Doświadczenie inwazji tatarskich w narracjach ludowych i pamięci zbiorowej jako niematerialne dziedzictwo kulturowe Polski południowo-wschodniej

The present area of the south-eastern Poland (Podkarpackie Voivodeship) belonged to these parts of the Kingdom of Poland, and from 1569 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which for several centuries, from late Middle Ages to the end of the 17th century, were affected by extremely destructive Tatar invasions. For several centuries Tatar military expeditions to the Polish and Lithuanian territories that aimed at robbing and terrorising local population were an excellent tool used by the Crimean Khanate, and also periodically by the rulers of the Ottoman Empire who employed subordinate Nogai tribes, for forcing the kings of Poland to pass special fees and levies, which was guaranteed in Polish-Ottoman and Polish-Tatar peace treaties. These fees, referred to as “gifts”, were a relic of the Mongol and Tatar supremacy over Ruthenian territories in the times of the Golden Horde. A long-term threat of rapacious invasions of the Tatars from Crimea and Budjak and their catastrophic economic and demographic effects were not the only consequences of the military activity of Tatar hordes on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This multi-dimensional and periodically very intensive impact of Tatar cavalry raids must have caused the formation of a specific cultural discourse and collective memory reproduction processes in communities that were threatened existentially, exploited economically and drained demographically. The strength and remarkable durability of the collective memory of Tatar attacks is primarily a result of such factors as distance and strangeness of aggressors in terms of civilization, culture and religion, but the specific character of the activities carried out by the Tatars was an even more important factor that generated collective memory of the attacked community. A characteristic feature of Tatar operations was the application of asymmetric warfare consisting in concentration of operational efforts in the civil sphere, which was reflected mostly in conducting expropriating operations and taking the defenceless people, mainly from rural areas, into captivity. Collective memory related to the historical phenomenon of Tatar invasions has been preserved in legends, songs, sayings, folk proverbs and beliefs transmitted from generation to generation in local communities (oral history) and in specific elements of religious ceremonies. A characteristic feature of these traditional records, despite their quite considerable diversity in form and content, was the presence of the idea of providentialism, a belief in particular care of God over the Commonwealth and the communities of the faithful that were threatened by the attacks of hostile forces. The above-mentioned historiosophical vision was not only popular among the nobility and bourgeoisie, but also among the broad group of the peasant population, and slightly later penetrated into their awareness by means of the parishes of the Catholic as well as the Orthodox, and later the United Church. The narrative structures of the legends frequently contain motives of wonderful divine interventions, often associated with the devotion to the Virgin Mary and supernatural meteorological phenomena that saved lives and freedom of people and brought salvation for cities and villages threatened with destruction. There are also many legends with moral and educational content, which refer to the figures of renegades who, during Tatar attacks, betrayed and shared their knowledge with hostile troops for various reasons. From the social point of view, an important role of legends and folk stories related to Tatars was their therapeutic and compensating role as well as an inscription of Tatar threats into the existing system of terms and values. It should be emphasized that collective memory of the Tatar attacks was strengthened, consolidated and reproduced also due to the symbolism present in iconography of sacral buildings and in the local cultural landscape in the form of roadside shrines, crosses and mounds. The product of synergistic connection of influences of intangible and tangible memory carriers, which interconnect by using a dialectically complicated intergenerational communication network, was a creation of collective memory, consolidated by means of official historical and religious discourses that constitute its social frame. Durability as well as catastrophic economic and demographic effects of Tatar invasions caused the situation where the contacts between the peasant population of the Commonwealth and the warriors from Crimea and Budjak became a border experience and foundational trauma that affected the formation of identity of local communities as a confrontation of different values and lifestyles originating from different civilization and cultural circles. For this reason the centuries of nomad invasions, which were in fact a dramatic, intercultural conflict and “the clash of civilizations”, may be defined – following the concept of Pierre Nora – as one of the central and symbolic “places of memory” (lieu de mémoire), having a multi-dimensional impact on the Polish culture.