Short stories
Tales of the Tatras
Na skalnym Podhalu
Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer · 1910
Opening lines
Pewnego razu, w początku listopada, straszliwy wicher halny, szalejący trzy dni i dwie noce, wyłamał tyle drzew w Tatrach, że miejscami całe ubocze gór zawalone były łomem smrekowym, z pośród którego tylko gdzieniegdzie sterczał buk, z przemrożonym czerwonym liściem, ostały na głębiej idących w ziemię korzeniach.
Once, at the beginning of November, a terrible halny wind, raging for three days and two nights, broke so many trees in the Tatras that in places whole mountainsides were strewn with fallen spruce, from which only here and there rose a beech, its red leaves nipped by frost, left standing on roots that reached deeper into the ground.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from pl.wikisource.org
Synopsis
About forty short stories written in the speech of the Podhale, which for the most part tell of the life of the highlanders of the Tatras in the time of Empress Maria Theresa: brigands and shepherds, hunters and lovers, at grips with men, beasts, the wild mountain and fate. Other tales go back to the Middle Ages, others still touch on the author's own time, such as the emigration of highlanders who left to look for work far from a land too poor.
Context
The stories first appeared in the press, then in Warsaw in five volumes, from 1903 to 1910; a jubilee one-volume edition, illustrated by Leon Wyczółkowski and Władysław Konieczny, followed in Kraków in 1914. The author, who had grown up in Ludźmierz, was also inspired by the travel journal in the Tatras of Seweryn Goszczyński, a friend of his father. The language of the highlanders at first bewildered readers; Julian Krzyżanowski later praised its gallery of primitive heroes. An English translation of a selection of stories appeared in New York in 1943.
Who it is for
Tales of uneven length, written in a highland language that slows the reading, and which can be read separately. No French translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as his best book and, together with the Legend of the Tatras, as the major achievement of his prose.
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