Road-show depicting the horrors of communism to represent Czech EU presidency

The Czech government has already caused a stir with a recent PR campaign for the country’s forthcoming EU presidency, which starts in January. TV and newspaper adverts suggesting that Europe will be ‘given a taste of its own medicine’ when the Czechs take over have left the international press asking what exactly Prague is trying to say about the political institution it is about to lead. Now, the government has unveiled another of its strategies to publicise the presidency which seems no less controversial. A ‘Totalitarian Circus’ is set to represent the Czech Republic at home and abroad during the country’s EU presidency. I asked the project’s producer Daria Špačková about what she had planned:

Photo: European Commission

“We called it the ‘Totalitarian Circus’, and it is a conceptual space – a mobile area - which is made up of three parts. The first is an exhibition, where a history of totalitarianism not just in the Czech Republic, but all around Europe, is written and shown graphically. Then there is the second part which is called a ‘totality simulator’, and this is some kind of, let’s say, game. The visitor is given a new identity of someone who was born at the start of totalitarianism, in the 1940s or 1950s, and they go through the communist times until the Velvet Revolution. The third part is the hall where concerts and theatre performances will take place.”

And am I right in thinking that this is actually going to be touring round Europe, much as a circus would, and that you will be visiting about ten different European towns?

“Yes, this is our hope. Of course it will start in Prague, and maybe also finish in Prague. And we are negotiating right now with Budapest in Hungary, Bratislava of course, Bucharest, then we would like to go to Stockholm, Tallinn, Riga, and then also Brussels of course, and Berlin.”

This is going to be part of the Czech government’s presentation of the country’s EU presidency – and it is looking to the past - isn’t this a rather negative message to be putting across about the Czech Republic’s presidency?

“The main message is that we, young people - the whole team is in their 30s - would like to point out to other young people, that they should be afraid and be careful, because totalitarianism could come back again. We would like to show how totalitarianism was bad, and how life was hard and strange and weird for people. And we want to show how careful we all have to be so that totalitarianism doesn’t return.”