Polish wandering beggars, commonly called dziady and Ukrainian hurdy-gurdy players are two groups, which were characterized by certain similarities, but at the same time they differed in a significant way. Despite these differences, the... more
Polish wandering beggars, commonly called dziady and Ukrainian hurdy-gurdy players are two groups, which were characterized by certain similarities, but at the same time they differed in a significant way. Despite these differences, the way they were stereotypically perceived in the former rural communities was similar and was characterized by a specific ambiguity. Considerations presented in this chapter lead to the conclusion that the ambivalent image of dziady and hurdygurdy players in traditional culture was associated with two stereotypical ways of describing them by ethnologists and folklorists. The first was the creation of an idealized image of noble and pious thinkers and poets, the other depicted them as crooks looking for an easy profit. Both images worked as ideological dimension and despite the disappearance of hurdy-gurdy players and dziady after the 2nd World War are still present in the public consciousness and are used to describing certain phenomena of contemporary culture.
