In Uncertain Uncertainty: Lessons from Dissident Literature for the Present

The older I get, the more convinced I am that I don't choose books – they choose me. And not in some esoteric sense. Rather, it seems to me that what I consider conscious choices are just a mixture of subconscious desires and fears, reflecting the social moods in which I move. Recently, for example, I noticed that I am reading more and more Slovak and Czech dissident literature from the normalization period. It wasn't that I one day slammed my fist on the table and declared: “I'm going to read dissidents.” Suddenly, I found myself leaving the library with Kadleček or Vaculík in my hand, and at home, I was pulling Havel and Šimečka off the shelf.

It's not hard to guess why. We live in a time of tightening screws – tightened so much that it hurts many. We are again talking about normalization and engaging in endless and extremely polite discussions about whether we can still use that term or if it's still unnecessarily hysterical. And while we debate, the free cultural world is falling apart before our eyes. Friends are being expelled from public media and cultural institutions, more and more people are unemployed. Cultural centers, festivals, magazines, and events collapse and cease their activities daily.

Almost everyone lives in a state of chronic uncertainty.

However, this is a strange uncertainty that gradually turns into certainty. Public financial resources for independent culture are not available, and it is clear that in the near future – meaning in the coming years – they will not be. Many cultural projects are still catching up, and we are moving in a strange interim, equally calming and terrifying. We still have – at least some of us – what to do. One more festival, one more event, one more book... We know we have resources, both financial and human, for another six months, three months, two weeks. Sometimes, this helps us distract from hopeless thoughts about the future; after all, we must focus on the tasks ahead of us each day. We know well what awaits us, and we pass by until we perish.

But working without a vision of the future gradually takes its toll, whether we admit it or not. In people around me, I notice two contradictory, yet ultimately similar reactions. On one side, manic activity – doing as much as possible quickly, while it still can. Organizing, protesting, announcing collections, shouting at the top of our lungs. On the other side, slow withdrawal into oneself, quieting down, seeking work and life in another field, often in another country. Leaving without a bang or crying.

I myself move between these two poles – depending on my mood and latest news. I no longer feel the anger I experienced in the first months of the new regime. It has transformed into a peculiar mixture of feelings and motivations, for which I still have no name. Often, within me, there is a blend of determination, frustration, reluctance, feverish effort to save, with a bitter awareness of futility. It is a state of some strange continuous intoxication: nothing seems truly effective, and there is no escape from reality. I grab at every straw, knowing that no one has ever pulled themselves out of a swamp with a straw.

And in such moments, dissident literature comes as if on cue. Clearly, I seek advice and comfort in it, I know this even without therapy. And I often find it, though in unexpected forms. Yes, sometimes they are pragmatic advice, such as how to operate the entire samizdat literary machine. Not only without state support – almost as an act that the state forbids and punishes (Vaculík). But other times, they are more subtle, quiet reflections on how to survive and preserve oneself in a time that seemingly offers no solutions.

I think of how Ivan Kadlečík turns to Bach and the organ, how he melts time into timelessness. And on the other hand, I watch Milan Šimečka tirelessly analyze the era's politics through its superficial, empty ideological expressions, and he is still able to have fun. I am fascinated by Havel's unwavering, perhaps naive, faith in the resistance of the helpless, which shines through in every one of his plays, every essay.

Most of all, I am drawn to Ludvík Vaculík with his constant hesitation, weighing, debating, indecisiveness, uncertainty. The need to name things that will be uncomfortable even for his dissident bubble. Even at the risk of ostracism. I appreciate that his texts are more a collection of questions than answers: to stay and continue the thankless work of a samizdat publisher, or to withdraw from this semi-public life? How to approach friends who emigrated or are considering emigration? Cultivate your small community or try to reach the broadest possible public? Questions I ask myself almost daily – so far, still without answers.

It probably won't be surprising that none of the dissident works offers a manual on how to behave in today’s times. Naturally, each must think this through alone. There are no right or wrong answers, because there are no answers at all. Maybe one day, someone will confess before the eyes of the public, and maybe not – perhaps they will have to justify their choices only to themselves. The only thing these authors and their texts from the normalization period tell us, and why I believe it makes sense to read them today, is that resistance can take many forms. And when we are tired of one, we can turn to another.

Without ostentatious heroism, grand gestures, and belief in one's own truth. With a permanent certainty of uncertainty.

The text is part of the PERSPECTIVES project – a new brand for independent, constructive, and multiperspective journalism. The project is funded by the European Union. The expressed opinions and positions are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The European Union or EACEA do not accept any responsibility for them.