Archive: History | Communism Communism
Into the Cold - 60 years since Churchill's Iron Curtain speech
The Cold War held the political world on edge until its end in 1991, when
the Soviet Union fell. This significant rift in international relations
overshadowed world politics for over 45 years. Now, 60 years have passed
since Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain"
speech, which is widely regarded as the beginning of the Cold War. Chris
Jarrett takes a look at the impact of the Iron Curtain on Czechoslovak
borders.
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50 years since Khrushchev's Secret Speech
50 years ago on Saturday, the Communist Party in Moscow fell silent as
Nikita Khrushchev took the podium at the 20th Party Conference to deliver
his famous "Secret Speech". This monumental attack on Stalin's
brutal rule had a great impact on many countries of the Soviet Bloc, and
was the beginning of the end for hard-line Stalinism in many countries.
Chris Jarrett takes a look at how Czechoslovak society reacted to this
political shift.
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Young Czechs remember Jan Palach
Every year in the middle of January we remember Jan Palach. On 16th January
1969, five months after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, he dowsed
himself with petrol and set himself alight on Prague's Wenceslas Square.
In a letter he wrote that he wanted to awaken his fellow citizens from
apathy and resignation following the invasion. Three days later he died,
and his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people, a
demonstration for freedom and democracy that the invasion had crushed. The
20-year old from the grey little town of Vsetaty just north of Prague
became an international symbol of the tragedy of Czechoslovakia. But does
his sacrifice still mean something to today's young Czechs? Pupils and
staff from a secondary school named after Jan Palach in Prague were among
those attending a commemoration ceremony in Vsetaty on Saturday. David
Vaughan's report starts with the headmaster of the Jan Palach School,
Michal Musil.
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Sidonie Nadherna - a writer's and poet's Bohemian muse
Gazing out of the window of a spacious room in a romantic neo-gothic
chateau, I see the image of a woman in a beautiful early twentieth century
dress sitting on a bench in the scenic park that spreads out before me. Two
men, a writer and a poet, are keeping her company, taking in the calm of
the landscape around them but keeping their eyes fixed on their muse -
Sidonie Nadherna.
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Jiri Jes - veteran broadcaster looks back on Czechoslovakia's dark century
My guest on this week's One on One is Jiri Jes, a journalist and
broadcaster who still appears regularly on Czech Radio at the age of 80.
Prevented from writing during the Communist era, Jiri Jes began his
journalist career in the early 1990s, when he was already in his sixties.
When I met Jiri on a snowy Sunday afternoon in Prague's Bila Hora
district, I began by asking him for his memories of childhood in pre-war
Czechoslovakia.
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Frantisek Zahradka - from boyscout to 'class enemy' and a lifetime literally underground
Political prisoners had been forced to work the mines of Czechoslovakia
long before the Communists seized power in the "bloodless" coup
of February 1948. Under the direction of the hard-line Stalinist leader
Klement Gottwald, however, securing workers to unearth weapons-grade
uranium became policy; a top priority. The camps served two purposes: a
way to purge the land of "class enemies" and to build up the
atomic arsenal of the Soviet Union, when few could have guessed the
ideological
war with the West would remain a "cold" one. More
Czech Radio uncovers long-lost audio from Milada Horakova's trial
The sentencing to death of Czech MP Milada Horakova on trumped up charges
of treason at the height of the Stalinist regime in the 1950s will always
be one of the most painful and chilling moments in Czech history. A little
more than 55 years ago, she faced her show trial with calm and defiance,
refusing to be broken. Audio recordings - intended to be used by the
Communists for propaganda purposes - were mostly never aired, for the
large
part because for the Party's purposes, they were unusable. After Milada
Horakova's trial and execution, much of the material was subsequently
hidden away and and gradually forgotten. Until now. Not long ago, a
number of reels were uncovered by Czech Radio, dating back to the trial's
last
day. More
Discontent on streets as Czechs remember November 17th 1989
Czechs and Slovaks marked the 16th anniversary of the start of the 1989
Velvet Revolution on Thursday, a time when people remember the overthrow
of Communist rule and reflect on the changes that have swept society since
then. But discontent is growing with the current political situation, and
that discontent was reflected in the mood on the streets of Prague. Radio
Prague's Rob Cameron has this report.
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Barbara Masin tells the story of her family's fight against dictatorship
"The greatest story of the Cold War" - that's how the story of
the Masin brothers who shot their way out of Czechoslovakia in the 1950s
is often described. The sons of a Czech WWII hero decided to fight the
Communists the way their father fought the Nazis, and in 1953 they escaped
from Czechoslovakia to West Berlin. Two of their friends did not make it
and the group shot six people during and before their escape. More than
fifty years on, the story still provokes controversy in the Czech
Republic. The debate is no doubt going to be rekindled by a newly
published book called "The Testament" by the daughter of one of
the Masin brothers, Barbara, who presented it this week in Prague. More
New school project to teach children injustices of Communist regime
It's just over two weeks until the 16th anniversary of the start of the
Velvet Revolution that brought down Communism in Czechoslovakia. But how
much do the nation's schoolchildren know about what happened here between
1948 and 1989? Not much, says the leading human rights group People in
Need. Throughout November they're visiting schools with documentary films
detailing the excesses and cruelties of Communism. They're also bringing
with them victims of the regime to share their experiences with pupils.
One of them was Jan Wiener, now 85, who escaped the Nazis as a Jewish
teenager and later fought in the RAF. After the war, he was rewarded by
the Communists with a prison sentence. Rob Cameron spoke to him at the
launch of the project in Prague.
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