Czechs discover the 'absurdities' of communism

Czech society has changed greatly since the Velvet Revolution brought an end to the country's Communist system thirteen years ago. And much has been written on the repression of that system but now, a group of historians want to demonstrate what they say was one of the system's defining characteristics - its absurdity.

Communist propaganda

In the almost 14 years since the revolution, an especially created institute has been documenting the many crimes of the Communist era. Thanks to its work, a few culprits, very few, have even spent time behind bars. The new Absurdity of Totalitarianism project is taking a very different approach: its aiming to create a unique historical record of the often ridiculous lies to which Czech society was exposed over 40 years. Before speaking to the people behind it, I asked some pedestrians in the centre of Prague what they regarded as absurd about Communism, and what they thought of the era's political leaders.

Man 1: "Some customs, like celebrating empty symbols."

Man 2: "Permits to go outside of Czechoslovakia. If anybody read the newspaper or saw (the Communist leaders) on the TV, or on the radio, everybody should know that they were stupid."

Man 3: "Stupid people were higher - the stupider you were the better."

Organiser Senator Jaroslava Moserova hopes the project will have an impact on the younger generation, those too young to remember five-year plans or compulsory flag-waving.

"It's so important because I think that young people detest lies, hypocrisy, falsehood, more than anything else. And the unbelievable low intellectual status of the powers that were...that all has to be documented. And it's high time because the generation of people who can give a testimony is dying out."

Both written and oral testimonies detailing the absurdities of the Communist system are being collected, as are other documents such as notoriously stupid speeches. American historian Dr James Bradburne has been working with project-overseer, the Foundation of Czech National Museums, for over a decade. He says it is a unique undertaking.

"This is the most ambitious and exciting oral history project that I know of. It's collecting the material culture on the one hand but it's coupled to a project to keep traces of people's memories, their stories, their recollections, their experience of how they were confronted with this absurdity in daily life. This is very unusual: the idea of not only collecting the documents, which of course is something museums do routinely, but instead collecting the context in which those documents made sense and had value."