While reading it it felt like the author of this article had an axe to grind. His bitterness towards Havel felt palpable, and some quick googling shows that he's definitely not a neutral party:
He pitches the issues between Havel and Kundera as ideological, and representative:
Their exchange reflected the fault line between democratic-socialist and liberal intellectuals: Kundera argued for a new model of society that would be free and fair, avoiding the vices of both Western capitalism and Eastern European authoritarianism; Havel defended Western capitalism as the only desirable model, needing fine tuning, but no major revision.
And his position on the ideological battle is quite clear in the book he published titled Budoucnost Levice bez Liberalismu_ (The future of the left without liberalism).
This isn't to say the article isn't accurate or interesting. (I loved both Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being; and Havel's Summer Meditations). But I think it's useful context, and I'm definitely taking its contents with a pinch of salt, and double checking the falsifiable claims therein.
> While reading it it felt like the author of this article had an axe to grind.
In the last sentences of the article, the author shows his true colors and advocates for a "multipolar world", which is basically a politically-correct way of saying "we should get closer to Russia".
And indeed, if you look him up, you might learn that he signed a petition calling for an end to support for Ukraine[1] and he frequently speaks out against NATO and defends Russia[2][3]
Its more of a polite way of saying a great deal of the rest of the world does not want to live in a unipolar world run by the USA and its allies.
So, not quite the dialectic that one would suppose. Russia is but one party to that ideology - there are many, many more, and thats what makes it multipolar.
No, it is a hidden way of saying that small countries have no choice of their own and they have to belong to some pole. And as luck would have it, the closest pole to central Europe would be Russia! How can someone not want that?
Nonsense. That's an entirely pro-American-centric way of looking at the multipolar proposition. You've gotten too used to the hegemony.
Other nations are sick of American/Western influence in their politics - which is vast and extensive, and: undeniably corrupt.
A Multipolar World is one in which the sovereign rights of nations are respected and not superseded/subjugated by extra-national entities/agencies which do not answer to the democracies or indeed legislature of the nation involved.
A unipolar world is one where a single nation can call up a collective cabal to form an imperial army and invade and destroy countless other nations around the world, and not a single other nation can stand against that cabal and bring its war criminals to justice.
A Multipolar world is one in which small countries do have a choice of their own - and they can thus choose to eschew American hegemony. That is happening across the globe in spite of all attempts by America's hegemonic organs to maintain the iron grip they have had for decades over the worlds poor. Thankfully.
But ok, I'll give you that -- I prefer a unipolar world with US hegemony or whatnot rather than a multipolar world where I have to live in the Russian part (which by the way absolutely never respected the nations that it had subjugated, convince me that I'm wrong).
Indeed. We live in interesting times. BRICS to the rescue!
I think you are stuck in the dialectic of Russia vs. USA - but the rest of the world is not so easily trapped.
If you'd prefer to live in the USA hegemony, its probably because you've been the recipient of its war treasure in some way - perhaps as a citizen or resident. But you would be best served in understanding this situation by actually looking at things from the perspective of the masses who have suffered under American boots for too long - the other side of the polarity of your desired hegemonic wealth: the people from whom it was stolen .. all you have to do is go for a non-tourist-package journey through the Americas .. or talk to a citizen of an African nation about the colonization of their continent by American-backed Western entities for decades...
These lesser nations are not worthy to make their own decisions, eh?
And anyway: What Chinese boots? If China has invaded, destroyed and decimated another sovereign nation and left its people in tatters in the last 40 years, please inform me. Show me China's Syria? Show me its Afghanistan, its Libya, its Yemen? Show me China's West Bank?
It doesn't exist - and that is precisely why your 'lesser' nations are choosing the "Chinese Belt and Road initiatives" over "Western-made Syrian Open Slave Markets" and "American-made Depleted Uranium Deposit States", etc ..
People across the globe don't believe the American lie any more. They've seen the products of American war hegemony, even if American citizens haven't, and they're not impressed. Better to do a deal with China that results in roads and hospitals being built, than to do it with the USA, resulting in roads and hospitals being bombed.
Of course China hasn’t, because it’s a unipolar world. The USSR tried, but was contained and defeated. We will see in the future. And as others have said. I’m not defending the misdeeds of the USA.
China West Bank? Ehrm, Tibet? Hong Kong?
I just think the alternative will be worse, much worse.
Nonsense. Taiwan is a political hostage to two great powers. The USA is only "protecting" it for as long as it takes to get its local fabs booted up ..
While I can definitely believe that China is going to try take Taiwan one day, I don't really believe that they will mount military expeditions to other continents. It goes too much against Chinese civilizational history. The Chinese were mostly interested in themselves only and the barbarians outside were just a good source of tribute (nowadays: resources). Plus, empire building is very expensive, as both the British and the Americans would attest.
Unless some kind of longevity revolution comes soon and Xi stays on the throne forever, I would expect the next Chinese leader to turn inward again.
Most of the hatred piled on China by members of Western nations currently engaged in imperialist endeavours, invasions, destruction of sovereign states, and occupying the wealthy regions of its enemies states', is really just projection.
Americans' don't want anyone else in the world to do to them, what their nation has been doing for 40 years: dropping bombs on mostly innocent people every twenty minutes.
China has managed to lift a billion people out of poverty into a new era of prosperity. It has created a wealthy middle class for millions and millions of people to improve their lives. Keep that in mind when the anti-China agitprop gets triggered by American exceptionalists.
The USA is not capable of doing that for its own people.
Absolutely not, boffinAudio, the other way around! It was you who brought US into this discussion, I did not. I am a citizen of a former satelite country of the Soviet Union and I do not want this situation repeated. But some people do not understand that you can hate being a Russian/Soviet subject (as the Polish, Czech...) without having to love the US.
And FYI, part of my family is from South America and I am well aware of the anti US sentiment there and understand its reasons. But it just bears no relevance on what Russia did in Central and Eastern Europe. It's still the same story -- country A attacks country B, but you say. Yes, but country C did this to country D before! So country A has right to do it. Bad luck country B!
> But some people do not understand that you can hate being a Russian/Soviet subject (as the Polish, Czech...) without having to love the US.
Then we are essentially aligned, because I believe that this dialectic is a fallacy, also. You can not want to be ruled by Russia or America - that is a multi-polar perspective (See also: China) - and still believe in peace, freedom and democracy, which are not exclusively American properties, nor are their antipodes exclusively Russian-owned.
The "unipolar world" of American hegemony is over. The poorer nations are defeating it, finally, their own way: by walking away from the petrodollar. And given the sheer statistics of war crimes committed to sustain the petrodollars' hegemony, it can't happen fast enough.
Even if Americans ignore the crimes of their state, the rest of the world doesn't. Its a lot clearer to those with access to the atrocities that America's crimes against humanity far, far exceed those of any other nation - by a wide magnitude.
However, that doesn't mean that the pro-Russian path is the right one to take, either. In the same way that the ultra-wealthy need to start paying their taxes, the American (and Russian) people need to start confronting the crimes of their state with a great deal more honesty. The rest of the world watches.
You use quotes around “multipolar world” but it’s not a quote. I think you should be clearer about that. The final paragraph suggests we should avoid “the trap of political absolute-whether socialism or capitalism, economic pragmatism or national populism—and using the power of irony against those who claim to have found the ultimate truth.”
That seems like a very healthy suggestion to me, irrespective of whether you think randomly invading your friendly neighbourhood democracy is reasonable or not.
Even if the author is shown to be obviously pro-Russia in other sources, this here is a suggestion to resist absolute truths and to read you some Kundera. There’s nothing wrong with that.
>I was in the third year of my mission as Czech ambassador to France
I hate to be that guy, but isn't the Czech Ambassador's job to be dealing with (listening to) the French État (govt), while it's a Czech Consul's job to handle matters for ordinary citizens?
A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries...Unlike an ambassador, who serves as the singular representative of one government to another, a state may appoint several consuls in a foreign nation, typically in major cities; consuls are usually tasked with providing assistance in bureaucratic issues to both citizens of their own country traveling or living abroad and to the citizens of the country in which the consul resides who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country.
Not really. An ambassador is the head of an embassy while consuls are heads of consulates. A country have one embassy per foreign country but it can have multiple consulates. The Ambassador may have the responsibility traditionally held by a consul on top of being the main representative of their country but sometimes in large country an embassy will itself contain a consulate leading to a situation close to the one you describe. A consul is still a representative and will be expected to interact with the politicians and business representatives of the generally smaller cities they live in. Sometimes countries close embassies but maintain consulates in period of diplomatic trouble and you end up with consuls being de facto ambassadors.
The author hates the post-totalitarian system of the Czech Republic ('89-) and has very pro-Russian views. Just be aware before wasting your time with his article.
Ah yeah I misunderstood, thanks. That said, I really couldn't find much of the Russian whataboutist narrative in the article.
It’s clear the author doesn’t love everything about western capitalism, but that, I think, is a widely held opinion across Europe. It does not imply, to me, a suggestion that Russian style kleptocratic capitalism is a better form by any means so if the author makes that argument elsewhere, I didn’t see it here.
I guess I’m trying to say that I enjoyed the article, and learning that I don’t share the author’s politics hasn’t changed that.
Of course, that is a completely legit view that I also partly hold. However, this author is known for his looking up to a regime that is way worse (or 'not better form' as you say).
Describing the intelectual elites that overthrew soviet puppet totalitarian government as a bunch of CIA agents that acted out of pure envy of Kundera's genius who just misstepped a bit when he was ok with soviet invasion haven't gave you a hint? Really?
No it didn’t. In fact I did not get the idea that Kundera was ok with the soviet invasion at all.
And, well, if the idea of CIA agents propping up pro-capitalism opposition figures is “pro-Russian”, then every Hollywood spy movie is pro-Russian. I have no idea how common “CIA meddles, all the way to the top” really is, or was, but it’s a common narrative across western culture so it didn’t strike me as super weird.
I’ll admit that the idea that Havel did little by himself to become the President, that it was all due to support by the CIA people, which wasn’t said so literally but certainly suggested, felt rather unrealistic.
Is your argument based on Hollywood action movies and popular stereotypes based on them? Come on, pal. The only other guys who have always been obsessed with CIA agents in context of central and eastern Europe are Russian propagandists. And Petr Drulák is not a scriptwriter.
In the modern dialectic-materialist-addled mindset of agitprop-spoonfed media consumers, "anti-American == pro-Russian", but a lot of the world isn't stuck in that dialectic and is capable of seeing another path: multi-polarity.
The reason Kundera never returned is because he was ashamed that he snitched to secret police and other intellectuals knew it.
Author of the article tries to downplay it with
> The article didn’t produce any evidence apart from hearsay and a police protocol mentioning that Kundera was the source of the information.
But the evidence was solid, he ruined a young man's life by putting him for 20 years into prison that was almost gulag-like.
I think Kundera always regret it and that's why he withdraw to France and stayed there. Yet he never apologized or even commented on that topic.
I grew up with his books and they had great impact on me when I was 18. He's a great writer. I wouldn't even mind that he snitched if he went through some acknowledgment and redemption. But he hasn't and remains a flawed character in my eyes. Almost every Czech author who emigrated helped the dissent that stayed home in some way. He didn't.
Havel is a great man, one of our greatest. He's a fine author. Kundera is a great author. Not a fine man.
1. It didn't. He did come back quite regularly. The article simply ommits that.
2. The evidence is mostly based on a police report which names Kundera. You could make a case that the secret police would occasionally falsify these things, but in general they'd also do this for a reason (mostly because they'd use for some blackmail / publicity stunt). This does not seem to be the case here...
Visiting back is not what he meant, rather a permanent move.
The thing is, regardless of him collaborating with regime, is that if you spend decades elsewhere, its very hard to come back. The "back" changes without you being part of it, so technically its impossible and you move into relatively foreign place with people you know and don't in the same time, even if folks still speak your language.
Also, I presume most of you don't know this, but if he had in 90s any longing for home after communism fell, a quick visit would cure practically anybody. Society was a mess, wolves robbing state and society of everything possible, leaving bloody trails everywhere. People were beheaded (in my town one morning a cop's head was found on top of his car), or dissolved in acid (again even people my parents actually knew). Ministers were mafia-style executed in broad day (still not solved). Common folks were robbed in privatizations of state's properties (literally some form of ponzi scheme or worse were happening on state level). Organized crime and top politicians were very tightly intertwined.
This all improved nowadays but not as much as we would like.
If you see this and much much more, why on earth would anybody move from France? That's much more advanced, free and intellectual-friendly society, at that time by mega-parsecs.
I'm pretty sure he means Slovakia. Not sure about any minister, but the policemen is true and there was the Kovac case -- maybe not minister, but president's son.
Yes I meant Slovakia, which for part of 90s, the wilder part of that decade as we all can probably agree, was part of Czechoslovakia.
Jan Ducky was the minister executed, he was connected via corruption to many many politicians still active today, even former Czech prime minister Babis (who comes from Slovakia), he is actually one of the suspects who ordered it back in 90s.
Dissolving folks in acid was done in both states, before and after we split. Of course we only hear about cases which were discovered, back home many ended up permanently "missing". But anyway I don't think I was clear (or you guys misunderstood me) - its not for the crime rate alone that would make people like Kundera not wanting to come back, but overall state of society and state itself. If you paint yourself 90s as some sort of pinnacle of our history where everybody was happy and people were singing and dancing on the streets, we must have lived in different universes then.
I mean its 2023, I happily live in Switzerland for many years, having lived in both Czech republic and Slovakia long term in the past, and I would not go back for exactly same reasons. What most rich folks back there (CZ and SK too) do is create a bubble around themselves to not be part of rest of society - but that's desperate attempt for quality of life which is a baseline in other places. Kind of South Africa approach although you can see it in other places where middle class evaporated. Definitely not a place I want to raise my kids, or grow old with all that it brings.
Sounds like a strong exaggeration. The 90s were rough in comparison to time before and after, but no, beheadings and dissolving bodies in acid were not normal.
1998 was the absolute worst in the Czech history in regard to murders with 3 murdered people per 100 000 people. In comparison, US rate in 2021 was 6.8.
> This all improved nowadays but not as much as we would like.
There's always room for improvement, but today Czechia is one of the safest countries on earth (safer than France, for example).
There's a huge Kundera biography written by Jan Novák. Critics say it's biased but it's well sourced. It paints Kundera's character as someone who could easily do it.
I guess the main evidence is the police report. Secret police was of course known to blackmail people and fabricate things. Everybody accused of collaborating with them used the defense that all documents were made up. There were other several high profile people that were accused and used this defense but eventually enough evidence was discovered and the people admitted guilt.
With Kundera, the "blackmail" angle is weak. The record was not attached to his file, it was forgotten in the file of pilot Dvořáček who was arrested. Also at that time Kundera was just communist student functionary, not someone famous worth blackmailing.
For someone unfamiliar with the specifics this was an interesting rabbit hole to go into. I was curious what Dvořáček thought about it. It looks like, in the end, "neither he nor his wife had any doubts about Kundera's role."
>The reason Kundera never returned is because he was ashamed that he snitched to secret police and other intellectuals knew it.
That never stopped thousands of other artists, politicians, writers, businessmen, and so on having done the same or much much worse. Heck, most of Germany's ex-Nazi establishment continued to not only live in Germany, but to hold positions of power post war, be public intellectuals and so on.
This. I think he was quite affected by it. You do a stupid thing when you are young and naive, it destroys other person's life and you have to live it with it forever.
Germany and many other European countries did have these scandals in the 60s and 70s when the new generation asked uncomfortable questions about what their parents did in the war.
There's an interesting detail around Gunter Grass; he was part of the big literary voices asking the uncomfortable questions, which was part of his success in the 1960s and 1970s. Long after that success, in 2006, he revealed that he was in the Waffen-SS himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass#Waffen-SS_re...
Contrast him with a western dissident who was so disillusioned by the "intellectual" caste he thought reporting famatics was a democratic citizens duty. Orwell reported stalinists and other enemy of the people all day long and he was right too do so.
This apologetic article deliberatley doesn't include name of Miroslav Dvořáček, a man that spend 10 years in prison. He went there because Kundera gave him in. This is half mentioned.
Oh crap. I'm quite ashamed this kind of internal CZ infighting makes it to the front page of HN. Please everyone, read this article with a pretty big pinch of salt.
The title itself is misleading at best. Kundera "did" visit Prague pretty regularly in the 90s and 2000s. And the text doesn't get any better from there...
There already are a few comments about the author, but long story short - Petr Drulak is pretty well known in CZ for his support of weird / fringe political movements and parties. It's a pretty strange / convoluted story, mainly because he's been a high official in CZ diplomacy (foreign affairs ministry, ambassador to France, university professor). His articles are usually fairly complex, use a lot of cultural references, but they are ultimately a cargo cult. In the end no matter through which paths his arguments go, they always invariably end up in the same place. The place is "EU bad, Havel bad, NGOs bad, American domination bad, free market / liberalism good, cooperation with China / Russia good, old times / conservative worldview good".
Oh it seems Russians are increasing their active measures. Im seeing a ton of russian biased articles in germany as well. Mostly to fracture european unity and increase far right party mindshare
Wow, who could have guessed an article by Petr Drulák would hit HN frontpage.
Please, don't take this guy seriously. Yes, he was an ambassador to France and it's a shame to our country that this person held such job.
Moreover, if you read the article, you'll realize it's not about Kundera's reasons for not returning (his real friens said that he was used to living in France), but mostly about Drulák's hatred for Havel. Why Drulák hates Havel so much, I don't know.
For personalities like his, what comes to my mind is some episodes of Star Trek - TNG, where someone walks into the Holodeck and asks the Computer to "create the persona of person X based on their writings, psychological profile, image from photographs, etc." and the Holodeck pulls together an Einstein, (or Hawking on the card playing scene) and then you get to interact with that persona.
I expect (wish) that with AI, VR, LLM (and other similar acronyms), in my lifetime we will be able to do the same.
I can only imagine having a coffee with some personalities (Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Einstein, Alice Cooper, et al) and being taught about their lives, beliefs, absorbing wisdom, etc.
>I can only imagine having a coffee with some personalities (Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Einstein, Alice Cooper, et al) and being taught about their lives, beliefs, absorbing wisdom, etc.
You wouldn't be having coffee with them, you would be having coffee with an AI generated facsimile, operating under the assumption that all available information on the web is factually accurate, and that somehow the whole is equal to, or greater than, the sum of its parts.
They wouldn't be able to tell you anything new, or offer any real insight into the life or thoughts of the actual person they represent. There is no wisdom for you to absorb that doesn't come from external sources. It's all fake. Hollow.
You'd be better off just reading the things they wrote, or a biography about their lives than letting the cancer of hyperreality spread even further than it has.
The exploration of the themes in Kundera's novels, particularly the ideas of nostalgia and loss, and how they reflect his own personal experiences adds a layer of depth to his literary work. It's a testament to the intricate interplay between an author's life and their creations.
68 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] threadAs far back as 2014, when he was _First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs_ he was criticizing Havel and his policies from a policy standpoint: https://www.praguepost.com/czech-news/czech-foreign-policy-a...
He pitches the issues between Havel and Kundera as ideological, and representative:
Their exchange reflected the fault line between democratic-socialist and liberal intellectuals: Kundera argued for a new model of society that would be free and fair, avoiding the vices of both Western capitalism and Eastern European authoritarianism; Havel defended Western capitalism as the only desirable model, needing fine tuning, but no major revision.
And his position on the ideological battle is quite clear in the book he published titled Budoucnost Levice bez Liberalismu_ (The future of the left without liberalism).
This isn't to say the article isn't accurate or interesting. (I loved both Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being; and Havel's Summer Meditations). But I think it's useful context, and I'm definitely taking its contents with a pinch of salt, and double checking the falsifiable claims therein.
In the last sentences of the article, the author shows his true colors and advocates for a "multipolar world", which is basically a politically-correct way of saying "we should get closer to Russia".
And indeed, if you look him up, you might learn that he signed a petition calling for an end to support for Ukraine[1] and he frequently speaks out against NATO and defends Russia[2][3]
[1] - https://voxukraine.org/en/russian-disinformation-narratives-...
[2] - https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/svet/3439336-valka-neni-v-rusk...
[3] - https://tass.com/world/1460895
Its more of a polite way of saying a great deal of the rest of the world does not want to live in a unipolar world run by the USA and its allies.
So, not quite the dialectic that one would suppose. Russia is but one party to that ideology - there are many, many more, and thats what makes it multipolar.
Other nations are sick of American/Western influence in their politics - which is vast and extensive, and: undeniably corrupt.
A Multipolar World is one in which the sovereign rights of nations are respected and not superseded/subjugated by extra-national entities/agencies which do not answer to the democracies or indeed legislature of the nation involved.
A unipolar world is one where a single nation can call up a collective cabal to form an imperial army and invade and destroy countless other nations around the world, and not a single other nation can stand against that cabal and bring its war criminals to justice.
A Multipolar world is one in which small countries do have a choice of their own - and they can thus choose to eschew American hegemony. That is happening across the globe in spite of all attempts by America's hegemonic organs to maintain the iron grip they have had for decades over the worlds poor. Thankfully.
But ok, I'll give you that -- I prefer a unipolar world with US hegemony or whatnot rather than a multipolar world where I have to live in the Russian part (which by the way absolutely never respected the nations that it had subjugated, convince me that I'm wrong).
I think you are stuck in the dialectic of Russia vs. USA - but the rest of the world is not so easily trapped.
If you'd prefer to live in the USA hegemony, its probably because you've been the recipient of its war treasure in some way - perhaps as a citizen or resident. But you would be best served in understanding this situation by actually looking at things from the perspective of the masses who have suffered under American boots for too long - the other side of the polarity of your desired hegemonic wealth: the people from whom it was stolen .. all you have to do is go for a non-tourist-package journey through the Americas .. or talk to a citizen of an African nation about the colonization of their continent by American-backed Western entities for decades...
And anyway: What Chinese boots? If China has invaded, destroyed and decimated another sovereign nation and left its people in tatters in the last 40 years, please inform me. Show me China's Syria? Show me its Afghanistan, its Libya, its Yemen? Show me China's West Bank?
It doesn't exist - and that is precisely why your 'lesser' nations are choosing the "Chinese Belt and Road initiatives" over "Western-made Syrian Open Slave Markets" and "American-made Depleted Uranium Deposit States", etc ..
People across the globe don't believe the American lie any more. They've seen the products of American war hegemony, even if American citizens haven't, and they're not impressed. Better to do a deal with China that results in roads and hospitals being built, than to do it with the USA, resulting in roads and hospitals being bombed.
China West Bank? Ehrm, Tibet? Hong Kong?
I just think the alternative will be worse, much worse.
Unless some kind of longevity revolution comes soon and Xi stays on the throne forever, I would expect the next Chinese leader to turn inward again.
Americans' don't want anyone else in the world to do to them, what their nation has been doing for 40 years: dropping bombs on mostly innocent people every twenty minutes.
China has managed to lift a billion people out of poverty into a new era of prosperity. It has created a wealthy middle class for millions and millions of people to improve their lives. Keep that in mind when the anti-China agitprop gets triggered by American exceptionalists.
The USA is not capable of doing that for its own people.
Absolutely not, boffinAudio, the other way around! It was you who brought US into this discussion, I did not. I am a citizen of a former satelite country of the Soviet Union and I do not want this situation repeated. But some people do not understand that you can hate being a Russian/Soviet subject (as the Polish, Czech...) without having to love the US.
And FYI, part of my family is from South America and I am well aware of the anti US sentiment there and understand its reasons. But it just bears no relevance on what Russia did in Central and Eastern Europe. It's still the same story -- country A attacks country B, but you say. Yes, but country C did this to country D before! So country A has right to do it. Bad luck country B!
Then we are essentially aligned, because I believe that this dialectic is a fallacy, also. You can not want to be ruled by Russia or America - that is a multi-polar perspective (See also: China) - and still believe in peace, freedom and democracy, which are not exclusively American properties, nor are their antipodes exclusively Russian-owned.
The "unipolar world" of American hegemony is over. The poorer nations are defeating it, finally, their own way: by walking away from the petrodollar. And given the sheer statistics of war crimes committed to sustain the petrodollars' hegemony, it can't happen fast enough.
Even if Americans ignore the crimes of their state, the rest of the world doesn't. Its a lot clearer to those with access to the atrocities that America's crimes against humanity far, far exceed those of any other nation - by a wide magnitude.
However, that doesn't mean that the pro-Russian path is the right one to take, either. In the same way that the ultra-wealthy need to start paying their taxes, the American (and Russian) people need to start confronting the crimes of their state with a great deal more honesty. The rest of the world watches.
That seems like a very healthy suggestion to me, irrespective of whether you think randomly invading your friendly neighbourhood democracy is reasonable or not.
Even if the author is shown to be obviously pro-Russia in other sources, this here is a suggestion to resist absolute truths and to read you some Kundera. There’s nothing wrong with that.
I hate to be that guy, but isn't the Czech Ambassador's job to be dealing with (listening to) the French État (govt), while it's a Czech Consul's job to handle matters for ordinary citizens?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consul_(representative)
A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries...Unlike an ambassador, who serves as the singular representative of one government to another, a state may appoint several consuls in a foreign nation, typically in major cities; consuls are usually tasked with providing assistance in bureaucratic issues to both citizens of their own country traveling or living abroad and to the citizens of the country in which the consul resides who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country.
It’s clear the author doesn’t love everything about western capitalism, but that, I think, is a widely held opinion across Europe. It does not imply, to me, a suggestion that Russian style kleptocratic capitalism is a better form by any means so if the author makes that argument elsewhere, I didn’t see it here.
I guess I’m trying to say that I enjoyed the article, and learning that I don’t share the author’s politics hasn’t changed that.
Of course, that is a completely legit view that I also partly hold. However, this author is known for his looking up to a regime that is way worse (or 'not better form' as you say).
And, well, if the idea of CIA agents propping up pro-capitalism opposition figures is “pro-Russian”, then every Hollywood spy movie is pro-Russian. I have no idea how common “CIA meddles, all the way to the top” really is, or was, but it’s a common narrative across western culture so it didn’t strike me as super weird.
I’ll admit that the idea that Havel did little by himself to become the President, that it was all due to support by the CIA people, which wasn’t said so literally but certainly suggested, felt rather unrealistic.
And on top it also ignores stuff like Operation Gladio going on for decades in Europe during the Cold War.
Very. E.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Author of the article tries to downplay it with
But the evidence was solid, he ruined a young man's life by putting him for 20 years into prison that was almost gulag-like.I think Kundera always regret it and that's why he withdraw to France and stayed there. Yet he never apologized or even commented on that topic.
I grew up with his books and they had great impact on me when I was 18. He's a great writer. I wouldn't even mind that he snitched if he went through some acknowledgment and redemption. But he hasn't and remains a flawed character in my eyes. Almost every Czech author who emigrated helped the dissent that stayed home in some way. He didn't.
Havel is a great man, one of our greatest. He's a fine author. Kundera is a great author. Not a fine man.
2. The evidence is mostly based on a police report which names Kundera. You could make a case that the secret police would occasionally falsify these things, but in general they'd also do this for a reason (mostly because they'd use for some blackmail / publicity stunt). This does not seem to be the case here...
https://www.respekt.cz/respekt-in-english/milan-kundera-s-de...
The thing is, regardless of him collaborating with regime, is that if you spend decades elsewhere, its very hard to come back. The "back" changes without you being part of it, so technically its impossible and you move into relatively foreign place with people you know and don't in the same time, even if folks still speak your language.
Also, I presume most of you don't know this, but if he had in 90s any longing for home after communism fell, a quick visit would cure practically anybody. Society was a mess, wolves robbing state and society of everything possible, leaving bloody trails everywhere. People were beheaded (in my town one morning a cop's head was found on top of his car), or dissolved in acid (again even people my parents actually knew). Ministers were mafia-style executed in broad day (still not solved). Common folks were robbed in privatizations of state's properties (literally some form of ponzi scheme or worse were happening on state level). Organized crime and top politicians were very tightly intertwined.
This all improved nowadays but not as much as we would like.
If you see this and much much more, why on earth would anybody move from France? That's much more advanced, free and intellectual-friendly society, at that time by mega-parsecs.
Jan Ducky was the minister executed, he was connected via corruption to many many politicians still active today, even former Czech prime minister Babis (who comes from Slovakia), he is actually one of the suspects who ordered it back in 90s.
Dissolving folks in acid was done in both states, before and after we split. Of course we only hear about cases which were discovered, back home many ended up permanently "missing". But anyway I don't think I was clear (or you guys misunderstood me) - its not for the crime rate alone that would make people like Kundera not wanting to come back, but overall state of society and state itself. If you paint yourself 90s as some sort of pinnacle of our history where everybody was happy and people were singing and dancing on the streets, we must have lived in different universes then.
I mean its 2023, I happily live in Switzerland for many years, having lived in both Czech republic and Slovakia long term in the past, and I would not go back for exactly same reasons. What most rich folks back there (CZ and SK too) do is create a bubble around themselves to not be part of rest of society - but that's desperate attempt for quality of life which is a baseline in other places. Kind of South Africa approach although you can see it in other places where middle class evaporated. Definitely not a place I want to raise my kids, or grow old with all that it brings.
No, we don't agree. Wild part of 90s was result of voucher privatization, which barely started before the split of Czechoslovakia.
1998 was the absolute worst in the Czech history in regard to murders with 3 murdered people per 100 000 people. In comparison, US rate in 2021 was 6.8.
> This all improved nowadays but not as much as we would like.
There's always room for improvement, but today Czechia is one of the safest countries on earth (safer than France, for example).
What country are you talking about? Certainly not Czech Republic.
The evidence is
direct:
- the original police report of Miroslav Dvořáček's arrest
witness:
- Iva Militká, one of the persons involved in the arrest
indirect:
- police lecture from 1952 made by interior minister Jerman. Kundera is only mentioned by initials but it's another piece of the puzzle https://www.lidovky.cz/domov/novy-objev-udani-v-kauze-milana...
There's a huge Kundera biography written by Jan Novák. Critics say it's biased but it's well sourced. It paints Kundera's character as someone who could easily do it.
I guess the main evidence is the police report. Secret police was of course known to blackmail people and fabricate things. Everybody accused of collaborating with them used the defense that all documents were made up. There were other several high profile people that were accused and used this defense but eventually enough evidence was discovered and the people admitted guilt.
With Kundera, the "blackmail" angle is weak. The record was not attached to his file, it was forgotten in the file of pilot Dvořáček who was arrested. Also at that time Kundera was just communist student functionary, not someone famous worth blackmailing.
That never stopped thousands of other artists, politicians, writers, businessmen, and so on having done the same or much much worse. Heck, most of Germany's ex-Nazi establishment continued to not only live in Germany, but to hold positions of power post war, be public intellectuals and so on.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/06/04/how-i-spent-th...
The title itself is misleading at best. Kundera "did" visit Prague pretty regularly in the 90s and 2000s. And the text doesn't get any better from there...
There already are a few comments about the author, but long story short - Petr Drulak is pretty well known in CZ for his support of weird / fringe political movements and parties. It's a pretty strange / convoluted story, mainly because he's been a high official in CZ diplomacy (foreign affairs ministry, ambassador to France, university professor). His articles are usually fairly complex, use a lot of cultural references, but they are ultimately a cargo cult. In the end no matter through which paths his arguments go, they always invariably end up in the same place. The place is "EU bad, Havel bad, NGOs bad, American domination bad, free market / liberalism good, cooperation with China / Russia good, old times / conservative worldview good".
Please, don't take this guy seriously. Yes, he was an ambassador to France and it's a shame to our country that this person held such job.
Moreover, if you read the article, you'll realize it's not about Kundera's reasons for not returning (his real friens said that he was used to living in France), but mostly about Drulák's hatred for Havel. Why Drulák hates Havel so much, I don't know.
Probably because Drulák is idiot and Havel isn't.
I expect (wish) that with AI, VR, LLM (and other similar acronyms), in my lifetime we will be able to do the same.
I can only imagine having a coffee with some personalities (Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Einstein, Alice Cooper, et al) and being taught about their lives, beliefs, absorbing wisdom, etc.
You wouldn't be having coffee with them, you would be having coffee with an AI generated facsimile, operating under the assumption that all available information on the web is factually accurate, and that somehow the whole is equal to, or greater than, the sum of its parts.
They wouldn't be able to tell you anything new, or offer any real insight into the life or thoughts of the actual person they represent. There is no wisdom for you to absorb that doesn't come from external sources. It's all fake. Hollow.
You'd be better off just reading the things they wrote, or a biography about their lives than letting the cancer of hyperreality spread even further than it has.