Karel Kryl

Biography

Memorial plaque to Karel Kryl in Olomouc, Czech Republic

Kryl moved to Prague in 1968 as an assistant at Czechoslovak Television. In his spare time he performed his songs in numerous small clubs. When the Warsaw Pact armies occupied Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968, to suppress the Prague Spring reform movement, Kryl released his album Brat?í?ku zavírej vrátka (Close the Gate, Little Brother), full of songs describing his disgust over the occupation, his views on life under communist rule, and his perception of the crude inhumanity and stupidity of the regime. The album was released in early 1969 and was banned and removed from shelves shortly after. Faced with certain imprisonment, Kryl left Czechoslovakia in 1969 and lived in West Germany. For most of his exile time, he worked for Radio Free Europe. Kryl released a number of albums during this time, and many of these songs became cultural icons back in his homeland.

In the enthusiastic November days of 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, Kryl returned to Czechoslovakia, although he was reportedly disappointed with the transformation of society. On March 3, 1994, just a month before his fiftieth birthday, Karel Kryl died of a heart attack in a Munich hospital.

Albums

Karel Kryl has only released one album in Czechoslovakia (Brat?í?ku, zavírej vrátka)^[1], but he has released many albums while in exile, a prominent example would be Tekuté písky.^[2]

His discography includes 10 albums and 2 posthumous albums:

• Brat?í?ku, zavírej vrátka (1969)
• Rakovina (1969)
• Ma?kary (1970)
• Karavana mrak? (1979)
• Plavá?ek (1983)
• Ocelárna (1986)
• Dopisy (1988)
• Tekuté písky (1990)
• Dv? p?le lunety (1992)
• Monology (1992)

Posthumous albums:

• D?kuji (1995)
• Jed?fky (1995)

External links

• Official website

References

cs:Karel Kryl de:Karel Kryl fr:Karel Kryl pl:Karel Kryl sk:Karel Kryl

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