Krzysztof Czyżewski - Line of Return

Krzysztof Czyżewski - Line of Return

When I have finished reading the book "Linia powrotu" ("Line of Return"), I recalled a quotation from the essay of Gabriel Marcel about Rilkem - "A witness is not only the one who watches and cerifies, but the one who gives a testimony, but that testimony is not an ordinary echo, but participation and reaffirmation; testify - is to co-act in grownth and advent, of what the one testifies about". I am thinking about Krzysztof now: travelling through blooming and burned borderlands, writing another essay, poem or letter. Talking to Gypsies at the train station in Czerniowce, polish gastarbeiter at the bar in Berlin, romanian writer during american scholarship. the real Homo Viator. 

/Paweł Huelle/

An excerp from the "Pictures notebook" 
Author: Krzysztof Czyżewski 

The story about the time of province 

I have visited friends on the remote province, by the Danube, between Romania and Bulgaria. They were rebuilding a dock, ruined and forsaken, as many elements of life in this borderland. When I was going through pictures notebook of these few days I have spent there, I found a story about pioneers who build new life in the Central Europe's landscape. So many of similar stories I have heard and experienced, that they seem to express something universal, generational, post-catastrophic - the strengh of the province.


 

At the beginning you are leaving the city. You boycott the centre arbitrary set by bankrupt modernity. 

 

It is beautiful at the beginning. You go into the direction of the Sun, following a dream. 

 

At dusk you reach the borderland river. You start to think about crossing, having a looksee for home. Words of the master "Overcome by preservation" will become the secret of your actions. 

 

The next day will not be as beautiful as the previous one. You will find wounds, contamination. Anachronic and nihilistic abstraction will encroach on reality. You will not be able to read meanings and destiny from the environment around you. 

 

Civilization's waste and offal that are slowly covering the valley of beauty and eternal, now impressed on you, truth about the nature of man. You will start to think about culture as lifetime praxis. Bringing poetry down to earth is the source of art, you will start to practice. 

 

 

 

On the ruins of an old civilization, among fall and devastation you will find traces of an living cult, non-extinguished memory and the fire of beliefs. 

 

You will meet oldmen with greetings gesture. You will appreciate the importance of signs of openness and admittance. Although others may be hostile, inveigh or fierce toward you, the oldmen in their harmless hands hold keys to the place and commune. 

 

She suddenly appeared, among the graves, slacking the strap of her red blouse. Lowered her eyes and was waiting for me to take a welcoming gift. 

 

You never know, how and where god Eros will manifest himself. He could sit on a anonymous grave, but only he can truly connect the line of your life with the place. 

 

You build a nest... 

 

...entwine bonds... 

 

...bring up keepsakes... 

 

...read an ancient book of symbols. 

 

You find crumbs of extravagant beauty and sophisticated culture. 

 

Grand ruins are not indwell by nobody. 

 

Life survived in penthouses, potty bouldings for people. Poor utensils on the porch appear to be wealth - they hide warmth of dwelling, dimension for life, spruced polish of existence. 

 

People you meet do not live for their own sake. They are keepers. They are eternal part of the whole, embracing ruined manor house, destroyed property, history that constantly sets new trustees, inhabitants of various nationalities and religions. If not for their silent duty for memory, long time ago would usurpers diminish the whole into the smaller parts chosen by them. 

 

You submerge in metaphysics of everyday life. Seemingly only in the lasting, and truly in processing it. Culture of excluding, non remembering and being closed you convert, trying to embrace every pain, adopt every difrence, heal every exclusion, to build a bridge. You embrace Gypsy mahala at the edge of the village... 

 

...memory of the dead and killed. You embrace traces of religiuos wars and nationalism. And the new EU flag in vicinity of symbols of national sacrafice. 

 

And lost connection between generations as well... 

 

...and the gap between real and virtual. 

 

You celebrate cultivation. The time of province immerses culture in the long lasting. Only after years you will understand, that it is not about being frozen, about the museal culture of preservation. Long lasting happens all the time. Through revolts, overcoming, pioneering. It needs love of the selfless, beauty of useless and truth of unforgettable.