged on two floors of the cas­tle in such a way that they show the de­vel­op­ment of Or­tho­dox and Greek Catho­lic paint­ing and dec­o­ra­tive art in chrono­log­i­cal terms, from Mid­dle Ages to the pre­sent day. An ex­cel­lent col­lec­tion of icons and litur­gi­cal ob­jects in­tro­duces us to the spir­i­tu­al world of south-east­ern Poland and Ukra­ine. Among many lead­ing themes, do­mi­nates the fig­ures of Christ the Pan­to­cra­tor, Christ in Dee­sis group, char­ac­ter­is­tic man­dy­lions, as well as var­i­ous im­ages of Our La­dy with her most pop­u­lar im­age called Ho­de­ge­tria, Christ­mas icons called praz­dni­ki, nu­mer­ous lives of saints and won­der­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the Last Judg­ment. This unique ex­hi­bi­tion is com­ple­ment­ed by an iconos­ta­sis - a wood­en wall with three doors and rows of icons ar­ranged in strict or­der, as well as a col­lec­tion of cross­es, old books and rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed li­tur­gi­cal robes.

ORTHODOX CHURCH ART GALLERY

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ow­ev­er, vis­it­ing an ex­cel­lent col­lec­tion of sa­cred art is on­ly a fore­taste of what awaits us in the at­tic of the Re­nais­sance part and in the ex­hi­bi­tion space of new south­ern wing, where since 2012 the gal­lery of works by one of the most in­trigu­ing con­tem­po­rary artists Zdzi­sław Bek­siń­ski has been avail­able to the pub­lic. The mu­se­um, as the on­ly heir of the paint­er, mur­dered in 2005, pos­sess­es the largest col­lec­tion of his works, many of which he per­son­al­ly chose to be­queath them to his home­town. The ex­hi­bi­tion of o­ver 600 works cov­ers the whole pe­ri­od of Bek­siń­ski's artis­tic ac­tiv­i­ty, be­gin­ning from ab­strac­tion and the avant­-garde, which char­ac­ter­ized his draw­ings and sculp­tures in the ear­ly 1950s, un­til the turn of the cen­turies, when, fas­ci­nat­ed by de­vel­op­ment of dig­i­tal tech­niques, he ex­per­i­ment­ed with mod­ern forms of cre­ative pho­tog­ra­phy and com­put­er graph­ics.

ZDZISŁAW BEKSIŃSKI'S GALLERY

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he core of the ex­hi­bi­tion is, how­ev­er, a col­lec­tion of paint­ings rep­re­sent­ing the "fan­tas­tic" pe­ri­od of painter's cre­ativ­i­ty, pre­sent­ing the most im­por­tant works in his en­tire ca­reer. It be­gan in the mid­-1960s, when the first draw­ings and oil paint­ings were made, show­ing, in a de­press­ing, pes­simistic au­ra, wound­ed fig­ures, of­ten caus­ing anx­i­ety or even hor­ror. The evo­lu­tion of de­mon­ic aes­thet­ics took place in the ear­ly 70's with de­vel­op­ment of night­mar­ish vi­sion of the world, al­though the au­thor him­self re­mem­bered years lat­er that his goal was sim­ply to paint pret­ty pic­tures. A sym­bol­ic clo­sure of this col­lec­tion is the paint­ing ti­tled Y5, the last in Bek­siń­ski's out­put, com­plet­ed on the day of his trag­ic death. Thanks to the do­na­tion, cov­er­ing not on­ly artis­tic achieve­ments, but al­so com­put­er equip­ment, bank de­posits and pri­vate ob­jects of ev­ery­day use, a frag­ment of Bek­siń­ski's flat in War­saw has been faith­ful­ly re­con­struct­ed in one of the mu­se­um rooms, in­clud­ing view the artist was look­ing through the win­dow. The ex­hi­bi­tion has been com­ple­ment­ed by nu­mer­ous pho­tographs and mul­ti­me­dia shows pre­sent­ing the pro­file of this great cre­ator of con­tem­po­rary art.

ZDZISŁAW BEKSIŃSKI'S GALLERY, PAINTINGS REPRESENTING THE 'FANTASTIC' PERIOD OF THE ARTIST'S ACTIVITY

ZDZISŁAW BEKSIŃSKI'S GALLERY, PAINTINGS REPRESENTING THE 'FANTASTIC' PERIOD OF THE ARTIST'S ACTIVITY

To visit the museum you need to buy a ticket.

Private photography - free. The use of a flash is not per­mi­tted.

The exhibits are very comprehensive. It takes at least 2 hours to watch them.

Animals are not allowed in the museum.

GETTING THERE

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he cas­tle is sit­u­at­ed in the east­ern part of the town, on a hill above the San Riv­er val­ley, 100 me­ters north­east of the Mar­ket Square. Peo­ple trav­el­ling by train, af­ter leav­ing Sa­nok sta­tion should fol­low Dwor­co­wa street to the north­west, and then: Ko­le­jo­wa street and Ja­giel­loń­ska street as far as the Mar­ket Square.

The near­est car park is at the foot of the hill, at Zam­ko­wa Street. How­ev­er, dur­ing the sea­son it fills up quick­ly, so it is worth con­sid­er­ing as an al­ter­na­tive a much larg­er car park at Ła­zien­na Street, on­ly 5 min­utes' walk away from the mu­se­um.

You can ride your bike up to the cas­tle. There you should se­cure it pro­per­ly, be­cause you leave it un­at­ten­ded.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
2. P. Kocańda: Badania nad pierwszymi murowanymi zamkami na ob­sza­rze o­bec­ne­go wo­je­wódz­twa pod­kar­pac­kie­go, Ar­che­olo­gie zá­pad­ních Čech 11 / 2016
3. A. B. Kutiak: Projektowanie w kontekście historycznym, kilka słów o sanockim wzgórzu zamkowym
4. Praca Zbiorowa: Zamek królewski w Sanoku, Muzeum Historyczne w Sanoku 2015
5. P. Strzyż: Nieznana lufa działa z Muzeum Historycznego w Sanoku
6. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019

THE CASTLE IN SANOK, VIEW FROM THE WEST AND FROM THE SOUTHWEST

Castles nearby:
Zagórz - the ruin of fortified monastery from the 18th century, 9 km
Załuż - the ruin of Sobień knights' castle from the 14th century, 11 km
Lesko - the private castle from the 16th century, 16 km

text: 2020
photographs: 2019
© Jacek Bednarek