COURAGE

connecting collections

Igor Cașu (b. 8 October 1973, Borogani, Leova district, Republic of Moldova) is a Moldovan historian, who specialises in the communist period. In 2010, he created the Centre for the Study of Totalitarianism at the State University of Moldova, serving as its founding director. As a member of the Commission for the Study and Evaluation of the Communist Totalitarian Regime in Moldova (created by presidential decree in 2010), Igor Cașu was part of the Moldovan “archival revolution” that led to an unprecedented access to formerly restricted archival collections (notably those of the KGB, the Interior Ministry, and the Communist Party). However, this period was short-lived, and access restrictions were reinstated after the Commission ended its work. This increases the value of this private collection, which holds a significant number of copies of archival documents that are not available to the broader public. These carefully selected sources allow an in-depth study of the communist period in Moldova, despite the obstacles that systematic research in public archives still encounters. Igor Cașu is willing to share these documents with the broader research community, which represents a welcome departure from the reluctance of public depositories to open their collections to the public without any restrictions.  At present, Igor Casu continues to serve as Director of the Centre for the Study of Totalitarianism and is also an Associate Professor in the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the State University of Moldova. 

Although he had no anti-regime family background, Igor Casu states that his first critical attitudes towards the regime surfaced in late 1988 or early 1989 and were connected to his membership of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol). He decided to leave the organisation in the context of the wave of glasnost’ and of the emerging historical debates of the Gorbachev era. This act was also possible because of the relaxation of the regime, as a result of which the consequences of this type of behaviour were less severe compared to previous periods. He did not participate in other significant or crucial events related to the movement for “national emancipation” in Moldova.

In his understanding, the extent of cultural opposition in the MSSR was significant, but it was present “to a smaller degree than in other regions of the Soviet Union (e.g., the Baltic states, Western Ukraine or Georgia).” Igor Cașu’s definition of cultural opposition encompasses certain “acts perceived as less political, but nevertheless critical of the regime,” mainly in the field of “cultural policies, linguistic issues, but also [cases] of intellectuals in different spheres (writers, painters, other artists) who expressed ideas that were defined as anti-Soviet or dangerous to the regime.” Cașu emphasises that defining the concept of “cultural opposition” raises a “very difficult methodological issue,” mainly due to the shifting attitude of the authorities towards cases of oppositional discourses and activities.  As he aptly observes, the changing priorities of the central institutions influenced their perception on dissent and implicitly their reaction to such cases. To illustrate his point, Cașu gives the example of the use of the Latin alphabet in the MSSR. Despite the official prohibition of this practice, the consequences for its users could vary widely from one decade to another. Also, for Cașu, “the concept of ‘cultural opposition’ is a construct, whereas the concrete cases of cultural and political opposition can hardly be separated in reality.” This uncertainty also stems from the fact that, in the eyes of the communist authorities, the hierarchy of the relative danger associated with certain acts varied widely, not only across time, but also across space, in the case of different communist regimes.

Mikoláš Chadima is a Czech musician, songwriter, publicist and prominent figure of Czech alternative music of the 1970s and 1980s. As a saxophonist he became known in the second half of the 1970s when he performed with the “Elektrobus”, and “The Rock & Jokes Extempore Band” at "Prague Jazz Days", an official festival show organised by the Jazz Section. He is particularly well-known as the front-man of the music groups “Extempore” and “MCH Band”. Both were key bands of the Czech alternative scene and also to the predecessors and inspirations for the “new wave” bands of the 1980s. Chadima was repeatedly prosecuted for alleged disturbance - in 1979, because he said vulgar words on stage. He also worked in the management of the Jazz Section - an organisation dedicated to alternative cultural activities until it was factually liquidated in 1986. Chadima, as a signatory to Charter 77, was not allowed to perform. Thus, the “MCH Band” performed illegally, often under different names. Chadima distributed recordings of the “MCH Band” and other alternative music groups as samizdat within his “Fist Records”record label. He could perform legally at the end of the 1980s, specifically at the Prague “Concert for Armenia” in 1989. Chadima also published theoretical and memorial works by samizdat. Currently he is a professional musician. His collection of music recordings is stored in the audiovisual section of the Libri Prohibiti library in Prague, an institution dedicated to the collection of samizdat cultural production.

Jindřich Chalupecký was a Czech literary and art critic, theoretician and historian. He studied at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague, however he did not finish his studies. He briefly worked as a teacher and, later in various arts organisations, such as The Czechoslovak Union of Visual Artists. From 1930 he published literary and art critiques, and later studies and essays. Some of them were also issued as book editions. He dealt with post-surrealistic crisis of European avant-garde movements in particular. Starting in the 1940s, he co-organised exhibitions. He was a theoretician of the art movement Skupina 42 (Group 42) founded in 1942. The group did not have any defined program, however artists associated with this group were primarily interested in cities and an urban way of life.

Chalupecký could not publish after the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948 as his writings and attitudes diverted from then required socialist-realism. However, his works could officially circulate during the short liberalization period in the 1960s. From 1965 to 1970 he managed the Václav Špála Gallery in Prague. During this period, many important exhibitions were organised there, including the exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s works in 1969. From the beginning of the 1970s, after the suppression of the “Prague Spring”, he once again became a “banned author”. Thus, he published in samizdat or in exile and foreign magazines. During normalization, Jindřich Chalupecký became an important and uniting figure of Czechoslovak unofficial art as many painters and sculptors visited him regularly. Chalupecký also saw some positive aspects of the impact of normalization on artists. According to him, artists were forced to create under the political pressure, however, at the same time, they were freed from the harmful commercial influence.

Chalupecký’s texts were officially issued as re-editions or anthologies only after 1989. Today, Chalupecký is considered to be the most influential personality of the Czech art theory of the second half of the Twentieth Century. His specific and original writings about art can be hardly imitated or surpassed. The legacy of Jindřich Chalupecký has been disseminating since 1990 through the prize named in his honour, the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. This prize is annually awarded to young visual artists under 35 years old.