Milada Horáková, a member of a Czech resistance movement, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1940 and imprisoned until the U.S. Army liberated her in May of 1945. Elected as a member of the Czechoslovak postwar parliament, she resigned after the communist coup in 1948. She remained politically active with groups opposed to the communist regime and was arrested again, this time by the communists, on September 27, 1949. After a televised show trial (she was tried with 12 others), she was executed on June 27, 1950.
Translations of Horáková's poignant final letters to her mother-in-law, husband, and daughter are available
here. A brief excerpt from her show trial, with english subtitles that can be turned on, is available
here. The prosecutor's closing argument is
here. Pages from an english-language comic book released in 1950 in the United States about Horáková can be seen
here.
In addition to being an opponent of both the Nazi and Communist regimes, Horáková was a feminist involved in the Czechoslovakian and International womens' movement. Biographical information is available
here and
here.
posted by Area Man
on May 17, 2013 -
9 comments
Still Life with Animated Dogs is a witty and candid cartoon by Paul Fierlinger, animator of Sesame Street's
Teeny Little Super Guy, recounting his life from being a dissident artist in 1960s Czechoslovakia to being a successful animator in the US. He tells his lifestory by talking about the dogs he's owned over the years, Roosevelt, Ike, Johnson and Spinnaker. Warning: Something may get stuck in your eye.
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 27, 2010 -
8 comments
80s supermodel
Paulina Porizkova (images may be NSFW) on
aging:
Beauty, unlike the rest of the gifts handed out at birth, does not require dedication, patience and hard work to pay off. But it's also the only gift that does NOT keep on giving. It usually blossoms at an age where you're least equipped to handle its benefits and rewards and instead take it all for granted, and by the time you start understanding the value of it, it slowly trickles away. How's that for revenge of the ugly ones? (related)
posted by Joe Beese
on Oct 21, 2010 -
121 comments
The puppets Pat and Mat are beloved everywhere their Rube Goldbergian antics have been shown on TV. A couple of inventive handymen they consistently solve simple problems in outlandish fashion. Pat and Mat traveled far afield from their Czechoslovakian origins thanks to their short running time and silence, which made translation unnecessary. Considered ideologically impure by Czech authorities, creators Lubomír Beneš and Vladimír Jiránek were allowed to make around 30 episodes by the Slovakian arm of the state television corporation. They continued making new episodes after Communist rule ended and production was kept going after they passed away. First, let me present my sentimental favorite,
Wallpaper. Below the cut are all the episodes I could find online.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 7, 2009 -
27 comments
"Two hundred and fifty men were taken one day, another 250 the next, and a layer of earth was thrown in between," a policeman told a parliamentary inquiry in 1947. "They weren't all executed in a single night, but rather in stages." Often enough the condemned men were given a pick and shovel, and made to dig their own graves.
The perpetrators didn't have many scruples. After all, they were sure they had high-level military backing...."The general told us, 'The fewer of them that remain, the fewer enemies we'll have.'"
Czech Town Divided over How to Commemorate 1945 Massacre [more inside]
posted by orthogonality
on Sep 6, 2009 -
33 comments
Music in Czech lands in the 20th was tumultuous, to say the least. The artistic freedom of the early 20th century shifted during World War I under Nazi occupation, flourishing again after the war. With the rise of the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, arts were "
destined to play a great role in the socialist education of the masses," which meant artists were to portray "life as it should be according to Marxist theory." Some bands shifted to more politically acceptable performances, while others went underground. The
Velvet Revolution lifted limitations, and artists who had performed illegal shows in private now shared their underground sounds and sights with the world. The
Plastic People of the Universe (who some
credit with bringing the Revolution) could be considered to embody the Communist repression of the 1970s and 1980s in their gloomy, despair-driven music, with
Už Jsme Doma showing a different side of Czech music,
representing the exuberance of liberation.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 4, 2009 -
17 comments
The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia. Posters, pamphlets, social protest material. 'In the morning hours of August 21, 1968, the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia along with troops from four other Warsaw Pact countries. The occupation was the beginning of the end for the Czechoslovak reform movement known as the Prague Spring. This web site contains material from the days immediately following the invasion, and they reflect the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia at the time: tense, chaotic, uncertain, full of pathos, fear, and expectation... '
Related :-
the Berlin Wall and
East Side Gallery;
A Concrete Curtain: The Life and Death of the Berlin Wall;
Szoborpark in Budapest, with its gigantic Cold War-era statues.
posted by plep
on Aug 12, 2003 -
6 comments
Kashmir...Palestine...
Sudetenland?? If you've been suspecting that old territorial squabbles never go away, you're probably right.
posted by gimonca
on Jun 9, 2002 -
4 comments
"You must be the author of your own life." Milan Hlavsa has passed. I never listened to their (Czecheslovakia's Plastic People of the Universe) music, but I found their strength, authenticity and persistence in the face of oppression inspiring. I found this link on Google, looking for an alternative to the NYT
link in
Daily Media News (scroll down). It seems a fitting obit. R.I.P. Milan.
posted by aflakete
on Jan 13, 2001 -
0 comments
