Ludvík Procházka

* 1958

  • "It turned out to be a great group. I stayed there for about three Sundays and it was basically relaxing. It was a madhouse then, pavilion number seven, a kind of island of freedom in the unfreedom around. Because there were some nursing brothers who had been put there for some political trouble. Guys were wearing different belts. We used to listen to music there. Someone brought in books by Egon Bondy, narrated by Egon Bondy, like Invalid Siblings, Afghanistan, The Shaman. We listened to that on repeat. Music, too. DG 307, Sculptures. No one bothered us. They just let us do what we wanted. Except we couldn't go out normally."

  • "Someone walked by and saw three hairy young men sitting there drunk and bleeding. He called an ambulance and of course the cops arrived. The paramedics found that the injuries weren't such that we had to go to the hospital, so they took us straight to the mental hospital. One of the cops was in the car with us. I think the other one was still in the front with the driver and we sang them the song Red Flags by the band Hever and Vaseline. The song was so derogatory to the Public Security officers. We were screaming at the top of our lungs. The policeman was unhappy with us and I'm surprised he didn't throw at us." - "Do you remember the lyrics?" - "I remember: 'The red shoulder boards with a single star, Leather shoulder boards with a red bow by far. The red inserts, you must not fear, Even with batons, we won’t adhere. We know they’ll lock us up, we’re well aware, So let’s sing the first verse again without care.'"

  • "When you get into the hands of a psychiatrist, he rings you like an ornithologist rings birds. He always gives you a diagnosis. When we smoked, we had tobaccoism. We weren't teetotal, we had alcoholism. Those were the two basic diagnoses. Then there were various neuroses and psychopathies. Schizoid psychopathy, for example, was in demand. It was the equivalent of a nobleman's crest. When we used to joust among the patients to see who had what diagnosis, those were also quite interesting debates."

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    Praha, 22.05.2024

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For a Blue Card to the Asylum: On an Island of Freedom

Ludvík Procházka, Prague, mid-1970s
Ludvík Procházka, Prague, mid-1970s
zdroj: Ludvík Procházka archive

Ludvík Procházka was born on 4 August 1958 in Příbram, but grew up in Prague, Veleslavín and Petřiny. His father was a surveyor and his mother took care of four children in the household. In August 1968 he witnessed the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. He trained as an electrician at the Industrial Automation Works, but never worked in the field. He grew up in the Prague underground, listened to and distributed music by Western bands, and participated in the distribution of samizdat. He refused compulsory military service in the Czechoslovak People‘s Army, simulated mental illness and repeatedly faked suicide attempts. Several times he stayed in a psychiatric hospital in Prague Bohnice. Eventually he was exempted from the war, married in 1981 and graduated from library school. He was interested in psychology and attended secret philosophical seminars in the apartment of the dissident and Chartist Daniel Kroupa. After 1989 he worked as a journalist. At the time of the filming in 2024, he was living in Prague.