Making Music in the Polish Tatras: Tourists, Ethnographers, and Mountain Musicians

Epilogue: Village Exhumed

Epilogue: Village Exhumed “ZAKOPANE ODKOPANE?” (ZAKOPANE UNEARTHED?) BY K. TREBUNIA-TUTKA Refrain: Hej, co inom śtyraj dona Co tam panie w Zakopanen? Ga ˛sienica, Bachleda Siecka, Obrochta Tatar, Marduła Mateja, Sabała Staszic, Goszczyński Pol, Chałubiński Stolarczyk, Witkiewicz Dembowski, Sienkiewicz Refrain Giewonty, Sobczaki Stasecki, Walcoki Refrain: Hej, co inom śtyraj dona [vocables] So there, sir, what’s up in Zakopane? Ga ˛sienica, Bachleda Siecka, Obrochta Tatar, Marduła Mateja, Sabała Staszic, Goszczyński Pol, Chałubiński Stolarczyk, Witkiewicz Dembowski, Sienkiewicz Refrain Giewonty, Sobczaki Stasecki, Walcoki Epilogue 247 Wale, Roje, Brzegi Krzeptowscy, Wójcioki Anczyc, Zamoyski Gerson, Szymanowski Eliasz, Modrzejewska Hrabina, Raczyńska Refrain Zaruski, Karłowicz Żeromski, Kasprowicz Kossak, Paderewski Orkan, Zborowski Janiki, Cukry Jarza ˛bki, Krupy Stopki, Suleje Króle, Trzebunie Wale, Roje, Brzegi Krzeptowscy, Wójcioki Anczyc, Zamoyski Gerson, Szymanowski Eliasz, Modrzejewska Hrabina, Raczyńska Refrain Zaruski, Karłowicz Żeromski, Kasprowicz Kossak, Paderewski Orkan, Zborowski Janiki, Cukry Jarza ˛bki, Krupy Stopki, Suleje Króle, Trzebunie The above is a song from Etno-Techno, one of the worldbeat fusion CDs considered in chapter 5. Like all the songs on that CD, Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka’s poem is set to music that emphasizes a techno dance beat but incorporates musical gestures and timbres suggestive of muzyka Podhala, including the same DD EE DD CC basy ostinato used for “Nie patrzcie przez lupy” (see fig. 5.14). This time, however, the ostinato is matched with a krzesana “po dwa” fiddle tune that would do well for a góralski dance in just about any Podhalan village. The refrain is sung by Krzysztof, who also recites or raps the litany of surnames that make up the entire content of the three verses. “Zakopane odkopane?” summarizes in a song what I have tried to accomplish with a book. The title is a pun: although the origins and exact meaning of the town’s name are obscure (Budak 1991), zakopane can literally mean “buried.” The second word in the title, odkopane, means the opposite: unearthed, dug up, unburied. Thus the song title can be rendered “Zakopane un-kopaned?” “The buried unburied?” or perhaps “Zakopane undone?” The question mark is in the original and we are left to wonder exactly what the question is. Belying the agrarian roots of the term applied to the core methodology employed when researching this book, fieldwork, I have done my share of digging around in Zakopane and in the region that this village-cum-town symbolizes. I have tried to unearth some truths, some understanding about what makes Podhale 248 Making Music in the Polish Tatras such a special place. I have even tried to undo some myths about what makes mountain music what it is and is not. Part of what I unearthed in Podhale is the pervasive influence of individuals defined as “outsiders” or at least “non-Górale” since many of these individuals have been invited “inside.” Yet the relationship remains uneasy, even as many of the individuals named in “Zakopane odkopane?” are generally held in high regard by Górale. This tension is captured in the refrain “Co tam, panie, w Zakopanen?” (So there, sir, what’s up in Zakopane?), a reference to one of the most famous phrases in Polish literature, the opening line of Wyspiański’s play Wesele (The wedding): “Cóż tam, panie, w polityce? Chińcyki trzymaja ˛ sie ˛ mocno!?” (So there, sir, in politics ? The Chinese are going strong!?).1 The play is ostensibly a representation of a wedding between a man of noble heritage and a peasant woman—a not uncommon trend during the Young Poland movement in the last half of the nineteenth century. The line “So there, sir . . .” is spoken by a peasant trying to strike up a conversation with a man who represents the inteligencja and who does not deign to take up the peasant’s admittedly absurd question. This line, like the play itself, represents the tensions between village and city, uneducated and educated, peasant and inteligencja. So, sir, exactly what is up, unburied, exhumed in Zakopane? in Podhale? Part of the answer is in the three verses of Krzysztof’s song. Consisting entirely of surnames, the verses read like a who’s who of Podhalan cultural history and contain many of the names that have figured prominently in this book. As in Wyspiański’s Wesele , the characters that populate...