Nativity Scenes in Poland

What a szopka is

A szopka krakowska is usually tall and narrow, made of cardboard, thin wood and colored foil. Its design comes straight from Kraków’s landmarks: the two mismatched towers of Saint Mary’s Basilica, the arches of the Cloth Hall, the outline of Wawel Castle.

Inside this miniature building is a small Nativity scene, often joined by other scenes from Polish history and legend.

That’s what sets it apart from every other tradition on this site. Elsewhere, the scenery copies the countryside. Here, it copies a city, in bold colors and shiny finishes you won’t see anywhere else. See the glossary. Poland’s Czech neighbors went a third way: see the nativity in the Czech Republic.

Where it comes from

The szopka grew out of church nativity scenes and Christmas puppet shows. In the 1800s, Kraków’s builders (masons and carpenters, often out of work in winter) started making them and carrying them from house to house at Christmas for a few coins, sometimes putting on little puppet shows too.

So it was construction workers who invented this nativity, and it shows: what they knew best was buildings.

The Kraków contest

Kraków has held a szopka contest every year since 1937. On the first Thursday of December, builders bring their nativity scenes to the Main Square, around the Adam Mickiewicz monument. The entries are then judged and put on display.

The contest has several categories, including one for kids, and it made all the difference: it turned a way to earn a few coins at Christmas into a recognized art form that people follow, record and pass on. Winning pieces go into the collection of the city’s history museum. For the contest and other events in Poland, see nativity fairs in Poland.

UNESCO

In 2018, the Kraków szopka tradition was added to UNESCO’s list of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, Poland’s first entry on that list. As far as we know, it’s still the only nativity tradition on a UNESCO list. Others are only on national lists, and the page on the current nomination explains the difference.

What UNESCO recognized isn’t the object itself but the practice: the skills, how they’re handed down, the yearly contest and the community of builders. It’s a good reminder that a living tradition is about people and what they do, not a collection of objects.

The technique

The materials are simple and the result is dazzling. That’s a big part of the charm.

• A light framework of thin wood or heavy cardboard, built up into towers and arches.
• Colored foil, the famous staniol: tinted tin or aluminum foil glued on for color and shine. It gives the szopka its signature look, somewhere between stained glass and jewelry.
• Fine cut-outs for round church windows, railings and windows.
• Interior lighting, often, shining through the cut-outs.
• Deliberate symmetry. Landscape nativities usually avoid putting things dead center. A szopka does the opposite: it faces you head-on, like the front of a building.

They range from about a foot tall to more than six feet for contest entries.

The jasełka

Poland also has the jasełka (yah-SEW-ka): Nativity plays put on by children in schools and parishes at Christmastime. Like so many of these words, it originally meant “the manger.”

It’s the acted-out side of the same tradition, much like the Provençal pastorales, the American Christmas pageant and living nativities.

What to take from it elsewhere

Even if you never build a szopka, here are two ideas you can borrow:

1. The scenery can be local without being rural

   A nativity scene doesn’t have to show a country village. The szopka puts the Nativity among its own city’s landmarks. A nativity set among the buildings of your own town, with brownstones, a courthouse dome or the church steeple on Main Street, would be right in line with the tradition.

2. Humble materials are enough

   Cardboard, paper, glue. What makes a szopka is good design and patience, not money. It’s proof that you don’t need expensive supplies to get started. See your first nativity scene.