No. III.
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Contents
Alternatives to Pop Music in the Czechoslovakia of Normalization Period
Miroslav Vaněk
An Introduction to Music Alternatives in Czechoslovakia in the Period of ‘Normalization’
Articles
Přemysl Houda
Venues for the Politically Approved Only, Again
The ‘Normalization’ of Sanctioned Pop Music in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s
Miroslav Vaněk
Not Every Invasion Is Alike
The Importation of ‘Eastern’ Rock to Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and Its Limits
Peter Bugge
The Struggle between the Magic Power of the Rubber Stamp and the Magic Power of the People
The Case of the Jazz Section
Jan Bárta
The Nahoru po schodišti dolů band and the Powers That Be
An Essay on the History of the Unsanctioned Music Scene in the 1980s
Hana Zimmerhaklová
Nico, a Music Underground Legend, in Brno and Prague
Concerts by Foreign Musicians in Communist Czechoslovakia
Reviews
Antonie Doležalová
Such Were the Times
From the End of the War to the End of Czechoslovakia, from an Economic History Perspective
Doubravka Olšáková
A Mad Century in Memoirs
Miroslav Gregorovič
Czech Politics in Uniform
František Svátek
The Protectorate in the Diary of an Erudite Historian as a ‘Witness of the Times’
Jana Havlínová
The Czech Press under Nazi Guardianship
Martin Franc
About the Queues for a Sweet Dessert, the Women behind the Counter, and Sundry Other Things
Přemysl Houda
Rock and Politics in Communist Czechoslovakia
Václav Šmidrkal
Culture and the Masses in East Germany
Of periodicals and archives
Jaroslav Vaculík
Contemporary History in Polish History Journals in 2010
Chronicle
Pavla Šimková
War Belongs in a Museum
An International Conference about Sites of Memory of the Second World War
Radek Slabotínský
On Guard for Socialism
A Seminar on Guarding State Borders in the Early Years of Communist Czechoslovakia
Jan Randák
The Fourth Year of the Summer School of Contemporary History
Annotations
Summaries
An Introduction to Music Alternatives in Czechoslovakia in the Period of ‘Normalization’
In his introduction to the following block of articles, Miroslav Vaněk presents the grant-funded project of which they are a result, ‘Pop Music Alternatives in Czechoslovakia in the Period of Normalization’. He explains the basic terms used, and provides a survey of the research on the history of this topic. The five articles published in this issue of Soudobé dějiny aim to illustrate, from various angles and using various examples, the complexity of the co-existence and clashes between various kinds of rock or alternative music and the subculture linked with it, on the one hand, and the Czechoslovak Communist régime and society in the twenty years from 1970 to 1989, called the period of ‘normalization’, on the other.
Articles
Venues for the Politically Approved Only, Again:
The ‘Normalization’ of Sanctioned Pop Music in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s
Přemysl Houda
The article considers the means and mechanisms with which the Czechoslovak Communist régime, after putting a stop to the reforms of the Prague Spring of 1968, regained control over the sphere of pop music, and asserted its ideas about Czechoslovak socialist culture in it. The adherents of the new political course considered the greatest problems to be the loss of State and Party control in this sphere, the abandonment of ideological criteria in the granting of permission to music groups to exist, perform, and make recordings, and the invasion of supply and demand in the sphere of music. Though they brandished ideological slogans, they became more or less satisfied, the author argues, with vapid music that served as pure entertainment, while the festivals of politically engagé pro-régime songs helped to provide the rituals for the consolidation of Communist power.
The keystone in the system of controls of professional concert production was the music agencies that also served to ‘normalize’ Czechoslovak pop music. After having been ‘purged’ of unreliable individuals, these agencies were politically authorized to carry out requalification examinations of musicians, which started in October 1973. According to the author these merely formed the cover for stripping non-conformist musicians en masse of their professional status. Bringing under control the amateur music scene, which comprised groups with the status of ‘musicians of the people’ (lidoví hudebníci), proved, however, to be more complicated. To exist they only needed to have any National Front organization as their patron. Their concerts were under the direction and coordination of the organizers, and they were supposed to be monitored by the National Committees. According to the author, however, these links in the chain failed from the standpoint of the official control of music and everything related to it, since they often played their role only nominally or too liberally. Their role was then taken over by the police, including the secret police. Nonconformist young musicians and music-lovers were then subjected to surveillance, harassment, raids at concerts, and ‘preventative measures to break them down’. As an example, the author discusses Operation Rock Group (akce ‘Kapela’), which the secret police carried out in the second half of the 1970s, thus ‘normalizing’ the amateur music scene as well. The idea of controlling amateur music, however, soon turned out to be illusory, because groups influenced by Punk and New Wave arrived on the scene in the early 1980s. This called forth new acts of repression.
Not Every Invasion Is Alike:
The Importation of ‘Eastern’ Rock to Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and Its Limits
Miroslav Vaněk
The author discusses the Czechoslovak reception of Polish, Hungarian, and East German rock music in the 1970s. He argues that after the crushing of the Prague Spring of 1968 the briskly developing Czechoslovak rock scene was hard hit by state-imposed restrictions, which also limited opportunities to listen to rock music from the West. The vacuum was partly filled by East European music groups that had been gaining in popularity in Czechoslovakia since the 1970s. During the ‘normalization’ period their record albums could be purchased in the Polish, Hungarian, and East German cultural centres in Prague and Bratislava. Moreover, rock fans in Czechoslovak towns could from time to time also enjoy live concerts by their favourite musicians from the ‘fraternal’ states. In particular, Czesław Niemen and the Polish group SBB, the Hungarian groups Omega and Locomotiv GT, and the East German group Die Puhdys enjoyed popularity here. But their performances sometimes also ran up against the incomprehension and obstruction of the authorities, which the author illustrates with the example of the Locomotiv GT concert at the Lucerna, Prague, in September 1973. According to the official assessment, this concert was inconsistent with ‘socialist entertainment’, and it became the impetus for further restrictions on concerts by local rock groups and visits by sought-after East-bloc groups. According to the author, the situation in Czechoslovakia was in this sense more rigid than, for example, in Poland or Hungary.
The Struggle between the Magic Power of the Rubber Stamp and the Magic Power of the People:
The Case of the Jazz Section
Peter Bugge
The Jazz Section was one of the most remarkable cultural institutions in ‘normalized’ Czechoslovakia. Established in 1971 as part of the official Musicians’ Union, the Jazz Section used its legal status to organize jazz and rock concerts and to publish a variety of books without the permission or consent of the state censor or other Communist authorities. From the late 1970s, the régime strove hard to close down the Jazz Section, trying a variety of means, but it survived until 1984. Only in 1986 did the régime find a way to prosecute its leading activists, and although two of the Jazz Section’s leaders were eventually given prison sentences, the trial was full of inner contradictions and the verdicts milder than usual or expected.
This article explores why persecution proved so troublesome. It focuses on the impact of the Jazz Section’s legalistic strategy and on the role of legal concerns in régime behaviour. It argues that the understanding of law and its use in the ‘normalization’ of Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s differed substantially from the practices of the Stalinist 1950s, in that references to ‘law and order’ now had a central legitimizing function in the political and social discourse of the Husák régime. As demonstrated by the initial decision to persecute the Jazz Section, resorting to politically motivated repression remained an important disciplining instrument for the régime, but the urge to translate policies of repression into legal measures inhibited the authorities (the police, prosecutors, courts, and others) in their assertion of power, and created an ambiguous window of opportunity for independent social activism.
The Nahoru po schodišti dolů band and the Powers That Be:
An Essay on the History of the Unsanctioned Music Scene in the 1980s
Jan Bárta
The author discusses the Nahoru po schodišti dolů band (The Up the Down Staircase Band) as one of the groups representing the special music and social phenomenon called New Wave, which appeared in Communist Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s. He first describes the phenomenon generally, placing it in the social and cultural context of the times, and then defines the ‘Czech New Wave’, which, despite its ambiguity, he understands as a generation of original music groups with clear social features in the first half of the 1980s. He also points out the influences of this music trend, its intellectual essence, the distinctive use of Czech in its lyrics, and also the range of styles of the groups that claimed to be part of the Czech New Wave. Among the characteristic features of their works, the author mentions the use of humour, irony, and sarcasm, which were supported by the eccentric appearance of their shows. The author also points out the clash between Punk and New Wave on the one hand and sanctioned arts policy and the state institutions in charge of implementing it on the other, which saw both Punk and New Wave as a form of ‘ideological deviation’. He also emphasizes, however, the utterly apolitical character of both trends. This régime interpretation is illustrated in particular with the infamous article ‘Nová vlna se starým obsahem’ (A New Wave with Old Content), published in the ideological weekly Tribuna in March 1983, and then with a description of the bureaucratic mechanisms that sought to get rid of nonconformist music groups, in particular the cancelation of agreements to perform under a certain patron.
The second part of the article considers the story of the Nahoru po schodišti dolů band, which was founded in 1983, illustrating their genre with examples of their lyrics. The group’s career was considerably influenced by their concert in the Za Větrem restaurant, Prague, in June 1984, which ended with a police raid. Using secret-police documents together with oral testimony by members of the group, the author reconstructs the event and the police investigation and the bans on giving concerts, which followed it. Despite the bans on performing in certain parts of Prague and the repeated cancellation of agreements to perform after the secret-police intervention, however, the group, rather than disband, again carried on in the late 1980s. From this case, the author draws conclusions about the effectiveness of ideologically motivated restrictions on pop music in the context of nascent Czechoslovak perestroika in the middle of the decade.
Nico, a Music Underground Legend, in Brno and Prague:
Concerts by Foreign Musicians in Communist Czechoslovakia
Hana Zimmerhaklová
As a case study this article considers two unique appearances in ‘normalized’ Czechoslovakia in the mid-1980s by Nico, a singer famous for her work with Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. It does so in the context of Western pop concerts in the country at that time. The author discusses how professional concerts by foreign artists in the 1970s and 1980s could be negotiated only by the state-run music agency Pragokoncert. Such concerts by singers or groups from the West were largely exceptional. On an amateur basis, however, interest groups (for example, clubs or societies) could invite foreign musicians, as the Jazz Section did during the Prague Jazz Days festival. Other opportunities were provided by the initiatives of the arts centres (kulturní střediska), so long as some enterprising, fearless, nonconformist music organizers worked there. That was true, for example of the Opatov Arts Centre (Kulturní dům Opatov) in Prague, with its deputy head Vojtěch Lindaur, and the Brno III District Arts and Education Centre (Obvodní kulturní a výchovné středisko Brno III) led by Lenka Zogatová. It was thanks to them that, on 3 and 4 October 1985, Nico could give her Brno and Prague concerts, on her way back to West Germany from Hungary. Whereas the Brno concert, in the dance hall of a village pub on the outskirts of town, took place practically in secret and without problems, the Prague concert in the Opatov Arts Centre (also on the outskirts) was vexed by organizational difficulties in the arts centre, and was ultimately raided by the police. Lindaur was questioned by the secret police and lost his job. On the other hand, the event was given publicity by the Czechoslovak service of the Voice of America radio station. In reconstructing the events, the author juxtaposes secret-police materials with oral-history interviews with participants.
Reviews
Such Were the Times:
From the End of the War to the End of Czechoslovakia, from an Economic History Perspective
Antonie Doležalová
Průcha, Václav et al., Hospodářské a sociální dějiny Československa 1918–1992, vol. 2: Období 1945–1992, Brno: Doplněk, 2009, 1002 pp.
This detailed review first acquaints the reader with the content and structure of the second volume of Hospodářské a sociální dějiny Československa (An Economic and Social History of Czechoslovakia), a fundamental work of its kind in contemporary Czech historiography. The reviewer praises in particular the extraordinary range of sources the work employs and its use of quantitative methods, particularly with statistics. She nevertheless raises critical questions about the work. She thus points out the dependence of its conception on political history, which is projected, for example, in the choice of periodization, and she points to an occasional lack of focus of topics and a clear preference for description over analysis and interpretation. Some of her criticisms concern the Marxist approach of the main author, which appears in his use of insufficiently explained terminology, in the implicit assessment of various political, social, and economic facts, and in some clearly questionable claims.
Doubravka Olšáková
Klíma, Ivan, Moje šílené století, vols 1 and 2 (Edice Paměť, vols 17 and 32), Prague: Academia, 2009 and 2010, 526 + 369 pp, illus.
The reviewer first acquaints the reader with the extraordinary publishing project called Edice Paměť (The Memoirs Series), which has not only published a great many remarkable memoirs, mostly by important Czechs in the arts and sciences, but has also inspired them. In the two volumes of his memoirs, Ivan Klíma (b. 1931) provides a vivid account of his life as a Jewish boy deported to a concentration camp, an enthusiast young builder of socialism, an intellectual reformist in the 1960s, and a dissident writer in the subsequent twenty years. According to the reviewer, Klíma’s memoirs are chiefly a unique testimony about life under two totalitarian régimes of the twentieth century. The strongest parts of the memoirs are Klíma’s account of his own life rather than his lengthy essayistic digressions.
Miroslav Gregorovič
Pejčoch, Ivo, Armády českých politiků: České polovojenské jednotky 1918–1945, Cheb: Svět křídel, 2009, 162 pp.
This work discusses the uniformed units of Czech political parties from the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in late October 1918 to the end of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in early May 1945, after which the phenomenon no longer appeared. According to the reviewer, the author cogently, precisely, and with solid documentation discusses the history of the often odd groups that emerged mainly from the extremes of the political spectrum. The reviewer maintains that the only problem with the work is that the author has ignored some Sudeten German organizations during the First Republic.
The Protectorate in the Diary of an Erudite Historian as a ‘Witness of the Times’
František Svátek
Slavík, Jan, Válečný deník historika, ed. by Jaroslav Bouček (Edice Paměť, vol. 15), Prague: Academia, 2008, 545 pp.
The reviewer praises Jaroslav Bouček for familiarizing Czech readers, in a number of articles, edited volumes, a bibliography, and a biography, with the life and works of a figure long censored and made taboo by the Communist régime – the historian Jan Slavík (1885–1978). The reviewer also appreciates Bouček’s meticulous reconstruction of Slavík’s diaries from the Second World War, and summarizes the main topics of the observations and reflections in Slavík’s notes. On the whole, the reviewer sees them not as a particularly original, but as a remarkable reflection of the fears, hopes, and illusions of the Czech society of those times.
The Czech Press under Nazi Guardianship
Jana Havlínová
Gebhart, Jan, Barbara Köpplová, Jitka Kryšpínová et al., Řízení legálního českého tisku v Protektorátu Čechy a Morava, Prague: Karolinum, 2010, 146 pp. + CD.
This is a review of a volume of essays devoted to the hitherto little researched mechanisms of controlling the official Czech press in the interests of the German occupiers from mid-March 1939 to early May 1945. In this sense, according to the reviewer, the individual essays and the accompanying CD with a complete transcription of all the preserved minutes of more than two hundred meetings at which German officials presented instructions to editors-in-chief of the Czech newspapers are a definite contribution to our knowledge of this topic.
About the Queues for a Sweet Dessert, the Women behind the Counter, and Sundry Other Things
Martin Franc
Bílek, Petr A., and Blanka Činátlová (eds), Tesilová kavalérie: Popkulturní obrazy normalizace. (Edice Scholares, vol. 24), Příbram: Pistorius & Olšanská, 2010, 256 pp.
This publication, ‘The Polyester Cavalry: Pop Cultural Pictures of Normalization’, is, according to the reviewer, an example of a kind of work rarely seen in Czech historiography. The main emphasis is not on the meticulous selection of material, but on originality and the penetrating quality of an idea and the information value of individual pictures. The reviewer abundantly illustrates the strengths and weakness of this approach. On the one hand, he writes, the authors deserve praise for discussing interesting topics and providing numerous trenchant observations as well as inspiration for future research in various areas. On the other hand, they sometimes merit criticism for a lack of knowledge of the sources and for ignoring the wider context, as well as factual errors and drawing conclusions that have little in common with reality.
Rock and Politics in Communist Czechoslovakia
Přemysl Houda
Vaněk, Miroslav, Byl to jenom rock’n’roll? Hudební alternativa v komunistickém Československu 1956–1989, Prague: Academia, 2010, 639 pp.
The title of the book under review translates as ‘Was It Only Rock’n’Roll? A Musical Alternative in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1956–89’. According to the reviewer it provides a comprehensive discussion, including the international context of the field of rock music and the music and subculture developing out of it in Communist Czechoslovakia, covering a large span of time and topics. Rather than a musicological analysis, the publication is a purely historical interpretation in which the author draws on a wide range of primary sources and deftly combines them. He examines the relations between politics and the efforts of forms of musical expression to provide an alternative to state-supported pop music, and raises the cardinal question of whether rock music was indeed a useful weapon of opposition to the régime, and if so, to what extent.
Culture and the Masses in East Germany
Václav Šmidrkal
Richthofen, Esther von, Bringing Culture to the Masses: Control, Compromise and Participation in the GDR. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009, 240 pp.
According to the reviewer, the author has, from the standpoint of social history and using the example of ‘mass cultural work’, clarified a number of facts related to the system of power in the German Democratic Republic and the relationship between functionaries in culture (the arts), participants in it, and the culture policy of the Communist Party. At the same time, however, he notes that the volume reveals the limits of the social-history approach, particularly because of the absence of specific examples that might have illustrated the characteristics of social groups, and the absence of the individual motivations of the actors.
Of periodicals and archives
Contemporary History in Polish History Journals in 2010
Jaroslav Vaculík
The author presents a survey of interesting articles on topics of contemporary history which were published in Polish history journals in 2010. The survey concentrates primarily on Dzieje Najnowsze, the most important Polish periodical of its kind, and also the journals Przegląd Zachodni, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, Sobótka, Kwartalnik Historyczny, Przegląd Historyczny, Zeszyty Historyczne, and Wiadomości Historyczne.
Chronicle
War Belongs in a Museum:
An International Conference about Sites of Memory of the Second World War
Pavla Šimková
This is a detailed report on the international conference called ‘Between History and Politics: The Second World War in Museums in Western and Eastern Europe’. The conference, held in Munich from 29 June to 1 July 2011, was concerned with the European dimension of the culture of the memory of the Second World War. The conference participants agreed that museums and memorials are institutions that not only exhibit history but also have history as a component of their existence: by their existence and their development over the years, they refer not only to the history of the war, but also to the long history of interpretations, including today’s, and coming to terms with the Second World War in Europe.
On Guard for Socialism:
A Seminar on Guarding State Borders in the Early Years of Communist Czechoslovakia
Radek Slabotínský
This is a report on a seminar called ‘Guarding State Borders, 1948–55’, held by the Museum of Technology, Brno, together with the Security Services Archive, at the Museum of Technology, Brno, from 17 to 19 May 2011. It was the first specialist event of its kind for Czech historians.
The Fourth Year of the Summer School of Contemporary History
Jan Randák reports on the fourth year of the Summer School of Contemporary History, which was held in Prague from 22 to 24 June 2011. It was organized in collaboration with the Administration and Operations Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, together with the Institute of Czech History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. As in previous years, the event was intended chiefly for history teachers at secondary and elementary schools.
