Brumov-Bylnice, South Moravia, June 13 (CTK) – Ludvik Vaculik, a leading Czech writer, journalist and dissident who died on June 6 at the age of 88, was buried Saturday.
A number of guests attended the ceremony, including renowned writers, also dissidents Pavel Kohout and Ivan Klima, and theatre director Bretislav Rychlik.
Vaculik was buried in his native village as he wished it. Vaculik’s coffin was carried by local men in folk costumes.
The Saint Wenceslas Church was absolutely crowded during the subsequent mass.
After it, the coffin was carried to the local cemetery, where Vaculik’s close friends sang folk songs.
Vaculik’s tomb was made by sculptor Otmar Oliva several years ago.
Vaculik had the text “I was here and maybe I will come again” carved on the tombstone.
Vaculik ranked among the best Czech post-war prose writers.
However, he is more known for his political involvement under the communist regime, mainly during the 1968 Prague Spring reform movement.
Vaculik wrote the “Two Thousand Words” manifesto in June 1968 to support the process of liberal reforms toward the democratisation of the communist Czechoslovakia.
In it, he called on the public to demand the resignation of the people who misused their power by criticism, demonstrations, and strikes.
The manifesto was signed by thousands of intellectuals and became a target of mounting criticism by Stalinist forces and the Communist leadership in the neighbouring countries.
He was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC), which he entered in 1945, over his critical speech at the the congress of the Writers’ Association in 1997.
After the Warsaw pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Vaculik became one of the leading dissidents. When he was officially banned from publishing, he was heading the Samizdat Petlice publisher’s which published several hundred works by banned authors.
Vaculik was among the first signatories of the Charter 77 anti-communist manifesto and movement.
Vaculik received a number of Czech and foreign awards, including the Germany Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize for his contribution to Czech-German relations in 1997.
Out of Vaculik’s prose works, his novel Sekyra (The Ax, 1966) was highly acclaimed. It describes the post-war enthusiasm of young leftist idealists, abused by the regime, that is slowly turning into their bitter disillusionment in the country under the communist arbitrary rule.
Vaculik also wrote the novels Morcata (The Guinea Pigs, 1970) and partially autobiographical Cesky snar (The Czech Dreambook, 1980) and Jak se dela chlapec (How to Make a Boy, 1993).
