Walking in the former Mausoleum in the place of the current National Memorial at Vítkov with the somewhat horrendous but wondrous tale of the preserved body of the dead communist president Klement Gottwald, I have come across one of the most direct experience with intense state propaganda. While it was funny to see Milan Kundera mentioned in the memorial along with other influential political leaders just because the sheer contrast in it, it nevertheless fits that the propaganda, as I am going to discuss today in this post, fits perfectly in reference to his most famous work The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The Ridiculously Extreme Body Preservation
First of all, a bit of context.
Klement Gottwald was the first communist Czechoslovak president and was strongly upheld as one of the forerunner to be looked toward.
He was very close to Soviet and pursued extreme-left policy when he was still just a deputy of the Party. The policies in the early 30s were oriented against the First Republic official policy. Consequently, a warrant has been issued against him to cause him to flee to Soviet Union, where he ended up again after the Munich agreement in 1938.
Starting from 1946 when the communists won the election, he became the Prime Minister. Then there was the coup d’ etat of the 1948, the “Victorious February” when he became the President of the Republic. Of course, there followed Stalinization, collectivization of agriculture and destruction of civil society. Forced labor camps and executions of political prisoners were among the notorious things done under his government.
However, the party is willing enough to go full of propaganda, totally mindblowing to me. Apart from “normal scheme” done by all sorts of authoritarian governments when mass media is controlled, popular cultures filtered and monitored, everywhere existence of the ideological presence, the state took THIS decision.
The Communist Party decided to embalm his body and expose it to the public after the fashion of Lenin.
Ok, it is not a quote of someone. However, I just thought it was really a horrifying idea – that regardless of whether the president himself wishes his body to be constantly treated, filled with special chemicals, and looked at with various emotions or feelings, it was a DECISION made and that was all it mattered – how power could be best kept in the hands of the people that were in power.
Elaborate measures were taken so the body could last long. Therefore, an underground lab was built, rooms for doctors and nurses on duty, changing rooms, a machine room, a control room, storage area and also extensive air-conditioning system keeping the body in constant temperature and preventing it from decay.
I don’t think we have even gone that far with Mao, the first leader of the Chinese Communist Party and of the People’s Republic of China. We had stopped at monuments and pictures up hanging in the Tiananmen Square. But this was just like, Wow.
Wow.
The ‘Many Life’ of Hussite Movement
The Hussites (Husité or Kališníci; “Chalice People”) were a Christian movement in the Kingdom of Bohemia following the teachings of Czech reformer Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415), who became the best-known representative of the Bohemian Reformation and one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire.
The Hussite theme started to circulate again in Czech lands at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries. It was influenced respectively by two schools of thoughts- Enlightenment and Romanticism.
Hussites: Four Articles of Prague
Mostly, in summary, the Hussites believe in these things that are quite different (even radically) from what was preached by Catholic Church at the time:
- Freedom to preach the word of God
- Celebration of the communion under both kinds (bread and wine to priests and laity alike)
- Poverty of the clergy and expropriation of church property;
- Punishment for mortal sins i.e. the punishment of notorious sinners, among whom prostitutes are singled out for special attention
Habsburg ‘1st Life’ of the Movement
The state propaganda of the Habsburg Monarchy played a major role in spreading the
“legend” of Hussite warfare, using it during the wars against Napoleonic France to rouse resistance against the French armies. Personalities in the medieval movement became subjects of academic and professional interests. In particular in the romanticism, the Hussite leaders were depicted as strong and resolute personalities and freedom fighters.
‘2nd Life’: Formation of the Modern Identity of the Czech Nation
The rehabilitation of the Hussite movement came with the man named Frantisek Palacky, who reevaluated the era positively in his History of Bohemia. In the later half of the 19th century, the representations infiltrated into the popular culture and in the formation of a modern Czech identity.
It is amazing how a nation revive an ancient tale of knights and heroes, peasants taking power in their hands to fight the enemies(at which time is the Holy Roman Empire even), to construct its modern identity. A sweep of reference to the movement occurred:
- Naming of public spaces after Hussite heros
- Unveiling of the monuments dedicated to their honor
- Decorating of houses with related motifs
- Patriotic men and women dressed and adorned themselves with emblems
- Performing and public craze for theatre plays inspired by this past
These are elements that showed how much the movement, as a form of a successful propaganda that took strong hold within a nation, had started to define a country and of course, was necessarily politicized.
It was a symbol of challenge, of defiance to a subordinate group – in the original story’s case, the Catholic and the Holy Roman Empire, and in the context of the late 19th CE and the ealry 20th CE, an urgent call for independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Later on, it also evolved to become part of an ideology. The Czechslovak Church was built on Hussite tradition, supposedly served as a national alternative to Catholicism and to support state ideology, but this move might have embittered the Catholics and other groups within the diverse, at the time newly formed, Czechoslovak Republic.
‘3rd Life’ : The Selective Utilization of History
After the rise of communism within the country, the Hussite movement was explored again to support communist ideology of struggle to legitimize the new political order. Extensive campaigns were launched, in cultural activities, massive exhibitions, scientific works, arts and films, to depict the movement as predecessor of communism. Certainly the religious aspects were deliberately weakened because communism preaches atheism(or rather ‘religion is the opium for the masses’). Attention was put on warfare – as fight against both internal and external enemies. It became ironic, of course, to take a hindsight perspective on it after the fall of the authoritarian regime.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being explores the intellectual life after the invasion of Soviet Union into Czechoslovakia and three other Warsaw Pact countries – and its aftermath. It challenges Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence, that each person has one life to live and one only – the lightness of being. However, the existence of propaganda persists on, shaped into different form, but follows the same principle over and over again, sometimes gradual and implicit, sometimes sudden and horrendous.
Heaviness, yeah. The universe and its events have already occurred and will recur.
You know there are places where propaganda resurrects, and it is worth rethinking.
Reference:
First-hand Experience in the National Memorial – sadly I forgot to bring SD card for my camera, so the photos are not taken by me.
Wikipedia for certain information check and reference.
National Memorial.
ALTERNATION 