Tatarka: Silenced in Slovakia

In: Index on censorship, Band 13, Heft 2, S. 27-27

Abstract

Dominik Tatarka is Slovakia's best-known novelist; but since 1969 not a word of his work has been published Foreign observers have the impression that, while Czech writers and other intellectuals continue to resist the Soviet-imposed cultural repression, their Slovak fellow-citizens remain, at best, silent or collaborate with the regime which has been in power since the invasion of 1968. Unlike in the Czech-speaking parts of the country, there are not hundreds of silenced writers and scholars in Slovakia, nor did the Charter 77 movement gain any substantial support there, with only five Slovak intellectuals putting their signatures to this human and civil rights document. A leading Slovak historian now living in West Germany, Ján Mlynárik explains the background and describes the difficult life of one of the five — Slovakia's best-known novelist, the 70-year-old Dominik Tatarka, who neither collaborates nor keeps silent. An extract from Tatarka's diary follows his account.