Archive: History | Communism Communism
Jerri Zbiral: finding a new path to Lidice
Anniversaries give us the chance to think again about the meaning of events
and their relevance today. Next month it will be exactly 70 years since the
destruction by the Nazis of the Czech village of Lidice in June 1942. The
facts and figures are well known, and even in the shadow of huge numbers
later killed in the Holocaust, still remain shocking: 340 people were
murdered, including 88 children and all but two of the men of the village.
They were killed systematically and in cold blood in a calculated attempt
by the SS to prevent Czech insurgency. The extent to which Lidice later
became a tool of communist propaganda, using rhetoric that equated Nazi
Germany with the “West”, is also well known, and for many Czechs, the
memory of Lidice still remains tainted by this legacy. So what can Lidice
mean to us today, now that all but a handful of the survivors are no longer
with us and with memories of both Nazism and Communism fading? David
Vaughan brings us a special programme. More
Week of Charter 77 marks 35-year-anniversary of the anti-communist human rights manifesto
This week marks the 35-year-anniversary of the founding of Charter 77, an
informal civic initiative against the communist regime. Many of its
signatories would later become important figures in post-communist Czech
society, such as philosopher and playwright Václav Havel, who was elected
the country’s first president after the revolution. Now, the anniversary
of the charter is being honored in Prague with a week-long commemoration,
the Week of Charter 77. More
Exhibition at Vitkov Memorial highlights the Klement Gottwald personality cult
The National Museum has opened an exhibition highlighting the personality
cult of the first Czechoslovak communist president, Klement Gottwald. The
exhibition, named Laboratory of Power, is located in Prague´s Vítkov
Memorial which the communist regime turned into a mausoleum for Gottwald
after his death in 1953. One of the exhibition’s organizers Marek Junek
took me through the underground rooms built for the army of people who took
care of the embalmed body for nine long years. He started out by explaining
how the memorial underwent a significant transformation after the
communists took power: More
An Englishwoman who has lived in Prague for over six decades – ‘war bride’ Ivy Kovandová – Part II
In the previous episode of Czech Life, we brought you the first part of the
life story of Ivy Kovandová – one of the so-called war brides, English
women who got married to Czech soldiers or pilots during World War II and
then followed their husbands back to their native Czechoslovakia. Today, it
is time for the second part of Ivy’s story – which starts with her
arrival in her husband Oldřich Kovanda’s home country. More
Paul Robeson in Prague: paying homage to Dvořák and socialism
In last week’s From the Archives we featured Martin Luther King,
interviewed by Czechoslovak Radio in 1963. But Dr King was not the first
civil rights campaigner to address Czech and Slovak radio listeners. Four
years earlier, in June 1959, Paul Robeson came to Prague, to take part in
an international left-wing cultural congress. Robeson was a man of many
talents – singer, actor, athlete, writer and civil rights activist. He
never concealed his sympathies with the communist regimes of the Eastern
Bloc, and his political views – combined with the colour of his skin –
earned him virtual pariah status in many sections of the US political
establishment. This culminated in 1950 when he was refused a passport. More
New website presents the life and sacrifice of Jan Palach
It was one of the most remarkable single acts in Czechoslovak history, one
that still today evokes mingled shock and admiration. Now the documents,
reports, essays and films relating to the self-immolation of Jan Palach -
five months after the invasion of his country by Warsaw Pact forces – is
available to the public through a new website launched to commemorate the
life and sacrifice of the young activist. More
Seeking asylum in communist Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia played an active part in the Soviet Union’s propaganda war
with the United States during the 1950s, a time of edginess and paranoia on
both sides. There was no shortage of people trying to flee across the Iron
Curtain to the West, but every now and then the flight would be in the
other direction, and someone from the West would actively seek asylum in
the Communist Bloc. For the communist regimes this was a propaganda
opportunity not to be missed. More
President Gustáv Husák, the face of Czechoslovakia’s “normalisation”
The last communist president of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák became the
symbol of the spineless regime that ruled the country after the Soviet-led
invasion of Czechoslovakia. Himself a political prisoner in the 1950s, he
oversaw the persecution of opposition activists in the 1970s and 80s – an
intellectual who supported the reforms of the Prague Spring turned into the
Soviet Union’s lackey. We look at the life of Gustáv Husák on the 99th
anniversary of his birth. More
Fighter against dictatorships: Cardinal Josef Beran
Archbishop, later Cardinal, Josef Beran, become a symbol of opposition to
totalitarian regimes. He was dubbed the archbishop who refused to be
silenced. The punishment for speaking out was imprisonment first under the
Nazi occupation and then the Communists. More
How the Velvet Revolution overturned the literary landscape
Writers were at the forefront of the Velvet Revolution. But when the dust
settled on the political changes they found a fast changing publishing
revolution underway that left some of them sidelined. We look at the
changes in the publishing and literary world over the last two decades. More
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