"The Doll's Warsaw"
Luxurious palaces in Aleje Ujazdowskie and
by Krakowskie Przedmieście, below, under the slope in Powiśle - poverty district.
Warsaw at the end of 70's in XIX century was a city of unimaginable contrasts.
And this is how it was shown in Bolesław Prus's novel "The Doll".
"The Doll" is one of the greatest polish novels of the XIX century.
Full of descriptions of districts, streets and buildings.
Pure Warsaw.
So...
Let's dive in and discover the places from the book.
KRAKOWSKIE PRZEDMIEŚCIE is one of the main streets, which is always appearing on the
pages of "The Doll".
This is the place where most of the action is happening.
It was kind of like the representative street, but it didn't look that spectacular.
And as the quote from a book says: "Here and there, dust swirled in the broomsticks
on the street, the drifts ran without memory or stopped for no reason, and the endless
flow of passers-by went on both sides.
(...) All this swarmed between the two long walls of the mottled buildings".
WOKULSKI'S APARTMENT 4 Krakowskie Przedmieście St.
It was the building where Wokulski lived after he came back from the Bulgarian war in 1878.
His apartment was placed on the second floor and had eight rooms and a balcony with a beautiful
view of Copernicus Monument.
Sadly in 1944, this building was destroyed.
Later it was rebuilt and now it's called "Tourist House".
WOKULSKI'S NEW SHOP 7 Krakowskie Przedmieście St.
The tenement house built in the years 1851-1852 for Józef Grodzicki was designed by Henryk
Marconi.
On Sunday after Mass in the church of St. The cross people came here for doughnuts and
chocolate to Grohnert's bakery.
It was often visited by Bolesław Prus, so he located a new Wokulski's shop and Rzecki's
flat in this place.
This literary fact was immortalized in 1937 by a memorial hung on the facade of the tenement
house.
"At the beginning of May, we moved into a new store that includes five huge salons:
the first room, on the left, contains only Russian fabrics: silks and velvet, the other
room is half occupied with the same fabrics, and half, for the little things that are used
for clothes: hats, collars, ties, umbrellas, the most elegant accessories, in the front
salon: bronzes, majolicas, crystals, ivory.
The next room on the right, places toys, wood and metal products, and in the last room,
on the right, there are goods of rubber and leather "- Ignacy Rzecki writes in the diary.
Mincel's shop 9 Krakowskie Przedmieście St.
Jan Mincel ran the store with gallantries and soap at this address.
Ignacy Rzecki worked for him and lived in a room at the back.
Here Stanisław Wokulski moves in with him.
After the death of Mincel in 1871, Wokulski marries Małgorzata Pfeifer who was a widow
after Jan and lives with her above the shop.
After a few years, Małgorzata dies, and Wokulski becomes the owner of the shop under the name
"J. Mincel and S. Wokulski".
Today, in the place of the house at 9 Krakowskie Przedmieście St., there is the so-called
kicked office building by Bohdan Pniewski (at the corner of Królewska).
European Hotel 13 Krakowskie Przedmieście
Designed by Henryk Marconi and built in the middle of the 19th century, the European was
the most elegant hotel for nearly half an age.
This was a place where the opening ceremony of the new Wokulski's magazine took place.
Ignacy Rzecki presented this event in his diary: "The hall was dressed in flowers, set
up huge tables in a horseshoe, music playing.
By the evening more than one hundred and fifty people gathered.
Who Wasn't there!
Mainly merchants and manufacturers from Warsaw, from the province, from Moscow, even from
Vienna and Paris.
There were also two counts, one prince and a lot of nobility.
Not mentioning liquor, because I don't really know if there were more leaves on plants decorating
the room or the bottles.
"
Karowa
In "The Doll" Wokulski takes a walk through the Powiśle.
From Krakowskie Przedmieście taking Karowa St. which is then a narrow path leading down
the slopes with the walls on the sides.
It enters through a gate designed by Henryk Marconi and ends with a statue of Siren by
Konstanty Hegel.
"At the gate, he saw a barefooted, knotted cords of porter, who drank water straight
from the waterworks.
Splashed from head to toe, but very happy with laughing eyes.
"
Powiśle
Wokulski descends by Karowa on Powiśle, which was then a clump of misery.
"Stopped halfway and stared at the stretching district under his feet between Nowy Zjazd
and Tamka.
(...) Nothing, but white and black fences surrounding the empty squares, where also
pops up multi-level townhouse like a pine, which survived the cut forest, scared by its
own loneliness.
» Nothing, nothing!
"He repeated, wandering through the streets, where the hovel sunken below the pavement,
with the roofs covered with moss, premises with Shutters day and night closed on bars,
doors closed shut, forward and backward leaning walls, windows patched with paper or clogged
with rags.
He walked glazing through dirty windows, looked into flats and saturating with a view of closets
without doors, chairs on three legs, couches with a torn seat, clocks of one hint with
cracked dials.
" Carmelite Church
52/54 Krakowskie Przedmieście In this Church, Prus placed the Easter collection
scene.
Wokulski went there to see Izabela Łęcka.
"A few paupers and beggars begged him about alms, which God will return compassionate
in their future lives.
The church was immersed in darkness, which could not dissipate the brilliance of a dozen
of candles burning in silver chandeliers.
Here and there on the floor of the church, there were blurred shadows of people lying
in the cross or bent toward the ground as if they were found with their devotion full
of humility.
(...) From the shadows in prayer, his gaze ran toward the light.
And he saw at various points of the temple tables with shrouded carpets, on them trays
full of bankocetli, silver and gold, and around them ladies sitting in a Comfortable Armchairs,
clad in silk, feathers and velvets, surrounded by cheerful youth.
(...) They spoke and played like at a party.
"
"Daily Courier" 25 Krakowskie Przedmieście
In this building was the office of "Daily Courier".
In this journal, Bolesław Prus from 1887-1889 published his novel "The Doll" in the episodes.
Paca's Palace 15 Miodowa
For the second half of the 19th century, in this building, the judicial institutions were
housed.
When Prus wrote "The Doll," Warsaw District Court perched here.
In its halls, there are colourful and amusingly described hearings in front of the judge of
the peace.
It was here that Baroness Krzeszowska fought with a beautiful lady Stawska about a supposedly
stolen doll, here also was carried out the auction of the Łęckis' house at Krucza.
5 Chmielna When Alexander Głowacki arrived in Warsaw
in 1868, he rented a room with the company of his colleagues in the tenement house at
5 Chmielna St. The owner also rented cheaper rooms in the attic to students who seated
there in the whole swarms.
Social life bloomed.
The students gathered in the evenings and discussed, and did not avoid a variety of
jokes.
Such students Prus perched in "The Doll" in the attic of the Łęckis' tenement house.
The victim of their jokes was Baroness Krzeszowska.
Ujazdowskie Avenues "The Ujazdowskie Avenues play a huge role
in "the Doll".
Here is the Łęckis' flat, Apartments of Countess Karolowa.
Here open cart walks are celebrated.
This way leads to the racings, so do the entrances to the Royal Baths and the botanical garden.
At the alleys there is the Swiss valley, "writes Ludwik Grzeniewski in the book" Warszawa in
the "Doll" by Prus.
Although Tomasz Łęcki had a tenement house at Krucza 26, he did not live in it.
For himself, Isabella and cousin Florentyna he rent an eight-room apartment in the alleys,
in one of the residences near the Three Crosses Square (then St. Aleksander's).
"There was a living room with three windows, a private cabinet, a daughter's office, a
bedroom for himself, a bedroom for daughter, a table room, a room for Florentyna and a
wardrobe, not counting the kitchen and housing for the service."
At that time, the alleys played the role of walking Promenade, which people crossed on
foot or in the open carts.
Krucza
Writing "Doll", Bolesław Prus lived at Krucza 25 (then at Wilcza, where he died).
In his novels standing across the street tenement house 26 belongs to Tomasz Łęcki, Izabela's
father.
In "The Doll" Prus describes Krucza "The windows of houses opened, some just cleaned;
The playful wind tossing the skirts of the maids, but it could be seen that the Warsaw
service was more likely to wash the windows on the third floor rather than their own feet.
"
Łeckis' tenement house 26 Krucza St.
"Walking through the right sidewalk Wokulski spotted (...) In the middle of the street
house of extremely yellow colour.
Warsaw has a lot of yellow houses; This is probably the most yellow city under the sun.
However, this building seemed to be yellower than others and at the exhibition of Yellow
objects (which we will probably see one day) It would get the first prize "-Prus wrote
about Łeckis' tenement house.
The house had three floors, a pair of iron balconies and each floor built in a different
style.
In the architecture of the gate, there was only one motive, namely: a fan.
"The upper part of the gate took the form of a staggered fan, which by obsolete giant
could be cooled.
(.) The real singularity was a hall entrance with a very poor floor, but very nice landscapes
on the walls.
There were many hills, forests, rocks and creeks that the residents of the house confidently
could not leave for the summer dwellings."
While filming series "The Doll", Łeckis' house was played by the tenement house at
the crossing of Krucza and Nowogrodzka.
The interior of its gate filmmakers painted then with colourful daubs.
Botanical Garden and Royal Baths
To the Botanical gardens Stanisław Wokulski, he came with Julian Ochrowicz, an inventor
and a cousin of Izabela Łęcka.
"They went up the hill, where you could see a well called Okrąglak ". Here he also walked
to look for Izabela.
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