Modern Czech Theatre: Reflector and Conscience of a Nation.

Modern Czech Theatre: Reflector and Conscience of a Nation. By Jarka M. Burian. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2000; pp. xx + 265. $37.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Beginning with a first exposure to Czech Culture as a 10 year old visiting Czechoslovakia for a summer with his mother in 1937, and then later in a visit to Prague in 1947 while on leave with the Army of Occupation in Germany; the, as Burian says, "seeds and soil" of his interest in Czech theatre were prepared. The result was what can only be described as a life long research project documenting and describing modern Czech theatre. This book, the first full length historical study of twentieth-century Czech theatre in English, is one of the results of that research.

Beginning with a historical overview of the roots of Czech theatre in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, Burian traces the development of this unique theatre which was always connected to the sociopolitical reality of the country. The book consists of an edited and supplemented selection of the numerous publications on Czech theatre that Burian wrote during his extended research trips to the country between 1965 and 1997, plus substantial new material prepared especially for this volume. The result is a book that Burian believes addresses an "unwarranted omission" in the theatrical history canon. Indeed, his assertion is true, for this text provides indispensably clear insights and explanations of the special circumstances that conditioned the rise and development of modern Czech theatre.

Burian's approach is that modern Czech theatre can only be fully understood in its sociopolitical context. It is a unique theatre -- a theatre that always positioned itself as a repository and guardian of national culture and identity. As such, its most important artists, from the time of the Habsburg domination, have always looked at their work as having a special social responsibility--to be a platform for human "truth" no matter what the prevailing political situation. The idea worked, and when modern Czech theatre came into western (American) consciousness it was this vital connection to the sociopolitical life of the citizenry that was most frequently held up and admired. And it was admirable. But, as Burian points out, this vital connection to the life of the country frequently came at a high price for the theatre workers. He quotes Ota Ornest, head of the Prague Municipal Theatres from 1950-1973.

   The 1950's (and actually even the end of the 1940's) were years of fright
   and terror, and large scale murder. Those years meant Stalinism at its
   peak, which differed very little from Nazism and in fact had more flunkies
   (not merely collaborators but ideological flunkies) than Nazism. And then
   [there were] the people who kept silent and thereby became accomplices. I
   belonged to their number, as did most of those, almost without exception,
   who worked in the arts--Party members and non-party members alike.
   Moreover, in addition to keeping silent, every now and then they had to
   comply with some "sacrifice to the gods" if they wanted to keep working, if
   they wanted to retain some values ... if they simply wanted to stay alive.

One instance of what a "sacrifice to the gods" looked like is detailed in a footnote to Chapter 4 where Burian documents a tribute to Josef Stalin on his seventieth birthday, two years after the Communist takeover. The tribute was published in a leading Czech theatre journal of the time.

   We thank Stalin for the very existence of our theatre culture, as we thank
   him for the very existence of our nation and our freedom....We thank Stalin
   for the very possibility of helping to create socialism in our country.
   Stalin--creator of the principles of Socialist Realism, the art of
   recreating life. ... We thank Stalin, genius of socialist society, for the
   themes of our most beautiful productions. The noblest assignment of any of
   our actors is the embodiment of the greatest heroic figure of contemporary
   world drama, the figure of Josef Vissarionovic Stalin.

it is this kind of material that makes the book invaluable. The intertwined human problems and motivations involved in the process of creating this theatre are available on every page. Burian's access to archival material and his superior scholarship elevate the text beyond a simple narrative of the facts.

Drawing upon his years of association with the major figures of Czech theatre, and his command of the Czech language; Burian's view is clear and detailed. He identifies the major forces and players at work in each period, and provides detailed analysis of the artistic work. He relates all the productions to the milieu that surrounded them and therefore provides a valuable context to the periods of superior artistic activity and the corresponding periods of lesser quality. Even though he deliberately confines the scope of the book to the spoken dramatic theatre, he uses examples from opera, musical, and cabaret to flesh out his analysis. The result is the definitive English language work on Czech theatre in the twentieth century.

Delbert Unruh University of Kansas