Zappa, polític txec
"Su presencia es constante en los ámbitos más variopintos. A lo largo de su vida, los biólogos bautizaron con su nombre un pez de Nueva Guinea (el Zappa confluentus) y un animal acuático de la especie de los cnidarios (Phialella zappai). Como homenaje póstumo, un astrónomo designó en su honor a un asteroide como 3834-Zappafrank, se le han dedicado calles en diversas ciudades (como Berlín o Düsseldorf) y erigido estatuas. Su localidad de nacimiento, Baltimore, exhibe un busto. Aunque el más famoso, al que acuden los fans en peregrinación para hacerse la oportuna fotografía, está localizado en Vilna. No resulta extraño que la capital de Lituania constituya la meca zappiana, dado que el compositor estadounidense representa un icono de la lucha anticomunista en el antiguo bloque soviético. Los jóvenes de países como Rusia o Hungría conseguían sus discos en la clandestinidad y la policía, según confesión de algunos fans, respondía con torturas y amenazas como “os vamos a sacar la música de Zappa a la fuerza”. Tal era su dimensión que, tras la caída del Muro, el gobierno checoslovaco de Václav Havel proclamó al artista representante cultural del país, un nombramiento rápidamente revocado por presiones de la Casa Blanca."
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Frank Zappa y Václav Havel
Frank Zappa's connections to Prague
This week the people of Prague have a chance to hear Frank Zappa's music, thanks to the efforts of the American rock musician's sons, Ahmet and Dweezil. They have organized a European concert tour called "Tour de Frank", and are performing in honour of their father, who died in 1993. There is a special connection between Frank Zappa and the Czech Republic. Zappa's music belongs to a repertoire once-banned by the communist censors, and Frank Zappa himself gained huge acclaim in Prague following the Velvet Revolution.
When Zappa was invited to Prague by Vaclav Havel in January 1990, he was reportedly shocked at his instant popularity, as well as by how well people knew his music—in the 1970s and 1980s Czechs listened to Zappa thanks to albums that were smuggled into communist Czechoslovakia via secret networks that transported literature, music, and even musical instruments.
The connection may not seem immediately obvious, but Frank Zappa's popularity in Prague is closely connected to the dark days of the dissident era, when his music and that of the Velvet Underground were blacklisted by the censors. For example, Frank Zappa's second album, Absolutely Free was smuggled into Czechoslovakia within a year of its 1967 release, and critics claim that the music influenced the famous Czech underground rock band, The Plastic People of the Universe. Zappa's tunes thus came to represent freedom and independent thought to dissidents in Czechoslovakia. Reports have it that when young kids in communist Czechoslovakia played heavy rock music, the police would tell them to "turn off that Frank Zappa music."
Then, in January 1990, Vaclav Havel appointed Frank Zappa as "Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism," much to the disgruntlement of U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker, who is famous for declaring: "You can do business with the United States or you can do business with Frank Zappa." Still, Vaclav Havel's friendship with Frank Zappa grew, and Zappa shared his ideas about increasing tourism to Czechoslovakia, and explained the concept of credit cards which were then an unknown quantity in this part of the world. It was Frank Zappa's brief interlude in the world of international trade and diplomatic relations—and the vantage-point was Prague.
Vaclav Havel still counts himself amongst Zappa's big fans, and says that "Frank Zappa was one of the gods of the Czech underground." There he'll surely stay in the memories of his Czech friends.