Jan Macháček - music and journalism, before the revolution and after
Journalist and musician Jan Macháček has lived an interesting and varied life both before and after the Velvet Revolution. In the 1980s he came to be known as a guitarist from the underground bands Plastic People of the Universe and Garáž. After the revolution he began writing for the independent weekly newspaper Respekt, his work earned him a great deal of recognition, and he is regarded today as one of the Czech Republic’s leading economic and political commentators. As Central Europe marked 20 years since the fall of the Iron Curtain, I met with Jan Macháček – on his way back from Berlin and off to Poland for the commemorations – and asked him to recall what his life was like before the great turn of events.
“I was young at the time so I was active, and from a perspective of historical optimism - erasing certain unpleasant things from memory – I think it was a very exciting time for me, because I was very active doing music, helping to put together underground publishing. Later on, in ’88, ’87, we started organising these demonstrations, and leaflets and posters for demonstrations. And we had a lot of fun. From today’s perspective it was a little bit dangerous, but not too dangerous. We faced a maximum sentence of two years, whereas in Cuba, for the same kinds of activities, they give them sentences like 25 years.”
In that era and at that age, how important was politics to the members of Plastic People and to you. To what extent was it just normal youthful rebellion?
“Well the Plastic People were not young anymore but Garáž was definitely a younger band, so I was playing with Plastic People but they were like 15 or 20 years older than me. But there was nothing revolutionary about it, these people just decided that they wanted to be free in their artistic expression and there was no way to be free in your artistic expression if you wanted to play professionally or semi-professionally or legally.”
Well, let me specify: musicians and artists in every country, even the freest countries, tend to stand up against the establishment in some way, whatever the establishment may be. So what was it like for you and for the Plastic People in that sense? Was it about politics? Was it about the political and economic situation?
“No it wasn’t at all. If you go through the lyrics to the Plastic People’s songs, there’s definitely nothing political about them. Some of them were gloomy poetic compositions that definitely reflected the atmosphere of the 70s and 80s. And paradoxically, Egon Bondy’s lyrics, these short poems which were a major part of the Plastic People’s texts and which were composed in the 1950s, they somehow perfectly reflected the atmosphere of the 70s and 80s also.”
What were the first fruits of the revolution for you? Can you compare the summer of 1989, say, to say the summer of 1990?
“The summer of 1990 was also a very exciting time because we were working very hard in the weekly Respekt, and it was a very exciting time to write about all these things, this whole variety of things you could write reports about. We were still opening these secret topics and taboos from the communist regime. And we were learning by doing, so it was a great opportunity, to put together a weekly, even though we had no journalism schools and we had no one educated in journalism. So we were working hard, and again we had a lot of fun.”
So within a very short space of time you went from being an underground musician to being a very prominent reporter. How can you describe that change?
“From the perspective of today it seems surprisingly easy. Unbelievably easy. It seems hard to believe how much time and advantages we got from the official media, because for the official media – newspapers, television, radio – it took them weeks before they realised that they could write what they wanted. As I said, we didn’t have any professional education, but our advantage was that we were used to expressing ourselves even under communism. So we were not afraid of a new establishment, of dealing with problematic topics: from the arms trade to racism, refugees, the Vietnamese minority, the quality of food, secret police facilities… So we were constantly opening up these topics that were completely taboo under the communist system.”
How was the standard of journalism though would you say, looking back?
“Oh, of course, some of the standards of journalism were very low. But on the other hand we knew something about American journalism, or certainly more than people who had studied journalism officially, because we had published some translations and essays about journalism in the West underground, so we knew something. On one hand, you can imagine, it was very amateurish, over-enthusiastic, and nowadays we would be more experienced. On the other hand, I also think that the media was much better in general ten years ago than now. The quality is unfortunately going down.”
Why is that?
“Well because it’s partially dying profession, I believe. You know, you have all this competition from the internet and all this competition from the papers that are given out for free…”
So you mean newspaper journalism is a dying profession.
“Yeah, but unfortunately our public media are competing in a way with tabloid media and commercial media. So they are not able to keep up their level of quality. I don’t know; if you were a judge in this country, it was so bad that it could only get better. Or if you were a scientist, then there was finally some money going into science, so the overall quality of the profession goes up. But I’m afraid that the overall quality of journalism is going down.”
How was the revolution itself for you; November 17, what was that like?
“Well for me personally it was strange, because on the 17th of November, 1989, I brought my newborn twins, a boy and girl, home from the maternity hospital. But I also had a concert with Garáž later that day, somewhere in Moravia. And I was still working in this heating plant also, and it was getting cold, so I had to work. And during the students’ strike we played for the students at different campuses, so it was a really exciting time.”
So during those first weeks you were playing concerts and devoting yourself to…
“To heating. [laughs]”
…fatherhood and heating. I guess the last question should be about your well known unhappiness with the current political situation. Do you think some kind of little revolution is needed today?
