i have to wear shoes at the wedding   

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The Prague dolce vita of the Rydel family.

Wyspiański_Lucjan_Rydel_1898

Among the most famous Polish one-liners is the Bride’s line from Stanisław Wyspiański’s drama The Wedding. Refusing to take off her tight shoes, she says ‘Trza być w butach na weselu’ (I have to wear shoes at the wedding). However, few people know that Jadwiga Mikołajczykówna, the wife of playwright Lucjan Rydel on whom the character of the Bride is based, spent part of the year 1915 in Prague with her husband. In their time, the Rydels were Krakow celebrities and were temporarily displaced from their home by the First World War. They found refuge in Prague’s Vinohrady district, known as la dolce vita of Prague’s elite, where ornate Art Nouveau facades and streets lined with mature trees are slightly reminiscent of Paris, while the quality of the local cafés can easily match it.

The poet and playwright Lucjan Rydel, from the generation of what was called Young Poland, was a highly original and individualistic person, bordering on the eccentric. He was famous for his gregariousness, which gave rise to the saying ‘It’s raining, raining, raining and Rydel is talking, talking, talking.’ Winning the heart of the sixteen-year-old daughter of a poor farmer from Bronowice near Krakow, with whom he fell head over heels in love, was surely less work than convincing her parents. In the end, he succeeded and married Jadwiga, 13 years his junior, on 20 November 1900. He also invited Stanislaw Wyspiański, a friend from school with a broad artistic background, to the wedding. This event inspired Wyspiański to write his most important work, The Wedding. The Krakow premiere of the play in 1901 was a social scandal, but also the key to his fame as a playwright.  

However, it did not bring much joy to the Rydels. It is full of fantasy motifs and Jadwiga had little in common with the character portrayed; the frail, gentle, shy and quiet girl left the performance in tears, and Lucjan, portrayed as a comic character desperately trying to find his wife in the countryside, felt insulted. 

After the outbreak of World War I and the advance of the troops, the Rydels were forced to leave Krakow in September 1914. They moved to Prague with their children and maid following a brief stay in Pardubice. They were running out of funds and there were more opportunities to earn money in Prague. Lucjan Rydel enrolled the children at a Polish secondary school and found a decent, gas-lit apartment for the family. It was located in today’s Římská Street in Vinohrady, near the impressive National Museum.   

In fact, the whole area was shining with newness at the time, the nearby náměstí Míru Square surrounded by recently built grandiose residential houses and its dominant features, the Church of St. Ludmila and the Vinohrady Theatre, which performed Rydel’s play The Enchanted Wheel. However, it was not Rydel’s only play to be performed in Prague. In February 1904, the National Theatre staged his drama Forever 

The proud lady Jadwiga used to shop for fruit and vegetables in the folk costume of Krakow, preferring the Elektra market on Wenceslas Square. At that time, an electrified railway was already in place along the entire length of the square with trams running on it. Even today, you can ride the same historic carriage from the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was used by the Rydel family back in the day. The route of the Vintage Tram line 42 crosses Wenceslas Square and passes Prague’s most important monuments. But you won’t find a market in the area any longer – it used to be on the site of today’s Ligna Palace, with the famous Ovocná cukrárna pastry shop in the Světozor arcade. The newly established English nature park (Riegrovy sady) was only a 10-minute walk from the apartment. A stroll through the park, with a large garden restaurant at the summit offering views of Prague Castle and the Lesser Town, is highly recommended even today.   

In May 1915, the situation at the front no longer prevented the Rydels from returning to their homeland, and once the school year ended, the family returned to Krakow. Rydel accepted a position as editor-in-chief of a new magazine devoted to literature and art, and also became the director of the Municipal Theatre in Krakow. Despite his short stay in Prague, Lucjan Rydel became a fundamental figure in Polish-Czech cultural relations. 

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