After the Second World War, there were only three brief years of cultural and political freedom in Czechoslovakia before the Communists seized power in 1948 and held it for more than forty years. During this period, numerous writers worked in exile, others published only through samizdat, and still others conformed to the ideological line. The lives and works of authors such as Václav Havel, Eva Kanturková, Pavel Kohout, Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký and Jan Zahradníček reflect the experience of totalitarianism, the ideologies of the era, and the interplay between politics and literature.

Between Totality and Freedom

Nov 18, 2026

Between Totality and Freedom (1948–1989)

Between Totality and Freedom