Jama Michalika (Michalik's Den)

ul. Floriańska 45

Today:

9:00-22:00
closed

The origin of the name under which the former Lwowska Confectionery of Apolinary Jan Michalik (est. 1895) is known, Michalik’s Den, is easy to explain: the room the artists enjoyed most in their favourite haunt lacked windows. It is here where the literary cabaret Little Green Balloon (Zielony Balonik) commenced operation in 1905 and met intermittently until 1915. It mocked the prevalent customs of the bourgeois and artistic milieux, and ridiculed snobbery and the fetishes of the time. Its brightest star was Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński: a writer, poet, satirist, essayist, and translator of French literature (which won him the French Legion of Honour), literary and theatre critic, physician, and a community activist. Michalik’s Den brought together the crème de la crème of early 20th-century Kraków literary circles, such as Stanisław Przybyszewski, Lucjan Rydel, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, and Stanisław Wyspiański. Another of its patrons was Józefa (Pepa) Singer: the daughter of the innkeeper from Bronowice and role model for Rachel in Wyspiański’s drama The Wedding. The fame of the Den reaches far beyond the borders of Poland: it was visited by Gabriel García Márquez himself, who published his impressions in a report With my Eyes Staring at Poland Boiling over.

Opening times:
Mon-Thu 9:00-22:00, Fri-Sat 9:00-23:00, Sun 9:00-22:00
ul. Floriańska 45
12 422 15 61
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