Czech Writers and politics 1945 1989 post war

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • post war political history of Czechoslovakia consists of these periods:

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1945 – 1948: semi-democratic interregnum; democratic elections in 1946, although right of centre parties had been banner; Communist Party won the election in the Czech Lands (not in Slovakia), authoritarian tendencies were hardening, towards the run up to the communist coup in February 1948. Literature: varied. Influences of existentialism

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1948 – 1953: “Stalinist hell” (Mary Heimann, Czechoslovakia, The State that Failed, Yale University Press, Oct. 2009). A harsh drastic restructuring of society into something like 1984.

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1948 – 1953: “Stalinist hell” • Middle classes sent to work in menial jobs, tens of thousands of people sent into labour camps, more than 250 people executed, even top people in government and the communist party (General secretary of the Communist Party Slánský, 1952); free medical care, free education, shrill government propaganda. Stalin=God. Literature: subjected to the doctrine of Socialist Realism

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1953 – 1958: no movement. In 1953, Stalin and the Czech CP leader Gottwald died. In Russia, CP leader Khruschev condemned Stalin as a mass murderer in a secret speech in 1956. Mild liberalisation in Russia (“the thaw”).

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1953 – 1958: no movement. No movement in Czechoslovakia, because the Cz. CP party leaders (Novotný) were implicated in the judicial murders of the early 1950 s and would have to have condemned themselves. 1956: 2 nd Congress of Czech Writers: poet Jaroslav Seifert spoke out for the poets and writers, unjustly imprisoned in labour camps

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1958 – 1963: first signs of movement. 1958 Josef Škvorecký´s novel The Cowards a casual account of the last seven days of the war in a small town, destroyed socialist realism. The book was banned until 1964, but the movement towards freedom couldn´t be stopped.

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1963 – 1969: confident push for freedom using the arts. Writers, film makers, playwrights, rock musicians and all artists used their art to re-examine reality, debunk pompous ideological propaganda.

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1963 – 1969: confident push for freedom using the arts. First, war novels. Arnošt Lustig. ¨Poetry of the everyday. Miroslav Holub. Subjective, casual, anti establishment accounts of reality. Josef Škvorecký. The miracle of the everyday: Bohumil Hrabal (see his Oscar winning film Closely Observed Trains). Re examination of the Stalinist past: Milan Kundera: The Joke. Absurdist plays by Václav Havel (The Garden Party, The Memorandum) – examining the role of language as an instrument of power.

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 The movement culminated in an amazing festival of freedom, the 1968 Prague Spring, which ended by a Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968. From 1969 – clampdown.

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1969 – 1989: “normalisation”. A highly demoralising period when it was made clear to the Czechs and Slovaks that they were a Soviet colony and must obey their masters. Wholesale purges in 1970. (Key question: “Was Warsaw pact invasion or an act of fraternal help? ”).

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • 1969 – 1989: “normalisation”. Demoralisation: The Stalinist nonsense, which had been fully discredited in the 1960 s, and especially in 1968, was re imposed on the country. If you wanted to get on in your career, you had to repeat the (neo)Stalinist lies and take part in (neo) Stalinist rituals, although no one believed in them any more. Unlike in the 1950 s, you were not required to believe, just to obey. Václav Havel´s one act plays of the 1970 s capture the atmosphere of these times.

Czech Writers and politics 1945 – 1989 • November 1989: fall of communism. The traumatising experiences of the previous decades made the transition towards democracy and market economy extremely difficult.