Stefan Kiełsznia

Stefan Kiełsznia (1911–1987) – the documentarian of Lublin

Stefan Kiełsznia was a bookseller, photographer, and most of all a documentarian of the pre-war Lublin. In his youth, he was interested in painting, but his financial situation did not allow him to get schooled in the fine arts. He was a book enthusiast and worked in St. Wojciech bookstore. In the interwar period, his collection of books on photography was the largest in Lublin. He was a member of the Lublin Photographic Society (Lubelskie Towarzystwo Fotograficzne). He referred to his photographs as a token of perpetual remembrance. The artistry, so fashionable before the war, never appealed to me. In photography I saw a perfect instrument of stopping time.

In the interwar period, Stefan Kiełsznia photographed streets in the centre of Lublin, namely Nowa, Lubartowska and Świętoduska, as well as those located in the nonexistent Jewish quarter: Kowalska, Szeroka and Krawiecka. The photographs were probably taken around 1934. In his work Kiełsznia used a Leica camera as well as Mimosa and Gevaert films.

The photographs mostly show ground floors of apartment houses. The photographer’s work was extremely precise. It was carried out with great consistency. Buildings were photographed one after another. Aside from architecture, signboards, pavements typical for the period or newsagent’s, his photographs also show people walking through the city during the day. Several figures appear repeatedly in different photographs and we can trace their journey through the city.

The number of photographs taken by Stefan Kiełsznia is unknown. In one of the interviews, the photographer said that he had taken about 600 photographs before World War II broke out. That number probably includes all of Kiełsznia’s pre-1939 photographs, not just the collection featuring Lublin’s streets. It is known for sure that because of high costs the photographer could not make copies of all his films. Nothing is known about how the negatives and the copies were stored during the occupation. What we do know is that after the war, Stefan Kiełsznia was hounded by the UB (the socialist state’s secret police) for his collaboration with the Home Army and had to destroy a portion of his work.

In July 1944, Stefan Kiełsznia took photographs in the prison at the Lublin castle, in one of the castle tower’s cells where prisoner executions had been carried out. He also documented war damage. After the war, he photographed events taking place in Lublin. Until the end of his life, he was an active member of the Lublin Photographic Society where, among other activities, he ran the library. Kiełsznia took part in numerous photography contests and won many of them.

Most of Stefan Kiełsznia’s pre-war photographs were first developed only in the 1970s. The first exhibition, entitled “Dawny Lublin na fotografiach Stefana Kiełszni” (Old-time Lublin in the photographs of Stefan Kiełsznia) was organized in 1977, on the initiative of Henryk Gawarecki. Photographs from Nowa, Kowalska and Szeroka streets, views of the castle and pictures taken in the Old Town were among those presented at the exhibition. Ten years later, those photographs were published in an album entitled “Lublin trzech pokoleń” (Lublin of Three Generations).

The preserved collection of Stefan Kiełsznia’s pictures of Lublin’s streets consists of 145 photographs. It includes 107 frames of 35 mm negatives, 11 miniature gelatin silver prints on baryta paper in 13×18 cm format and 28 gelatin silver prints on baryta paper in 23×36 cm format. Most of the images come from the collection of Stefan Kiełsznia’s son, Jerzy.

Joanna Zętar

“Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre

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