Hero of this story

Władysław Kostysko was born in 1918 in Frysztak, Eastern Galicia, so still in Austrian Partition and just before Second Polish Republic was formed. During interwar period he moved with his parents to Lviv (now Ukraine) where Władysław finished music school for violin. Later he met there his future wife Irena.

Early days

After World War II they was forced to leave their home (Polish population transfers - you can read more here). For a short time they lived in Kraków and from there they moved to Świdnica. That's the place where in 1946 their daughter was born. Władysław was playing on violin in two restaurants - "Pod Papugami" and "Krokodyl" but it wasn't what he wanted because any musician could play there. Decision was simple - move again, this time to Wrocław.

Music

Władysław was natural born musician with many talents and skills. He learned to play saxophone all by himself. He was playing in Wrocław Philharmonic as second violinist.

Later he joined Wrocławski Kwintet Rytmiczny Polskiego Radia (there is no English name - it's something like Wrocław's Polish Radio Rhythmic Quintet) and his greatest accomplishment was recording soundtrack for the movie "Ashes and Diamonds". It was directed by Andrzej Wajda and is "considered by film critics to be one of the great masterpieces of Polish cinema and arguably the finest Polish realist film".

Oh...

Did I mention Władysław Kostysko was my great grandfather?

The gift

Last year my mother somehow got the idea it was my grandmother's 70th birthday and gift for that occasion should be really magnificent. It was really her 69th birthday but in that moment we didn't know we were wrong. I had an idea - let's make a present about my grandmother's father.

From the beginning I knew I wanted to do something with violin. But there was simple problem - volins aren't cheap. Even those cheapest ones imported from China are worth much more than I planned to spend. Idea was killed.

And then, out of nowhere, my husband told me he can get broken violin for almost nothing. Well, I didn't need it for playing but just for a gift so why not? It looked like that:

As you can see - it doesn't look good. I had to buy strings (guitar, but who cares?) and glue them to violin. I also bought wooden windowsill for violin holder and cut it into smaller pieces. After all of that it looked really fine.

There was only one thing left to do - place photo of my great grandfather on wooden "book". But there was still a place left so I decided to use my grandmother's favourite violin creation - Csárdás. If you don't know what it is you can hear it below.

And that's the way the gift with history was done!

It's all part of Kambrysia!