Abstract
In Prague there is a unique public library called Libri Prohibiti, which contains around 29,000 items by banned Czech and Slovak writers, the majority samizdat publications produced in the country under communism. Also on the shelves is a complete set of Index on Censorship, because a rich seam of unofficial intellectual life in Czechoslovakia runs through its pages.
This was down to George Theiner, who spent 16 years with the magazine. Steeped in the contemporary culture of his native country, at home with English culture, in daily contact with émigré networks all over the world, communicating with writers inside Czechoslovakia, George presented to the world, via Index, the voices of the independent intelligentsia.
He did it by publishing their own words – poems, essays, plays, feuilletons, letters of protest, reportage, short stories, jokes, answers to questionnaires and so on. Almost every piece was prefaced by a short introduction by George. Birthdays and deaths were marked, prizes noted, banned books and writers were listed, censors’ reports reprinted, and arrests, trials and jailings tracked.
Virtually all intellectual life was represented – Czechs and Slovaks, young and old, actors, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, academics, publishers and spokesmen for Charter 77, VONS (support group for dissidents) and others; and, in 1978–9, three issues of the unofficial journal Spektrum were published by Index. These were the people who kept the real Czechoslovak culture alive during the 21 years of repression which followed the Prague Spring. As Václav Havel said after George’s death, ‘I owe him much gratitude, as do many Czechoslovak writers.’
George joined Index as assistant editor to Michael Scammell in 1973. Born in Czechoslovakia, he lived there until just before the war when his father brought the family – Jewish, but not practising Jews – to Britain. Being Czech patriots, the family returned to Prague in 1945 where George, not yet 20, became English language editor of ČTK, the Czechoslovak News Agency, fulfilling his dream of becoming a journalist. The dream ended shortly after the Communist coup of 1948 when George’s refusal to join the Party precipitated three years in labour camps and coalmines. In the 50s and 60s he worked as a translator; he also prepared New Writing in Czechoslovakia for Penguin, introducing 26 writers.
George Theiner (right) and Philip Spender in Index’s former office in North London
The fervent hopes of Czechoslovak patriots during the Prague Spring that after 20 years of rigid communism a freer way of life would emerge were obliterated by the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968. George discovered his flat was bugged and ripped out the wires. He had had enough and he had an alternative home – Britain. There, during the war, he had spent six and a half years imbibing an English education and falling in love – his words – with its language and literature. English had become his literary language, he had publishing contacts there, and so he drove his family to London.
George was more than a virtuoso with words. He had shared the experiences of those Index had been founded to help. He was optimistic, open, witty, humorous and confident about the rightness of the cause. This combination of characteristics, together with a tenacious commitment to the cause of artistic freedom, partly explains why George added so much to the confidence and effectiveness of Index’s staff; why his network of friends was so extensive and international; why he got on so well with so many writers both famous and unknown wherever they came from; why so many people made their way to the magazine’s office, why its overseas supporters became an active force, why theatre producers and actors in London staged work from the magazine. All of this was meat and drink to George, and it spread wide the work of censored writers and information about their situation.
In 1988, weak from cancer, he accepted in person the Freedom Prize awarded by the newspapers Dagens Nyheter of Stockholm and Politiken of Copenhagen, delivering a public speech of thanks in Stockholm in fluent Swedish. The same year he was invited to a conference of newspaper editors in South Africa at a time when the press there was under acute pressure from the apartheid government. He said on return it had been one of the most exhilarating experiences of his life. ❒