Borowo Cotka / Bòrowô Cotka by Jan Redźko 2009
"A small community in northern Poland is embroiled in a dispute over 13 wooden sculptures of spirits based on local folklore, pitting Catholics warning of “demonic idolatry” against officials seeking to promote tourism. Some of the statues are set to be removed as a result.
In 2010, the Linia commune – part of the region home to the Kashubs, an ethnic and linguistic minority group – created an 86 km tourist trail called “feel the Kashubian spirit” that runs between 13 villages. The project was supported by EU funds.
Each stop along the route is marked by a statue of a figure drawn from local mythology, including both benevolent spirits and also demons. But after a decade, the sculptures have started to fall into disrepair.
Yet when the issue of renovating them was taken up by a local council last year, residents put forward petitions calling the sculptures “Pagan idols of devils” and claiming that they are “the main reason…for the renunciation of faith in our Catholic commune”, reported Gazeta Wyborcza.
One local priest argued that the sculptures belong in a museum. “Placing them in a public space is a form of idolatry and worship of…demons,” he said. “The world of Satan is real and his actions can be seen in the modern world.”
“In Greece or Rome, the faithful do not erect monuments to Gods from mythology,” said another priest, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.
In response, the mayor of one of the villages, Bogusława Engelbrecht, reassured that “no one is using [the sculptures] to fight Kashubs or their faith”.
They are simply a “tourist product” that “promotes the commune, [its] beautiful surroundings and a writer hailing from here, Aleksander Labuda”, said the mayor.
Made by folk artist Jan Redźko, the sculptures are based on a book about local mythology compiled by Labuda. Speaking at a council meeting, the author’s daughter said she felt sad and embarrassed that the tourist trail based on her father’s work could be dismantled.
She compared the sculptures to the central statue of Neptune in the nearby seaside city of Gdańsk. She also pointed to the prevalence of Greek mythological figures (Hades, Tanatos, Cerber) in the names of Polish funeral homes, as well as to a popular supermarket, Lewiatan, named after the biblical demon.
Scott Simpson, a lecturer in religious studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and expert on Polish Paganism, told Notes from Poland that “the 13 figures have been selected because they are very local. They belong to stories collected in that area, ethnographically, as an expression of local pride”.
“Amongst the voices complaining about the removal, there are people interested in local folklore,” with no strong religious motivations, added Simpson. Yet “other people amongst them would be Contemporary Pagans, who are religiously offended by the things being taken down.”
Contemporary Pagans in Poland are small in number but “relatively visible, for example, in the folk music scene,” according to Simpson. In Poland, there may be “in the order of 2,500 very active participants in Slavic Native Faith (Rodzimowierstwo)” and a “much broader range of people” who sometimes participate.
“They do not like to see their local folklore removed, which is to them sacred,” said Simpson. And they worry about “seeing that some religions can be put up on a pedestal, but the folk religion is sent away to be put in a museum,” as the local parish priest suggested.
Starowierstwo Morzan (Old Believers of the Sea), a community group which has been promoting a petition to keep the sculptures, wrote on Facebook: “Kashubs remain Kashubs because they cultivate their customs, rites, and beliefs of their ancestors.”
Kashubs are recognised as an ethnic minority within the Polish state. Their region in the north of the country is loosely delineated by the use of Kashubian language – a Slavic dialect close to Polish but with Low German influences – which is spoken by around 100,000 people as their main language at home."
-taken from notesfrompoland link below
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| Statue of Kashubian mytical personage Bòrowô Cotka located on the „Poczuj Kaszubskiego Ducha” tourist route (Smażyno, Poland). |
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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B%C3%B2row%C3%B4_Cotka.JPG
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