Dáša Vokatá

“And my absolutely fondest memories are of my life in Vydří with Loony [Jirous], because he was a completely different Loony there than how people know him. As if his personality changed while there. I always called him the ‘Humpolec farmer’, he was a farmer at heart, he loved the nature, he knew all the plants, all their names, and he lived there with such a love of the countryside and of people, he was completely relaxed, and we had many years and times together there during which he didn’t drink at all, we were sober, we went mushroom picking, I cooked kulajda [a thick mushroom stew - trans.] and baked blueberry cakes, and we went for walks in the forest, and the neighbours can attest to how kind and beautiful a person Martin was when in private like that, when alone. Except then I had to go to Vienna in the meantime to feed the children, and he went to Prague, and he ruined himself and went berserk and people only remember him now as a drunk yelling at people or beating them. I was lucky enough to experience the wonderful Martin, and there’s practically nothing more beautiful I could ever experience.”

“But mainly, I want to add one basic thing, that we weren’t political in any way, on the contrary, I was and still am completely apolitical. All we wanted was to sing our songs, make our culture, paint our pictures; we wanted to do everything our own way because we weren’t keen on the so-called first culture, as Loony [Czech: Magor, the nickname of Ivan Martin Jirous - trans.] called it, and we were the second culture. The first culture, the one that was on television, wasn’t for us, so we looked for deeper meanings, and we then mediated those in our works, and we wanted to do that just for ourselves in houses mostly in the border regions, because the houses were cheap there, and we gathered there and held our concerts, our exhibitions, but even that was too much for the regime, and so it chased us out of our houses. Because although we did everything secretly and by word of mouth, we’d gather in tens and hundreds, which was forbidden; they were afraid of us, although we didn’t interfere with their matters at all, we lived our own lives...”