The Czechs in a Nutshell

Not surprisingly, the Czechoslovak communists, who came to power in 1948 (see: Communism), took a similar stance, adding that Kafka was “too pessimistic and decadent” as a writer. Only in 1963, a semi-official literary conference in Liblice north of Prague carefully aired the possibility of making Franz Kafka accessible for Czech readers. Those attempts were mercilessly crushed five years later by Soviet tanks.

Forty years of a publishing ban under the communists and 10 years of ostentatious official ignorance after the Velvet Revolution have taken its toll on Kafka. Today, even fewer Czechs than all those silly tourists with Kafka t-shirts have actually read any of his novels. Ironically enough, the single most palpable trace the shy writer has left is the frequently-used Czech term kafkárna — something Kafkaesque.

Yet there are some bright signs of change. In mid-2003, the inexhaustible people behind the Franz Kafka Publishing House managed to complete the translation of all his works into Czech. Some months later, a no less important event took place, when a full-sized statue of Kafka was finally unveiled in Prague. Located on the border between Old Town and the former Jewish Ghetto, the statue is not only a very belated tribute to Kafka, but also a strong, symbolic acknowledgement of Prague’s multicultural heritage. Since Prague’s mayor personally unveiled the statue, it may even seem that this view at last is being acknowledged officially.

Kajínek, Jiří

In May 1993, a Czech mafioso and his bodyguard were cold-bloodedly executed in a car outside Plzeň in Western Bohemia. Nine months later, police arrested the suspected assassin — Jiří Kajínek, a notorious criminal in his late 30s — who was subsequently found guilty in the double murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Considering Kajínek’s criminal record, neither the verdict nor the life sentence was spectacular, so the prisoner was swiftly transported to the Mírov prison in Moravia, a former Habsburg fortress where the Czech Republic’s 20-odd lifetime inmates are kept. Because of its high and impenetrable walls and its location on the top of a steep hill, Mírov is commonly known as the Czech version of Alcatraz — an inescapable prison where dangerous convicts like Kajínek are supposed to rot for at least 25 years, until they are eligible for parole.

This scenario dramatically changed in October 2000, when Kajínek managed the unthinkable — to escape from the most heavily guarded prison in the country. Thanks to an amazing display of brains combined with muscles, Kajínek managed to divert his guards’ attention, get out of the barred window in his cell, slide on a home-made rope over a wide moat full of specially trained Doberman dogs, climb a six-meter tall wall — and then disappear into the forest beneath the fortress.

As one might expect, the incredible escape instantly brought Kajínek national fame. In the following weeks, when literally every single uniform in the country was combing the Czech countryside in search of the escaped prisoner, more and more people came to regard this common criminal as a national hero. Even when he was caught after 40 days on the run, he put up a stylish display: a video, which the police released to prove that they really had got him, showed how the athletic and naked Kajínek was overpowered in the bed in a Prague flat belonging to the wife of another Mírov prisoner. “What a pity he didn’t hide in my flat,” a female television reporter commented half-jokingly (see: Sex).

So all’s well that ends well? Not really. Kajínek was immediately transferred to another maximum security prison, where a cell was specially adapted to make sure he never again repeated his amazing stunt.

Photo © Jaroslav Fišer

Yet he certainly achieved what he wanted with the escape — to draw attention to his case. Kajínek himself admits that he is not an angel, but neither is he a murderer, and he swears he is not guilty of the crime that brought him to Mírov (after all, what else would you expect from a lifetime prisoner?). Even though police investigators and several judges insist he is guilty, the media regularly question the verdict. As late as January 2004, Czech journalists presented a so-far unknown witness that can allegedly prove Kajínek’s innocence.

The funny thing is that millions of Czechs seem to believe more in Kajínek and the media’s version than in the official assurances that he really is guilty.

Romanticism is certainly one part of the explanation — many Kajínek fans are simply confusing him with Harrison Ford or Count Monte Cristo. The other part is less amusing: many ordinary Czechs still nurture a strong and deeply rooted scepticism against the independence of the country’s judiciary, which for almost half a century allowed itself to be abused as an instrument of the Bolshevik tyrants (see: Horáková, Milada).

Klaus, Václav