Jaroslava Moserova - political David who stood against two Goliaths

Three weeks ago few people in this country knew much about Jaroslava Moserova. Some perhaps would have known her as a former ambassador and senator for the tiny Civic Democratic Alliance. Others would have seen her name inside their favourite Dick Francis book - she's translated almost four dozen of his detective stories into Czech. And then others still would know her as the burns specialist who was the first doctor to treat Jan Palach, the Czech student who set himself alight on Wenceslas Square in 1969. Today, however, she's known as the woman who stood against two political giants in the Czech presidential elections, and - surprisingly - eliminated one of them in the first round. When I visited Jaroslava Moserova this week in the Senate, I asked her if sudden fame had changed her life.

"It did change it for a very short time after the election, now everything's settled down. But still I suppose people do know about me because I get messages and people talk to me in the street, and they want me to be the president, which is a satisfying thing but also frustrating because I know that it's very unlikely."

In that second election - the second attempt to elect a president - you defeated Milos Zeman, the former prime minister, in the first round. He was obviously furious; he stormed out of the parliament straight away and refused to speak to the media. What was that like for you, to be in that position of David defeating Goliath?

"Well, my second name was David when I was ambassador to Australia and New Zealand: the name in my passport and for the diplomatic corps was Jara David Moserova, because David is my husband's last name. I did feel like David, running against two former prime ministers. But you know the sad thing about it was that I rather like Milos Zeman. So I must say that I felt sorry for him. And I don't think he was furious, I think he was very, very disappointed."

Have you had any contact with him since? Have you spoken to him at all?

"I haven't. I'm sorry to say I wouldn't even know how to contact him. He had his name's day [on the day following the election] and I would have liked to call him on his name's day, but..."

You went to secondary school for two years in the United States. You left a democratic country in 1947, and came back to a Communist dictatorship in 1949. Do you remember the first impression when you came back, something you saw?

"Of course. I remember when I was crossing the Austrian-Czechoslovak border on a big international express, I was the only passenger onboard the train. No-one was going in. No-one was going out. And I remember the names of the stores seemed totally strange, because the names of the proprietors had disappeared. So all the butchers were called "Masna" ["Meat"] and all the shoe stores were called "JAS" [an early Communist-era shoe manufacturer].

It happened that quickly, in the space of one year?

"Yes, it happened very quickly. But otherwise of course the atmosphere of suppression was very well known to me, because I well remembered the war years, the German occupation."

The year 1968 is a watershed year for Czechs, but for you I suppose the year 1969, and especially January 1969, is even more important, because of what one young man did on Wenceslas Square. You were the first doctor to treat Jan Palach after he set himself alight. I know we've talked about this before, but tell me again how you heard the news and what you saw when he was brought in.

"I heard the news when he was actually brought in. And as you know I don't like to talk about it. He was fully conscious and he could talk. The first day he could still talk without great difficulty. And he kept repeating 'tell everyone why I did it' and we did try to tell everyone. And we kept telling him, that what he did was not in vain. It was highly oppressive, the whole situation. The fact that people that were not only giving up but also giving in, and the slow demoralisation was setting in. And that's why he did it - he didn't do it because of the occupation, but because of the demoralisation that was setting in. He wanted to shake the conscience of the nation. And he did - not only in our country, in many others as well."

You also wrote a play about it, I believe.

"Yes, A Letter to Wollongong. It's not exactly about Palach. It's a play about questions of conscience, what you must forgive others but what you can hardly forgive yourself. How to deal with the past, and also how to deal with the question of whether to stay in the country with such a regime, or whether to leave. And it was meant to reconcile the exiles with the people who stayed behind, because someone had to leave and someone had to stay behind."

I've started dividing Czechs I know into people who feel incredibly bitter about everything that's happened since 1989, and people who are still so enthusiastic about democracy and the free market and so on. Which of those two camps do you fall into?

"Neither nor. I'm still happy that the change occurred, and the aftermath of Communism and all the negative things about today were to be expected. The same thing happened everywhere. Because 40 years of the regime changed the mentality of the people - people don't know how to use democracy as a tool. People are not used to responsibility for themselves, for life in general. I usually use the comparison to a zoo. We lived like animals in a zoo, where we were sure of getting enough to eat, enough to drink, of having a roof over our heads, and of being relatively secure. And of course that our space was limited. Now, if you dissolve a zoo, it's always the predators who are the first to use the new freedom, while the more timid, defenceless animals have a tendency to hide in corners, and some of them may even think that it was better behind bars because they forget the stench and the loss of dignity."

Very well put. There are of course many sides to Jaroslava Moserova. You are not only a politician, not only a senator, not only a former - and maybe future - presidential candidate, you're also a doctor, and a plastic surgeon, and one of the country's leading burns specialists, and you're also a literary translator, and the Czech Republic's leading translator of the detective writer Dick Francis. Which of those three spheres of work has given you the greatest pleasure and the greatest sense of achievement?

"That's very hard to say. I spent 30 years in the burns department of a hospital. Thirty years of my life I devoted to burns, burns treatment and burns research, so I suppose that's the most important thing. But otherwise I suppose I did play a role in politics after 1989, and my main aim was to somehow try to influence political life so that it would be more enlightened and more decent."

Do you think that aim has been achieved?

"The aim has not been achieved, but I certainly helped towards it in small ways which may not be visible. But I did achieve something."