1932- 15th segment: That Czech Song of Ours (Ta naše písnička česká)

We continue with the year 1932.

1932

In the spring, several thousand miners from 31 mines participated in the Great Bridge strike.

On June 9th, the Czechoslovak Traders' Party protested against the government’s approval of sales tax.

President Masaryk appointed the 12th Czechoslovak government in Prague Castle on October 29th. This broad coalition government was the first government of Jan Malypetr.

On February 18th, the director, screenwriter and actor Miloš Forman was born.

This was the year that Karel Hašler’s best-known yet almost last melody was heard for the first time: That Czech Song of Ours. It became an important part of Hašler's film Písničkář (The Songwriter), which at the time tried – perhaps too enthusiastically – to remind people of Czech resistance against the Austrians during the first world war. But watch out! Back in 1941, Nazi officials used the film as an opportunity to teach themselves the methods behind Czech cultural resistance!

Karel Hašler's memorial, photo: Luděk Kovář, CC BY-SA 3.0

That Czech Song of Ours was probably the cause of Hašler's arrest and martyrdom in Mauthausen concentration camp just before Christmas 1941. Prior to his death, he had updated some of his most famous melodies, while in the company of a friendly circle of Protectorate filmmakers. He created and sang new lyrics about “a small estate which was plucked clean after Munich as if it were a lace scarf”. It is said that one of the filmmakers betrayed Hašler, sending him to his death.