Czech Republic

The Czech Republic (Czech: Česká republika), also known as Czechia (Czech: Česko), is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres (30,450 sq mi) with mostly temperate continental climate. It is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes its historical territories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia.
== Links To Peel ==
Czechoslovakia, as it was then known, hit the headlines in the summer of 1968, when the "Prague Spring" was crushed by Soviet tanks. The uprising against the ruling dictatorship was influenced by the international youth culture of the era. Peel sympathised with it and despite the obstacles created by the Iron Curtain kept up contacts with Czech DJs, as he mentioned on Night Ride [ref], Young Czechs were interested In Western rock music, particularly artists such as the Velvet Underground and the Mothers of Invention, who were played by Peel. After 1989 both groups were invited to visit the newly independent country by President Vaclav Havel, who even offered Frank Zappa a post in his government.
Peel travelled to the country in 1992 when it was still known as Czechoslovakia, as part of a BBC Radio One campaign on work opportunities in Europe. He travelled through different European countries and interviewed Misha Glenny, BBC Central European Correspondent, from a Prague pub on his 16 October 1992 show.
Many Czech musicians were played on Peel's show, starting in the 1970s with two émigré Czechs who made their names in the USA, bassist Miroslav Vitous (a founder member of Weather Report) and keyboard player Jan Hammer, known for his work with, among others, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Jeff Beck. More artists from the country were featured in Peel playlists after the fall of the Berlin Wall and two of them, Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa and Here, did a session each for his programme in 1993.
== Sessions ==
The following artists from the Czech Republic recorded sessions for the John Peel Show:
* Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa: (1 session, 1993)
* Here: (1 session, 1993)
== Festive Fifty ==
* None
== See Also ==
* Countries
* Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa
* Here
* Hipodrom Jindricha Parmy
* Trial
* Zuby Nehty
== External Links ==
* Wikipedia
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