Maciejowski, Wojciech

Born and lived in Hala Boracza, near Żabnica [SSW of Żywiec], in a large family (he had eleven siblings); Son of Anna (née Kupczak) and the well-known gajdziorz, Jan, he inherited the latter's Gajdy, which he usually played in a band, together with violinists Franciszek Maślanka of Hala Boracza (1st violin) and Władysław Maślanka of Prusów [SSW of Żywiec] (2nd violin) and Feliks Bednarz or Ludwik Słowik of Żabnica [SSW of Żywiec] (basy [double-bass]); Since childhood he showed, besides his musical talents, interest in painting and sculpture, and he and his younger brother Dominik made sculptures and painted pictures, mainly of a religious nature, using home-made paints with pigments cooked from herbs and various organic ingredients; Their parents provided them with proper education; Dominik studied in Skoczów and Cracow, but at the end of the war he was arrested by the Gestapo, and murdered; Wojciech studied sculpture in Kęty [ENE of Bielsko-Biała], and settled, after graduating, in Cracow, where he had his own private studio; From 1935 he taught sculpture at the State School of Decorative Arts and the Art Industry; A lot of his work can still be found in some churches in Cracow; In his spare time he played on his Gajdy, violin, mandolin and accordion, which he kept in his studio; After finishing classes he sometimes would play along with his students; Married to Anna, they had two children, a daughter and a son; Because neither of them played the Gajdy, Wojciech was the last gajdziorz of the Maciejowski family; At the age of 51 he fell ill, because of an infection of a wound he sustained during sculpting; Laying sick, he tried to play mountaineers’ melodies from Hala Boracza on his Gajdy, but when his health deteriorated, his wife organised, despite the difficult war situation, a place in hospital and the family spent a fortune on penicillin, which was hard to come by during the occupation; The drug did not work, however, and Wojciech struggled with the infection for nine months, paying for his sojourn in hospital with the money he earned, making sculptures; According to Katarzyna & Maciej Szymonowiczowie, "Wojciech still possessed this instrument in the 2nd half of the 20th century, when he already had moved to Cracow"; This is, however, a rather dubious claim, considering the fact that Wojciech already had died in 1948; After his death, Józef Maślanka, who was [in 2014; ws] the last gajdziorz of Hala Boracza, tried, according to Szymonowiczowie, to buy Wojciech’s Gajdy from the family [which also seems very unlikely, because Maślanka was only 11 years old; ws]; Whatever the truth, Maślanka’s purchase did not take place, because of the family’s opposition; Unfortunately, today [i.e. in 2014; ws] no-one of the family knows the fate of the instrument.