Edice Petlice jako symbol české samizdatové literatury ve svobodném světě

Abstract

An integral part of Czech literature of the 2nd half of the 20th century is also literature published in samizdat. By this we mean works that could not be published in official publishing houses, but were reproduced in typescript. The symbol of such a literature of the 1970s and 1980s was the Petlice edition, the most important and most extensive typescript edition. It was founded at the end of 1972 L. Vaculík and was run throughout its existence. Petlice focused its activities on original Czech and Slovak literary works. It has published almost 400 titles. Authors who were prevented from publishing after 1968, such as I. Klíma, P. Kohout, V. Havel and J. Gruša, published their works here. The books of the Petlice were characterised by the authors’ signatures on the title page and on the reverse of the title page, and the copyright formula – the most famous V.z.d.o.r. (Explicit prohibition of further copying of the manuscript) belonged to the most efficient editorial scribe Z. Erteltová. The activities of the edition were followed by a number of samizdat publishers. Among the first were J. Vladislav with his Kvart and V.Havel with Edice Expedicí. The activities of the exile and cooperation with it had a great influence on the development of Czech samizdat. A significant part of samizdat production was published by exile publishing houses and magazines that paid at least a small fee to the authors. The exile also played an important role of mediation, communication and information. It selflessly ensured the supply of samizdat texts to radio stations that broadcast in Czech and Slovak, as well as to Western publishing houses. He organised the secret transport in both directions – of manuscripts and information to the West and of exiled books and magazines to their home countries. The Czechoslovak Documentation Centre for Independent Literature, founded in the 1980s by a group of exiled cultural workers in West Germany, played a very important role in this field.