Czech Radio History Part IV: 1948 - 1968
In this week's edition of our special series on the history of Czech Radio to mark the station's eightieth anniversary, Dita Asiedu looks at the period between the Communist takeover in 1948 and the Prague Spring that was crushed with the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
When looking back at Czech, or rather Czechoslovak, Radio's role as a public media service between 1948 and the early 1960's we must sadly admit that there was hardly any opposition to the Communists' authoritarian rule. In April 1948, Czechoslovak Radio was nationalised, those who were thought to be threatening to the Communist dictators were sacked immediately. Communist propaganda ruled the air-waves. Post-war Czech writer Arnost Lustig was a journalist at Radio Prague. His excuse, he says, was that he and his colleagues truly believed in Stalinist Czechoslovakia:
"We were twenty years old. It was fascinating. World War Two was over. Life started. People were beautiful. For us there were no political pressures, because we were Communists. It was a very ironic situation. They kicked out all the clever people, ten times better than us, so we were even grateful to the political establishment, because they gave us jobs and said - do it comrades - and we did it. We believed it. It was our world. We were not happy with the world of Nazism, of betrayal of Great Britain and France. We thought we were in the right place at the right time. We were not, but we didn't know it. "
One of the darkest periods of the Communist era was that of the show trails: an incredible 130,000 arrests were made between 1948 and 1953. Czechoslovak Radio aired the trials in which party members were forced to make ridiculous confessions to treason and espionage. Among the most famous was the trial of Milada Horakova, which began on May 31st, 1950, broadcast by Czech Radio to the nation. Milada Horakova was hanged on the morning of June 27th, 1950. It was clear. Czechoslovak Radio would be slavishly devoted to the dictates of the Communist Party for the next decade.
But Czechoslovak Radio thrived with the introduction of new technology. It broadcast on two nationwide stations - Prague and Bratislava - as new transmitters were built and new regional stations opened. In 1952 Czechoslovak Radio started jamming the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe. An authority called the Main Board of Press Supervision was established to play the role of a censor. A year later, Czech Television was established and remained part of Czechoslovak Radio for four years.
In 1958, Czechoslovak Radio celebrated its 35th anniversary. On Prague's Letna plain an exhibition was opened from which the station made its broadcasts, calling onto the people to join the station in its birthday celebrations.
Soon after its 35th anniversary, Czechoslovak Radio began playing a significant role in the period leading to the Prague Spring. With the political tension having eased and the Communist Party having released its tight grip on the radio, it began broadcasting more "liberal" programmes. It even invited dissident Vaclav Havel to one of its more popular shows aired from 1966 to 1967 called "Thirty-three questions from Marcel Proust", which were answered by popular figures on the local cultural scene:
Host: What kind of mistakes can you forgive most easily?
VH: Those that don't affect others.
Host: What is your favourite colour?
VH: I don't know, probably red.
Host: And what flower?
VH: I don't think we have the right to evaluate products of nature. Every flower knows why it is the way it is and why it is not different. Every flower has its own beauty. It is beautiful in its own way that is unknown to us.
Host: What animals and birds?
VH: The same applies to this.
Host: Your favourite names?
VH: Since my childhood I have liked the names Eliska and Vaclav, the latter not because it's my own but because I've always liked St. Wenceslas.
Host: What do you like to read the most?
VH: Well, there are several. Kafka, for example.
Spring 1968 was a time of optimism for Czechoslovakia, when Alexander Dubcek became Communist Party leader and hailed the reform movement known to this day as the Prague Spring. Czechoslovak Radio welcomed it. It was a cause for celebration but was forcibly ended before it could bear fruit.
