Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Is Kundera a Communist snitch?

While conducting additional research on Milan Kundera, I discovered some startling allegations made by Respekt, a Czech newspaper. According to the New York Times in 2008, Milan exposed Western intelligence agent, Dvoracek, to Czech Communist police when he was twenty-one years old. Not only does this accusation reopen previous Czech history, but also hinders Milan's reputation as a writer. Milan, like Alex explained, fled his native country to become a French citizen in 1975. Many Czech citizens have refused to forgive him for exiling his home country. Hearing that Milan potentially aided the Communist Party simply adds salt to a wound that Milan previously created for himself in the hearts of the Czech. Kundera outrightly condemns totalitarianism, so why did he reveal this Western agent to the Czech Communist police?

Kundera, naturally, denies such accusations and proclaims the story an "assassination" against himself. Many support Kundera, scolding the Respekt for creating public uneasiness about investigating past Communist issues. Others agree that other authors are simply jealous, and refuse to accept Kundera as simply an informer. Vojtech Ripka, head of New York University's documentation department in Prague, claims that Kundera's documents were found purely by accident when investigating agents of the 1950s. The case gets even deeper when friend of Kundera, Dlask, is revealed to have supposedly reported Dvoracek to police as well. Who's the real culprit? Who caused Dvoracek to spend twenty-two years in prison and fourteen years in uranium mines? Hey Kundera, perhaps stay incognito for the unbearable time being...

Link- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/world/europe/18kundera.html?_r=0

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