Krakow

I made it to the castle today, in good time to see the exhibition on Christmas kribs from Poland, specifically: Krakow, where this tradition is particularly alive.

The legend says that the start of the Bethlehem manger was presented live by Francis of Assisi on December 24, 1223 in Greccio, in a natural setting of Italian woods among rocks and ravines. He is said to have built an animal manger with an ox and an ass standing next to it and at midnight he celebrated the first midnight mass together with Franciscan friars and local people. 

The custom of creating nativity scenes was brought to Krakow by Franciscan monks in the 13th century and through the centuries the tradition developed fro the simple scene we're used to, into something more and more elaborate to the point where the church banned the nativity plays because they had developed into, what the church saw as pagan scenes containing satire and humour. The plays never stopped though, instead they moved into the street and became more creative and  theatrical with puppet shows and improvised elements. In the 19th century the nativity scenes became more elaborate and the tradition of building the nativity settings got more and more developed, the scenes borrowed elements from the city of Krakow, like towers and arches from the buildings in the city got put into the nativity scenes. 

In 1937, in order to save the tradition of nativity scenes the city of Krakow organised a contest on the first Thursday of December, where the buildings are presented. The materials used is mostly extremely simple, like shiny candy paper, cardboard and papié mache. Figurines are often moving and gets judged specially. The ones displayed varied in size from over two metres high to tiny miniature scenes. The only rule is that  somewhere there has to be a cradle with Jesus, Mary and Joseph, in my blip they are in the thumblnail.

Impressive, creative, fun and entertaining. Not so serious as it seems but important for the contestants. Each building can take over 1000 hours to complete.