Bohdan Smoleń, Kraków

Here, at the junction of Jabłonowskich and Czapskich streets, you meet Kraków’s memorial bench for Bohdan Smoleń: a life-size sculpture of the comedian and actor paired with a real seat. Notice the cat sleeping beneath the bench; that small companion is part of sculptor Karol Badyna’s design. Smoleń was not only an actor.

He performed comedy, sang, and belonged to Kabaret TEY; television audiences also knew him from The Lousy World. This monument stands beside the Bratniak student residence, an especially fitting address. Its student club, Buda, opened in nineteen fifty-six, and Smoleń founded Kabaret Pod Budą there in nineteen sixty-nine.

Former agricultural-studies students and members of that cabaret pressed for the memorial, gathering signatures for a citizens’ initiative. The monument was put in place on the seventh anniversary of Smoleń’s death. He died in Poznań in two thousand sixteen, aged sixty-nine, after a severe infection connected with lung disease.

In two thousand nine, Poland honoured his cultural contribution with the silver Gloria Artis medal. The empty place on the bench makes this tribute feel less formal: it invites you into the comedian’s old student-world setting.