Stefan Żeromski Museum in Nałęczów

Practical info

What to expect

Stefan Żeromski, author of novels that Polish schoolchildren still read, spent his summers in the spa town of Nałęczów, and this single-room wooden chalet was his first house of his own. He built it in 1905 with the fee earned for the novel Ashes, to a design by Jan Koszczyc-Witkiewicz: pine logs, a shingled roof, a high plinth of split stone and a front carved with lilies and sunbeams. The style is the Zakopane manner, a revival of Polish highland building softened with Art Nouveau detail, meant as a deliberate native answer to the Swiss villas then filling the resort. His widow Oktawia later left the studio, the garden and the mausoleum to the Polish nation as a museum, which opened on 17 June 1928.

The room is furnished with the family’s own things. A sofa, chairs and table from Oktawia’s dowry, brought from St Petersburg, stand by the three east-facing windows; to one side is the green baize desk at which Żeromski worked, to the other a bookcase of first editions of his novels. A lime-wood screen designed by Koszczyc-Witkiewicz and decorated by the writer divides the working half of the room from the bed. A display case holds the schoolbooks and travelling oddments of his son Adam, alongside the boy’s skis, boxing gloves and saddle. The walls carry portraits of the writer by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Eligiusz Niewiadomski and Tymon Niesiołowski.

Outside, the garden keeps old trees the writer knew, a white poplar at the gate, a well with a winch and his brick bench and stone table. At the bottom of the slope stands the mausoleum, a conical limestone chapel under red tiles, again by Koszczyc-Witkiewicz. Adam Żeromski died of tuberculosis on 30 July 1918, and in 1922 his coffin was moved here from the cemetery at Bochotnica.

Tips

Check before you travel. The National Museum in Lublin, which runs this branch, states on its Polish pages that the Stefan Żeromski Museum is closed until further notice and publishes no current opening hours. Ring +48 81 501 45 52 or +48 887 750 014, or write to zeromski@mnwl.pl, and ask whether the chalet can be visited. Treat the museum’s English pages with caution: they still show pandemic-era information, including weekend hours and ticket prices of 6 and 5 PLN. The Polish pages are the ones to trust.

The current tariff for this branch is 10 PLN full price and 8 PLN concession. A guide costs a further 35 PLN, a museum lesson 40 PLN and a workshop 45 PLN, in each case on top of the admission tickets. Photography inside is allowed for private use only, with no right of publication, and flash, extra lighting and tripods are forbidden.

Getting there

The museum sits at ul. S. Żeromskiego 8 in Nałęczów, a small spa town in the Lublin region roughly midway between Lublin and Puławy, on its own wooded plot a few minutes’ walk from the pump-room quarter. Post goes to a separate address, ul. Poniatowskiego 39, 24-140 Nałęczów. The National Museum’s site names no bus or rail connection and says nothing about parking at the chalet, so settle the practicalities on the telephone when you confirm your visit.

Nearby museums

A few streets away stands the Bolesław Prus Museum in Nałęczów, housed in the former Adam Żeromski day nursery whose founding is documented in the papers kept here. Further down the Vistula valley, the Czartoryski Museum in Puławy and the Vistula Museum in Kazimierz Dolny complete the circuit.