Marta Kubišová sang Modlitba pro Martu for the Prague Spring in 1968

Marta Kubišová (born 1 November 1942 in České Budějovice) is a Czech singer of iconic significance.By the time of the Prague Spring of 1968, with her song "Modlitba pro Martu" ("A prayer for Marta"), she was one of the most popular female singers in Czechoslovakia.

 During the Prague Spring, she recorded over 200 SP records and one LP, Songy a Balady (Songs and Ballads, released in 1969), which was immediately banned from stores. In 1970, the government falsely accused her of making pornographic photographs leading to a ban from performing in the country until 1989.

In 1961, she reached the finals in Hledáme nové talenty ("The Search for Talent"). In 1962, she lost her job in the glass factory, and auditioned for the Stop Theatre in Pardubice. In 1963, she moved to Theatre Alpha in Plzeň to perform in Black Dream, a production by Ludvík Aškenazy.

In February 1970, the government banned her from performing in the country on the pretext of alleged pornography, based on the three falsified photo-montages as evidence. She took the director of record label Supraphon, Hrabal, to court for libel, and although she won, she only had her rights fully restored 20 years later, after the Czechoslovak communist regime fell in 1989. During that time, she could only perform at underground invitation-only events. In the late 1980s, she auditioned to become singer of the group The Plastic People of the Universe, but this was disallowed by the secret police.

On 10 December 1988 after a long absence from the public eye, she appeared in public at a demonstration on the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, during which she sang the Czechoslovak national anthem. On 22 November 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, she sang her "Prayer for Martha" and the Czechoslovak national anthem from a balcony on Wenceslas Square. Then followed the reissue of Songy a Balady, and in 1990 she returned to the studio and the stage.

 In October 2002, she was bestowed with the St. Wenceslas Honours. Three years later, her second biographical book Asi to tak sám Bůh chtěl, written by Luboš Nečas, was published.

Sources:
en.wikipedia