The legacy of the John Lennon Memorial on the Lennon Wall in Prague
The people of Prague did not learn of John Lennon's tragic death in New York until the morning of 9 December 1980, due to the time delay. During the week, most of the youth began to gather in Velkopřevorské náměstí to commemorate him.
Someone used a raised slab that was part of the municipal well until the beginning of the 20th century to create the monument. Someone wrote "For John Lennon" in chalk on the plaque and drew a cross above it; the artist has not yet been identified. Candles, flowers, newspaper clippings, photographs and other inscriptions relating to Lennon's work and life have been added to the symbolic headstone. From the two-dimensional surface of the wall, the memorial expanded into space.
The location was not randomly chosen. People had written various poems, nursery rhymes, and messages on the "Wailing Wall", as it was then called, in the previous decades. However, the roots of the tradition of writing on the wall in this location go back at least to the beginning of the 20th century.
In early 1981, a new inscription was created on the tombstone using a template: 'For John Winston Lennon 9.10.1940 - 8.12.1980'.
The police only became more interested in the site after the inscription "You have Lenin, leave us Lennon!" appeared on the wall. From then on, a man in a work coat and a brush in his hand was appointed by the authorities to visit the site and was responsible for the daily erasure of this inscription on the wall, as well as other inscriptions inappropriate for the regime in the vicinity of Kampa.
In the second half of December 1981, shortly after the first annual meeting of a few dozen people and immediately after the declaration of "martial law" in Poland, the entire wall was transformed into a poster board covering the symbolic Lennon monument. All the inscriptions were painted over, and a wooden formwork almost three meters high was attached to the wall. It didn't take long for the signatories of Charta 77 to take pickaxes to break the formwork and then run away from the police. This was repeated about three times, it was part of their fight against communism.
From Lenin to Lennon: The Moscow Students Who Missed the Beat
In the spring of 1981, a group of students from Moscow came here on an exchange trip. My friend was given the task of showing this group of about five boys and girls around Prague. We took them with us for a walk to Kampa. The Russians came in front of the wall and stood there. With dignity, as they know how. And we thought it was strange that they were taking it so seriously. Then we walked on and they were so silent. Then one of them said that he was glad that we were taking such good care of the memorials to the fallen of the Second World War in Prague. We were shocked. We thought they were from Mars. They were kids who were seventeen and eighteen years old and didn't know Lennon.
The Evolution of Lennon’s Wall:
From Forbidden Fruit to Cult Symbol
About two hundred people attended the second and third annual meetings in 1982 and 1983. Young people walked the adjacent streets, sang songs to accompany acoustic guitars, lit candles, and wrote pacifist slogans on the walls. The police tried to clear the area around Lennon's wall and legitimized all those present, who were later summoned for questioning. The magic of the forbidden fruit has been a major contributor to the creation of the cult site. Gradually, people from outside of Prague became aware of it as well, and they began to come to the meetings mainly in the second half of the 1980s. They also visited concerts, and famous pubs, exchanged information and met friends. Velkopřevorské náměstí also became a symbolic free space because young people met here with foreign visitors to Prague who were from the Eastern Bloc, but also from the West.
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A major turning point in the December Lennon meetings in and around Kampa came in 1984. For the first time, it went beyond the Small Town area and the police dispersed the participants, who numbered around four hundred, with the help of service vehicles and dogs. In the evening, a uniformed police patrol provoked the first clash when it repeatedly drove a service vehicle against a crowd of several hundred people. Gradually, the procession was pushed onto Charles Bridge, behind which the police used violence to break up the crowd. The greater part of it was later attacked at Old Town Square, where it was finally dispersed. The press wrote of the participants in the annual meeting at Lennon's Wall as alcoholics, mental defectives, and agents of the Western world.
A participant at the 1984 annual meeting recalled:
"It was the most horrible street experience for me - apart from 17 November 1989. We were chased in cars over Charles Bridge. Those who didn't escape were beaten. To this day, I still have before my eyes a man who was hit by a car, his hands bloody, trying to pick up things that had fallen out of his pockets, and the foot soldiers were still beating him. When we ran to the Municipal Library, we hid between the pillars at the entrance so that they couldn't get at us with cars. Then they let the dogs out. A little ahead of me, one of them - fortunately with a basket - lunged at a girl who was completely shocked. They put a lot of people in antons. I got to Příkopy, where I got on the metro and went home. I was completely shaken."
1985: A Whisper of Change at Lennon’s Wall
In 1985 there was a different atmosphere in society, something started to happen, Gorbachev was in Russia. Many people felt that changes could finally happen. Up to five hundred people attended the meeting at Lennon's Wall. There were also more policemen on the scene, but this time they did not attack the crowd. The police documented everything, and several people were questioned afterward.
Testimony about the course of the senseless interrogation of one of the participants (17 years old) in the Lennon Wall meeting by the secret police:
"They put me in a car and we drove through Prague. I was pretty shaken up and they were talking about what they were going to buy their kids for Christmas. They took me to a petrol station somewhere and there they interrogated me in a rather absurd way. Mostly they asked me why I was dressed like that. I was wearing a long skirt, a sweater, pounds of wooden beads and of course long hair. They kept asking me why I looked like that. I told them I liked natural materials. "Like the old Slavs?" they asked. I nodded and they said sharply, "Or like hippies, right!" That was quite a funny moment. Then they started talking again. They asked me why I wasn't wearing cheery pink and stuff. They attacked me and asked me if I knew I could be expelled from school."
Lennoniád to Revolution: The Birth of Resistance
For the next two years, the police left nothing to chance. It prepared a detailed plan of action involving several hundred police officers, including the activation of secret collaborators. Nevertheless, on December 8, 1987, several hundred people, including several members of the embassies of Western countries, gathered on Hroznová Street.
The young participants in the so-called "Lennoniada" had the opportunity to see police intervention against an unauthorized public assembly for the first time in their lives. Many of them later took part in the street demonstrations that began in Prague in August 1988.
One of the striking university students said:
"When the demonstrations started in Prague, I took part in one of the first ones with a friend. It was on the day of John Lennon's death, the so-called Lennoniada in Kampa. That was the first time I saw police repression, dispersal of a demonstration, arrests. Although I already understood very well what was going on, it had for me more the air of an adventure than something consciously anti-regime. That was 1986, 1987, then 1988 came. During Palach Week I saw with my own eyes how the police became brutal. I was quite shaken by the close-up view of how cruel and hateful they were. I thought repeatedly of my grandmother, who always said that there was really no difference between fascism and communism."
1989: The Turning Point at Lennon’s Wall – Repression Gives Way to Freedom
The November 1989 events in Czechoslovakia significantly influenced the commemorative meeting. A number of speakers and songwriters performed for the first time in Prague's Kampa Square without police assistance. Unlike in previous years, they were free to express their views on the desired change in the political system. In terms of numbers, it was the largest gathering ever held at the Kampa. For the late arrivals it was a problem to fit into the Great Square, the streets were clogged with people.
The Velvet Revolution between 17 November and 29 December 1989 brought great political changes in Czechoslovakia. It led to the fall of the communist regime and the transformation to democracy. The face of John Lennon-the symbol of freedom of speech and peace-disappeared under new layers of paint.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons - David Sedlecký and Robbie Morrison (Demonstration)
Source: BLAŽEK, Petr; LAUBE, Roman; POSPÍŠIL, Filip.
Lennonova zeď v Praze: Studie, rozhovory, dokumenty. Praha: Muzeum paměti XX. století, 2020. 536 s.
ISBN 978-80-907989-0-8.
