Milan Kundera 1948 – Al Ittihad Newspaper

2023-07-19 19:44:07

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The Czech writer “Milan Kundera” did not receive the Nobel Prize, but his fame exceeded a large number of its laureates. The writer, who lived (94) years and passed away in the summer of 2023, his works have been translated into more than fifty languages, and his novel “An Unbearable Lightness of Being” became famous among millions of readers around the world.

Kundera’s personal history is almost the political history of his country and his era.. It is interesting that the number (8) represents a great presence in the major moments of transformation of his homeland. In 1918, the First World War ended, and the three defeated empires disintegrated: the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, and the German. And since the Czechs and Slovaks had been subject to the Austro-Hungarian Empire for 300 years, they found an opportunity for independence and union, and Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918.

The second stop was in 1938, as it was among the nationalities and territories in the German national state of Czechoslovakia in the Sudetenland, and Hitler insisted on cutting them off from Czechoslovakia and annexing them to Germany, which actually happened in 1938 under the Munich Agreement. The third stop was in 1948, after the annexation of the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia was subject to Nazi Germany, until the Soviets liberated it in 1945.

And as soon as the state began to breathe a sigh of relief, the communist coup took place in 1948. The state became Marxist according to the coup, and it remained so for more than (40) years until the outbreak of the “Velvet Revolution” led by the great writer Vaclav Havel in 1989, and in 1993 Czechia and Slovakia separated amicably. The fourth stop was in 1968, when large sectors of the people and intellectual circles tried to overthrow the communist rule, but the Soviet Union stopped these demonstrations with tanks, which entered history under the title “Prague Spring.”

Milan Kundera was born in 1929, to witness in his childhood the Nazi takeover of his country, then in his early youth the communist coup, and his country’s conversion to Marxism. Milan Kundera embraced Marxism, and was very happy with the 1948 coup, but he soon discovered that all promises were nothing but slogans, and all political speeches were nothing but anesthesia for the people in order to perpetuate power and monopolize power. The country witnessed a good degree of growth in the first communist decade, as well as important heavy industries, but Western Europe was doing better in terms of economy and freedom. Milan Kundera did not continue his communist journey, but rather turned against it, supported the 1968 reform movement, and eventually left for France.

“Kundera” wrote his famous novel “Fun Loves” to narrate through it the great state of frustration that faced his generation of those who hoped for a good communist coup, then found nothing, and those dreams that people lived, then it turned out to be a mere mirage, instead of establishing a free and strong state Similar to Western Europe, the Republic of Fear was established. Milan Kundera believed that culture and people could coexist, and it is not true that people and culture do not meet.. but rather meet and harmonize.

Today, the great library that bears his name in his hometown in the Czech Republic continues the message of the great writer.. It itself represents that model of coexistence between culture and the masses. The proposition made by “Kundera” regarding the sophistication of peoples and their readiness for high culture is a very important proposition. Culture has no weight if it remains captive to the elite, and there is no value for millions if they are left prey to the dictatorship of fame and the power of the trend.

* Egyptian writer

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