Czech History Wars
The ‘Milan Kundera affair’, in which the eponymous Czech novelist was recently accused of denouncing a ‘spy’ to the security services in 1950, illustrates how the Communist past has become a battlefield for Czech historians of different generations, writes Aviezer Tucker.
The publication at the end of last year of details from a document alleging that Milan Kundera was an informer made headlines around the world. A young historian, Adam Hradilek, discovered a report of 1950 that alleges that Kundera, the author of international bestsellers such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1982), informed the police of the whereabouts of Miroslav Dvorácek, a Czech courier working for American counterintelligence. Consequently, Dvorácek, was arrested, tortured and spent 14 years in labour camps and prisons. According to the police report, Dvorácek’s friend, who sheltered him in her room, told her boyfriend who then told the 21-year-old Kundera.
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