The Czechs in a Nutshell

Anyway, the literary values of The Unbearable Lightness of Being may be arguable, but one thing remains undisputed: internationally, Kundera’s novel — and the screen version which followed some years later — shed more bad light on the Czechoslovak communist regime than any other artistic work in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, the Velvet Revolution didn’t smoothen the conflict. As a gesture of goodwill, Václav Havel, now as president, nominated Kundera for a state order for his literary merits. But instead of accepting his former opponent’s hand, the famous novelist sent his wife to the ceremony in the Prague Castle, while he himself, allegedly, strolled incognito around in the streets, hidden behind dark glasses and a false moustache.

The Ypsilon Theatre in Prague fared even worse when it decided to honour Kundera by staging one of his earliest plays. Only days before the premiere, the theatre’s managing director received a telegram from Paris: the author does not give his consent to the re-staging! In their enthusiasm, the Czech actors had failed to notice that Kundera some years earlier had conducted a strict revision of his earliest works and found some of them to be worthless.

Admittedly, an artist of Kundera’s calibre can allow himself eccentric behaviour, and the misunderstandings could certainly have been sorted out in a lengthy interview. The problem, however, is that Kundera, since the middle of the 1980s, has stubbornly refused to say a word to the press, let alone grant some journalist — Czech or foreign — an interview.

Do these entanglements sound very petty? After all, why should there be anything else between the author and the readers than his or her books? Well, the core of the problem lies elsewhere. In 1986, Kundera declared that he was a French writer, which obviously doesn’t point to what passport he is carrying, but to the language in which he is writing.

Since the author can’t stand the thought of letting somebody translate his French novels into his mother tongue, Czech readers who don’t speak foreign languages can forget about Kundera’s latest novels. And due to the fact that he has started revising all his earlier works, they haven’t got access to some of his most famous, Czech-written works — such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being — either.

In other words: Milan Kundera has, for different reasons, burnt every thinkable bridge to his former home country. For this, his former compatriots have rewarded him with grumpy and ostentatious oblivion.

Lustration

“What’s happened to Franta, why did he leave our office?” a civil servant asks his colleague. “Oh, nothing much, there was only a lustre that fell on his head...”

To a foreigner, this joke might appear a bit cryptic, but to the Czechs, it’s clear enough: František was one of those who were registered in the archives of the communists’ feared secret police, the StB, as an agent, informer or collaborationist. And the chandelier that smashed his head was the Lustration Law, which rules that anybody who holds a senior position in the civil service, the army, the judicial system, the police, public broadcasting, the National Bank and companies controlled by the state, must prove the he or she is “Stb negative”.

In practice, this means that state employees request the Czech Ministry of Interior to issue a lustration certificate. If that certificate happens to be positive, they are mercilessly kicked out of their jobs. Of course, this also goes for the actual members of the old StB. Bar some allegedly irreplaceable specialists (the precise number has not been published) these estebáci have not been accepted by BIS, the Czech Republic’s new secret service. This might explain why so many of them have started careers as private and — thanks to their contacts from the olden days — often quite successful businessmen.

The Lustration Law was adopted by the then-Czechoslovak parliament in 1991. Its purpose was quite obvious: to cleanse the democratic state’s civil apparatus of those persons who had let themselves be used as tools for the totalitarian regime. This is also reflected by the law’s name — lustrum was a cleansing ceremony, which the old Romans conducted every fifth year.

Even though it was never explicitly stated, the Lustration Law worked as a kind of moral settlement as well. Those who for some reason or other (see: Communism) couldn’t bear the pressure from the StB and started informing on their colleagues, neighbours, friends etc., have been, at least symbolically, punished. “We don’t want you to go to jail, but, on the other hand, because of your collaboration, you’ve lost the moral credibility required for holding an important post in the civil service,” is the Lustration Law’s underlying message.