Ilustracje do Sztuki u Słowian, szczególnie w Polsce i Litwie przedchrześcijańskiej Józefa Ignacego Kraszewskiego Posążek z Wozniesieńska
Illustrations from The Art of the Slavs, Especially in Pre-Christian Poland and Lithuania of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski: The statue from Wozniesieńsk

Author(s): Magdalena Sugalska
Subject(s): Archaeology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Jerzy Kolendo; archaeology; Poland; Europe; University of Warsaw; Polish Academy of Sciences
Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the history of the research on the small equestrian statue from Wozniesieńsk describedby Józef Ignacy Kraszewski in The Art of the Slavs, Especially in Pre-Christian Poland and Lithuania (Polish: Sztukau Słowian, szczególnie w Polsce i Litwie przedchrześcijańskiej) and drawn by him (together with other specimens) onunpublished plates illustrating the book. The Art of the Slavs was the fi rst synthesis of the prehistory of the Polishand Lithuanian territories, for which Kraszewski compiled an inventory of the known archaeological sites andfi ndings. On 7 out of 41 plates made by Kraszewski, 35 small statues of various origin have been drawn. The discussedstatue is among them. The statue from Wozniesieńsk is one of around 60 cult images known from Europeand Asia and referred to in Russian literature as “freaks.” The defi ning characteristics of these objects are: nudity,deformation or lack of some body part, androgyny, emphasis on gender. This group of specimens is associatedwith the cult of the dead and of the ancestors, typical for all Turkish peoples grounded in shamanism, inhabitingthe grasslands of south-east Europe and south-west Asia from the 8th to the 11th century.

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