Majáles
Majáles is a traditional student festival in the Czech Republic that is celebrated in May. In the past it often bore clear signs of rebellion against the authorities. The festival and the parades usually took place in several cities.
meaning
Majáles, derived from the Latin maius (May), is celebrated in the Czech Republic, or earlier in Bohemia, by young people in two ways. On the one hand, the month of May is considered the month of love and, for example, it was a tradition in Prague that lovers met on May 1st in the evening on Mount Petřín at the monument to the romantic poet of the early 19th century Karel Hynek Mácha , who wrote his main work Máj wrote a famous poem about love. Secondly, it is the tradition of the Majáles Festival that - on May 1st or on one of the following May weekends - students roam the cities. Various elements of action art (in Czech "recese", best to be translated as happening ) were included as well as criticism of state power.
history
The first mention of Majáles as a student event comes from the Czech writer Alois Jirásek in his historical novella Filosofská historie (1878). There he describes the Majáles from 1847 in Litomyšl , which took place despite a ban. In addition to exuberant celebrations, slogans of patriotism and the struggle against Germanization were in the foreground and were typical in intellectual circles of the Bohemian ruled by the Habsburgs. Jirásek interprets the Majálesfeste as anti-clerical, patriotic, freethinking-influenced actions that were directed against Germanization and, by nature, against the Habsburg authorities. The parades through the city that traditionally accompany the Majálesfest took place in 1948, after which the communist regime did not approve them for a long time.
Majáles 1956
The year 1956 marked a turning point in the history of Majáles, when the Majáles tradition was revived. Just a few months after the XX. At the CPSU party congress in February 1956, at which Nikita Khrushchev at least exposed the Stalinist crimes, the unsettled authorities approved the student event requested by Československý svaz mládeže (ČSM), the youth organization of the CPC . Shortly before that, the communist youth organization even supported a petition from students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in April 1956, who made some high-level demands: the interference from foreign broadcasters (in particular Radio Free Europe ) must be stopped and foreign literature should be accessible ie can be imported, the process of convicts like Rudolf Slansky should be revised, political prisoners should be given amnesty.
The approval of the Majálesfest was tied to certain conditions, among other things, the grants for May should only be paid out after the festival in order to minimize excess alcohol. The Ministry of Interior put a third of all security forces in Prague on alert. The given slogans were ignored and the students chanted their own. The demonstration, which grew to around 100,000 participants, could only be directed with difficulty by the police to the goal of the march, the monument of Mácha.
In the run-up to the Majáles Festival in Prague, which took place on May 19, 1956, two events caught the attention of the security authorities. As early as May 12, 1956, there was a Majáles Festival in Bratislava with several thousand students, where there were conflicts with the police. Two days later, Interior Minister Rudolf Barák informed the party's Politburo about "provocations" in Bratislava and three days later he issued the secret order that a third of all security forces in the Interior Ministry in Prague should be on high alert between 19 and 21 May 1956 should be moved.
A few days before the Majáles in Prague, some leaflets and letters to party committees were intercepted by the security authorities, where various demands of the students and their resolutions were listed. The recipients were asked to copy the texts and distribute them further. There was talk of reactionary elements. They were found not only in Prague, but in some cases en masse in all districts. Investigations have shown who is behind the leaflet campaign. Jaroslav Hájíček was ultimately identified as the main organizer of the campaign. As it turned out, it was the resistance fighter and Colonel of the Army General Staff. He and his staff were charged and sentenced to prison terms.
Majáles in the 1960s
After the unexpectedly negative side effects of Majáles in 1956 for the communist party, no festivals of this kind were approved at first, but as in 1962, students and young people met regularly on May 1st in the evening at the monument of Mácha on Petřín Mountain. Around a thousand young people met here, whose actions were compared by the authorities with the "provocations" of 1956. There were also attempts to carry out parades in the center of Prague, which had the character of a demonstration. The security authorities accompanied these moves, some of the participants were released from the universities (17 people, 10 people had their studies interrupted for a year), and some were convicted in political trials (in Prague 1 alone there were eleven young people). A year later, in 1963, the leadership of the Communist Party arranged for the security forces, as well as the officials of the youth organization ČSM, to be ready. This invited to an evening in a festival in a completely different part of Prague, where various rock groups should also perform. Nevertheless, around 1,500 young people met on Petřín Mountain in the evening - with the subsequent arrests of around 35 people.
Majáles 1965
On February 18, 1965, Beatnik Allen Ginsberg , who had been expelled from Cuba, landed in Prague , who in the following months got in touch with the intellectual class of the country, especially in Prague jazz bars, and who performed in the viola literature and jazz bar . Although he wanted to leave Prague in May, he was prevented by a student delegation because he was scheduled for the Majáles festivities of the year for the election of the Majáles king. Ginsberg accepted and was elected. The Majáleszug lasted an hour and a half and was attended by 150,000 spectators. About 85 people were provisionally arrested (some of them later convicted). Ginsberg was immediately arrested for alcoholism, narcomania, disturbance and propagation of homosexuality and expelled from Czechoslovakia within two days.
During the Majáleszug in 1966, which was also guarded by strong police forces, there were numerous arrests. During the personnel check, organs were surprised to find that 55 of the arrested were students from families of high party officials.
present
In the 1970s, and especially then in the 1980s, the rebellious tradition flattened out and the focus slowly shifted towards concerts. This also applies to the period after 1989. The non-conformist thinking and the critical consideration of the social situation evidently took a back seat, concerts, drinks and funny processions as well as often a festival lasting several days gained the upper hand. "... from Alois Jirásek to Allen Ginsberg, a spontaneous political tradition was inherent in Majáles. Why is it not continued by today's students?" - asks Zbyněk Petráček in Lidové noviny . And Bohumil Kartous answers in the renowned Britské listy : "The student majáles, who used to have the opportunity to oppose the establishment and express numerous intellectually progressive visions, has been degraded to a marketing matter, not unlike the industrially organized music festivals ..." and recalls Also of the words of the Rector of Masaryk University Mikuláš Bek, who in an interview described today's Czech students as "conflict-shy" and "conformist" compared to the western ones.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andrea Kábelová: "1. máj" (May 1st) - Day of Love , online (archived) at: czech.cz/de / ...
- ↑ a b c Petra Andrýsková: Majáles včera a dnes (Majáles yesterday and today), online (archived) at: jobfairs.cz / ...
- ↑ a b c d e f Petr Blažek: Majáles 1956 , material from Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes ÚSTR ), online at: ustrcr.cz / ...
- ↑ Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University, Prague: Resolution adopted by the Faculty Organization of the Czechoslovak Youth Union , English translation published as an appendix to: John PC Matthews: Majales: TheAbortive Student Revolt In Czechoslovakia in 1956 , Working Paper No. 24, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, September 1998, online at: wilsoncenter.org / ... (Appendix, after page 37)
- ↑ a b c Zbyněk Petráček: Studenti sobě aneb majáles , article for "Lidové noviny" from April 29, 2010, reprint in "iforum", a magazine of Charles University in Prague, online at: iforum.cuni.cz / ...
- ↑ John PC Matthews: Majales: TheAbortive Student Revolt In Czechoslovakia in 1956 , Working Paper No. 24, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, September 1998, online at: wilsoncenter.org / ...
- ↑ Petr Koura: "My sami musíme dáti najevo zájem o svobodu." Letáková kampaň Jaroslava Hájíčka na jaře 1956 , in: Dějiny a současnost 12/2006, online at: dejinyasoucasnost.cz / ...
- ↑ a b c Petr Blažek: Vyhoštění krále majálesu. Allen Ginsberg a Státní bezpečnost (expulsion of the Majáles King. Allen Ginsberg and the State Security), material from the Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes ÚSTR ), online at: ustrcr.cz / ...
- ↑ Bohumil Kartous: Diagnóza dvacetiletých: normalizovaní, sociálně mrtví lidé , in: Britské listy from May 3, 2015, online at: blisty.cz / ...