'But since Europe itself is in the process of losing its own cultural identity, it perceives in Central Europe nothing but a political regime; put another way, it sees in Central Europe only Eastern Europe.'
In November 1956, the director of the Hungarian News Agency, shortly before his office was flattened by artillery fire, sent a telex to the entire world with a desperate message announcing that the Russian attack against Budapest had begun. The despatch ended with these words: ‘We are going to die…
Nothing to see here!
What made him do what he did? Could it have all been for an ice cream bar, really? Will any of us ever know?
What made him do what he did? Could it have all been for an ice cream bar, really? Will any of us ever know?
What made him do what he did? Could it have all been for an ice cream bar, really? Will any of us ever know?
What made him do what he did? Could it have all been for an ice cream bar, really? Will any of us ever know? What made him do what he did? Could it have all been for an ice cream bar, really? Will any of us ever know?
'Prague, this dramatic and suffering centre of Western destiny, is gradually fading away into the mists of Eastern Europe, to which it has never really belonged.' Milan Kundera on the loss of Prague's thousand-year-culture in Prague: A Disappearing Poem.
'May in Paris was an explosion of revolutionary lyricism. The Prague Spring was the explosion of post-revolutionary scepticism.'
'If you are a small nation, though, you do not make history. You are always the object of history.'
'What was screaming in fact was the naive idealism of her love trying to banish all contradictions, banish the duality of the body and soul, banish perhaps even time.'
‘Always and everywhere, this unequal struggle to preserve and remember.’
