Pavel Křivka
Pavel Křivka was born on June 12, 1960, in Pardubice. After his graduation he went to study at university in the former GDR, where together with other students from Czechoslovakia he attended the Agricultural University in Halle an der Saale. Křivka led a student choir that came up with a parody to Ryba’s Midnight Mass in its own text. After his graduation in 1984, Pavel Křivka returned to Czechoslovakia and became the custodian of the collections of the Museum of Natural History in Jičín. There, one unorthodox joke attracted the attention of the secret police that set up a file on him where they would store all the “sins” of the actively engaged Pavel. Among other things, they’d monitor his correspondence with his ecologically minded friends from the former GDR. Křivka was arrested on April 29, 1985, and taken to custody in Hradec Králové, where he was accused of harming the interests of the Republic abroad. He had committed the said crime by allegedly criticizing the level of the protection of nature in the socialist Czechoslovakia in his letters to his German friends. During the subsequent search of the apartment the text of the modified Mass by Ryba was found. This provided the secret police with a greater-caliber charge against Křivka than just harming the interests of the Republic. He was sentenced to three years in jail for the subversion of the state under section 98.
