Helena Blehárová Závrať (1967)
On the night of 20 August 1968, half a million Warsaw Pact troops and tanks invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The event marked the end of the Prague Spring—a brief era of political liberalization within the ČSSR. The Politburo in Moscow had initiated the invasion to undermine the Czechoslovak leadership's intentions to democratize the country by loosening restrictions on the media, freedom of speech and travel. The military quelling of the reforms remains a national trauma, leaving its mark on art and culture to this day. The first works addressing the brief reform era and its violent end emerged just a few years later. To circumvent censorship, they refrained from directly addressing the events. A notable example is the film Hroch (1974), a satire infamous for being considered the worst Czechoslovak film in history—so much so that every year the worst Czech film receives the Hroch Award. For many of the involved, this film was a blip in their professional lives—one of them being Helena Blehárová. Fortunately, acting was more of a side hustle for her; her true calling was jazz singing. And she really thrived in that world. Today's song "Závrať" by Orchestr Gustava Broma with Blehárová on vocals highlights her distinctive voice and singing prowess.
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