Příběh Karla Gotta jako československá moralita
The Story of Karel Gott as a Czechoslovak Morality

Summary/Abstract: Karel Gott (1939–2019) was the most popular Czechoslovak singer in the genre of pop music from the 1960s o the late 1980s and, for the more conservative Czech audience, remained so practically until the end of his life. He anchored himself in the so-called mainstream, and as a performer of hits with an extraordinary voice and supreme vocal expression, he had many fans in other socialist countries and also – and in particular – in West Germany. Many, however, perceived him as a kind of symbol of conformity with the communist regime during the period of Czechoslovak normalization. According to the reviewer, the biographical book "Gott: Československý příběh" [Gott: A Czechoslovak Story] written by the well-known music publicist Pavel Klusák, can be read in three ways. Firstly, as a story of Czechoslovak show business from the 1960s to the early 1990s. In this respect, Klusák, who has an excellent command of the subject matter, has done a great job, which is matched by his insightful and factually rich interpretation. Secondly, as a story with moral lessons about the social responsibility of a significant protagonist of popular culture. Here, Klusák is too much in thrall to evaluative ethical judgments and to the notion of the artist as the conscience of the nation, which the reviewer finds anachronistic. Thirdly, Klusák tells a typically Central European story about a man in history, but ends it on the threshold of the 1990s, thus giving up the possibility of grasping it comprehensively. According to the reviewer, his justification that by that time Gott was a fully profiled personality and artist and did not change in any way does not hold up in the context of the turbulent events after the fall of communism. The polemical review concludes by stating that while Klusák has removed the layer of myths and Gott’s own retouches from his portrait, the image he now presents to his readers is somewhat one-sided and burdened.

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