Back in 1988, my main gig was playing music off-Broadway shows in NYC and touring with an internationally recognized early music group, mounting liturgical dramas from the 12th century in special places and festivals around the world. My group, which consisted of myself and two other instrumentalists, a dozen male singers, and a boy choir, arrived in Krakow after a brief layover in Warsaw. We arrived around 8 pm and we promptly checked into the hotel, and asked where we should eat. Naturally, they sent us to the best hotel restaurant in town, I think it was in the Hotel President.
We ordered our appetizers and vodkas and within a half an hour, a lutenist (someone that plays lute), came to our table and said, in perfect English, "My name is Anthony and I've been waiting for you!" He actually played at this restaurant, and we just happened to show up there moments after our arrival. We ate and drank and good times abounded. And it was about 20 bucks a piece. (Turns out that was extravagant, as the next days huge lunch was 9 cents!)
The instrumentalists and Anthony hit it off immediately and we were treated to a crash course in Polish politics and unions. We agreed to meet him the following day and it was then that he asked if we could get a small group together to play and sing some medieval tunes for his pro-Solidarity meeting of friends in the basement of a real medieval building close to downtown Cracow. When we entered the room, we were immediately treated like honored guests and we set about to get our gear together for a show. We played a bunch of medieval tunes on lute, hammered dulcimer, recorders, shawms, tambourines, etc., and then sang both medieval tunes and some spirituals. Behind us was the Solidarity flag, and it was clear that at once we were a small part of a grass roots pro-Solidarity group all the sudden. And it felt right.
As we were leaving, when the buzz was still high from such a unique experience, Anthony upped the ante. "How would you like to play at a pro-Solidarity rally in a church on Sunday? It's in the town of Novahuta, known for its steel mills (a sign of the Soviet oppression of the region --raw materials go in, steel goes out, acid rain comes down...and Poland never sees any of the steel). We agreed and next thing we knew, we were picked up Sunday morning and driven out of town, and rushed into a huge church with hundreds of people inside and thousands more outside. There were 5000 people gathered for this service, that unbeknownst to us, it was on an anniversary of someone being martyred nearby for the cause. At the appointed time, we started with "Swing Lo Sweet Chariot", our lead singer belting it out. This was very powerful. Then we played a couple of medieval tunes and finally, we sang a Polish folk song that Anthony had taught us, and the whole place started singing along --and we knew the thousands of people outside the church who were listening through the PA system, were singing too. Whoa.
When the service was done, we were escorted very quickly outside and before we got a chance to take in the magnitude of the crowd, we were put in a car and driven away from the scene. Police, both obvious and undercover, were watching us as we left, and we were left with a very uneasy feeling that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all...
There were no repercussions from our actions, and we played our shows. But when we left, the group gathered all the zylotys we had left and gave them to Anthony. --and some American money, all-in-all, around a thousand dollars, which was a lot of money in 1988, in order to keep him going with his gentle way of generating the groundswell that eventually turned Polish politics on its end.
It felt good to have some tiny part in something so big, even if the new government wasn't perfect.
