Archive: History | Communism Communism
Calisthenics, communist style
Last year in this programme I played some archive recordings from the
pre-war gatherings of the “Sokol” movement, which brought together tens
of thousands of people in displays of mass gymnastics, all in an atmosphere
of great patriotic fervour. After the war, the communists suppressed the
Sokol movement as part of the old political order, instead staging their
own spectacular calisthenics displays in honour of the Communist Party. More
Tapes of infamous communist show trial with AP correspondent William Oatis unearthed in Czech National Archives
William N. Oatis, an Associated Press correspondent who served in Prague in
the hardline 1950s entered cold war history when the communist regime made
him confess falsely to espionage and sentenced him to 10 years in jail.
Now, fifteen years after his death, recordings of that shameful show trial
have unexpectedly been unearthed in the country’s National Archives. More
The Red Elvis in Havana
When I first moved to Prague nearly two decades ago, Czech friends were
often amazed that I had never heard of the American singer, Dean Reed.
Dubbed the “Red Elvis”, Reed was a household name throughout the
Eastern Bloc.
More
Communism only postponed Czechoslovakia’s end, historian Jan Rychlík says in his new book
Czechs and Slovaks spent most of the 20th century in one country,
Czechoslovakia. Ever since its foundation, however, each nation had a
different idea of how the country should work, and what their role in it
should be. In his new book entitled Czechs and Slovaks in the 20th Century:
Cooperation and Conflicts, historian Jan Rychlík argues that
Czechoslovakia was in fact bound to fail as a state, and that communism
only postponed its inevitable end. More
The Cold War on the streets of Belfast
In the 1970s the Cold War was fought on many fronts. One of them was
Northern Ireland, where the tension and violence that raged throughout the
decade also became part of the propaganda war between East and West. At the
time, Czechoslovak Radio’s correspondent in London was Karel Kvapil, who
had entered the radio after the wave of sackings following the 1968
Soviet-led invasion, and later went on to become its last communist era
general director. In 1977 Kvapil travelled to Belfast, to report on the
Troubles. For part of his programme he spoke with women on a housing estate
in a mainly Catholic area of the city: More
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
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