Peasant’s Croft from Gostwica

It is a croft typical of the wealthiest stratum of Lach villagers in the second half of the 19th century. It consists of a cottage from Gostwice, a barn from Biegonice, a stable and a carriage house from Mokra Wieś, and a pigsty and granary from Gostwice, arranged in a quadrangle around a spacious yard. All the buildings are of log construction and their roofs are covered with straw. The cottage, stable, and pigsty are whitewashed. The walls of the granary are covered with characteristic large lime-painted dots. On the wall of the cottage hangs a box shrine with a statue of the Pensive Christ. The cottage was built around 1850 and consists of a centrally located entryway, to the left of which is the so-called cold room and the kitchen and a room with an annexe to the right. The furnishings of the dwelling are typical for a wealthy Lachian farm in the early years of the Second Polish Republic. In the entryway is a huge barrel for making sauerkraut and a cupboard for food net to it. By the door, there is a quern for grinding grain into flour and a characteristically shaped sarcophagus-type chest for storing foodstuffs. In the kitchen is an oven with a hearth under a metal sheet and a hood that takes the smoke from the baker’s oven to the chimney. There is room for several cows under the windows and a hanging cot for a farmhand in the corner. On the left of the entrance stand a bed for the servants, a table for eating, and the farmhouse’s kitchen equipment. In the elegant, presentable room, which also served as a bedroom, we have the typical furniture arrangement: the beds are arranged on the sides, with a bench and table between them. Next to it is a cradle, a painted chest and a wardrobe for clothes. Hanging on the walls are several pictures taken by a peasant photographer. The annexe adjacent to the room was intended for the elderly parents, who had already passed on the property to their adult children. To the left of the entrance hall is the cold room, i.e., a room without a stove, that was used as a bedroom for the whole family in summer and as a storage room in the cold seasons. It was also used for larger family celebrations. In the open-air museum it is shown as a wedding room (in 1963, at the wedding of the hosts’ (the Żelasek family) daughter, the cottage hosted the then Kraków bishop Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II). Presented here is a scene from a traditional wedding custom, just before the nuptials: the bride and groom are seated at the table in the centre, with a wedding wand made of crêpe paper flowers on the top of a spruce tree placed in front of them. To the right stand the master and matron of honour, –with the best man and the bridesmaid to the left, and at the entrance is the bride’s mother. Everyone is dressed in traditional Lach clothing from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


 
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