A tribute to a brave thinker, writer and dissident
I have grown up in a world of forbidden books, a world of omnipresent indoctrination, where the past was being rewritten all the time
Milan Šimečka was born in Nový Bohumín in Czechoslovakia. During the second world war he became a war orphan. He studied Russian and Czech Literature and philosophy at Brno University. Later he worked as a teacher of Marxist Philosophy to medical students. He started writing essays and criticism often around the theme of utopia
Czechoslovakia in the sixties took tiny steps away from totalitarian rule towards freedom of expression now named "The Prague Spring". During this time Šimečka was a productive writer in many literary magazines. This all changed when troops from the Warsaw Pact invaded in 1968 to put an end to the developments in Czechoslovakia that were perceived as a threat to socialism.
Šimečka, along with many many of his peers, fell out of favour with the Czech communist party and was expelled. The process that followed was named "Normalization" which proved very successful in quenching dissent, and it was also the subject of Šimečka's 1979 book The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia.
Šimečka wrote The Restoration of Order as an attempt at explaining what happened after the 1968 invasion both politically and psycologically. Normalization meant a stricter adherence to Stalinist ideals. What followed was a purge of all aspects of society, carried out not so much by violence but rather by effective bureaucratic pressure, interrogations, and surveillance.
The cynical goal was to replace activism with passivity. Screening was followed by expulsion, a tragic and soul-destroying occurrence for many who had been brought up in the party and had dedicated their lives and energies to its regeneration.
Šimečka's writing, which was spread by underground channels to the west, eventually lead to his imprisonment in 1981 - 1982. In prison he he wrote many, often wonderfully tender letters to his wife Eva and his two sons. He describes the mundane prison life and the happiness of getting letters in return and of caring for a watercress in his cell; the only plant in sight for the prisoner.
In the letters he also dwells into philosophy. He had no books in prison to reference and he begins with what he observes in himself an others. He favours a kind and optimistic respect for other peoples realities. In the interrogations he comes across the clash of different realities. His meeting with a friend for the first time becomes in the interrogator's' view an attempt at "making contact with X", and putting your ideas on paper turns into "subversion of the state".
1989 protests began and more and more dissent and protest against the government arose, which eventually led to the end of the one-party state. Czechoslovakia was to become a democratic parliamentary republic. Vaclav Havel, another dissident writer and prisoner, and also personal friend of Šimečka, was now president. Šimečka became advisor to Havel on Czech-Slovak relations. Milan Šimečka died shortly after in 1990. After his death his prison letters were first published in Slovak and later translated to English in 2002.
Excerpt from Letters From Prison
Longer article from Radio Praha about Milan Šimečka
Today the Milan Šimečka Foundation is active in human rights issues.