Can't Prague Even Leave Jazz Alone?

"Can't Prague Even Leave Jazz Alone?" is an article printed in the New York Times on December 14, 1986.

Summary

Decrying "some Czechoslovak politicians and police" as haters of life, fun, beauty, thought, and love, Vonnegut bemoans the arrest of seven members of the Executive Committee of the Jazz Section of the Czech Musician's Union, ostensibly for running an unauthorized business. When it was founded in 1971, the organization was authorized by the government and later supported by UNESCO. Vonnegut and the author John Updike met some of those arrested, who had asked each of them to plant a sapling. Czechoslovakia, despite its small size, has made an important contribution to world architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, theater, and, as recent emigres, films, and Vonnegut would encourage anyone to visit Prague. Ultimately, these arrests are the result of the primary spiritual battle of the modern world between "those who enjoy childlike playfulness when they become adults and those who don't."

Responses

Josef Škvorecký

Vonnegut's article led to a response from Vaclav Zluva, the Press Attache of the Czechoslovak Embassy, published in the New York Times on December 28, 1986. He argues that Prague has been a center of jazz since the earliest days of its popularity in Europe, but it cannot tolerate tax-dodgers and must maintain law and order as much as any other state. While anyone with good intentions should visit Prague, those like Vonnegut, who speak abusively of those who contribute to building the city he so highly praises, should stay home.

Zluva's reply lead to a letter to the editor from Edmond G. Thomas of Key West, Florida dated January 1, 1987 and published on the 13th of that month. Admitting the difficulty inherent in an American judging between Vonnegut and Zluva from a distance, he nonetheless surmises that "totalitarian suppression of free expression" is at work, citing the book The Bass Saxophone by Josef Skvorecky, a Czechoslovak emigre and jazz musician, now teaching at the University of Toronto. Based on this account of using legal pretexts to attack music viewed as subversive, Thomas is forced to conclude that Prague, as a center of culture, "persists despite, not because of its present rulers."

See Also

• "The Courage of Ivan Martin Jirous" on the imprisoned Czech poet