Worlds of dissent : Charter 77, the Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech culture under communism / Jonathan Bolton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bolton, Jonathan, 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Charta 77 (Group)--History.

Charta 77 (Group).

Plastic People of the Universe--History.

Plastic People of the Universe.

Dissenters--Czechoslovakia--History.

Dissenters.

Dissenters--Europe, Central--History--20th century.

Dissenters--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements--Czechoslovakia--History.

Civil rights movements.

Communism--Social aspects--Czechoslovakia--History.

Communism.

Politics and culture--Czechoslovakia--History.

Politics and culture.

Czechoslovakia--Politics and government--1968-1989.

Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia--Intellectual life--1945-1992.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (360 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Charter 77, the Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech culture under communism

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Worlds of Dissent analyzes the myths of Central European resistance popularized by Western journalists and historians, and replaces them with a picture of the struggle against state repression as the dissidents themselves understood, debated, and lived it. In the late 1970's, when Czech intellectuals, writers, and artists drafted Charter 77 and called on their government to respect human rights, they hesitated to name themselves "dissidents." Their personal and political experiences-diverse, uncertain, nameless-have been obscured by victory narratives that portray them as larger-than-life heroes who defeated Communism in Czechoslovakia. Jonathan Bolton draws on diaries, letters, personal essays, and other first-person texts to analyze Czech dissent less as a political philosophy than as an everyday experience. Bolton considers not only Václav Havel but also a range of men and women writers who have received less attention in the West-including Ludvík Vaculík, whose 1980 diary The Czech Dream Book is a compelling portrait of dissident life. Bolton recovers the stories that dissidents told about themselves, and brings their dilemmas and decisions to life for contemporary readers. Dissidents often debated, and even doubted, their own influence as they confronted incommensurable choices and the messiness of real life. Portraying dissent as a human, imperfect phenomenon, Bolton frees the dissidents from the suffocating confines of moral absolutes. Worlds of Dissent offers a rare opportunity to understand the texture of dissent in a closed society.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

1. The Impasse of Dissent

2. The Stages of Demobilization

3. The Shadow World

4. Legends of the Underground

5. Everything Changed with the Charter

6. The Public of the Powerless

7. Dreams of a Dissident

Conclusion

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674416932

0674416937

9780674064836

0674064836

9780674069374

0674069374

OCLC:

794004266