Anna Szałapak and Piotr Skrzynecki – 80th anniversary of the Podhale Assoc. in Kraków

Singer Anna Szałapak and Piotr Skrzynecki during the 80th anniversary celebrations of the Podhale Association in Kraków (1986). In the background, an exhibition of art by the Koszarek Family of Bukowina Tatrzańska (Poland).
After WWII, Poland found itself behind the Iron Curtain, becoming part of the Eastern Bloc, and joined the states under Soviet control. Until 1989, communism was the order of the day and it decreed a unified, top-down template that applied to all activities, including arts and culture. Back then, the primary function of cultural institutions was to sing the praises of the communist state. But even during these hard times there were places, organisations, movements that provided enclaves of limited freedom, of respite from the oppressive and bleak reality of the Polish People’s Republic. The Cellar Under the Rams, a literary cabaret housed in the basement of Potocki Palace in the Old Town’s Main Square in Kraków, was one of such distinctive phenomena. Founded in 1956 by the then students, among others its artistic director Piotr Skrzynecki, visual artist Bronisław Chromy, and composer Krzysztof Penderecki, it soon skyrocketed to fame. This unassuming basement became the stamping ground for Kraków intellectual and artistic circles: physicians, lawyers, painters, photographers, writers, musicians, sculptors, actors, film and theatre directors. It was a magnet both for celebrity scientists and for bohemians. Performances staged in The Cellar, song lyrics, outdoor events, and zany jubilee bashes laid bare the absurdities of the system. To artists and audiences alike, they served as a counteraction to the complex and hypocritical lived experience of communist Poland. In the 1960s, jazz music, which the state authorities did not endorse, also found a safe haven there. Soon, Piotr Skrzynecki (1930–1997) became the driving force of The Cellar. A living legend in his lifetime, Skrzynecki was an eccentric compere, an unparalleled improvisor, an all-round artist, and a mover and shaker behind events organised on-site. In 1989, artists associated with The Cellar - not unlike the majority of Polish society - rejoiced at the fall of communism in Central Europe.
Skrzynecki died in 1997, closing behind the original chapter in the history of the most notable late twentieth-century Polish cabaret. Countless esteemed artists graced The Cellar’s stage, including pianist Krzysztof Komeda, trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, singer Ewa Demarczyk, and film score composer Zbigniew Preisner. In its heyday, the club enjoyed a wide network of high-profile friends and well-wishers, such as film director Andrzej Wajda, writer and Nobel Laureate Czesław Miłosz, playwright Sławomir Mrożek, and journalist Jerzy Turowicz. The cabaret remains active to this day: some of the old-time artists are still around, just as they were thirty or forty years ago; seasoned audience members still frequent the club, introducing new generations to the legendary haunt.
Anna Szałapak (1952–2017) – ethnographer and museologist. Regulars to the Cellar under the Rams and fellow artists, with whom she performed in the cabaret since 1979, dubbed her – due to her appearance and timbre – “The White Angel”. Szałapak began her professional association with Piotr Skrzynecki as an ethnography student and a dancer – member of “Słowianki”, Jagiellonian University’s Folk Song and Dance Ensemble. Once the Cellar insider, she focused on singing, performing solo and in cooperation with other artists the so-called “newspaper songs” (Pol. gazetówki). Their lyrics, authored predominantly by Skrzynecki, were a pastiche of press articles, such as a mock interview with Ariadna Gierek, an eccentric ophthalmologist and a daughter-in-law to Edward Gierek, the former First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party. Szałak was also noted for her literary songs, based on the poems by Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Osip Mandelstam, Michał Zabłocki, Ewa Lipska, and Czesław Miłosz. She owes her nickname – “The White Angel” – to Agnieszka Osiecka, a charismatic writer, poet, and lyricist, author of many songs performed by Szałapak. The women first met in 1989, during their work on a documentary film about another local phenomenon – the Kraków nativity scenes (Pol. szopki). In her capacity as curator employed by the Museum of Kraków, she took professional interest in them, having even devoted her doctoral dissertation to the subject. After Skrzynecki’s demise, she parted ways with The Cellar, only to participate occasionally in jubilees and anniversary concerts.
“Anna Csillag”, a song by composer Zygmnut Konieczny with lyrics by the interwar poet Bolesław Leśmian and prose writer Bruno Schulz, was a staple of Szałapak’s live performances. On stage, the artist performed the role of a protagonist of late 19th-century / early 20th-century advertisements of hair growth products that were popular in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and abroad). Born in Moravia, Csillag suffered from hair loss, but after prolonged prayers she managed to concoct an unusually effective potion. Manufactured according to her formula, it was made to order and shipped to customers all over the world. For good, at least in Polish consciousness, it was Bruno Schulz that immortalised Anna Csillag in The Cinnamon Shops (1934), comparing her life to the lot of Job. The song tribute to Csillag is another – somewhat tongue-in-cheek – allusion to highbrow literature and to the Galician past of the city of Kraków.