Polish /Jewish cabaret: Kazimierz Krukowski "Lopek" - Ja chcę mieć spokój! [I Want Some Peace!] 1929

Описание: Kazimierz „Lopek” Krukowski z teatru Qui Pro Quo (from theatre Qui Pro Quo) – Ja chcę mieć spokój! (I Want Some Peace!) (M. Hemar) Piosenka z tow. fortepianu (Singing with piano) Syrena-Electro 1929 (Polish)

NOTE: Between two World Wars, Kazimierz Krukowski alias „Lopek” was one of the darlings of Polish stage and film audience. Born in Łódź in 1901 in a family related to the family of great Polish poet Julian Tuwim, Krukowski moved to Warsaw to study philosophy and then also in Warsaw Conservatory in the class of singing. Recommended by his cousin-poet Julian Tuwim to the director of the elite cabaret Qui Pro Quo, he started his enormous career in Warsaw as unparalleled performer of the comedy songs and sketches belonging to the tradition of the Polish-Jewish urban folklore (called the “shmontzes” subculture). Together with another “shmontzes” actors such as Ludwik Lawiński, Dora Kalinówna or Konrad Tom, Kazimierz Krukowski became part of the Qui Pro Quo “shmontzes” team, whose recordings, performances on stage and on the air and later in the movies, caused everywhere the hurricanes of laughter and made them the favorites of the Polish audience.

The texts had been written for for him and for other "shmontzes" performers by the best Polish poets and lyricists – Marian Hemar, Julian Tuwim, Jerzy Jurandot, Antoni Słonimski or Andrzej Włast, who were themselves Jewish and had perfect sense of the genre. After the collapse of Qui Pro Quo in 1930, Kazimierz Krukowski was contracted by the cabarets Banda (1931-1932), Morskie Oko (1933), Cyganeria, Cyrulik Warszawski, Wielka Rewia, He also managed his own night-bar Café Lopek and often appeared in the film comedies such as 10% dla mnie (10% For Me; 1933), Co mój mąż robi w nocy? (What My Husband Does At Nights?; 1934) or Ada, to nie wypada (It’s Bad Manners, Ada!;1936).

During the 2nd WW Kazimierz Krukowski performed in the Ghetto in Warsaw but thanks to his Polish friends’s he managed to flee from the Ghetto and run away from Warsaw to Lwów where he joined for some time the Polish group of artists performing in Henryk Wars’ Tea Jazz ensemble. When the Soviet-German war broke out in June 1941, Kazimierz Krukowski managed to get through the USSR down to Kazakhstan, where the Polish Army in exile was being formed by Gen. Władysław Anders. As member of Army’s theatre, “Lopek” Krukowski traveled along the Polish Army’s battle trail through Palestine, Northern Africa, Italy. When the war was over, Kazimierz Krukowski stayed in the Western Europe, USA and finally Argentine, where he joined Jerzy Petersburski’s team in one of Buenos Aires theatres. Among others, they staged the music show based on the famous Jerzy Petersburski’s tango “Oh Donna Clara”. However in 1956 “Lopek” decided to return to Poland, where he became director of the music theatre Syrena and later Buffo. In 1960s he organized his own small cabaret “U Lopka” (At Lopek’s) performing in a tearoom of the Bristol Hotel in Warsaw. In the next decade he became a regular performer of his prewar numbers in TV programs and wrote two volumes of his memoirs. He died in Warsaw in 1984.

Song “Ja chcę mieć spokój!” [I Want Some Peace!] is one of typical „shmontzes” hits in the repertoire of “Lopek” Krukowski. Written by a fine poet Marian Hemar it tells the “tragic story” of a hard-working shop owner, who can have some peace of mind anywhere in Warsaw but his own home. His wife Malcia keeps quarreling with the cook (“shiksa”), his daughter is noisily looking for some belt, one son whistles “Ramona” and the other turns on the gramophone, while their neighbour Mrs Glass is just paying them visit and the telephone keeps ringing with Mr. Kohn’s urges to pay the overdue bill… Today’s “Kurier” (name of the newspaper in prewar Warsaw) had been by torn apart by someone and finally, the one who starts making the largest noise is he, Lopek, screaming “Give me a break, all of you! I want some peace!”. The last stanza of the song - according to Qui Pro Quo’s profile as the artistic as well as political cabaret, describes the parliamentary crisis shaking the life in Poland in 1929/30, as a result of which Mr. Ignacy Daszyński – Speaker of the Sejm (name of the Polish Parliament) was temporarily suspended from his functions. "He has some peace at last," comments Lopek with jealousy.