Dáša Vokatá

* 1954

  • “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...”

  • “Yeah, with Kryl, that was amazing as well... I met him at Abbot Opasek’s, at the monastery [in Rohr], where he organised a youth day every year for Pentecost; the Benedictines have a school there, and the school had a holiday, so he invited the young people from those Czech families, and he organised workshops, lectures, songs for them, and so on. Until then the only one to perform there was Kryl, that was roundabout 1981. When I arrived, that was our first meeting in person; he’s about ten years older than me, I was still a child when he emigrated in 1969, but I knew his songs, and we sang them at school. He said: ‘Look, Dáša, you’re a fresh emigrant here, do the people know me [back home] at all, do they still sing my songs? It’s so long since I was there.’ And I said, well of course they do, you’re still strong there, and he didn’t want to believe me, he shook his head. So I took a guitar and I started to sing him his song ‘Love’. And he broke into tears, he cried, and from that time we were friends for life and death right until his death, close friends.”

  • “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.”

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    Nádražní ul. Praha 5 Smíchov, 23.09.2015

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    délka: 01:20:58
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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    Nádražní ulice, Praha. Byt Dagmar Vokaté, 18.05.2016

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    délka: 01:41:10
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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Living in truth, acordding to your heart.

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Dáša Vokatá

Dáša Vokatá was born in 1954 in Karviná; she grew up in Ostrava. She graduated from a secondary school of chemistry and took up employment as a laboratory assistant at the Vítkovice Iron Works. Her life changed when her father, disillusioned by the turn of events following the 1968 invasion, committed suicide in 1976. She left her job and her city and set out to wander the country in search for answers to her questions. She found them in the underground scene. She lived in the „free house“ in Rychnov near Děčín, which was one of the centres of underground culture. She married and had two children. However, the regime ousted them from the house, and so she and her family moved back to Ostrava. After signing Charter 77 she and her husband Zdeněk Vokatý were repeatedly fired from each job they found, and the family was often on the move. The persecution became so unbearable that they decided to emigrate to Austria. Dáša Vokatá lived in Vienna until 1989. Many of her colleagues from the underground returned after that, but her children did not want to leave Austria, and so she spent her time alternately in one country and the other. She bought a house near Ivan Martin Jirous, and the two entered into a relationship. She lived with him, and they toured the country with a programme of songs and poems until his death in 2011. She then formed an artistic duo - the Oldáš - with Oldřich Kaiser. The two of them are also partners.