Nothing has really changed
MIROSLAV PECH
For me going back to the 1990s is a means to
revisit my childhood memories. I have a lot in
common with the characters of Cobain’s Students
(Cobainovi žáci), my book about adolescence
which was just published in Poland.I was born in 1986 and grew up in a small town near the Austrian border. Un-
til the age of eight, I lived in an estate block and I had lots of friends. I remem-
ber an old abandoned house which (at least in my imagination) was inhabited by
some dark power. We used to send someone up there and they had to show up in
the window on the second floor to prove that they had walked through the whole
building. Today it is a veterinarian practice. For me the 1990s were not a decade of
great transformation, or great history. I simply lived in those times and watched the
world through the eyes of a child. Once our town was visited by Václav Havel; we
saw him waving from the train and laughing. Never before had I seen such a crowd.
I was pretty comfortable in this “unreality”, which is my connection to the nar-
rator of my book Cobain’s Students. I lived through the turbulent times of adoles-
cence; similarly to my rock idols, I tried everything that was possible, or not even
possible to try. I was pretty comfortable when my band and I would lock ourselves
up in the garage and we jammed the whole day. I was pretty comfortable when
instead of going to school we ended up in a bar or a park, drinking cheap wine and
smoking joints. Today I am married with a one-year-old daughter and two cats.
We are in the process of buying an apartment, so for the next 30 years we will be
paying off the mortgage. It has to be completed before we die so that it does not
fall on our daughter’s head.
When I was 15 a thought like that would never have crossed my mind; perhaps
even when I was 25, since I was a rebel. I’d rather say: “Shove this mortgage up
your asses! Shove all your factories, schools and vocational schools up your asses