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Defending the Dissidents in Paris, Munich, and New York: Ceremony in Bohemia and the 1979 Show Trial of Charter 77
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2013
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In late 1982, a documentary drama entitled Ceremony in Bohemia was produced Off-Off Broadway at the Greenwich House Theatre in New York. The play offered U.S. audiences a glimpse behind the closed doors of a tiny courtroom on Spálená Street in Prague in Czechoslovakia. The production presented an account of the recent trial of six Czechoslovak activists who had been found guilty of “subversion of the Republic” and been sentenced, collectively, to nineteen-and-a-half years in top-level prisons. Their only crime was that they had protested unjust trials like their own. The press and all foreigners were barred from the trial. Only a few witnesses were allowed inside the courtroom to observe the trial, which lasted only two days.
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Endnotes
1. Czechoslovak National Council of America, “Czechoslovakia since Belgrade: Compliance with the Provisions of the Helsinki Final Act,” 17 April 1980, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB213/usdocs/USDoc10.pdf, accessed 3 May 2012. This briefing, which the CNCA prepared for the CIA, has been subsequently declassified.
2. Paget, Derek, “Documentary Drama,” in The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, ed. Cody, Gabrielle H. and Sprinchorn, Evert (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 352–3, at 352Google Scholar.
3. The phrase “creative treatment of actuality” is John Grierson's; quoted in Dawson, Gary Fisher, Documentary Theatre in the United States: An Historical Survey and Analysis of Its Content, Form, and Stagecraft (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 5Google Scholar. As Dawson explains, “The word documentary first entered the lexicon in February 1926 in a review written by the founder of the British film documentary movement, John Grierson, in the New York Sun about Robert Flaherty's documentary film Moana” (4).
4. Ibid., 6, Dawson quoting Sauerberg, Lars Ole, Facts Into Fiction: Documentary Realism in the Contemporary Novel (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5. Jiří Fisher, interview with the author, 27 April 2009. This was a telephone interview. Fisher recorded the interview at his offices at Voice of America and sent me a cassette tape of the interview. No transcript of this interview is currently available outside of my own collection. However, copies of both Hooker's letter and an excerpted transcript of our telephone interview are now housed among Gruntorád's collection of materials on the VONS trial dramatizations at the Libri Prohibiti in Prague.
6. Paget, 352.
7. Herbert Mitgang, “Prague's System,” New York Times, 24 November 1982, C20.
8. Esther Nordin, “A Question of Authorship,” Other Stages, 2 December 1982, 4.
9. Terry Helbing, “Czech Courtroom Drama Doesn't Make Us Care,” The Villager, 4 November 1982.
10. The signing of the Helsinki Accords, also known as the Helsinki Declaration or the Helsinki Final Act, was the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, which took place in Helsinki, Finland, in August 1975. Thirty-five states signed the agreement, which was designed to improve relations between the Soviet Union and the West. It addressed topics such as security, national borders, economic cooperation, and the protection of human rights. Because the document was a declaration and not a treaty, however, it was not binding. As a political strategy, Charter 77 loudly protested Czechoslovakia's violations of the Helsinki Accords, but the international community was largely powerless to enforce its provisions.
11. The Czech verb stíhat, from which the adjective stíhaný is formed, means “to prosecute” as well as “to persecute” or “to hunt.” Both “prosecuted” and “persecuted” are considered acceptable translations of the VONS acronym; I have opted to use the former for its applicability to the judicial system.
12. Henry Popkin, “Germany 1: Simone Signoret Goes to Trial,” Sunday Times (London), 17 February 1980.
13. Czechoslovak National Council of America, 1.
14. Skilling, Gordon, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981), 145Google Scholar.
15. Ibid., 147.
16. Ibid.
17. Czechoslovak National Council of America, 5.
18. Popkin.
19. Czechoslovak National Council of America, 2.
20. “Einspruch gegen das Unrecht” (“Appeal against Injustice”) Süddeutsche Zeitung, 13 February 1980, 47. The trial of Rudolf Slánský in 1952 is the most famous of the postwar Stalinist show trials in Czechoslovakia. Comparisons between the Slánský trial and the VONS trial were common; both trials included similar abuses of the justice system and both were meant to intimidate a populace into submission.
21. Czechoslovak National Council of America, 2.
22. Ibid.
23. Popkin.
24. Helbing.
25. Thomas Thieringer, “Die Szene wird zum Tribunal,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11 February 1980, 18. (The translation into English is the author's own.)
26. Skilling, 146.
27. Ibid., 150. Listy (which means “Lists”) was the newspaper of the Czech socialist opposition.
28. Jan Palach was a student at Charles University in Prague who committed suicide by self-immolation in Wenceslas Square on 16 January 1969. He was twenty-one years old. His suicide was intended as a protest against the demoralization of the Czech people, whom he felt had acquiesced too readily to Soviet occupation after the August 1968 invasion of Prague. Palach became a martyr of the cause of Czech resistance. On 25 February 1969, another student, Jan Zajíc, also self-immolated. Today, a memorial to Palach and Zajíc in Wenceslas Square marks the location of their sacrifice.
29. Jan Kavan, e-mail to the author, 2 May 2009.
30. Prisons in Czechoslovakia are identified by level of severity. “Category I is the most lenient. Category II, which is more restrictive, is mostly for recidivists; Category III, the harshest, is for dangerous recidivists and perpetrators of very serious crimes, and is often used to confine political offenders. Category III prisoners have sharply reduced visiting, mail and other privileges, and very arduous work schedules.” Schwartz, Herman and Schwartz, Mary C., Prison Conditions in Czechoslovakia (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1989), 3Google Scholar.
31. Another Czechoslovakian prison labor camp, Minkovice in Liberec, was a major source of the famed Czech glass throughout the Soviet era. The free labor state prisoners provided was the secret to the low cost of these products.
32. Schwartz and Schwartz, 1.
33. For illness created by conditions in Czechoslovakian prisons, see Schwartz and Schwartz, 21–2.
34. Popkin.
35. This was not a repeat performance of the production at La Cartoucherie, as Carol Rocamora has stated in Acts of Courage: Václav Havel's Life in the Theater (Hanover, NY: Smith & Kraus, 2005), 201Google Scholar.
36. Popkin.
37. Thieringer.
38. “Einspruch gegen das Unrecht.” My account of the event draws from this report in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The original text is as follows (translation mine): “Um auch der tschechischen Bevölkerung deutlich zu machen, daß Kenntnis genommen wird von dem Unrecht, das da geschah, beschlossen Mnouchkine und Chéreau dieses mit ‘Der Prager Prozeß 79’ betitelte Tribunal in München zu wiederholen und es mit Hilfe des Fernsehens über die Grenzen hinaus bekannt zu machen” (In order to make it clear to the Czech people that the world knew the wrongs committed against them, Mnouchkine and Chéreau decided to repeat the Procès de Prague and to broadcast it across German borders as a television program, titled Tribunal in Munich).
39. “Pražský process na evropských scénách” (Prague Trial in European Screenplays), Listy, April 1980. Thanks to Czech scholar, archivist, and former dissident Jiří Gruntorád for providing this document.
40. Popkin.
41. The BBC had a long-standing tradition of airing a serious drama of about 90 minutes on Monday evenings. Gross, Robert, ed., Christopher Hampton: A Casebook (New York: Garland, 1990), xviiGoogle Scholar.
42. These details are drawn from the program provided by the Theater aan der Haven, “New Comedy Plays Proces in Praag and Vaclav Havel's Protest,” a digital copy of which was given to me by Jiří Gruntorád from his private collection at the Libri Prohibiti, a library of samizdat publications in Prague that Gruntorád maintains and runs.
43. Rea Hooker, telephone interview with the author, 14 May 2010. “I represented her not as her husband, but as an artist[s'] representative,” Hooker said. “I mean, I can't go over and say, ‘I'd like you to hire my wife, she's the best singer in the world!’ Everybody's wife is the best singer in the world.”
44. Ibid. Galili and his associates were all members of British Actor's Equity.
45. Rea Hooker, letter to the author, 7 June 2010, 1.
46. Hooker telephone interview. Hooker reiterated this figure (“about 20,000 pounds”) in his 7 June 2010 letter to me.
47. The British group debated whether it would be safer to smuggle the funds “by means of a bank transfer or to bring the [British sterling] pound notes in cash into Czech[oslovakia]. and deliver them to an appointed person, or bring in the notes and change them on the black market and give the koronas [sic] to an appointed receiver.” Hooker letter to author, 7 June 2010.
48. Ibid.
49. Chramostová's underground theatre, the bytového divadla, is known among English speakers as both the Living Room Theatre and the Apartment Theatre. The former is the more common translation, but the latter is more correct. English playwright Tom Stoppard has cited Kohout's Play Makbeth as the inspiration for his Cohoot's Macbeth.
50. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 1.
51. The famous Czech actress was a regular target of the regime. She had been blacklisted for her outspoken public opposition to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies.
52. Hooker telephone interview, 14 May 2010.
53. According to page 5 of “Czechoslovakia since Belgrade,” Danisz was among the unfortunate group of defense lawyers “appointed by the state to ‘defend’ political opponents of the government, who had charges brought against them for defending their clients too vigorously.” On 24 January 1980, Danisz was sentenced to ten months in prison for “insulting the judge” during his defense on behalf of Dr. Jaroslav Šabata (Petr Uhl's father-in-law) and Jiří Chmel. What Hooker did not know was that Danisz, who officially joined VONS on 5 February 1980, was also a counterintelligence agent (code names “Lenka” and “Anna”) who was working for the state security forces.
54. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 2. Hooker may have meant the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.
55. Hooker telephone interview, 14 May 2010. It is unclear to whom Danisz's letter was directed. He may have written to John Platt-Mills, the vice-chair of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, who had attempted to observe the VONS trial in 1979. Another possible recipient is the Paris Bar Association, which had sent two representatives to observe Danisz's trial. The French attorneys were not admitted, and Czech authorities ignored their letter of protest.
56. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 2.
57. In his 7 June 2010 letter, Hooker said that he was no longer certain where he had acquired the Palach Press's transcript of the trial. However, Palach Press founder and editor in chief Jan Kavan wrote to Hooker, “We were very pleased t[o] learn that you have now been able to use the transcript we sent you and that it s[h]ould be presented later this year,” which suggests that Hooker had acquired the transcript of the trial from Kavan's press. Jan Kavan to Rea Hooker, 22 August 1981, copy in author's possession.
58. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 2.
59. Hooker telephone interview, 14 May 2010.
60. A photo of the Dutch production from the Libri Prohibiti reveals that photographs of the six dissidents with captions identifying each by name were also projected on the back wall of the theatre during Proces in Praag.
61. Jan Kavan to Rea Hooker, 8 October 1981, copy in author's possession.
62. Pabel had been sent to Davle by the German magazine Der Stern (The Star) to report on the U.S. movie The Bridge at Remagen, which was being filmed there.
63. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 3.
64. Jiří Fisher, e-mail to the author, 24 April 2009.
65. The Státní bezpečnost (State Security) was the plainclothes secret police force of Communist Czechoslovakia.
66. As Jiřina Šiklová explains, “The so-called ‘candidates for collaboration’ were usually those who had been brought in for a ‘talk.’ Usually they were singled out for having had some contact with the West—they had relatives abroad or even sought permission to visit their relatives there. Finally, they were asked directly to collaborate with the secret police. These ‘talks’ often sufficed to list a person as a potential confidant.” Šiklová, Jiřina, “Lustration or the Czech Way of Screening,” in The Rule of Law after Communism: Problems and Prospects in East-Central Europe, ed. Krygier, Martin and Czarnota, Adam W. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 248–58, at 249Google Scholar.
67. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 3.
68. “I fully understand why you don't want to have your name on any mailing list, though I think that as our own list is only ever seen by me and one of my close colleagues that it would not present you with any danger.” Kavan to Hooker, 8 October 1981.
69. Hooker letter, 7 June 2010, 3.
70. Hooker's shorthand indicates that Kašpar had managed to successfully toe the party line through four regimes in Czechoslovakia, beginning with the administration of Klement Gottwald, the prime minister of Czechoslovakia who became the first president of the Czechoslovakian soviet after the Communist coup in 1948.
71. Hooker, “Ceremony in Bohemia,” typescript, 12. In author's possession. Subsequent page citations of this typescript will appear parenthetically in the text.
72. However Kašpar did accept a “letter of introduction” from a Polish citizen named “Mrs. Jaworska” as evidence. None of the defendants had ever heard of the woman. The ostensibly phony letter seemed to have been planted by police among the evidence gathered from a search of Benda's house.
73. Kašpar did accept testimony from another member of VONS who was under indictment, actor Albert Černý. The key difference between the cases of Černý and Lis was that Černý had cooperated with the investigation conducted by the state and appeared as a witness for the prosecution. Lis had refused to cooperate and was called as a witness for the defense.
74. In his review, Mitgang singled out Ludmila Shikhverg and Jiří and Zdenka Fisher for particular praise, although he wrote that the entire play was “generally well-acted.” Similarly, in her review for Other Stages, Esther Nordin opined that Shikhverg's performance as the beleaguered Bednářová generated the most empathy from the audience. Mitgang; Nordin.
75. Although Ceremony in Bohemia failed to rally additional support for the cause of imprisoned Czechs in 1982, many Americans, including prominent U.S. cultural figures, had been protesting the trial and petitioning for the release of the dissidents since 1979. For example, on 24 October 1979, playwright Arthur Miller, novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., theatre producer Joseph Papp, and two émigré writers, Jerzy Kosinski and E. L. Doctorow, joined Robert L. Bernstein, chair of the Helsinki Watch Committee, in a demonstration in front of Czechoslovakia's mission to the United Nations to protest the trial. See “Marchers Protest in New York,” New York Times, 25 October 1979, A3. On 6 December 1979, the New York Times Review of Books published a letter from the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee and the PEN American Center protesting the trial. Its signatories included Miller, Vonnegut, Papp, Kosinski, Doctorow, Bernstein, and other prominent U.S. intellectuals, including Susan Sontag, Toni Morrison, Robert Penn Warren, Philip Roth, Diana Trilling, Allen Ginsberg, Joseph Chaikin, Eric Bentley, and Edward Albee. See “Free the Czechs,” New York Times Review of Books, 6 December 1979.
76. Paget, Derek, True Stories? Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 3Google Scholar.
77. Fisher interview, 27 April 2009.
78. Hooker telephone interview, 14 May 2010.
79. Martin, Carol, “Bodies of Evidence,” TDR 50.3 (2006): 8–5, at 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
80. In his 14 May 2010, telephone interview, Hooker said that Hunt had been deeply disappointed that Ceremony in Bohemia was not able to generate the same conversations about the violations of the Helsinki Final Act that the European productions had, and had always wished that she and Hooker had been able to do more for the imprisoned dissidents. Alexandra Hunt died in 2006.