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You will learn:
- why there are so many abandoned villages in the Bieszczady
- where the true source of the San River lies
- what happens when you walk through the Lupkov Tunnel
- where trees grow that are older than the oldest constitution
- how a large Greek community came to settle in the Polish Carpathians
- how Marko Škop’s documentary film changed the lives of people in Osadné
- what the words kýčera, magura, and polonina mean
- what songs Andy Warhol’s mother sent to her native village
Inspired by Bruce Chatwin’s famous travel book In Patagonia, Polish writer Adam Robiński sets out on a journey through southeastern Poland in search of a similarly remote and forgotten land as South America’s Patagonia. And the Polish Bieszczady and Slovak Poloniny are somewhat like that. This is a region of deep forests, dark night skies, and deserted orchards where apple trees still bear fruit even though the villages they belonged to are long gone.
In the book Kýčery, subtitled Wanderings Through the Bieszczady and Poloniny, we travel along the Polish, Ukrainian, and Slovak borders, meeting people for whom this part of the Carpathians has become a destiny: solitary trail markers, cartographers, people who have dedicated their entire lives to these mountains. We’ll get to know Greek settlers who took root here after being forced to leave their homeland. We’ll search for the true source of the San River. We’ll see how life in Osadné changed after Marko Škop’s successful documentary. We’ll learn about the Rusyns and old local place names. And when we stand at the point where the borders of three countries meet, we may truly feel for a moment as if we’re walking through faraway Patagonia—and not a mountainous island right within reach. Kýčery is a book about a specific mountain range, but at the same time, it is a universal guide to understanding and embracing a certain slice of the world—and to discovering the many ways we can come to know and connect with our own homeland.
Details
| Author | Adam Robiński |
| Translator | Ján Púček |
| Publication Year | 2025 |
| Page Count | 288 |
| Language | Slovak |
| Binding | Softcover |
