Matuszni Family Archive

Antoni Matuszny, who came from the Beskid village of Laliki, was interested in photography since he was a child. As he recalls, he wanted to save the life of his family and the countryside in the 1970s from oblivion. At the age of thirteen, he bought the first camera, and when he was 24 – the camera of the Soviet Quarz 5.

A film made in Laliki Kubaszczyce in 1978, documenting the funeral of a neighbor of the Matusznys, Roman Kubaszczyk called Romuś. Shots from the nearby quarry, the place where the deceased neighbor worked. As Antoni Matuszny recalls, Roman was involved in stone working for most of his life. The men carry the coffin containing the body of the deceased out of the house and place it on a horse-drawn cart driven by Ludwik Matuszny, Antoni’s father. The mourners, together with the parish priest Jozef Lesny, walk in procession behind the cart to the church in Laliki. After the funeral ceremony, the coffin on the cart travels to the cemetery where mourners say farewell to the deceased Roman. Among those gathered can be seen Roman Kubaszczyk (son), neighbors Wojciech and Michalina Białożyt, Paulina and Ludwik Matuszny and cousin Genowefa. 

(KN, AT)