Come and do not be accompanied

Such a warning was issued when a ransom was transferred, and was not guidance for a not a night out. It’s hard to believe that these words graced invitations to the productions of Poland’s first cabaret.

Yet even this was possible in Kraków, so much so that the man of letters Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński referred to the city as “the most peculiar city under the sun”. The idea of the cabaret was brought from Paris to Kraków by Jan August Kisielewski in 1905. The genesis of its original name: Zielony Balonik – Little Green Balloon is lost in the darkness of history. The seat of the cabaret was the Lemberg confectionery, which was known as “Jama Michalika – Michalik’s Den” for its lack of windows and the name of the owner. The first programmes of the Little Green Balloon were largely improvisations and were baptised with large quantities of alcohol. With the passage of time, preparations were much more thorough, and the ideas of organising Christmas seasonal satirical plays and costume balls were introduced. Writers, journalists, musicians, and painters who formed the cabaret were to a large extent a very hermetic milieu, hence invitations to the performances were hard to come by, and given only to an exclusive group.

The last performance of “the Little Green Balloon” was held in December 1915. The first world war, which put a brutal end not only to the existence of the cabaret but also to the carefree times of the belle époque was already well under way...

On the map: Jama Michalika