In and out of Socialist Realism: the Intellectual Journey of Milan Kundera and Dominik Tatarka, Czechoslovakia 1949-1956

This essay is a case study of Czechoslovak Stalinist literature ? socialist realism. In 1949, a Czech youngster Milan Kundera (1929-) and a Slovak celebrity Dominik Tatarka (1913-1989) were both dedicated Stalinist authors. The point is that they were members of the distinctive, Czech and Slovak, versions of socialist realism. The key aspects of these local socialist realisms were formed only by the conflicts inside The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which began only as late as 1949. However in the course of the six years that followed the nature of their public intellectual statements gradually morphed into the repudiation of their previous beliefs. How did this come about? By intellectual journey through public debates and inside media channels, where the actual coining of concepts, key for the cultural discourse of Czechoslovak Stalinism, took place.