"You know, I rewarmed the pride of us musicians that we spread something so wonderful, sublime, timeless, almighty, not like God of course, but almighty in its field, which is music. That we spread this message of God's grace, that it was given to us. And we have the right, we have the opportunity to pass it on and interpret the inexplicable. Because we don't need any language, we don't need complex translations from language to language. Music and its divine decisions are enough for us to spread this beautiful message that heals and heals, which King David already knew in ancient biblical times, who healed and healed with music. And therein lies our huge duty and huge responsibility, so that we don't waste our time or the time of our nearest ones. To give them the highest possible quality, into which we put our whole soul and our whole heart. And so that the first question is not: 'What do I get for it?' but that the first question should be: 'Do I serve?' with a question mark. 'Am I really serving like the English kings in wine?' Simply serving through music, through a gift that we didn't choose ourselves, that was really given to us from above. So that we give, donate."
"We started playing Comenius for this event. We started driving, we started spreading it wherever we could. Well, and then we started riding along such arterial roads as there were, we rode among the red berets, for example or I don't know what. Things were a bit dangerous sometimes. So, of course, I immediately joined these activities and I would like to mention Dáša Havlová, Veškrnová. That time, we were together I think it was in Jíloviště, it was shortly after that. And there was a report that maybe there was a bomb or something. Somehow they all disappeared and Dáša said to me: 'Štěpán, I promised them, I'll just go there.' And she went there, I was scared and I didn't want to go there at all, but I didn't want to leave her alone. I'm no brave man, not even the brave seven... But that's how I went there in the end. It was a rumor, nothing happened, but you know, she convinced me there. It was just this, we did these kinds of events."
"I was returning by train [from Germany] to the main station on August 21, 1968. And I heard some gunshots and stuff like that. I climbed out, there was a lot of movement of all kinds, a lot of police officers, unbelievable chaos. And that was the time when the National Museum was bombarded. I thought it was a movie or something, there was no one in my compartment, there were no cell phones, there was nothing, I had no idea what was going on. So, that was my twenty-first August. Well, then we started writing protest songs with Luďek Němec, whom I already talked about. Then director Podaný from Mikrofórum and other and other people interviewed us. We performed in Mladý svět and we made protest songs. And it was such a fascinating time, but full of fear and danger. And we were so close to getting together in collaboration with a certain Karel Kryl. Unfortunately, we didn´t. And then the period of the so-called normalization began."
"So, I know that I was born there [at the U Apolináře maternity hospital in Prague], and that was also a great discovery, because for a long, long time it was claimed that I was born somewhere in Tachov, or I don't know where. Then, it was said that I was born somewhere… or I don't know if I was born, but I was found in the rubble during the end of World War II. Then, I found out that the Russians had brought me on a tank. I learned this very unpleasantly and painfully. In the days of my very early childhood, I don't know if I already attended a primary school, maybe not, but my friends shouted at me the well-known saying: "Russian, they brought you on a tank. Russian, they brought you on a tank." And it scared me. I just didn't understand what they mean. Who? I didn't even really know what Russian meant. I knew the tank, I had acquired enough sense to know what it was. But I didn't understand this message at all."
Štěpán Rak was born on August 8, 1945. His biological parents Štefan Luťanský and Vasilina Slivková came from Carpathian Ruthenia. Both fled to the Soviet Union and were sentenced to several years in labor camps. From there they got to the Czechoslovak military unit in the Soviet Union, where they met each other in 1944. Little Štěpán, then Stefan, who was born already after the liberation in Prague, stayed with his mother in Czechoslovakia for less than a year, where she eventually gave him up for adoption. He grew up in the family of Josef and Marie Rak, in which he found a loving home. Although his adoptive parents worked in blue-collar professions, they supported their son’s creativity, letting him play the violin and draw at his request. Štěpán Rak graduated from secondary art school. At that time, he began learning to play the guitar, and eventually majored in guitar and composition in college. He quickly established himself in his field and was invited to teach guitar in Finland. He went there with his wife in 1975. They ended up staying there for five years. Although he never joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), he was able to break through abroad. He composed a number of today’s world-famous compositions and also attracted attention with his original technique of playing the guitar. An extraordinary place in Štěpán Rak’s work is occupied by literary and musical projects, which he created mainly with Alfréd Strejček; they traveled almost all over the world with the show about J.A. Comenius. In 2022, he lived in Radotín, Prague. He still performed, often with his son, guitarist Jan Matěj. In his spare time, he also took up photography.
