Trial of Plastic People of the Universe

1976 Members of the avant-garde Czech rock band, Plastic People of the Universe, went on trial in Prague. The trial had a number of important long-term repercussions in Czech history.

Among these was the interest it generated in a young Czech playwright (and Frank Zappa and Lou Reed/Velvet Underground fan) named Vaclav Havel. The trial went on to spawn a protest movement and a 'Velvet Revolution' that eventually brought down the Communist government, and Havel went on to be the new democratic republic's first head of state ...

Categories: communism, law, legal, activism, czechoslovakia, counterculture, progressive, music, rock-music, radical