RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Zapletal, Aleš
T1 The Role of the Czech Office of Press and Information in Culturally-Political Direction of Popular Music in 1970-1980
JF Historica Olomucensia
YR 2018
VO 54
IS 1
SP 315
OP 332
DO 10.5507/ho.2018.014
UL https://historica.upol.cz/artkey/hol-201801-0014.php
AB At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, there was a process of consolidation in Czechoslovakia, which was supposed to renew the role of the communistic party in all the areas of society weakened by the reform process of the second half of the 1960s. Music, as an important carrier of the reform process, was also influenced. Popular music was especially significant since it was widely important during the relaxed atmosphere of the late 1960s. One of the means of its submission was The Czech Office of Press and Information (Český úřad pro tisk a informace), which was given a role of a controller of the Czech pop lyrics intended for a gramophone release or which were intended for songbooks by the Bureau of Central Committee of The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (ÚV KSČ) for the control of the party's work in the Czech lands. The primary point of this measure was a prevention of emergence of a culturally-political unwanted content of the lyrics. Therefore, production of gramophone firms was subordinated to preliminary censorship. That was not a sufficiently effective instrument and soon The Czech Office of Press and Information started to apply its influence by different means. Primary consolidation measurement was sufficient, and it stayed valid through all the1970s.