Prague’s John Lennon Peace Wall. Photo © a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/infrogmation/”>Infrogmation of New Orleans, licensed Creative Commons Attribution.
Malá Strana (Lesser Town)
On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman walked calmly up to John Lennon and shot him dead in front of his wife, Yoko Ono. The murder of the former Beatle sent shock waves around the world, including in Prague, where simply singing his songs in public could land one in jail for perpetrating “subversive activities against the state.” Risking capture and severe punishment, an anonymous group of youths stole away in the still of the night and set up a mock grave to honor their underground hero. This simple yet dangerous act of defiance caught the attention of the Communist secret police and captured the imagination of the population at large.Despite repeated warnings from the state, fans of Lennon’s music, as well as believers of his message of peace, would slip into the square unnoticed to write down their own “rebellious” thoughts on the subject. The wall was white-washed over and over again, but paintings of the icon, along with his lyrics of love and hope, continued to appear. Within a short period of time, the wall became an informal political forum for those daring enough to voice their grievances against the Communist regime. Shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the wall was returned to its original owners, the Knights of Malta, as part of a generous restitution package. Proving to be no more understanding than their predecessors, the Knights were on the verge of whitewashing the wall yet again when an unlikely savior in the form of the French ambassador, whose office looked directly onto the graffiti-covered wall, called up the municipal authorities and asked them to leave it as it is. The event sparked a minor diplomatic incident, but the wall remained.
New messages continued to appear in the 1990s, but most were in the form of lightweight (and at times crude) thoughts scrawled down by tourists who knew little, if anything, of the wall’s original significance. In 1998, the Prague-based John Lennon Peace Club joined forces with the Knights of Malta and began reconstructing the crumbling facade. The wall’s original plaster had been ravaged by tourists who wanted to take a “piece of peace” home with them and was consequently replaced by a solid white surface. The two groups then threw a “happening” where local hipsters, backpackers, and anyone else who wanted to join in were invited to add their opinions on all things John. Not surprisingly, none of the new messages packed the punch of the old. Anti-Communist and pro-freedom slogans were replaced with flowers, butterflies, and tiresome clichés—all of which were put down for posterity with brushes and paint provided by the church.
The Knights of Malta have, at times, painted over slogans they deemed to be either too large or not in line with their own beliefs. This has caused concern amongst some who feel the wall has lost its value as a venue for free speech. If you look hard enough, however, you can still find the occasional heartfelt message from somebody somewhere who continues to imagine all the people living life in peace.
Getting There
The John Lennon Peace Wall is located at Vlkopřevorské náměstí (Grand Priory Square) in Malá Strana (Lesser Town), not far from the Charles Bridge.
Excerpted from the Third Edition of Moon Prague & Budapest.
