Piwnica Pod Baranami, Kraków

Piwnica Pod Baranami is Kraków’s long-running literary cabaret in the cellars of the Palace under the Rams on the Main Market Square. Founded in 1956 by Piotr Skrzynecki and Kraków students, it became Poland’s leading political cabaret under communism and an important jazz venue. It continues to perform today.

Piwnica Pod Baranami is the literary cabaret housed in the cellars of the Palace under the Rams, here on Kraków’s Main Market Square. It began when Piotr Skrzynecki and a small group of Kraków students created it in 1956; the official opening followed on the twenty-sixth of May. Its earliest gatherings were lit by candles, and the performers grew out of a lively mix of writers, musicians, visual artists, actors, and their audience.

This basement became a remarkably public voice in communist Poland. For more than three decades, it was the country’s best-known political cabaret, using songs and compact stage pieces to bring wit and artistic independence into daily life. Jazz also took root here: by the late nineteen-fifties, Piwnica was a major Polish jazz hub, with musicians including Krzysztof Komeda and Andrzej Kurylewicz appearing here.

The cabaret did not end with Skrzynecki’s death in 1997. Its artists and supporters chose to carry on, so Piwnica Pod Baranami remains active in the very place where it started.