Pavel Kohout | |
|---|---|
 Pavel Kohout in 2008 | |
| Born | 20 July 1928 Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Czech |
| Notable awards | Austrian State Prize for European Literature |
| Signature | |
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Pavel Kohout (born 20 July 1928) is a Czech and Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, a Prague Spring participant and dissident in the 1970s until he was not allowed to return from Austria. He was a founding member of the Charter 77 movement.
He was still a devoted communist upon graduating from secondary school in 1947, and graduated from Charles University in 1952, with a degree in theater and aesthetics. He then became a member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Youth Union , serving until 1960. It was during this period that he began writing plays and poetry. He was also a member of the Union of Writers .
In 1956, he was briefly employed by Czechoslovak Television as a reporter and commentator. From 1963 to 1966, he was the dramaturge at Vinohrady Theatre. While there, he became attracted to the reform movement and resigned from the Union of Writers due to questions concerning his "cultural-political orientation". In 1967, following a public reading of Solzhenitsyn's protest letter to the Union of Soviet Writers, he and several other prominent writers were subjected to disciplinary action.
Because he and other dissident theater workers had been banned from working in the official theater, he formed an acting company called "Living-Room Theater" with the actors Pavel Landovský, Vlasta Chramostová, Vlastimil Třešňák, and his daughter, Tereza Boučková to covertly perform an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth in living rooms in Prague. Czech-born UK playwright Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth is inspired by these events. [1]
In 1968, he became one of the most prominent figures in the Prague Spring. The following year, he was expelled from the Communist Party and his works were subjected to strict censorship. He and his third wife Jelena Mašínová were allowed to travel to Austria in 1978, where he had a contract with the Burgtheater. While there, their citizenship was revoked and they could not return. In 1980, they received Austrian citizenship and settled in Vienna. In Austria he continued his work and was awarded Austrian Waldviertel Academy prize. [2] After the fall of the Communist government, they often returned to Prague and now divide their time between there and Sázava. [3]
His most notable play is the drama Poor Murderer , which opened on Broadway in Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1976. It is based on the short story "Thought" by Leonid Andreyev. [4]
His novels include White Book (an absurdist picture of life under Communism), I Am Snowing (a post-Communism story about the opening of the Communist-era secret police informer files, the effect of that opening on the informers and their victims, and thus about the corrosive effect of the Communist regime), The Widow Killer (a detective story set in World War II Nazi-occupied Prague), and The Hangwoman (a black-humor story about executioners), Seven Days in a Week (1965) and Morgen tanzt die ganze Welt (1952). [5]
Klement Gottwald was a Czech communist politician, who was the leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1929 until his death in 1953 – titled as general secretary until 1945 and as chairman from 1945 to 1953. He was the first leader of Communist Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1953.
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and three other Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms.
Sir Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.
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Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth are two plays by Tom Stoppard, written to be performed together. This was not the first time that Stoppard had made use of Shakespearean texts in his own plays or even the first time he had used Hamlet although the context is far different from that of his earlier Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Stoppard would return to the theme of artistic dissent against the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Rock 'n' Roll.
Rock 'n' Roll is a play by British playwright Tom Stoppard that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2006.
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Karel Schwarzenberg was a Czech politician, diplomat and statesman who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic from 2007 to 2009 and then again between 2010 and 2013. Schwarzenberg was leader and co-founder of the TOP 09 party and its candidate for president of the Czech Republic in the 2013 election. He served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) from 2010 to 2021 and in the Senate from 2004 until 2010.
Neighborly relations exist between Austria and the Czech Republic, two member states of the European Union. Austria gave full support to the Czech Republic's membership of the European Union. The Czech Republic is a member state of NATO, while Austria is not.
Kohout is a Czech surname, meaning rooster. Notable people with the surname include:
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The Joke is a 1969 Czechoslovak film by director Jaromil Jireš. It is considered one of the last films of the Czech New Wave movement.
Pavel Bergmann was a Czech historian, philosopher, a signatory of the Charter 77 manifesto, and a founding member of the Civic Forum.
Karel Bartošek was a Czech-French historian.
