In the late 1970s, a decade after the defeat of the Prague Spring at the hands of the Warsaw Pact armies, the Czech writer Ludvík Vaculík, one of the Spring’s icons, found himself in a difficult situation. Many of his friends – like him, the recent signatories of Charter 77 that publicly raised the issue of human rights violations by the post-Spring Czechoslovak government – were either jailed, or exiled, or dead. Vaculík turned to be luckier than most because he had merely been purged from the Communist party, lost his job as a journalist and lived on the royalties from his publications abroad, instead of having to seek menial employment, as numerous others in a similar position were forced to do. Although his flat was bugged and he was obliged to attend regular interrogation…
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Citation: Rogatchevski, Andrei. "Český snář". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 March 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39305, accessed 25 April 2024.]
