Ludvík Vaculík

President of Czechoslovakia and Communist Party leader Antonín Novotný and his fellow conservatives had begun taking a more repressive approach toward intellectuals and writers after the Six-Day War[2] of June 1967. The following month, Vaculík, then still a member of the Communist Party, attended the Fourth Congress of the Union of Writers. Others in attendance included communists Pavel Kohout, Ivan Klíma, and Milan Kundera, as well as non-Party member Václav Havel.[3] Vaculík made an inflammatory speech in which he rejected the leading role of the party as unnecessary and criticized it for its restrictive cultural policies and failure to address social issues.[4] Havel recalled the mixed response of the fellow writers to Vaculík's remarks: on the one hand, they were "delighted that someone had spoken the truth… but [their] delight was tempered by doubts about whether direct confrontation on the political level would lead anywhere, and by fears that it could stimulate a counterattack by the power center."[5] Novotný and his supporters did indeed try to bring the writers' union under their control after the congress, but failed.[4] Vaculík's and other writers' speeches at the conference, with their anti-Novotný sentiments, increased the gap between the conservative Novotný supporters and more moderate members of the party leadership,[6] a division that would contribute to Novotný's eventual fall.

Vaculík was among the most progressive members of the Communist Party and thereby more radical than Alexander Dubček, who had become Party leader in January 1968. Hence, Vaculík and others generally felt that the reforms of the April Action Programme were the minimum necessary and that they should be quickly and firmly enforced.[7] In hopes of influencing voters in upcoming party congress elections, Vaculík released the manifesto "Two Thousand Words to Workers, Farmers, Scientists, Artists, and Everyone" in several major Prague newspapers, complete with signatures of other public figures. The date was 27 June 1968, the day after preliminary censorship was abolished by the national assembly.

In the "Two Thousand Words," Vaculík asked that the public "demand the resignation of people who have misused their power" by criticism, demonstrations, and strikes.[8] He also expressed concern over the "recent apprehension" regarding the reforms due to "the possibility that foreign forces"—those of the Warsaw Treaty Organization—"may intervene in Czechoslovakia's internal development."[9] If this were to happen, Vaculík argued:

…the only thing we can do is to hold our own and not indulge in any provocation. We can assure our government—with weapons if need be—as long as it does what we give it a mandate to do.[9]

After Gustáv Husák came to power in 1969 and censorship increased, Vaculík (now no longer a party member) was part of the circle of dissident writers in Czechoslovakia. In 1973, he started Edice Petlice (Edition Padlock), a samizdat series that he ran until 1979. Others followed with their own series, despite harassment from the party's secret police.[14] Some samizdat authors, including Vaculík, were also published in the west.[15]

The core of the samizdat authors eventually developed and signed the foundation document of Charter 77;[16] Vaculík attended the second of the planning meetings in December 1976.[17] On 6 January 1977, Vaculík, along with Havel and Pavel Landovský, an actor, attempted to take a copy of the charter to the post office to mail to the Czechoslovak government. Their car was pulled over by the Party secret police, and all three were taken in for interrogation. Other signatories were subsequently subjected to interrogations and searches of their homes, as well.[18]

In late 1978, however, Vaculík published the article "Remarks on Courage", a piece that helped set the tone for criticism of charterists.[19] Of the original signatories, most were from the intelligentsia in Prague and Brno,[20] and Vaculík and others warned against them becoming so isolated that average citizens could no longer relate to Charter 77. His criticism worked against a mythologisation of the Charter and ensured a continued discussion of its position and role.[19]

Vaculík continued to write; the official ban on his works was lifted in late 1989. He had a weekly column in Lidové noviny that featured feuilletons addressing various Czech political and cultural issues, just as much of his underground work during Communism had.[21]

Vaculík died of natural causes at the age of 88 on 6 June 2015 in Dobřichovice, where he lived by his son.[22][23]

• The Axe (1966)[24]
• The Guinea Pigs (1970)[25]
• Český snář (The Czech Dreambook) (1980)[26]
• A Cup of Coffee with My Interrogator: The Prague Chronicles of Ludvík Vaculík (1987)[27]
• Vaculík, Ludvík. "Two Thousand Words to Workers, Farmers, Scientists, Artists, and Everyone." In From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945, edited by Gale Stokes, 126-30. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• — (January 2018). Translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker. "On a plane". Harper's Magazine. 336 (2012): 68–69.[28]

• Charter 77
• Libri Prohibiti
• Normalization (Czechoslovakia)
• Prague Spring
• Samizdat

• Crampton, R. J. Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century—and After. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1997.
• Hájek, Igor. "Traditions of Czech Literature: Curses and Blessings." In Czechoslovakia 1918–88: Seventy Years of Independence, edited by H. Gordon Skilling, 177–95. Oxford: Macmillan, 1991.
• Havel, Václav. Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala. Translated by Paul Wilson. New York: Knopf, 1990.
• Levy, Alan. So Many Heroes. Sagaponack, NY: Second Chance Press, 1980.
• Mastalir, Linda. Ludvík Vaculík: a Czechoslovak man of letters. 25 July 2006. Radio Praha. 26 April 2007. Radio.cz
• Renner, Hans. A History of Czechoslovakia since 1945. Translated by Evelien Hurst-Buist. New York: Routledge, 1989.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ludvík Vaculík.

• Ludvík Vaculík at IMDb
• Website about Vaculík and his work (in Czech)
• How to Make a Boy – an example
• Our Success Story columne, October 2008
• Ludvík Vaculík at Czechoslovak book network Baila.net