COURAGE

connecting collections

An item from the Popmuseum’s collection is an Ionika keyboard which was produced in the GDR between 1958 and 1965. It was likely the first instrument of its kind made in the Eastern Block. The instrument, among the Czechs and Slovaks, known as “jonika”, was used by a wide range of bands in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. One of the bands that used this instrument in the first half of the 1960s was, for example, Kometa, one of the first rock’n’roll, twist and big beat bands in the Czechoslovakia. It is said that the instrument often overheated during concerts, thus it was necessary to tune it before every performance. There were not many “jonikas” left after the arrival of better instruments. This is why the Ionika in the Popmuseum’s collection can be seen as rare and it is a unique example related to the roots of rock music in Czechoslovakia.

The Jazz Section Collection, now deposited in the National Archives, contains a postcard from 1986 addressed to the Czechoslovak president, Gustáv Husák; the postcard was part of a campaign to release the detained members of the Jazz Section. Similar postcards which were sent by citizens of Western countries led to the earlier release of many political prisoners – members of the Jazz Section – and to lower sentences for others.

Heldur Viires painted his self-portrait in the prison camp in the 1950s on the back of a piece of paper with a poem written and presented to him by his friend the poet Helmut Tarand. He sent it home as a postcard in 1955. The sad eyes of the artist in this portrait, and the poem by Tarand, both reflect expressively the harsh conditions of camp life. This postcard is not a normal work of art, but a tool for communication with relatives at home.