Jaroslav Seifert was a Czech poet who was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1929 and was among the first signatories of Charter 77 in 1977.
Jaroslav Seifert was a Czech poet whose relationship to the communist movement and later to the regime of the "normalisation" period underwent a fundamental development. In 1929 he was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia for disagreeing with the leadership of Klement Gottwald [1]. In 1977 he became one of the first signatories of Charter 77 [1].
The Nobel Prize and the regime's reaction
At the turn of September and October 1984, news of the award of the Nobel Prize to Jaroslav Seifert reached Czechoslovakia [1]. A quarter of a century had passed since 1959, when the chemist Jaroslav Heyrovský received the Nobel Prize [1]. According to Czech Radio, the communist regime responded to the award given to Seifert with "very cool politeness" [1]. The daily Rudé právo first reported the poet's success in a ten-line item on page seven, in the foreign news section, next to articles on other topics [1]. Only later did the newspaper begin to print official congratulations and to recall Seifert's work and life [1]. On these occasions the regime repeatedly stressed Seifert's earlier left-wing work and presented his poetry as peaceful, without mentioning that what mattered to the poet above all was freedom of expression [1].
Attitude to imprisoned writers
In April 1956 Seifert spoke at the Second Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers, where he publicly stood up for writers imprisoned by the communist regime [1]. President Antonín Zápotocký also attended the congress at the time [1]. In his speech Seifert uttered the sentence: "If anyone else conceals the truth, it may be a tactical manoeuvre. If a writer conceals the truth, he lies!" [1] He ended the speech with a demand that silenced writers be invited to cooperate and that those present think of the fate of their imprisoned colleagues [1].
Surviving recordings
According to Czech Radio, the radio archive concerning Seifert is "meagre", as in the case of Jaroslav Heyrovský [1]. The radio broadcast far more programmes "about him" than "with him" [1]. Among the valuable surviving materials is a recording of Seifert's speech at the Second Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers in April 1956 [1].