Memoirs of Czech Dissent after 1989

Abstract

After the fall of the communist regime, the Czech dissent participated in the creation of new ego-documents referring to the interpretation of our socialist past. In the article this issue is presented via the example of two memoirs created in the circle of dissent (the life story of the actress Vlasta Chramostová and memorial travelogues of the writer Eda Kriseová). Thinking of both writers grew out of dissent focused on the need to be a “spiritual“ man (J. Patočka). Therefore, it is possible to view both self-reflective memoirs as consciously constructed speech acts to defend memory and cultural ties to otherness. It seems these texts represent the tendency of Czech literature at the turn of the millennium, when so called engagement in literature was discussed as a device to “correcting“ interpretation of our past (especially the 1950s and the period of normalization). Methodologically the article is based mainly on texts by M. Halbwachs and P. Ricoeur.