Karel Kryl (12 April 1944 – 3 March 1994) was a Czechoslovak poet, singer-songwriter and author of many hit protest songs in which he identified and attacked the hypocrisy, stupidity and inhumanity of the Communist (and later also the post-communist) regime in his home country.

Kryl has been compared with the young Bob Dylan, because of the complexity of his lyrics, his accompaniment by a single acoustic guitar, and his great popularity.

Having lived for twenty years in forced exile, he was initially keen on the collapse of communism in his country, but very quickly he became bitterly and uncompromisingly critical of the new regime and its protagonists as well, including Václav Havel, and especially of those who were responsible for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992.

Kryl was born on 12 April 1944 in Kroměříž, in the Nazi occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, however his family had roots in Nový Jičín, where they later moved to.

When the Warsaw Pact armies occupied Czechoslovakia on 21 August 1968 to suppress the Prague Spring reform movement, Kryl released his first album.

The title song Bratříčku zavírej vrátka (Keep the Gate Closed, Little Brother) was composed spontaneously on 22 August 1968 as an immediate reaction to the occupation.