Writer Denemarková delivers stark warning against fascist tendencies in Europe
Czech writer Radka Denemarková has delivered a forceful defence of literature as a moral and political force at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Czechia is "Guest of Honour". She warned of the rise of authoritarianism, nationalism and manipulation of language, declaring that “all of Europe is turning brown” in reference to right–wing extremism.
Denemarková began her speech by reflecting on the complex Czech, German and Jewish cultural heritage of the Czech lands. For decades after the Second World War, she said, the German and Jewish contribution to Czech culture was largely denied: Germans had been expelled and Jews murdered or driven into exile. Even Franz Kafka, she noted, had to be “rehabilitated” in his native country in 1989. For Denemarková, however, Kafka and other German-speaking Prague writers, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Werfel and Egon Erwin Kisch, are also part of Czech literature.
Borrowing the famously inaccurate geography of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, she declared that “Bohemia lies by the sea” – not as a geographical statement, but as an expression of literature’s ability to transcend borders. “We are Europeans, we are part of humanity,” she said.
“All of Europe is turning brown”
From there, Denemarková turned directly to contemporary politics, rejecting calls for writers to keep literature and politics separate. “Everything is politics,” she said, framing the fundamental choice facing societies today as one between open democracy and a closed society. “How am I supposed to separate politics and literature at a time when all of Europe is turning brown,” she asked, going on to point to the concentration of power in individual leaders, the presence of two former collaborators of the communist State Security service in the Czech government, China’s pressure on Taiwan and Ukraine’s continuing defence of its freedom. She warned that “new fascisms, new totalitarianisms and genocides” were becoming normalised.
Literature, Denemarková argued, has an obligation to challenge that process. A moral person cannot retreat into the role of a passive observer, she said, while the strength of literature lies partly in its ability to name what others prefer not to see. Reading itself is a defence against manipulation: “Someone who reads is not so easily manipulated. And a person without books is always blind.” She also attacked a society defined overwhelmingly by money, warning that “where money speaks, truth falls silent”. China, in her view, demonstrates that capitalism and totalitarianism are not necessarily opposites, but can coexist in a system combining economic growth with extensive control over individuals.
When language disguises reality
A central theme of Denemarková’s speech was the political power of language. In today’s global information system, she said, the struggle over words has become a struggle for power itself. “Freedom of expression is now a battlefield. Lies are violence. Words are weapons.” Freedom of speech, she argued, should mean defending truthful language and verifiable facts rather than providing a space in which lies can flourish. She described democracy, freedom, equality before the law, solidarity, human rights, humanism and morality as words that increasingly seem to be “seeking asylum or living in exile”.
Denemarková illustrated the danger through euphemisms that obscure what is actually happening. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine becomes a “special military operation”, populist falsehoods become “alternative facts”, and a US attack on Iran becomes a “pre-emptive strike”. She then drew a historical parallel with the language used by Nazi Germany to disguise the persecution and extermination of European Jews. Small abuses of facts and language should therefore never be dismissed as insignificant, she argued: “The moment language begins to deceive itself, we must pay attention! It is the devil’s prologue to an authoritarian state or to genocide.”
Literature as an “island of morality”
Denemarková also warned about censorship and self-censorship. She recalled growing up under communist rule, when lists of prohibited books and writers were part of everyday cultural reality, and pointed to present-day attempts to remove books from school and public libraries in parts of the United States. History, she said, is full of attempts to destroy thought by destroying books and libraries – from antiquity and Nazi Germany to the wars in Bosnia and Ukraine. In the digital age, however, she argued that physical destruction is no longer necessary: independent thought can instead be silenced “in an ocean of social media and artificial intelligence controlled by a handful of tech giants”.
Despite the stark tone of much of the speech, Denemarková ended on a note of hope. Literature, she said, remains a place where independent language and independent thought can survive. “Literature is a struggle for language. Literature is an island of morality,” she said, describing it as a form of humanism rooted in the fact that people share the same planet. She also made an explicitly European appeal, thanking Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos and his team for their commitment to human rights and arguing that a united Europe remains the right response to the continent’s history. Without a Europe capable of acting as a significant force on the world stage, she warned, individual European countries risk becoming “pawns of other powers”.
Denemarková closed by returning to the image with which she had begun. “In reality there is only one border: the border between one human being and another,” she said. “Bohemia lies by the sea, and we absolutely must carry on.”
