i am always thinking about miguel de cervantes saavedra WHAT a guy. i mean obviously important author sratatatata twoja stara BUT he also had every fucking sidequest ever. he was called el manco de lepanto because he fought in the battle of lepanto and lost use of his left arm. he got arrested for getting into a duel which was illegal at the time. the "saavedra" in his name possibly isnt even his legal name, but the thing that the PIRATES WHO KIDNAPPED HIM called him (from arabic shaibedraa, "one handed".) he and his brother were held ransom but their family only had money for the brother so miguel just. stayed there. until 1580. he was captured in '75, btw. And he wrote one of the most influential works of art of all time. that someone then wrote a fanfiction second part two and published it, and cervantes hated it so much that HE also wrote his own second part in which he mocked the other author.
HIIIIII DEAR. HI. HI. HEHEH. SO. obviously stańczyk is Generally Known as the sad jester painting but!!!! it is SOO fascinating to me.
also, retroactive note; i shall add a read more bc this came out. Long
first a quick word about who stańczyk himself even was. well, obviously, a jester, and a royal one at that!! HOWEVER it is important to mention that stańczyk was a jester in the very way that people on tumblr roleplay to be a jester. as in, not just a Funny Guy, but a funny guy who is deeply intelligent, knows every political misstep you've ever made and WILL make fun of you for that. it is possible that he was actually a noble himself, although that remains uncertain; what IS known, however, is that he was extremely witty, a master of satire, and very knowledgeable about politics.
NOW. the painting itself should be approached from several angles.
the full name of the work is actually "stańczyk during a ball at the court of queen bona in the face of the loss of smoleńsk." funnily enough, the literal meaning of the painting is actually.... quite irrelevant to it! we have covered this work several times in different classes, and ive never heard its full title or historical context prior to reading about it myself. but essentially, what it references is. well. the loss of smoleńsk, which at the time was an important fortress at the eastern border of the country which would a couple decades later become the polish-lithuanian commonwealth, but then was still the polish-lithuanian union. the eastern border with, as one may recall, The Grand Principality of Moscow. historically, not a very great neighbor. stańczyk was known to have mocked the king for having allowed the fall of the fortress; and here he-- a jester-- is, sitting, pondering the consequences of such a loss while nobles, the very people who SHOULD be worrying about it, have carefree fun in the background.
here i'd like to say a bit about the artist itself. the painting itself was done by jan matejko, whose biography i will not get into right now; what is relevant, however, is that: one, the stańczyk in the painting actually has matejko's face; and two, matejko was known for mostly painting large compositions with lots of people (seriously, look at the battle of grundwald. STUNNING to see irl, i should mention.) this obviously tells us a very important fact: that matejko saw HIMSELF in stańczyk. and i've said i wouldn't get into his biography, but one thing needs to be mentioned: matejko himself was very politically interested, and this particular work was made during the events that would eventually spark the january uprising in the russian occupation. stańczyk isn't stańczyk, really; it's matejko, looking at the country boiling around him and knowing that Something Is Coming, And What's Coming Isn't Good.
AND HERE COMES THE MOST INTERESTING PART. because, stańczyk-- both as a person and a painting-- been referenced in polish culture so. SO many times.
i'd like to begin with the part that makes me laugh.
so, every time i've ever learned about this specific work in school, as ive mentioned-- weve never been given the context of it being about the loss of smoleńsk. no, our teachers actually completely misplaced the painting in time-- not that i think its necessarily a mistake, given that matejko painted it almost 300 years after the fact and therefore knew what would happen after said event-- because i, at least, have always been told that it was about stańczyk mourning the existence of LIBERUM VETO, and everything that brought with it.
because, what is often blamed as perhaps not the only, but definitely one of the Main reasons why poland was weak enough to be partitioned in the first place, is liberum veto. what is liberum veto? liberum veto was a rule that existed in the commonwealth, that basically worked like.... if there was any official voting, right, the people who voted for it were all nobles. and were any one single noble to disagree with the thing being decided, they could just yell NIE POZWALAM-- "i do not allow"-- and the vote would immediately be put to a close, back at square one.
literally any noble. no matter who. no matter what the vote was on. this went on for like nearly 150 years by the way. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA HEELPPPPPPPP
so anyway, as one imagine, this PERMANENTLY and completely paralysed the polish legal system for the whole time it was on. seriously, WHAT did they think would happen????? because what happened is that polish nobles, FAMOUSLY greedy and self absorbed, would abolish ANY reform they saw as even mildly non beneficial to themselves as a singular entity. EVERONE was being bribed, oftentimes by the commonwealth's political rivals. WHY DID ANYONE THINK THIS WOULD WORK????????????
ahem. but what i meant to say. since, as i mentioned, matejko painted this waaaaaay after the fact, it is often believed that-- despite the literal meaning-- this work also references the Upcoming fall of poland; stańczyk seeing the economy and morals disintegrate, and being the only one bothered while the corrupt nobles dance away.
and finally, there's the subsequent references to him.
in modern day, it is RARE for me to see any political news about poland without at LEAST one having stańczyk.png attached to it, but thats another thing. even historically, people have been thinking about this guy SO much-- see, for example, one of kraków's newspapers under the austrian occupation........ and said newspaper's criticism in wyspiański's "the wedding." to put it short, the wedding presents us with a cast of people who Totally Aren't The Author's Irl Acquaintances, What Are You Talking About [context: in the original version of the play, wyspiański gave the characters THEIR REAL COUNTERPARTS NAMES and was about to publish it like that, before said counterparts were like Dude. to which he just changed them to clever pseudonyms such as The Groom or The Poet.] but who Really matters here is The Reporter, or actually, Rudolf Starzewski, the editor of the previously mentioned newspaper.
what must be said about the austrian occupation is that it was. Really Chill, compared to the russian and german ones; which actually lead to a rise in anti-independent conservatism. because in their eyes, if its not broken, why fix it? polish culture, at least in that time, was Really not in any way suppressed in the austrian occupation, and as such, they just........ didnt really feel like fighting for a Polish Country. rudolf starzewski was one of the people with such a worldview, which. maybe wouldve been less bad, or at least less Ironic, if the symbol of his newspaper wasnt. guess who. STAŃCZYK. FAMOUSLY NOT TOO KEEN ON THE IDEA OF SAVING YOUR OWN ASS INSTEAD OF WORRYING ABOUT THE GENERAL STATE OF THE COUNTRY..... so anyway, in the work, starzewski gets visited by The Literal Fucking Ghost Of Stańczyk [tbf, this entire play is about people being visited by historical figures] and made fun of, and told to get his shit together. so thats fun.
AHEM. i don't really have a good conclusion for this, i think, thats all i really wanted to say. or actually no. i think its a Good Thing that people know stańczyk as the Sad Jester painting, but i think it becomes even MORE fascinating when you know all the cultural stuff associated with it!!!! every time someone uses stańczyk.png to mourn political news, he gives a thumbs up in his grave.
the worst character development ive had due to being in a history class was that. ive always sworn to myself that i wouldnt become the kind of person who's super interested in the world wars because Theyre Pretty Horrible People A Lot Of The Time. but. ww1 was pretty interesting yeah.
anyway probably the most confusing [or rather, momentarily disorienting] thing for me these days is that. each time i study history [which, mind you, i do in both polish and spanish] i have to wonder whether i should be currently thinking of Galicia (southeast of poland and west of ukraine) or Galicia (northwest of spain)
ACTUALLY my favorite 2 things to learn about in history are 1. extremely genius military operations [example: a lot of what was going on during ww1] and 2. COMICALLY BAD military operations [example: the november uprising, and also action bezdany (piłsudzki's first and only terrorist attack)].
