Comrade, comrade...

20. 3. 2010 / Karel Košťál

Singer Jean Ferrat, who protested against the Soviet-led invasion that ended the experiment of "socialism with a human face" of the Prague Spring of 1968, has died.

Jean Tenenbaum, as went his real name, was born in the periphery of Paris. His father died in Auschwitz in 1942. Jean was saved by the French communist resistance organization. Ferrat all his life maintained that he was a "communist anarchist", who never had a party membership card.

The singer often protested against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Kremlin allies and the following politics of appeasement of society, called Normalization. He loved the word "comrade" (camarade in French), exclaiming it has a "cherry color and the color of May flowers".

On August 1968 that was different:

"What are you doing here, comrade/it's just turned 5pm/the August Moon over Prague became dark/comrade, comrade..."

Camarade

Jean Ferrat

Album: Jean Ferrat - Vol.1 (1999)

C'est un joli nom Camarade

C'est un joli nom tu sais

Qui marie cerise et grenade

Aux cent fleurs du mois de mai

Pendant des années Camarade

Pendant des années tu sais

Avec ton seul nom comme aubade

Les lèvres s'épanouissaient

Camarade Camarade

C'est un nom terrible Camarade

C'est un nom terrible à dire

Quand, le temps d'une mascarade

Il ne fait plus que frémir

Que venez-vous faire Camarade

Que venez-vous faire ici

Ce fut à cinq heures dans Prague

Que le mois d'août s'obscurcit

Camarade Camarade

C'est un joli nom Camarade

C'est un joli nom tu sais

Dans mon cœur battant la chamade

Pour qu'il revive à jamais

Se marient cerise et grenade

Aux cent fleurs du mois de mai

Vytisknout

Obsah vydání | Sobota 20.3. 2010