Mgr. Ivan Jonáš

"In the end, our capable musicians in the 'Band' also wrote their own rock 'n' roll. And in the end, it turned out that we had the biggest problems with the authorities, mainly because of our texts. I was no longer a player, the second drummer in a rock band was probably not needed! But I wrote a lot, organized the work and prepared various manifestos, and then I had to go to the offices and negotiate with all sorts of secretaries, which they do not like there and so on. They were afraid that someone might laugh at something, and that terrified them. Short stories were also written to complement the music on the stage, especially Ed and I, I wrote "How the Song Came to Czechoslovakia" and also dialogues for each performance. Each performance was actually also a new theatrical performance, the loyal audience always needed something new. We had our audience, there were several hundred of them, that even the halls where we played could not fit. In 1962, however, we also filled the Lucerna music club and Vojanovy sady in Prague."

"We received a total of 40000 individual applications in Prague by 1968. The Independent Writers' Club, led by the young playwright Václav Havel, also applied collectively. We initiators, young chemists, searched for and also found prominent Czech cultural and political figures of non-partisans to support us intellectually. I was most impressed by Rudolf Battěk, a later dissident, who was imprisoned for the longest of all dissidents, for nine years, which was longer than Havel, and after 1989, he was the first to run for the Civic Forum. Then the head was the head of the Houses of the Federal Assembly.” Due to internal discrepancies, I left the preparatory committee in the summer of 1968 and started working in the so-called KAN Commission for the Countryside, but people wanted to talk to Ludvík Rybáček, who was ill, so this commission was formed, in which my fellow doctoral students from ICT were actively working. They organized it very nicely and professionally. It was supposed to be a congress in September and KAN was supposed to be established. So this was mine."