From Both Sides of the Looking Glass: Inside Looking Out, Outside Looking In
The following account documents my journey through two parallel worlds, the world of artists and writers in dissent against a repressive government, and the world of artists and functionaries sanctioned by that system.
I arrived in Prague a couple of days before New Year's Eve 1976 with an address in my pocket for the Czech master photographer, Josef Sudek, whom I had long admired. I found his studio in Mala Strana where I left him a note. The note was soon answered by Anna Farova, Sudek's curator and biographer.
Anna and her husband, the painter Libor Fara, invited me to dinner. That evening at their apartment on Anny Letenske they described their lives under the Husak regime, which was less vicious than Brezhnev's in the USSR, but repressive enough to cause them considerable discomfort and deny them artistic self-expression. Their story fascinated and perplexed me. After sufficient wine, Libor opened a metal tin and showed me some twisted bullets he had pried from his own wall. They had come from the barrel of a machine gun mounted on a Soviet tank that had rumbled down the street in 1968, spraying the windows of the apartments above with gunfire!
Back in the States, I wrote an account of my evening with Anna and Libor which was published in the September 1976 edition of Harper's Magazine under the pseudonym, Philip Carey. I gave Anna and Libor fake names, too, so the article would not provoke reprisals against them from the Communist regime. But in early 1977 when Anna signed Charter 77, she was quickly punished -- dismissed from her position as Curator of Photography at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.
The regime may have underestimated the ripple-effect of sacking Anna, who had powerful friends in the American press. Her dismissal was front page news in the New York Times, and among the secondary ripples was the decision by Harper's to send me back to Prague to find and interview the signatories of Charter 77. That's when I acquired my code name "Savoj," courtesy of the secret police, who trailed me through the city.
I arrived in Prague in the spring of 1977 with an introduction to Petr Pithart, provided by London-based Jan Kavan. Pithart arranged for me to meet Pavel Kohout, Ludvik Vaculik, Ivan Klima, and many others. As a journalist on assignment from a leading American magazine, I registered with the press office, stating that my purpose was "to survey the cultural life of Czechoslovakia." I asked for help in meeting the writers and officials in the unions of artists. My full plan was to compare the creative lives of artists inside and outside the system. In most cases "inside" meant compromised, co-opted, and in league with the security police; "outside" meant barred from publication, exhibition, and travel abroad. There was very little middle ground.
I found the dissidents despondent over the recent death of Jan Patocka, a respected academic who surprised many when he stepped forward and signed the Charter. His harsh treatment by the police was widely thought to have contributed to his fatal heart attack. His funeral drew several hundred people who crowded the cemetery under the watchful eyes and cameras of the secret police. [A scene that surpassed the imagination of Kafka, Fellini and Bergman, according to artist Jiri Kolaj, 1977]
The Outsiders:
Pavel Kohout--Champagne, velvet jacket, beautiful wife. Despite the ban on performing his plays, Kohout still lived the good life, surveying the world from his spacious apartment across the street from Hradcany castle. He had been a true believer in Communism in the early days of World Wat II, full of admiration for the Russians, who drove the Germans out, but all that wore off as the years wore on.
Ludvik Vaculik--A curmudgeon. He was among the first to speak out against the regime during Prague Spring in 1968. Thirty-three years after our meeting in Pithardt's apartment I learned that the fizls had recorded and transcribed every word we said that day.
Ivan Klima--Tall, introspective, a dedicated artist.
Dusan Hamsik--Sent me away from his door.
Jiri Dienstbier--A man with a wry sense of humor and a roguish look to him. I liked him at once. His young wife was a photographer; she gave me a beautiful photo she had taken, very much in the spirit of Sudek.
Jiri Kolar--[From my notes written at the time of our meeting] "Fine skin, thin mouth, strong eyes, missing his right thumb...Modest, honest, gentle, slow talking, pensive, he spoke with well-chosen words." He gave me a signed crumblage which hangs in my home.
Pitr Pithart--A lawyer by training, he was employed as a water table monitor, driving around the country, measuring the water table. He was enormously helpful to me. I felt a strong bond to him.
The Insiders:
Donat Sajner--Chairmain of the Writer's Union, former official in the Ministry of the Interior. A true thug.
Miroslav Kaizr--Director of the Department of Arts, Ministry of Culture, Deputy of the National Committee of the City of Prague, the cold face of the regime, an "apparatchik", undiluted by art or literature.
Jiri Sotola--Poster-boy for the philosophy "go along to get along." Himself a former outsider, he made a bargain with the regime to secure educational opportunities for his children. He offered himself as evidence that if only one does not stand in opposition, then one can lead a normal creative life and enjoy the benefits of a socialist society.
The Exception:
Josef Svoboda--Sui Generis, internationally celebrated theater architect. Above politics. His stature, which reached far beyond Prague, was won honestly and he was not so foolish as to cross into the wilderness by signing the Charter. He was charming, elegantly dressed. Some outsiders wanted to see him as a very high class "Good Solider Svejk" but this didn't really fit the man I met.
Back in the U.S. I found a that major change in the editorial policy of Harper's Magazine had taken effect in my absence. No longer were international affairs a high priority. None of my photos of these people appeared with the version of my article that was eventually published in the January 1978 edition, cut down to one-fifth the size of my original piece.