Pablo Picasso and the Secret of Krakow
Shiva's Chakram, Pablo's Mermaid, and Nehru's Communism
In 1948, Picasso was in Poland, possibly pretending to be a communist. He claimed to have spent the happiest two weeks of his whole life there, despite that he had no papers, being on the run, as he was, from Franco’s Spain. He’d joined the French Communist Party after world War Two, and was thus invited to take in the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace, an international conference held in Soviet-controlled Wroclaw in August 1948, a cultural event run by the Soviets. Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, and Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, and Albert Einstein were there among about 600 attendees. Einstein, though he didn’t attend in person, sent a (heavily censored) message of support that warned against the use of Nuclear Power.
https://www.johnszoke.com/blog/65-the-polish-coat/
Picasso found time to visit Krakow and Warsaw, where he drew a mermaid, Warsaw’s emblem, on the wall of an apartment. He was stunned by Warsaw’s architecture, despite that it was still being reconstructed after being bombed to dust in 1945. Instead of a sword, which Warsaw’s mermaid traditionally holds, he drew a hammer.
In 1953, following Stalin’s death, Picasso produced a commemorative charcoal drawing, which failed to meet the Social Realist standards, and horrified his communist compatriots. It was a lithograph made in 1949 ‘Femme au Fauteuil No. 1’, an image of his wife Françoise Gilot sitting in an armchair wearing a cloak Pablo had bought her in the Rynek, the main squiare in Krakow.
I was told when I lived in Krakow that Jawaharlal Nehru attended that conference. I can find no evidence for it, but it is possible since he seemed to have had a great admiration for Papa Stalin, and feared displeasing him in any way. “Few things terrified Nehru as much as the disapproval of Moscow and its Great World Leader, “Marshal” Stalin. Nehru kissed the ground that “Marshal” Stalin walked on.” Read here.
So I don’t find it unlikely that Nehru attended the Conference in Wroclaw in 1948. Somebody in Krakow told me that he did, however. And that he had a conversation with the Polish delegates, in which he told them about the ancient links between Krakow and a small village in South India, which is written about in the Vedas. How I wish I could find out more about this, if anybody out there does, please get in touch. He told, apparently, the story that is written in the Vedas- at the end of the world, there would be just two safe places: a small South Indian village, and Krakow. Krakow survived World War Two unscathed- in terms of architecture, not, of course the systematic genocide of Jews, Poles, gypsies, homosexuals and so on in the camps. Anyway, the mines around Krakow were defused by the Soviet Army in 1945 when they came to ‘liberate’ the city. Considering that most Polish cities were bombed to dust by the Germans during World War Two, it was miraculous. Hans Frank, Governor General of the Eastern Territories, took Wawel Castle as his HQ for the duration of the war. Maybe he didn’t want to meddle with Krakow’s elegance, or maybe Krakow does have some magical, invisible protective force. Maybe what is written in the Vedas is true. When the Nazis retreated out of Poland, Frank robbed Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Lady with the Ermine’ which had come to Poland via a Sforza queen. It was retrieved later, and is now in the Czartoryskich Museum in Krakow.
Wawel Castle brings us to another link to India. Quite an extraodinary one. One day, while walking through the Castle grounds, I saw a large family of Indian people, in brightly coloured saris and salwar kameezes. I took it that they were Hindu. After that, I noticed a lot more Indian Hindu tourists, especially around Wawel. I wondered why.
I saw many people standing with their backs to the wall in the Courtyard of Wawel Castle, looking quite spaced out. I was invited to try the wall, by Buddhist friends, who told me that this was the location of the ‘Chakram’, which I will explain in a sentence or two. It did seem to have a soporific effect, but I couldn’t tell if this was because I had been informed of its powerful effects, prior to visiting it. This ‘chakram’ location is of great significance to Hindus. It is the site of one of seven sacred stones that correspond to the seven human chakras which Lord Shiva threw across the whole world as a gift to mankind. They landed in, respectively, some of the most important spiritual centres on earth - Rome, Mecca, Delhi, Delphi, Jerusalem, Velehrad (Not sure of the signifance here) and Wawel Hill, beneath the Chapel of St. Gereon. Now, my Buddhist friends in Krakow would regularily go for a ‘zap’ of the chakram in Wawel courtyard. But woe betide if anyone asked a priest in the chapel for a glimpse of the chakram stone. It was everything that King Krak, founder of Krakow, who’d slain a dragon on Wawel Hill, would have abhorred: those nasty little pagans throwing stones. Dragons and magical stones had to be destroyed. And worse still, this magic ‘chakram’ stone had been flung by a Hindu God in the Himalaya. A blue God. Who smoked Ganja. Nope, that stone has been hidden, most probably since the first Hindu pilgrim showed up to have a glimpse. Imagine if that first pilgrim to Krakow’s ‘chakram’ had been Jawaharlal Nehru. The Catholic priests were having none of it. I haven’t met one person, in all my years in Krakow, who’s seen or touched the actual chakram stone.
You’ll always find some chakram seekers in the northwest corner of Wawel’s courtyard with their backs against the wall. The Castle staff have no time for it. They even put up a sign to ask people to refrain from touching the wall. It didn’t work. Wawel tour guides won’t speak about this strange, pagan thing that could in fact draw thousands if not millions more tourists to Krakow. Especially if many Hindu pilgrims got wind of it. Imagine Krakow becoming a Mecca for Hindus. How horrifiying for the city of Jan Paweł II.
Now, out of Communist Poland, back in the 1950s, just after Papa Stalin keeled over, grew one of the most legendary literary cabarets in Europe. Not that you’ll have heard of it, because it was a phenomenon that grew behind the Iron Curtain. It could be similar to Bertolt Brecht’s Berlin Cabaret, but it had other flavours that made it irresistable- Gypsy, Jewish and Literary genius. Piwnica pod Baranami, the Cellar under the Rams, was founded in 1956 by Piotr Skrzynecki, the legendary director of the Cabaret.
Piotr himself was a legend, an extraordinary man with long, elven ears and a wide brimmed hat and a cape. He was painted by artists as a flying man, sailing through the clouds, over the moon, like a Chagall rabbi.
He was magnetic. Everyone wanted a piece of Piotr. I had the honour of teaching him English, in the last couple of years of his life. We would meet on the Rynek, the big, open square with the arched Linen Hall at its centre. Piotr would order icecream in a cafe near the Piwnica. He would repeat the verbs, ‘I am , you aaaare, he isss …. she issss…’ and he’d fall into his ice cream. Somebody would inevitably lead him to the bathroom, from where he’d return with a new twinkle in his eye. “Before I die, I want to have coffee in Vienna, tea in Ireland…” It had been my dearest wish to have Piotr and the Piwinca pod Baranami troupe to perform in Dublin at the Theatre Festival. But Piotr was starting to slip away. When we visited him in the hospital, I saw him without his hat- there was an extraordinary raised lump towards the back of his skull, much like the Buddha’s ushnisha. And, like the Buddha, he had the longest ears I’d ever seen.
I thought, maybe he’s a displaced elven Buddha. He had something that I don’t think I’ve ever found in anyone else. When he walked across the square among the pigeons, people would trail after him, pulling at his cape.. ‘Piotr, Piotr’ … he had nurtured the best of Poland’s musicians in that era. Grzegorz Turnau, Eva Demarczyk, Anna Szałapek (the only one of these Piwnica musicians we managed to get to Dublin to perform). You can see him here, and you can see Zbigniew Preisner hug him:
He’d nurtured one of Poland’s finest contemporary composers, Zbigniew Preisner. In fact, it was Preisner’s music that had pulled me to Poland in the first place. I lived with a Polish friend called Magdalena (and is still a very dear friend) in my final year in college, and she’d persuaded me that I should ditch my Morrison Green Card for the USA, and move to Poland. Which I did. A decision I’ve never regretted. (I happily renounced my Green Card when flying to New York 10 days after 9/11. The immigration officer said I had been in the USA since 1994, which I told him I hadn’t, because I hadn’t and because I did not want to live there). Anyway she had introduced me to the music Preisner composed for Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Trilogy of films’ ‘Red’, ‘White’ and ‘Blue’. I was enchanted. So, teaching English grammar to the mentor of this genius was something that I could never have imagined. The coincidence always astounded me. Preisner’s music is incredibly melancholic, and very haunting. My favourite, which was my ‘muse’ when writing ‘Malinski’ was the tango music in the film ‘White’:
Malinksi had come to me while living on Ulica Swięty Bronisławy in Salwator, Krakow. I saw this old man, Stanislav, living in the top floor of a block of flats, remembering the war, and trying to remember his brother Henryk, who had fled with his mother to Ireland when the Germans were fleeing away fifty years before. Piotr Skrzynecki ended up being a character in my novel, Malinski. The day I finished the last word of the first draft of that book, I got a call from Anna Szałapek. “Piotr died today”. she said. The book is dedicated to him and all of the wonderful artists and musicians he nurtured. Piotr, the man with the longest ears I’ve ever seen. A magical hero lost in the mists of Krakow. A person I will never forget as long as I live.
https://siofraodonovan.com/malinski/
I was informed by a guide in Warsaw that the Picasso mural was painted over by the elderly couple who lived in the apartment as they got fed up with people wanting to view it.
That was a terrific read. Thanks. I've been living in Poland for a year and a half now and only scratching at the surface of their rich culture.