In search of Stefan Grabinski

[yellowish haze]

Two months ago I had a pleasure of traveling to Lviv - a city situated in north-eastern Ukraine that was once Polish. When I saw its winding cobblestone streets, badly lit during the long winter nights and surrounded by tenement houses of crumbling balconies - many of them caught in webs of overgrown leafless creepers – I instantly fell in love that city!
I’ve never seen a burg, the beautiful foundations of which, destroyed by people’s negligence, had such a mesmerizing effect on me. It seems that for people in Lviv the time has stopped - but its corruptive effect hasn’t spared the impressive architecture.

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For me, during the day Lviv is timeless (in sense that the logics of the lapse of time are not applicable), but deep in the night, it is almost apocalyptical in its essence.

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Traveling there I had in mind that Stefan Grabinski had spent there a great part of his life in and this is where most of his books had been published. I had the idea of visiting a few places which were connected with his life. Taking into consideration the fact that Grabinski is completely forgotten and neglected, I wonder if I wasn’t the first to do such a thing.

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On our way to Lviv we to stopped in Przemysl (one of the oldest Polish cities) where Grabinski used to spend a lot of time in a train station.

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The strolls along railroads and hours spent on watching trains arrive and depart later inspired him to write his greatest collection “The Motion Demon”, now available from Ash Tree Press.

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This is Lviv University where Grabinski was once a student. Coincidentally, as far as I know, this is also where Bruno Schulz used to study a few years later (it’s a pity they seem to have never met).

On one of the days of my stay I decided to take a bus and visit Brzuchowice (Брюховичі) 9 kilometers north from Lvov. This is where Grabinski spent a few last years of his life in a villa (Jasna Street) and wrote the longest of his novels, “Itongo Island” (1936). Brzuchowice at the time was considered to be “the lungs of Lviv” due to its vast forests and unpolluted air and the author decided to move there because of a progressive tuberculosis. Brzuchowice may not be the most important place in Grabinski’s biography but it is somehow representative of his life of a loner. Forgotten by many of his friends, not visited by any family members, not in a condition to travel to Lvov and slowly pining away this is the place where Grabinski became a total recluse and suffered a great misery.

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Brzuchowice is situated behind the hill you can see in the background.
Nowadays when one travels to Brzuchowice, it’s like traveling to the heart of nowhere. We leave the city with its crowds, we pass through vast hills of dense forests surrounding the city to come to a small somehow forgotten town once renowned for its serenity.


It was quite difficult to find the street I was looking for and I was not far from giving up when a nice lady decided to give me a lift. This is it:

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Grabinski’s neighbor. This house existed at the time for sure. And it’s veeeery spooky.

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The train tracks situated within a distance of 100 m from where Grabinski lived prove the fact that his fascination with trains prevailed to the end of life.

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Unfortunately the villa has not survived, but judging by the numbers this is where it might have stood. (look at the house in the background to imagine Grabinski’s probable view from a window)

And this is how Brzuchowice looked at the time:

The Train Station

One of the Villas

The Chapel

(edited for typos)
(March 16: pictures replaced)

[Spotbowserfido2]

Thank you, yellowish haze, for this travelogue of Stefan Grabinski's haunts. You have greatly aided the cause of preserving Mr. Grabinski's memory and literary legacy. A sense of time and place can really help to enrich the appreciation of an artist's work...

[ventriloquist]

Thanks!

"A gloomy spell exuded from them, an alluring, vertiginous, bone-chilling depth...."

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by Spotbowserfido2";p=&quot

A sense of time and place can really help to enrich the appreciation of an artist's work...

That's an interesting debating point.
Yours, Wrzesmian

[Dr. Zirk]

Thanks for posting the photos and your commentary, yellowish haze. This is absolutely fascinating - I'm going to have learn more about Grabinski!

[bendk]

Thank you for taking the time to post this, YZ. I would love to travel more and see such sights. At one time in my life, I had a list of literary pilgrimages that I planned to undertake: Kafka, Poe, Nietzsche, etc...

[yellowish haze]

Thanks everyone for your interest. I am so much fond of Brzuchowice and its enigmatic atmosphere of perdition and oblivion that I immediately link it to Grabinski's life (although he only lived there for about four years). Here are a few other examples of how the village looked before 1939:

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The last picture presents the road leading to the train station and I think I recognize it from my trip as one situated next to Jasna, where Grabinski lived. The shot was taken in 1934 at the time the author lived there, so he may well be one of the people standing there. ;)

[Karnos]

I recently finished reading Grabinski's "The Dark Domain", and although I could have done without the railway styled stories, I pretty much enjoyed the whole of the collection, specially the stories "The Area" and "The Gaze"... this one in particular, I think, raises and interesting question, at least for all of us in our collective interest: What is better; the certainty that there is a hideous, inhuman reality hidden just beyond our veil of perception, or the certainty that there is absolutely nothing beyond the veil? For, if what's beyond this "veil" is a monstrous reality, isn't oblivion favored?

[unknown]

"perdition" and "oblivion" seem to describe the city perfectly...it looks so awesome...great stuff, YZ

[yellowish haze]

Quote

"perdition" and "oblivion" seem to describe the city perfectly...it looks so awesome...great stuff, YZ

Thanks, unknown! Hopefully, I now associate Brzuchowice with nouns such as "perdition" "oblivion" and "serenity", but before and during the journey those were "horror" and "terror". One week before the departure I did a small research and decided to google "Brzuchowice" in cyrillic for images (don't do it!) to see what I can expect when I get there. The most common result is a picture of a man shot in the throat, seated in a car with his head tilted backwards, glasses hanging over his gaping mouth and facial expression so groteque... that was too much! Apparently, the tragedy befell this man a few months ago in Brzuchowice. The horror, the horror!

http://www.myspace.com/stefangrabinski
Stefan Grabinski is now at MySpace! (many thanks to Des for the idea!)