Ing. Tomáš Klepek

"What was Prague like in the early 1980s? How do you remember its atmosphere? How would you describe Prague to someone who didn't know it at all?" – "Prague had several faces. The official space wasn't really interesting. Prague was being rebuilt at the time and it was an unimaginable mess. Facades were falling down. Roads were being repaired and new ones were being built... And the space of Prague, especially the central one, was extremely congested. But Prague also had another, very interesting face. That was the pubs. Because pubs were a very interesting group of people. An artistic group and an alternative group. Different artists, musicians and such strange and interesting personalities. Then there was a very interesting and increasingly large and growing specific religious group. The Catholic one was probably the strongest, but the Protestants were also extremely interesting and active. For example, in Nusle there was a very lively congregation. They invited Třešňák, for example, and it was very lively. So suddenly, from below, a lively interest in faith, in new things, was quite strongly promoted. And that was a big reaction to the completely dull materialism. To that incredibly poor Bolshevik marketing."

"An amazing character, truly unique, was Dr Habáň. He was eighty years old at the time, so he was an old man. He had an incredible gift. He was incredibly wise. The magic was that he could interpret difficult philosophical and theological things in a simple way. So literally everybody understood. Which is very rare. People who aren't educated come to a philosophy lecture and go home after a while because they don't understand. Philosophers use their own language and very complicated forms of thinking in terms of communicating. So then it just doesn't work for the normal layman who is not familiar with that language and thinking. But Dr. Habáň had, for example, the theme of forgiveness, personality, individuality, God... Just themes that he could convey gently, joyfully and optimistically. He radiated an almost childlike joy. He gave a lecture for an hour and a half and then we talked."