Following the 1968 Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia, the nation’s literary culture fractured between exile, state-approved conformity, and an underground publishing movement known as Samisdat, which preserved authentic intellectual freedom through clandestine typewritten manuscripts.
That profound cultural suppression and the underground resistance that followed changed Czech literature, as an entire generation of writers and thinkers refused alignment with the incoming regime. Only three widely read authors—Ladislav Fuchs, Jiří Šotola, and Vladimír Páral—acquiesced to the state, while major literary figures like Josef Škvorecký and Milan Kundera chose emigration. The rest of the literary community descended into the underground.
The Origins of Petlice and Clandestine Publishing
Writer Ludvík Vaculík, author of the spring 1968 manifesto The Two Thousand Words, established the country’s first and most prominent Samisdat edition, named Petlice (Padlock). The term Samisdat derives from Russian, translating roughly to self-published, deliberately avoiding the designation of a formal publishing house due to legal restrictions.
Accepted manuscripts were privately typed on heavy-duty mechanical typewriters, typically yielding nine carbon copies alongside the original. This kept print runs strictly to ten copies. Books cost only enough to cover compensation for the typists and bookbinders. To evade prosecution, volumes omitted explicit edition names, formally masquerading as private transcripts gifted between friends, while a front page warned against further distribution. Many authors utilized pseudonyms or left works completely unsigned out of fear of retribution.
Living the Underground Network in Prague
Meetings of this intellectual circle occurred regularly in private apartments following the definitive dissolution of the Writers’ Union newspaper Literární noviny in the spring of 1969. Vaculík routinely brought freshly typed and bound copies of his editions to these gatherings.
Many younger Samisdat publishers, underground musicians, and cultural resistance figures faced long-term imprisonment, persistent threats, physical abuse, and forced exile. Despite the intense crackdown, the collective Samisdat movement across the 1970s and 1980s continuously generated new editions, ultimately preserving the corpus of authentic Czech literature.
The Legacy of Czech Samisdat
The cultural suppression cemented a radical political stance among many observers of the era, inspiring deep admiration for cultural resistance groups like the underground rock band The Plastic People of the Universe. The broader network of self-published editions successfully safeguarded the nation’s intellectual heritage until political shifts altered the landscape. Much of this historical material now resides in Prague’s Libri prohibiti Samisdat library, ensuring these typewritten manuscripts remain accessible for future study.
