Yevtushenko arrived with his typical self-confidence and enthusiastically described the changes occurring in his country. He also recited his poem “Russian Tanks in Prague,” which he had written, he said, two days after the Soviet invasion of Prague and sent it to the misguided rulers of his country. For its time, the poem was quite courageous. The first verses read:
Tanks are rolling across Prague
in the sunset blood of dawn.
Tanks are rolling across truth,
not a newspaper named Pravda
Tanks are rolling across the temptation
to live free from the power of clichés.
Tanks are rolling across the soldiers
who sit inside those tanks.
The conclusion was very personal and, as was fitting for Yevtushenko, even affected:
Before I bite the dust,
no matter what they call me,
I turn to my descendants
with only one request:
Above me without sobbing
let them write, in truth:
“A Russian writer crushed
by Russian tanks in Prague.”
Then the Russian poet proclaimed that he had always believed in the ideals of the Prague Spring. Now he believed we would return to them.
To this, my colleague Hanzelka replied that it wouldn’t be so easy, and then he availed himself of the following image: A criminal breaks into a house, ties up and gags the owner, places a guard on him, and leaves. After twenty years, the criminal’s son remembers the victim; he even feels somewhat sorry for him and tells him, Father overdid it a little; now you can do what you want. But the victim is still gagged and bound. The guard hasn’t even been called off. Even if he managed to free himself, could anyone expect that twenty years in fetters hasn’t changed him?
Yevtushenko suggested that Hanzelka write a description of our situation, and he would make sure Gorbachev himself got it, or at least his trusted associate and adviser, Alexander Yakovlev.
But Hanzelka had already sent too many letters with no results.
*
A few days later, we convened another interesting meeting. Along with my usual friends, I invited members of the underground who, just like me, were prohibited and illegally published the typewritten journals Vokno and Revolver Revue as well as a typewritten series called Popelnice. I had assumed that although we had different literary convictions, we all wanted everyone to be able to publish freely. But our guests accused us of remaining official authors — more precisely, officially prohibited authors — and now we were attempting to reestablish our bygone prestige. Most of us unjustly considered ourselves creators of underground literature, but we were nevertheless publishing abroad and giving interviews to foreign journals. Unlike us, they had always remained secluded, off to the side because they were interested in authentic art, not some kind of consumer production that was forbidden only because of some official idiocy. We tried to explain that we too were trying to create authentic literature. But we couldn’t come to an agreement. Who can judge what is authentic?
At another meeting, this time without our critics from the underground, we agreed that we should establish an independent writers’ organization with a mission to stand up for freedom of creativity for every author, however he was characterized. But such an organization would have no hope of being recognized and permitted by the authorities. It would just bring further interrogations and, most likely, renewed assaults. It occurred to me that the PEN Club was still alive (and some of us were still members). The authorities hadn’t banned the organization because it was an international group with its seat in London, where their authority did not reach. They did, however, try to hobble its activities (which, among other things, included defending freedom of expression and creativity), and in the early seventies the Prague office was designated a sleeper office. What if we attempted to resuscitate it now?
My friends liked the idea and, as usual, I was punished for it by having to put it into action.
I decided to get thirty signatures from Czech writers, which would revive the Czech office of the PEN Club. My thinking was that these thirty signatures would represent all of Czech literature.
At the time, writers could be divided roughly into three groups based on their relationship with the authorities, not on their artistic convictions. First were the writers who were most acceptable to the government, members of the official Writers’ Union. The second group, referred to as the “gray zone,” comprised authors (usually younger) who, although they were permitted to publish, were not members of the Writers’ Union and often had difficulties with the censors. Finally there were the prohibited authors. I asked those who kept away from political activities to sign the request to renew the PEN Club in the name of all banned writers. Then I turned to several of my colleagues in the “gray zone.” Some were excited about our project.
Then I visited Mrs. Marta Kadlečíková, who for twenty years had remained the secretary of our sleeper office. She was still receiving documents from London, which were sent to all active or sleeper offices. I asked her in the name of thirty petitioners to inform London that we were renewing our activity.
Receiving recognition from London was easy; we expected more trouble from our authorities. Marta and I sent to the Ministry of Culture our notification that we were reestablishing the activities of the PEN Club, and, without waiting for an answer, we assembled the standing members of the committee from 1968 (I had been one of them) and immediately co-opted several more members, among them Václav Havel. We immediately planned our first meeting for the end of the summer.
To my surprise, the response from the Ministry of Culture was not wholly negative. They were willing to meet with the members of the original committee and listen to our plans.
We were received by a deputy who told us that, in principle, they would have no objections to the club’s activities as long as the PEN Club held to its statutes and did not pursue political activity. The statutes, which had been ratified sometime in the 1960s (and which the assiduous ministers had dug up), included a communal dinner associated with the meeting, to take place once a year and always during the first quarter. Our ministry bureaucrat informed us that we could not have our meeting as late as August as we had planned.
I protested that not a single anniversary meeting had taken place over the last twelve years, and it would be ridiculous to wait another six months, especially when, on the matter of freedom of expression, there was something to talk about.
But the state official insisted that we hold to our own statutes.
Even before we left, we had agreed to organize the meeting, whether the ministry approved it or not. Ultimately we were an international club, and we had informed the ministry only out of goodwill.
*
We succeeded in putting together a list of potential members, but our provisional committee had decided on too large a number for our regular meeting space — and we wanted to invite all of them. My colleague and translator, Jaroslav Kořán, suggested that we have it in the Chodov Citadel, where the curator was willing to accept the risks associated with an unlawful meeting of a lawful or, more precisely, not prohibited organization.