Cellar Under the Rams – Zbigniew Raj in performance

Zbigniew Raj performing live at the renowned Kraków cabaret – the Cellar Under the Rams.
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.
Zbigniew Raj (b. 1942) – musician, songwriter, composer of film scores and theatre music. Made his stage debut as a jazz instrumentalist; as a band leader, he founded Tropicale Thaiti Granda Banda (1969–1980), for which he also composed songs. In the 1960s, he attended jazz concerts at The Cellar, but as an artist he joined the team later, in 1981, just before martial law was introduced in Poland by the communist authorities on 13 December 1981 (and lasted till 22 July 1983). He was the principal composer of the cabaret and among others performed on-stage music set to the literary texts of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. He also orchestrated the poems of Tytus Czyżewski, Jan Lechoń, Stanisław Barańczak, as well as lyrics of Wiesław Dymny, fellow Cellar alumnus, and his own, frequently suffused with absurd humour. He often ironically referred to the harsh totalitarian reality of the Polish People’s Republic and skewered state officialese, as in Abolition Act (Pol. Akt abolicji). The song’s self-mocking lyrics are a verbatim copy of a legal document sent to Piotr Skrzynecki in 1983 by the communist, extrajudicial predecessor of the post-1989 Magistrates’ Court for Petty Offences.