Jiří Drahoš

“There was this free-thinking atmosphere in Hála's department, so we spoke quite freely all the time. And berating the Communist regime was a common thing to do. Not that we would be yelling such things all around the Institute, but we spoke quite openly in our circle. One felt that he had been living in a quite distinctive environment. We were in this kind of a bubble. And I had this colleague of mine, Karel Hlavatý, an excellent quantum chemist and a great man. And he also spoke quite openly. And the trade unions at the Institute used to organise this event, the union member's steamship cruise. We would go on a steamship to Modřany where the ship would drop anchor and there would be bonfire, we would grill some sausages and we would sail back. Such event happened every year. It was organised by the trade unions, by the ROH. So in the 70s, during the normalization, such a steamship sailed out and our whole department was aboard. We would grill sausages and Karel, under the influence of some wine, forgot that he was no longer in his inner circle. He went into an argument with this young comrade and to put him in his place, he shouted: 'So enter this fire and prove that the ideals of Communism can never be incinerated!' And we all would laugh, even this young comrade who didn't take it seriously. And then we sailed back. And after few days, State Security men showed up at the Academy and they started to investigate what exactly did comrade Karel Hlavatý say. Later, we found out that the young comrade didn't report him, it was someone else who overheard him. So he would turn him in. The State Security swarmed our office. We had to write some kind of a statement. I told them that I was entertaining my future wife and I didn't hear the argument as it wasn't louder than the cracking of the fire. More or less, we all stated that we didn't hear a thing. I didn't know what the others said, but the result was that Karel Hlavatý had been fired from the Institute.”

“After that, we were just waiting how it would develop. We knew that Jan Palach was in hospital. And there was just this rumour among the people, why he had done that – as a protest against the occupation and against the whole political situation. Of course, there were people who were shaking their heads, saying, 'what's got into him, for God's sake'. But we kept hoping that he would recover. Then there were hardcore Communist with their opinions. One of them even insisted that the whole incident had been orchestrated by the western capitalists who supposedly told Palach that they would provide him with the so-called 'painless fire'. That he would lit himself up and wouldn't feel a thing. As we were chemists, we knew that such an idea was completely twisted, yet it showed what kind of nonsense the Communists were willing to come up with. We kept hoping that Jan Palach would survive, but in the end he didn't, unfortunately. I was at Jan Palach's funeral – this large gathering in front of the Faculty of Arts, at today's Palach's Square. We went from the Wenceslas Square to the Faculty of Arts. It was a big demonstration. And those reform Communists had been thinking for a while that maybe there was still something to be done, but the determination of the people waned as fast as the torch went up in flames. Which was just awful, but that's how it was.”

“We kept telling ourselves that it just couldn't be like this. I had already mentioned my uncle, the skeptic, who kept saying: 'Wherever a Russian would come, he would never leave.' And I just looked at him and said: 'Come on, what do you know after all?' But he was a man who lived through the Second World War. As we kept thinking, at university, at the campus, that the Americans would step forward, that they just couldn't abandon us. We were still hoping that something would happen, so we would protest, we would occupy the UCT. We were protesting, we were even sleeping in the school, all those artists came to support us. Hutka, Marta Kubišová and many others. As they were visiting universities to support the students. But in the end, nothing came out of it, unfortunately.”

“I was at my patents' house in Jablunkov during the summer. My uncle Janek was quite a skeptic, he would be telling us about the talks with the Soviets, in Čierna pri Čope, as it was obvious that they were putting pressure on Dubček and all our politicians. So we had a bad feeling about it. After that, there were rumours that Soviet troops were gathering, but we didn't believe it. We thought that those were just stories people would make up. So imagine how surprised we were in the morning of August 21st. We were still in bed when my mother came running from the nursery, urging us to turn on the radio. So we turned it on and we learned that we were invaded by the occupation forces, the so-called allied forces back then, so they could protect us. So on the same day, me and my friends we went to the streets of Jablunkov, turning over direction signs and signposts, writing 'Иван, иди домой'. And there was this commotion in all the cities across the country. So I didn't get to Prague until September when I entered the second year at the university.”

“How did you perceive the Prague spring while studying in Prague (Praha)? What was your experience of it?” - “It was quite emotional. Novotný stepped down, there was Dubček, I could still remember that fantastic May 1st of 1968 in Prague, in Na příkopech street, there was this platform from which they spoke. And they were no longer being perceived as those typical apparatchiks, even though they were all Communist party members. Still, we understood that there was this opportunity, that things could change. And there was this mood among the people which was just beautiful. There were magazines like Reportér, you could bring Svědectví magazine published by Tigrid from abroad without being persecuted, thought it was still officially banned. There were great expectations and it seemed that socialism with human face had a chance. But later, it turned out not to be the case.”