Photo: Post Bellum
The Czech Radio sound archives are among the richest in the world and through them we can travel in time to many moments in Czech and Czechoslovak history. This is the first of two special programmes in our series In Their Own Words that take us back to the dramatic year of 1968. The year began with hope, with the reforms of the Prague Spring, but these were brought to a bitter end by the Soviet-led invasion in August of the same year. Hundreds of archive recording bring the drama of that year to life.
The reforms of the Prague Spring did not happen overnight. The political thaw began at the beginning of the 1960s, bringing with it as sense of openness and optimism. This was reflected in many fields of cultural life, including radio.
The satirical cabaret of Prague’s Semafor Theatre featured quite regularly on the airwaves. As the political atmosphere relaxed, the two stars of the cabaret, jazzmen and actors Jiřý Suchý and Jiří Šlitr found their way onto the cultural mainstream. Despite several risqué jokes at the expense of the regime – in the sketch featured here another famous member of the Semafor team Miroslav Horníček jokes that he will only use foreign words if he is paid in hard currency – Czechoslovak Radio was quite happy to broadcast Semafor’s New Year’s Eve show on December 31, 1967. The show includes an amusing rendering of Strangers in the Night by Jiří Šlitr, sung in deliberately dreadful English.
See the rest here.
Author: David Vaughan