Jan Palach - Cultural References

Cultural References

The music video for the song "Club Foot" by the band Kasabian is dedicated to Palach. The composition "The Funeral of Jan Palach" performed by The Zippo Band and composed by Phil Kline is a tribute. Palach is mentioned in The Stranglers' bassist, Jean-Jacques Burnel's solo album of 1979, Euroman Cometh.

After seeking political asylum in the United States, Polish artist Wiktor Szostalo commemorated Jan Palach in his "Performance for Freedom" proclaiming "I am Jan Palach. I'm a Czech, I'm a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Vietnamese, an Afghani, a betrayed You. After I've burnt myself a thousand times, perhaps we'll win".

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the death of Jan Palach, a statue sculpted by András Beck as a tribute to the student was transported from France to the Czech Republic. The statue was installed in Mělník, the city where Jan Palach did his studies.

Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini wrote a song "La Primavera di Praga"" in dedication to Jan Palach, compared to religious scholar Jan Hus: "Once again Jan Hus is burning alive". Polish singer Jacek Kaczmarski wrote a song about Palach's suicide, called "Pochodnie" ("Torches").

The Luxembourg-based Welsh composer Dafydd Bullock was commissioned to write "Requiem for Jan Palach" (op 182) to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Palach's suicide. It includes a setting of words which appeared briefly on a statue in Wenceslas Square after the event, before being erased by the authorities: "Do not be indifferent to the day when the light of the future was carried forward by a burning body".

In their 1983 song "Nuuj Helde" the Janse Bagge Bend (from the Netherlands) asks whether people know why Jan Palach burned. This song was meant to make the general public aware of heroes.

Palach featured in a monologue radio play entitled "Torch No 1" on BBC Radio 4, directed by Martin Jenkins, and written by David Pownall. Palach was played by Karl Davies.

French documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon directed a 1969 film about Jan Palach.

Norwegian songwriter Hans Rotmo mentioned Palach's name among other notable political activists such as Victor Jara and Steve Biko in his 1989 song "Lennon Street".

A sequence of poems exploring the implications of Palach's death called One Match by the poet Sheila Hamilton were published in issue 51 of the Dorset based poetry serial, Tears in the Fence (ed. David Caddy) in 2010.