Updates: 11/19/2021 4:13 PM
Released: 19.11.2021, 14:26

Prague – Miroslav Žbirka was accompanied today in the Strašnice crematorium in Prague on the last journey by the tears of those present, the long applause and songs of his favorite bands The Beatles and The Kinks. The family, close friends, invited guests, including Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová and her partner, took part in the piety with great media interest. The Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has also arrived. Due to the valid anti-civic measures, people could watch the screening in front of the crematorium. According to a ČTK correspondent, several hundred people were on the scene, many of whom arrived with white roses as a reference to Žbirka’s hit White Flower.

The popular performer died of a lung disease on November 10, he was 69 years old. A native of Bratislava, living in Prague for many years, he was popular in both countries of the former Czechoslovakia. In addition to Čaputová, Slovak musicians Jožo Ráž and Vašo Patejdl, Olympic frontman Petr Janda, Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko, musician Matěj Ruppert and actor Petr Rychlý came to say goodbye to Žbirka. Žbirka’s long-time collaborator Laco Lučenič was also present.

The ceremony began with Žbirka’s song Jená láska. Music publicist Juraj Čurný was the first to speak. “At first it was hard to believe the sad news,” he said of many people’s feelings in the crowded mourning hall, stressing Žbirka’s decency, which “was not servility or cowardice.”

“He was a decent man who wanted to write songs and he was doing damn well,” said music publicist Jan Vedral, recalling that Žbirka’s life story began in London, where his parents began, spread in Bratislava and closed in Prague. “He was everywhere at home,” said the author of the book Close-up, which describes the fate of a Slovak musician. In his mourning speech, among other things, the accompaniment that one of the last pieces of Czechoslovakia suddenly left with the departure of Žbirka, as well as the feeling that domestic popular music may have world parameters. “Fortunately, it will forever remain in his songs, to which he not only dedicated his life, but also hid it in them,” he said.

One of the last singer’s concerts was moderated this summer at the Soundtrack festival in Poděbrady by singer, entertainer and moderator Miloš Pokorný. “It never occurred to me how it was (Žbirka). Behind the scenes, it seemed that it was not completely in shape, but I attributed it, among other things, to the weather,” Pokorný told ČTK today, remembering the August rainy concert. “He made a great performance. Only then did I realize that the problem was bigger,” he added.

During the ceremony, The Beatles All You Need Is Love, the hit Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks and Žbirka’s songs Fair Play, What Hurts It Hurts and The Ballad of the Wild Birds were heard.

Žbirka is known as the author of melodic songs Atlantis, Nemoderný chalan or Katrin. During his more than forty years on the music scene, he became famous as a solo performer of songs, which he also composed himself. He has released over thirty records in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany, and has given concerts almost all over the world.

Žbirka was born on October 21, 1952 in Bratislava. He came from a Slovak-British family, his lifelong love was the famous British group The Beatles. Without their influence, he might never have sung and played the guitar, as he recalled in the interviews. Already at the end of the 1960s, he was involved in the birth of the Bratislava rock band Modus. He recorded his first hit Zažni in 1977 and four years later he founded the band Limit with Lac Lučenič and set out on his own career. In 1982, he became the first Slovak Golden Nightingale, and after Waldemar Matušek, he was the second to defeat Karel Gott.

Slovakia pop pop music Žbirka Čaputová