Jiří Větrovský

* 1954

  • "When Porta was around, I was working in the Park of Culture and Recreation during the communist era, so as a part-time job I was an organizer at Porta. To make some extra money. At the Lochotín Film Festival and at Porta. That Porta was one of the last big ones, in 1988, so there was one stage in Peklo, where the more intimate folk musicians played, and Jiří Dědeček played there. I already liked him then and Jiří Dědeček was really fearless, at that time he had very political lyrics and comments between the songs, that's why I liked him too. We were there and Karel Kortán, called Majál, recorded his recital in Peklo, we transcribed it on tape. I was able to go west two days later for the first time, because in 1988 the foreign exchange pledges stopped. Once that communist was really economically drained, so regardless of politics or street committee, just if you proved you had the currency, you could go. So I immediately contacted, because we have a lot of friends in exile in Vienna, so I immediately contacted them to see if they would send me some money on account that I would bring it to them later... At the border, of course, they checked us with everything, but they let us in eventually, and I smuggled the tape in. I was still thinking how I was going to get it there, I had an old Skoda, then I got an idea, I threw the box away, and I tucked the tape with the Dědeček into the player in the car. When they filleted us, everything, even the upholstery in the car, they couldn't find it. I came to Vienna, and my friend Karel Moudrý came there, he was the announcer of Free Europe, and I gave it to him, and in the evening we listened to Free Europe in Vienna, and he played it there, as if the ice was melting in Bohemia because Dědeček could do this and that."

  • "The concert was conceived in such a way that it consisted of three parts, I painted a fabric poster, there was a programme. We had played one concert before in Služetín, which was a famous farm near Mariánské Lázně here, and we played there, at that time the Psí vojáci, Ženy and the Pathological Orchestra of Mariánské Lázně played there. We played our set and we moved, we rented a bus in Pilsen for our friends and for the bands. We loaded up the bus and when we were driving, there were four antons and six police cars coming towards us, the cops raided the place. They made a big deal out of it, and we escaped it because we needed to get to Pilsen early. There there was a raid, which was written about everywhere, I have the articles here - the Festival in the Stables. Everybody drugged, their expressions exaggerated about the corrupt youth supported by the dollar and the imperialists... Well, we played the whole concert again at that Roudna, it was called Služetín 86, then Ivan Wernisch was there, he's my favourite, and then Jiri Grusha. The poster was taken away from us when the concert was interrupted. They interrupted it after the first third, we had agreed that we would play that one part and then Lada Líbal would be there in between, that he would do a theatrical performance with Heřman Chromý, but somehow he couldn't, we have some photos of that too, but they are of very poor quality. And when Lada Líbal finished the performance and we went on stage, they stormed in."

  • "I stayed with my grandmother in Bušovice, which is fifteen kilometres from Pilsen. I was there in the morning before ninth grade and I remember exactly at about 4:30 in the morning a neighbor was banging on the door and calling out that there was a war. The only thing I remember is that at seven o'clock in the morning in front of the consignment shop in the village there was a line of all the women, they had carts, they were buying flour, sugar, just everybody thought it was war. The tanks started coming around the pond, and they drove into every street like that, firing blank cartridges everywhere, just to emphasize the deterrent effect, and they tore everything up. I was still there on the 21st, we listened to the radio and television, if the radio was free. In the evening, my friends and I set up a tent and went out like good cowboys at night with our paint brushes and wrote on the roads Idite damoj and Moscow 5000 kilometers, that's what was done, that very day. Then about two days later we arrived in Pilsen, and by then I was sweeping all the demonstrations like a 14-year-old boy, signing petitions against something on every corner."

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    Plzeň, 07.03.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 01:25:00
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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When nothing was allowed, we had to create a parallel world

Jiří Větrovský after his return from the war
Jiří Větrovský after his return from the war
photo: Archive of the witness

Jiří Větrovský was born on 10 March 1954 in Mariánské Lázně. From the age of six he grew up in Pilsen. Already in elementary school he perceived the absurdity of the socialist ideology that was drilled into the pupils at Pionýr or during conscription exercises. His negative attitude towards the ruling regime became definitively clear after the occupation by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. He spent that time with his grandmother in the countryside, but the following days, as a 14-year-old boy, he observed the events in Pilsen, where people signed petitions and demonstrated. In the seventies, he refused to submit to the slogan “If you have long hair, don’t come among us” and remained long-haired, which was a clear sign of resistance against the regime and a source of much unpleasantness. While studying at university in Prague, he met legends of the underground in famous pubs. Despite a serious spinal injury, he was conscripted into the army. On his return, he and his friends formed an underground band called The Úžas, later renamed The Suřík in an attempt to outwit the regime. The brutal crackdown by public security at a concert by this band did not escape the attention of the Vienna-based Voice of America. The events of the so-called Palach Week in January 1989 inspired Jiří and Hana Větrovská and their circle of friends to found the puppet-acting group HROB, whose first premiere was Havel’s Audience. Since 2006, the witness has been performing in the group burgtheater, which exclusively sets texts by Vratislav Brabenec, and still performs with the theatre group.