COURAGE

povezivanje zbirki

This letter was the second letter by the Czechoslovak historian and dissident Milan Hübl addressed to Gustav Husák, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; the first letter from February 1970 remained unanswered by Husák. Hübl could not comprehend how Husák, who had been a political prisoner in the 1950s and lived through the suffering of a communist prison himself, could restore the authoritarian regime after the repression of the Prague Spring in 1968 and persecute his opponents. In his letter, Hübl defends the former representatives of the reform movement who were stripped of their jobs for political reasons, and denounces the violation of human and civil rights in the country. “Where are the people,” he writes at the end of the letter, “who falsely charged you, interrogated you, judged you, imprisoned you and later tried to prevent your rehabilitation? You know better than anybody else which functions they hold now when you have to meet them, or the functions which you have to appoint them. You are in the snake-like grip of your former jailers.” This letter was one of the factors that resulted in Hübl’s imprisonment in 1972. Gustav Husák’s reply from 25 October 1970 is also part of the Milan Hübl collection in the National Archive.

Published on 30 March 1982 by the French daily Le Matin, the article entitled “Le témoignage d’un Tzigane” (The testimony of a Gypsy) was written under the pseudonym “Alexandru Danciu” by Nicolae Gheorghe. A few days later the article was read during one of the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and it was republished in an issue of L’Alternative magazine the same year. The article was a reply to a contribution of the French journalist, Bernard Poulet, who was attacked and badly beaten when he tried to contact the Romanian dissident Vasile Paraschiv. The official explanation that Poulet got from the authorities was that he had been attack by a group of “Gypsies.” Using as a pretext the false conclusion of the investigation, “Alexandru Danciu” denounced “the methods of the Romanian Securitate to silence political dissidents,” and also “a multilaterally developed prejudice (...) racism against Gypsies.” The latter was used “more and more often by Romanian officials to explain many of the negative developments in the country,” such as the lowering of incomes, the increase in common law offences, and violence against foreigners. In what follows, “Alexandru Danciu” lists the violent methods used by the Militia against the Roma: beatings for “quicker civilising,” home searches and abusive arrests, forced labour on various construction sites, including the Danube–Black Sea Canal, or in agriculture during the summer. After stating that discrimination was part of the daily life of Roma people, Nicolae Gheorghe denounced the refusal of the Romanian communist regime to deal with their serious social problems and to recognise them as national minority. For the authorities, the integration of Roma people into Romanian society was not a viable solution since they saw them “only as a residue of the past, which must disappear through assimilation into the multilaterally developed society.” Most likely Nicolae Gheorghe’s article reached the West with the help of one of his many academic contacts before the Securitate opened an informative surveillance file on him. Its reading at the microphone of Radio Free Europe led to the intensification of the Securitate’s surveillance of Nicolae Gheorghe.

S poznatim hrvatskim filozofom Milanom Kangrgom i drugim intelektualcima, Rudi Supek osnovao je filozofsku školu koja je održavana ljeti na Korčuli od 1963. do 1974. godine. Okupljala je, osim domaćih, i filozofe i sociologe iz cijelog svijeta (primjerice, Erich Fromm, Lucien Goldmann, Henri Lefebvre). Izvorno zamišljena kao akademska poduka, Škola je ubrzo postala međunarodni događaj, okupljajući europska i svjetska imena, pri čemu je u prvi plan stavljena slobodna kritička rasprava, svake godine na različitu temu. Međutim, nakon izvjesnog vremena vladajuće državno-partijske strukture okrenule su se protiv škole i intelektualaca koji su nazivani „praksisovcima“ (Lešaja 2014, 246).
Kao primjer režimskih napada na Korčulansku ljetnu školu može poslužiti pisanje službenog partijskog glasila Komunist koji je 1973. djelatnost Škole okarakterizirao kao „političko opoziciono“ i „vanpartijsku poziciju filozofije“, aludirajući na otvoren karakter Škole i pozivanje sudionika iz inozemstva. Supek je na to reagirao u pismu upućenom odgovornom uredniku lista Komunist Milanu Rakasu u kojem je među ostalim istaknuo: „Razumije se da otvorenost jedne ustanove znači ujedno i spremnost da se diskutira s ljudima koji imaju različita, pa i suprotna mišljenja. Već i zbog toga što ne može biti „borbe mišljenja“ među discipliniranim istomišljenicima… Priznajem da je začudio u vašem listu napad na „otvoreni marksizam“ i „stvaralački marksizam“, jer sam do danas živio u uvjerenju da on leži u programu SKJ i duhu samoupravljanja.“ Također je istaknuo da otvorenost škole ne znači neki „lijevi liberalizam“, što dokazuje i činjenica da su organizatori tražili da republičke ideološke komisije Saveza komunista Jugoslavije (SKJ) pošalju svoje predstavnike koji bi na Školi formulirali stav SKJ, no oni se nisu odazvali tom pozivu.

Dated on 15 October 1971, the letter was signed by three members of The Club of the Free Kings. The club was in fact a group of teenagers, fourteen to sixteen years old, who gathered occasionally in order to listen to foreign music. In order to distinguish themselves from their peers, each member of the group took an English nickname and decided to wear a yellow T-shirt with the group’s initials and a flower imprinted on it. They also made badges for themselves with the name of the club, their nicknames, and the word “hippy,” as they wanted to be identified as a hippy group. Because their favourite music programme at RFE was Cornel Chiriac’s programme Metronom, they decided to write him a letter on behalf of the group. In their message, these young people described the impact of Theses of July 1971, which imposed an embargo on foreign cultural products of all kinds: “After the famous date of 7 July 1971 [actually, Ceaușescu delivered his speech on 6 July], a date that will remain forever inscribed in the calendar as a day of mourning, the lives of young people in Romania worsened even more: gone were the beards and the long hair, gone was pop, beat or progressive music. Everything was gone!” (ACNSAS, Informative Fonds, file 3032 vol. 1, f.21). Their letter represented a quite radical criticism of the cultural policies of Ceaușescu’s regime and the economic difficulties the Romanians had to face in their daily life. Moreover, they considered Cornel Chiriac’s show Metronom to be an escape from the grim reality of their lives and a window to “a freer, more beautiful life, a life you would like to live.” In the final part of the letter, the signatories asked Cornel Chiriac to broadcast their favourite songs. Unfortunately for them, the Romanian secret police, the Securitate, intercepted the letter and subjected its authors to an investigation. In the end, the members of The Club of the Free Kings received a warning from the Securitate and had to sign a declaration in which they recognised their guilt and pledged not to get involved in similar activities in the future.