Broken angel, believed to have inspired one of Karel Kryl's 1969 protest songs, coming home
A damaged statue of an angel, believed to have inspired one of Karel Kryl's best-known songs, is returning to the western Bohemian town of Ostrov. It will go on display in the local church on August 21, the anniversary of the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Karel Kryl's Anděl, or Angel, is one of the iconic tracks from his legendary 1969 debut album Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka, released in response to the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The song tells the story of a soldier who finds an angel with broken wings in the ruins of a church and tries to nurse him back to health, eventually making him new wings from a brass cartridge casing.
Kryl himself said he was inspired by the bleak landscape of the former Sudetenland, where many churches and other religious sites had been destroyed under Communism.
But the angel in the song may also have had a real-life model: a statue from a church in Ostrov, a small town in western Bohemia through which Soviet-led troops passed during the August 1968 invasion.
For around a decade, the statue has been in the care of Tomáš Horyna, who manages Červená Lhota Castle. He was given it by two ceramic artists who had attended the same secondary ceramics school as Kryl.
Horyna says the artists told him about another classmate who rescued the angel while doing his military service in Ostrov:
“They had another classmate who was doing his military service at the time and was stationed in Ostrov nad Ohří. The monastery church there had been turned into a military barracks, and he saw what was happening to its decoration, including the angel. He wanted to save it, so he took it away.
“He later came to a reunion of his former classmates and unpacked the angel. He told them the story of how the soldiers were destroying the church. Karel Kryl was there too. He heard the story and saw the angel. Not long afterwards, the song about the smashed-up church was written.”
According to Horyna, the angel stood beside a statue of the Virgin Mary on the church's altar:
“The angel isn’t large. I’d say it’s about 60 centimetres tall. It’s an adoring angel. We now know from historical photographs of the church in Ostrov nad Ohří that it stood beside the tabernacle, a glass-fronted shrine containing a statue of the Virgin Mary. The angel was on the left-hand side of it.”
Horyna says the broken wing is one reason he sees a possible connection with Kryl's song, although he believes there were several sources of inspiration:
“Of course, this angel was not necessarily the only source of inspiration. Although the description in the song, including the fact that it has broken-off wings, really does fit this particular angel. Kryl was also interested in collecting angels and other statues. He was deeply upset by the way sacred art was being destroyed during the Communist era. So in the song, the angel became a broader symbol of that destruction.”
The story of the angel resurfaced when Professor Pavel Hošek was researching a book about Kryl. A friend of Horyna’s wife, Hošek learned about the statue and became interested in its possible connection with the singer. His interest eventually helped bring the angel back to Ostrov.
Before it goes on display there on August 21, the statue will undergo some conservation treatment. The town has decided not to fully restore it, however, so that the damage remains visible as part of its history.
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On August 21, Czechs marked the 56th anniversary of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The oppressive atmosphere of the time is reflected in the music of Karel Kryl.
