Rock 'n' Roll (17 page)
Authors: Tom Stoppard
1972
JANUARY
Syd Barrett impromptu, King's College Cellar, Cambridge.
FEBRUARY
Syd Barrett impromptus, Dandelion Coffee Bar, Cambridge; Market Square, Cambridge.
24
Syd Barrett's last performance, Corn Exchange, Cambridge.
MARCH
Czech Journalists' Union announces that 40 per cent of journalists have been dismissed since August 1968 for not following the government line.
JUNE
Five burglars arrested in Watergate Building.
1974
Havel spends nine months working in a brewery, the inspiration for
Audience,
his first âFerdinand Vanek' play.
1975
FEBRUARY
Margaret Thatcher becomes Tory leader.
APRIL
Havel's âLetter to Dr Husák'.
1976
JULY AND SEPTEMBER
Seven members of the Czech Rock ân' Roll underground receive prison sentences for spreading anti-socialist ideas.
SEPTEMBER
Seven Czech writers sign a letter to Heinrich Boll appealing for solidarity with the rock musicians on trial.
1977
JANUARY
240 people sign Charter 77, accusing the Czech government of violating human rights that it had agreed to uphold by signing the âHelsinki Agreement'.
AUGUST
Elvis Presley dies.
1978
OCTOBER
The Power of the Powerless
by Havel rekindles âdissident' debate in Czechoslovakia.
1979
MAY
Mrs Thatcher becomes British prime minister.
Eleven leading âChartists', including Havel, are arrested. In October, six of them receive prison sentences of two to five years.
1980
DECEMBER
John Lennon shot dead.
1985
MARCH
Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader.
1987
JANUARY
Gorbachev announces
perestroika
(reconstruction) and greater âcontrol from below'.
The Czech leadership refuses to publish Gorbachev's
perestroika
speech, despite the fact that Soviet TV is available in Czechoslovakia.
FEBRUARY
Andy Warhol dies.
APRIL
Gorbachev visits Prague.
JUNE
Mrs Thatcher elected for a third term.
DECEMBER
Mrs Thatcher and Gorbachev meet in London.
Husák resigns from Czech party leadership but retains his presidency.
1988
OCTOBER
Syd Barrett, âOpel'.
1989
NOVEMBER
Fall of Berlin Wall.
Czech Communist leadership resigns.
DECEMBER
The USSR and four other Warsaw Pact countries jointly condemn the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
10 The first non-Communist Czech government for forty-one years is sworn in by President Husák, who resigns immediately afterwards.
29 The Federal Assembly, under the re-elected chairman Alexander Dubcek, unanimously elects Václav Havel as President of the Republic.
1990
JANUARY
The Czech government appoints Frank Zappa, the American rock musician, as Czechoslovakia's representative of trade and culture and tourism; appointment later rescinded as âover-enthusiastic'.
FEBRUARY
President Havel meets Soviet leader Gorbachev in Moscow to agree to the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia.
AUGUST
The Rolling Stones play in Prague.
2006
JANUARY
6 Syd Barrett's sixtieth birthday.
sources:
Gregory C. Ference, ed.,
Chronology of Twentieth-Century
Eastern European History
(Gale Research).
Chronicle of the Twentieth Century
(Longman).
Julian Palacios,
Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and the Pink
Floyd
(Boxtree).
Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga,
Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story
(Omnibus Press).
Jan Vladislav, ed.,
Václav Havel, or Living in Truth
(Faber and Faber).
1
. All the information about the Vanek plays comes from Carol Rocamora's careful and comprehensive book about Havel's life and work,
Acts of Courage
(Smith and Kraus, 2004), which, absurdly, I never got round to reading earlier because I was too involved in my play.
2
. Much of Havel's prose writing, notably âThe Power of the Powerless' (in
Open Letters,
Faber and Faber, 1991) and
Letters to Olga
(Faber and Faber, 1988), has been translated by Paul Wilson who made translations for me of the exchanges between Havel and Kundera, VaculÃk and Pithart referred to earlier. Wilson, a Canadian, has the further distinction of having been a member of the rock band Plastic People of the Universe between 1970 and 1972 (vocals and rhythm guitar).