The 'voice' of Prague Spring recalls '68 broken hopes

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

PRAGUE (AFP) — Prague Spring, one of the defining moments in the global tumult of 1968, was embodied by the voice of a woman before Soviet tanks crushed this brief interlude and silenced Marta Kubisova for the next 19 years.

"The Spring was like a gushing forth of energy that had long been smothered: with the abolition of censorship a new wind blew everywhere," the Czech singer, now 65, recalls.

The star even said "no" to extending a lucrative contract at a top Paris music hall, so strong was the draw to be part of the effusion back home.

Once there, her tunes, especially the immensely popular "Prayer for Marta", became the signature songs for the massive explosion of hope and freedom in then Czechoslovakia until the Soviet masters wrested back control....