The action takes place in 1900–1945 in Kashubia – a cultural region by the Baltic Sea, incorporated into Polish Pomerania in 1919. Before then, Kashubia belonged to Prussia; however, Kashubian people had always felt closer to Poland and Polish culture and tradition. Clashes between Polish, Kashubian and German interests frequently had a negative impact on the course of military conflicts in the area, which at that time were breaking out due to the influence of important historic events, and they engaged people who would normally coexist in peace, despite cultural and national identity differences. It is a great history – especially the two World Wars – that sets the background for The Butler, an epic family saga and a love story about a Kashubian landlord and a Prussian aristocrat. One of the main sequences in Filip Bajon’s painting-like work is the scene of the mass murder in Piaśnica, where thousands of Polish people (among them Kashubs) were murdered by the SS, with help from Pomerania’s German minority.
