Under a Cruel Star: A Life In Prague, 1941-1968

After the death of Soviet autocrat Joseph Stalin in 1953, a process of limited democratization took place across much of the Eastern Bloc. Under Stalin’s successor, Nikita Kruschev, states within the Soviet sphere of influence gradually became less repressive, with greater freedom of speech and movement than had previously existed. This process unfolded more slowly in Czechoslovakia than in most neighboring states, but by 1963, an economic downturn led a critical mass of Czechoslovakians to demand reform. The Czechoslovakian government, under President Antonín Novotný, began to relax its strict authoritarian rules—a change symbolized in part by the 1963 Liblice Conference, an academic gathering to celebrate the work of early 20th-century Czech writer Franz Kafka, whose work had long been shunned as incompatible with communist ideals.

Novotný’s reforms, however, did not go far enough, and he soon lost the confidence of both the public and the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. In 1968, he was replaced by Alexander Dubček, who introduced sweeping democratic reforms he called “socialism with a human face.” The press freedoms that Dubček introduced allowed open debate about the political direction of the country and close examination of the government’s actions in the Stalinist period. It was in this climate that the government admitted for the first time that the “conspirators” executed in the 1952 Slánský trial—including Kovály’s husband, Rudolf—were innocent.

The Soviet Union feared that these democratic reforms would undermine its authority in the region, and on the night of August 20, 1968, a massive force of roughly 250,000 troops and 4,600 tanks crossed the border to begin an occupation of Czechoslovakia. Thousands of people demonstrated against the invasion; 137 of these demonstrators were killed, and hundreds more were wounded. In the aftermath of the invasion, many thousands of Czechoslovakians fled the country, including many artists, intellectuals, and highly skilled professionals. In Under a Cruel Star, Heda Kovály is among these émigrés. The Soviets removed the political leaders who had been responsible for the reforms and compelled Czechoslovakia to return to its pre-reform political system—a process they referred to as “normalization.” This repressive climate remained in force for more than three decades, until another wave of demonstrations—the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” led by future Czechoslovakian president Vaclav Havel, among others—forced the Soviets to relinquish power and allowed the country to transition to democracy and self-rule.