cultural alternative

The author deals with the meaning of the term “protest“during communism in Central European countries: GDR, Poland, Hungary and CSSR. The protest against authoritative regime has been manifested in different forms: from open form of resistance to all forms of internal opposition. The word “protest“ had hybrid character especially in jazz in these four Central and Eastern European countries. It would be better to talk about jazz as a cultural alternative against gradually more powerful socialist regime than to talk about jazz as a way ofprotest. Jazz was forbidden in some places in these four countries. Some of the jazzmen were prisoners; jazz organizations were under control and censored between 1948 and 1989. In the context of American jazz, which had been used as a strong ideological and cultural weapon and as a symbol of free life style and human rights, the Polish and Hungarian national jazz styles had been developed. Comparing to Polish and Hungarian jazz, German jazz left the frame of individuality without folk elements in the context of the new music and German tradition in classical music which reached the avant-garde form of German free jazz.