Karel Kryl, the all-time political rebel / Karel Kryl, politicky rebel stoleti

I have been lately into listening to Karel Kryl’s songs. This guy was such an interesting person! He died quite young at the age of 49  but his songs are going to be cherished by the Czechs and Slovaks forever. By the way, his music skills are just one slice of the Kryl-pie. He was a great poet and a painter as well.

CZ: Posledni dobou se mi nejak zalibily Krylovy pisnicky a dosti casto je ted posloucham. Nic moc jsem o Krylovi pred tim nevedela, pouze ty zaklady, tudiz jsem se rozhodla udelat jakysi Krylo-vyzkum, co se tyce jeho zivota a dila. Pro zmenu to byla opravdu velmi zajimava a dobrodruzna osubka. Nejen ze byl nadany na poezii a hudbu, byl take vybornym malirem. Zbytek textu je v anglictine, protoze na cesky preklad uz jsem nemela cas ani silu. Sorac.

Karel Kryl was born and raised in a Moravian town called Kromeriz, where his grandfather established a printing business, one of the best ones in pre-communist Czechoslovakia. Thanks to this book-friendly surrounding Karel was in love with literature ever since he was a little boy. When he was just 5 years old the communist party won the elections and few months later he was forced to watch, while the communist army destroyed all of his family’s printing machines. That was the end of prosperous times at the Kryl family. His father had to start working at the local factory and Karel later followed his footsteps.
He had awful memories from his primary sch0ol. His parents did not have money to dress him nice, he was petite and kids made fun of him. Although he was getting mostly A’s, he did not make it into a good high school because of his father’s political inactivity. He ended up at the Vocational School of Ceramics where, in the school dormitory, where the happier period of his life began. He made new friends, learned how to play the guitar and wrote love songs for girls he liked. “You know, if you are short and ugly like me, you must be at least somewhat interesting”, wittily commented Karel many years later.

He never meant to be an excellent musician – words were much more important to him than the music. But whether he wanted it or not, he composed excellent melodies. His growing fan crowd started to call him a ‘protest-singer’ because many of his songs had a strong voice against militarization and war. In response to the Russian invasion in 1968 Karel wrote his debut “Bratricku, zavirej vratka” (Little brother, close the gate), which together with some of his other anti-communist songs had made him an ‘uncomfortable’ singer and several of his concerts were canceled. In 1969 Karel was lucky  to receive a 14-day vida to Western Germany where he participated at some folk festival. Meanwhile, the the political situation in Czechoslovakia worsened and the Eastern Block erected the Iron Curtain. Karel decided to heed the curtain and his 14-day stay in Germany turned into 20 years. This is also where he wrote many poems and songs, which he smuggled back to Czechoslovakia under a false album covers.

Karel returned back to Czechoslovakia right after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 was over. Kryl became a national celebrity and many people began to idolize and worship him. He disliked this kind of treatment and publicaly condemned it. After the separtation of Czechoslovakia into 2 countries, disappointed Kryl and his wife decided to move back to West Germany. “My native country used to be Czechoslovakia and my lovely native country no longer exists because of stupidity of some people”. Three years later (1994) he died of a massive heart attack.

The following 3 songs are probably the most remembered and the most loved ones. The lyrics are also worth reading if you have time to ponder upon them ; you can find them here.

1. ‘Close the gate, little brother’ (Bratricku, zavirej vratka)

2.’ Thank you’ (Dekuji)

3. ‘Angel’ (Andel)

Source: http://www.musicology.upol.cz/www/iaspm/thelife.html (Hana Tumova)