Excalibur Army

Tomáš the Tank isn't the only tank that Czechland is sending to Ukraine.

Excalibur Army was founded in 1995 and they sell military ordnances, ammunition and vehicles.  Their headquarters are in in Šternberk, about 18 km (11 miles) from Olomouc.

Here's a short video I found on YouTube but it's in Czech.

©Excalibur Army

The company has hired 150 people, including Ukrainian refugees, to modernise old military equipment.  Excalibur Army is updating Soviet-era T-72 tanks that will go to help Ukraine.

Here's a short Voice of America piece about it.

©Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Я за Україну. Я за Україною. Слава Україні  Stojím za Ukrajinou!  I stand with Ukraine. 

Charter 77

A couple of weeks ago, on 6 January, was the 44th anniversary of Charta 77 (Charter 77).  Following the arrest and sentencing of members of the Plastic People of the Universe, a group of artists, writers and intellectuals produced a document that was signed by +240 people.  

Charter 77 criticised the government for failing to provide for human rights provisions which the Czechoslovak government had signed up to including the country's constitution, the Helsinki Accords and UN covenants.   

Charter 77 emphasised that it was an informal open association of people because if it was an organisation for political activity then it would have been against the law as organised opposition was illegal in Czechoslovakia.  

On 6 January, Václav Havel, Ludvík Vaculík, and Pavel Landovský were detained for trying to deliver the charter to the Federal Assembly.  The original document was confiscated by the authorities.  However, it had been smuggled out of the country and on 7 January it was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, the Times of London and the New York Times.  It was also broadcast to the country by Radio Free Europe.

The communists considered distributing the document as a political crime.  People who had signed the charter were targeted by the StB, the Czechoslovak secret police.  Many were fired from their jobs, their children were not allowed to attend university, some had their drivers' licenses suspended, while others were detained, put on trial and imprisoned.

The government never published the Charter 77 text but described it as anti-state propaganda written by traitors and imperialist agents.  On 28 January the government released its "anti-charter" arguing the government's support of human rights.  The anti-charter was endorsed by the executive committees of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union, Union of Visual Artists, the Composers' Union, the Union of Dramatic Artists, the Federal Union of Architects.  The communists required artists to sign up to the anti-charter, without ever showing them the Charter 77.  Many artists including singer Karel Gott and actor Jan Werich later claimed that they had no idea of what they were signing to, just that they were required to sign it.

People continued to sign Charter 77 and by the Velvet Revolution there were almost 2000 signatures.  The first post communist Czechoslovak parliament were among the original signers including the new president Václav Havel and foreign minister Jiří Dienstbier.   

Here are a few relatively short videos I found on YouTube about Charter 77 and the government's anti-charter.

©Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

©Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

©Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

©Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

The Plastic People of the Universe

The Plastic People of the Universe was an underground rock band formed in Prague in 1968 just after the invasion.  The band was inspired by Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground.  

Following the invasion, the overthrow of Alexander Dubček and the end of the Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia instituted "normalisation" which was a return to hard-line communism.  As such, psychedelic rock music wasn't high on the list of communist values so the government revoked the band's license to perform in 1970.  Since they weren't able to perform openly, they basically established an entire underground cultural movement during the 1970s.  I imagine it was a Czechoslovak version of hippies wanting to change the world just as there were similar movements across the world.

In 1976, the band performed at a festival which resulted in their arrest and conviction for the "organised disturbance of the peace".  The band members, and others, were given prison sentences ranging from 8 to 18 months.  The band had no political association but since they were prosecuted by the communist regime it started a number of protests.  Václav Havel and others wrote Charter 77 in response to the arrests and the trial ended up becoming a milestone for human rights against the government.

The band broke up in 1988 however they reunited in 1997 in honour of the 20th anniversary of Charter 77.  Since then they have continued to perform around the world.

Here's a short video that I found on YouTube that shows part of an interview with one of the band's members.

©Radio Free Europe