Karel Kryl was a poet and singer-songwriter, born on 12 April 1944 in Kroměříž. He lived in exile in Germany for over twenty years and never gave up his Czechoslovak citizenship.
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Karel Kryl was a poet and singer-songwriter who was born on 12 April 1944 in Kroměříž and died on 3 March 1994. The memorial plaque on his birth house counts him among the figures of the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution [1].
Birthplace and childhood
He was born in a house in Kroměříž where the family of the printer Karel Kryl the Elder lived after having to move out of Nový Jičín following the German occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938. He lived in Kroměříž until 1957 [1].
Memorial plaque
On the birth house at Březinova 1041/9 in Kroměříž there is a plaque of black terrazzo. It was unveiled on 12 April 2014 in the presence of representatives of Kroměříž, on whose initiative it was made. The inscription states that Karel Kryl was born in the house and recalls the dates 12 April 1944 and 3 March 1994. It describes him as a poet and singer-songwriter who is counted among the figures of the Prague Spring of 1968 and the revolution of 1989 [1].
Exile in Germany
For what would have been Karel Kryl's seventieth birthday, the radio station Radio Wave prepared an interview with his long-time partner, who lived with him from 1976 until his death in 1994. It dealt with his parallel life, with communist Czechoslovakia and with the personalities who later began to claim Kryl as their own [2].
Kryl lived in exile in Germany for over twenty years, yet never wanted to give up his Czechoslovak citizenship. According to his partner, he was firmly attached to his home and roots, lived by the traditions of his grandmother and always said that a true poet expresses himself only in his mother tongue. In 1976, when they met, he had been in exile for seven years and lived in the Olympic Village in Munich, where he had moved from the Munich district of Schwabing. He had many friends around him, and the bungalows in which they lived also served as meeting places for young Czechs and Slovaks [2].
A double life
According to the interview, Kryl lived permanently in Germany but often travelled to concerts in Czechoslovakia. According to his partner, Germany was a refuge of calm, while the concert trips were its opposite, because he wanted to change events and set things in motion. He spoke very often about the situation at home, where he had family within the communist structures. He put all his money into publishing his records and books [2].
After 1989 he returned to Czechoslovakia for the funeral of his mother. His partner described this return as sad, because his mother had meant everything to him. She herself first came to Prague in 1991 [2].