The Museum of the Memory of the XXth Century together with the Kampa Museum - Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation prepared an outdoor exhibition entitled The Kings of Majales with the subtitle Student Festivals in Czechoslovakia 1945 - 1990. The exhibition will open on Friday 29 April at 7 pm in Kampa Park between the Kampa Museum and Werich Villa and will run until 27 July 2022. Its main theme is the majáles tradition and its transformations, with a focus on the period after World War II.
- 27 April 2022
"It was often students who reacted loudly to threats to personal and national freedom in the 20th century and were not afraid to make their views known publicly - think of 1939, 1948 or 1989. And they did so even in the context of May Day. A joke or satire is the fastest way to expose the lies or hypocrisy of any regime," said Hana Kordová Marvanová, a legislative councillor who is also chair of the board of the Museum of the Memory of the 20th Century.
Through a series of previously unpublished photographs and documents, the exhibition Kings of the Majales maps, among other things, how student festivals reflected the nature and changes in political conditions, the mood of society and the level of self-confidence of the student movement, which played an important role in many of the turning points of our country.
"Student carnivals in May have almost as long a tradition as modern university education. Behind the seemingly innocuous recession of choosing a king, putting on a crazy crown, music and parades, one could always sense the fresh energy carried by young educated people. This belief in education, togetherness, critical reason, humour and the conviction that we want to write our own future has left no undemocratic regime cold. And our exhibition speaks of how the May student open-air celebrations tested democracy and the openness of society," said Jiří Pospíšil, a member of the Capital City Council. Pospíšlík, Jiri Pospíšil, City of Prague Mayor and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Kampa Museum.
"The history of the majáles festivities is very diverse. Majales were alternately permitted and forbidden, in some years they were held only in smaller towns and not in Prague. In the post-war years, the communists tried to turn the student festivities into an organised unionist demonstration along the lines of the May Day political parades, while at other times the festivities spontaneously took on a protest character," explains the author of the exhibition, historian Petr Blažek from the Museum of the Memory of the 20th Century.
The exhibition is a detailed reminder of the most famous Maypole celebration in Prague. It took place in 1965, when the American poet and representative of the beatnik movement Allen Ginsberg was elected king. The celebration was allowed at the time in an attempt to control the repeated riots and anti-regime performances that had been taking place since the early 1960s at the Karel Hynek Mácha monument on Petřín Hill. Although the preparation of the May Day celebration on 1 May 1965 was supervised by the party authorities, it had a very free-thinking atmosphere. The last May Day parade in the capital took place in the euphoria of the Prague Spring in 1968. After the August occupation and the restoration of an authoritarian form of government, student festivals were banned in Prague and the tradition was only restored after 1990.
The exhibition will be accompanied by three events for the public: on 1 May 2022, a historical walk will take place from Kampa Park to the statue of Karel Hynek Mácha on Petřín. Participants will be able to listen to excerpts from period texts relating to the Petřín youth meetings in the 1960s and sing songs by Karel Kryl. On 9 May 2022, at 6 pm, a debate on the poet Allen Ginsberg will be held at the Werich Villa, and on 13 June 2022, a discussion on the phenomenon of the first "maniacs" in communist Czechoslovakia will be held there. For both secondary and primary schools, the organisers have prepared guided tours as well as worksheets for project lessons in Czech language and history, which, together with information for teachers, are available for download HERE.
The tradition of student majales is several centuries old. Originally, they were trips to the countryside where students and teachers sang, recited or performed theatre. They were held before the night of Filipojakub on April 30. Since the 19th century, the student majale has taken the form of a carnivalesque and recessional student procession through the city with an accompanying programme including the election of a king. The festival was made famous by Alois Jirásek in his novel Philosophical History, published in 1877. In his rendition, the Majáles was a free-thinking and patriotic celebration of philosophy students. The form of student majales has changed over the past century according to the development of the ruling political regimes and the degree of emancipation of society.
More information about the Kings of the Maypole exhibition is available HERE