Abstract
This paper discusses the topic of music markets in socialist Czechoslovakia. During the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of young people regularly attended these unofficial music markets in order to obtain precious records of western rock and pop artists.
The first part of the paper focuses on the analysis of the social conditions that determined the existence of the musical markets, particularly the ideological and economic constraints. The consequence of these limitations was an ambiguous position of Western popular culture in the public discourse.
These constraints also influenced the possibilities of obtaining western rock music in everyday life. Among these were the scarce "license records", radio broadcasting, Tuzex shops, or smuggling of records across the borders.
And then there were the music markets. The core subject of this paper lies in a specific milieu of these regular events.
The author discusses the organizational principles, the variety of available goods and the mechanisms established between the buying, selling and bartering visitors. Equally important issue was the attitude of the state towards these events, changing over time (from repression to partial tolerance).
This ambiguity proves that the Czechoslovak society in the 1970s and 1980 should not be perceived simply as a dichotomy between the almighty state and the defenseless population without its own agenda. The historical sources relevant for this paper consist mainly of memories of people who used to attend the music markets.
These sources were obtained by the method of oral history and confronted with written sources, such as the documents of the former Czechoslovak repressive forces.