Exhibition explores Czechoslovak perceptions of Orwell under communism
A new exhibition in Prague explores Czechoslovak perspectives on the work of UK writer George Orwell, particularly his novel 1984. That dystopian classic, published 75 years ago this year, found a particular resonance among the country’s anti-Communist opposition.
1984: George Orwell and Czechoslovakia is the title of a new outdoor exhibition that has just opened at Prague’s Kampa.
Organised by the Museum of the 20th Century, the series of panels comes with a catalogue of the same title, edited and part written by historian Petr Blažek.
“The main theme of the exhibition is the Czechoslovak response to the literary oeuvre of George Orwell. We are presenting this subject in connection with the 75th anniversary of the publication of Orwell’s most famous work, the novel 1984. We’re also interested in how the famous book came out in Czech in the ‘year of Orwell’, the year 1984 itself.”
While Orwell was a socialist he was virulently anti-Bolshevik, as seen in his other most famous novel, Animal Farm.
His work was unsurprisingly banned by Czechoslovakia’s Communists and the first acknowledged Czech edition of 1984 had to come out under the system of illicit underground publishing known as samizdat.
“It was brought out by Index, an exile publishers in West Germany. It was an excellent translation by Eva Šimečková, the wife of the well-known dissident Milan Šimečka. There had been some earlier samizdat translations, but this one was of high quality. The year 1984 also gave rise to reflections and comparisons of the system in Czechoslovakia with Orwell’s book.”
Indeed Petr Blažek says a Czech dissident, Jaroslav Švestka, was subject to a political trial at that time; he was caught trying to smuggle to exile publishers a diary he had written comparing the reality around him with Orwell’s 1984.
Can such a comparison usefully be made? The historian answers in the affirmative.
“Obviously Orwell’s work is literary fiction. But still it was inspired by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, where he saw up close party discipline and the expulsion, imprisonment and execution of awkward opponents. And in some ways this was similar to the early 1980s in Czechoslovakia, when the Second Cold War, as historians now call it, was going on.”
1984 meant different things to different members of the Czechoslovak dissent, which was a broad church.
“Orwell’s work resonated with people with varying ideological and political outlooks. One of the first Orwell texts was published after the war by the magazine Obzory. It was produced by the Czechoslovak People’s Party, which was closely linked to the Catholic Church. Otherwise when we look at those who took an interest in 1984, some had never been in the Communist Party, but others had – and quit or were expelled after 1968.”
The outdoor exhibition 1984: George Orwell and Czechoslovakia is located opposite the Werich Villa on Kampa and will run until September 25 this year. The exhibition catalogue is in Czech and English.
