What Do You Need Freedom For?

Images inspired by the words and music of Kult

KULT is a Polish band that is difficult to label or fit into a specific music genre. Their music emerged from Polish counter-culture during hard times of suppressed freedom under the Soviet yoke on the dark side of the Iron Curtain.

It likely needs no explanation to anyone born and raised in Poland (especially those who lived through the fall of communism), yet it remains extremely challenging to convey the profundity of the meaning of any songs from that historical time and place.

image: cover of Kult album from 1989 — the year Poland’s free union movement Solidarność, after nearly a decade of struggles, made a crack in the Iron Curtain to let the light of freedom in, the fall of the Berlin Wall followed, and the rest … is history.

In an ironic twist of history, Kult’s lyrics gain profound relevance today. As the tide of illiberal sentiments rises worldwide, casting longer shadows, the question “Why Freedom?” becomes ever more urgent. It’s not merely about grasping freedom’s value but about deeply engaging with its core.

Without this constant questioning, we risk losing hold of freedom itself. History has a way of looping back, and any skepticism toward freedom’s worth can too easily serve as a shallow pretext for its absence.