Prague:
Of course you have heard of the Chinese Wall, the Berlin Wall, and the Western Wall, but did you know that there is a famous capital that has the Lennon Wall? One of the most photographed walls in the city, it has a lot of paintings, graffiti art work, messages of love and peace on it.
Amazing, right?
Do you know which city we need to visit in order to see the Wall?
It is indeed in Prague
John Lennon’s wall is in Prague although John Lennon himself never visited Prague in his short life.
The ever-changing wall of graffiti named after John Lennon can be found the district of Mala Strana. It’s been dubbed in the past as the ‘crying wall’ and was used by protesters of the day to paint political messages. One of the most photographed walls in the city, this fifty metre wall has a lot of paintings, graffiti art work, messages of love and peace on it.
Lennon was a hero to the pacifist youth of Central and Eastern Europe during the totalitarian era. Prior to 1989 when Communism ruled, western pop songs were banned by Communist authorities, and especially John Lennon’s songs, because they were praising freedom that didn’t exist there. Some musicians were actually jailed for playing them!
When John Lennon was murdered in 1980 he became a sort of hero to some of the young and his picture was painted on this wall, for whatever reason right there, along with graffiti defying the authorities. Don’t forget that back then the Czech people had few opportunities to express their feelings with their lack of freedom. By doing this, those young activists risked prison for what authorities called “subversive activities against the state”.
But the threat of prison couldn’t keep the people from slipping there at night to scrawl graffiti first in the form of Beatles lyrics and odes to Lennon, then, they came to paint their own feelings and dreams on the wall.
The Communist police tried repeatedly to whitewash over the portrait and messages of peace but they could never manage to keep the wall clean. On the second day it was again full of poems and flowers with paintings of Lennon. Even the installation of surveillance cameras and the posting of an ovenight guard couldn’t stop the opinions from being expressed.
Amazing wall!
Include this stop on a city tour of Prague.
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