An Uncanny Era: Conversations between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik transed. by Elzbieta Matynia (review)

No two persons were more qualified, both morally and politically, to explore together, in dialogues and letters, the daunting dilemmas of the post-Communist world than the protagonists of this enthralling book. Both Václav Havel and Adam Michnik were active in Central Europe’s dissident counterculture during the Communist era, both shared the philosophical perspective of civic liberalism, and both noticed, as soon as the old system collapsed, that it was gradually replaced by virulently fundamentalist movements and illiberal demagogues. The main themes of this series of conversations are the legacies of Communism, the advent of various illiberal movements, and the challenges of coming to terms with the past. These challenges, the authors argue, are not only political and legal but also, first and foremost, moral.

No less important, the Polish journalist and historian and the Czech playwright, philosopher, and politician examine the nature of politics after the demise of Leninism, the many faces of nationalism, and the transmogrification of the old Communist elites into the new economic power holders.

For Michnik, de-Communization was justified morally only to the extent that it would not result in what he feared (and still fears) to be the temptation to engage in witch hunts. For many years, as editor of Poland’s most influential daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, Michnik has opposed radical de-Communization. This stand, founded on moral grounds, antagonized many of his former friends from the independent, self-governed union Solidarność. The more he came under critical attack, the more he protested what in his view was a logic of vindictiveness. The dialogues with Havel, included in this timely and absorbing book, allowed Michnik to spell out his fears about what he saw as an obsessive fixation upon righting the wrongs of the past. The problem with his position is that he extends this conciliatory perspective beyond Poland’s border, trying to present it as valid for all post-Communist countries. But even in Poland, or among communities of Polish intellectuals abroad, many have reservations regarding what they perceive as Michnik’s much too lenient attitude toward the “comrades.” I am a close friend of Michnik’s and I share many of his views, but his stance clearly does not apply to the Romanian situation.

A passionate defender of memory, Michnik has frequently uttered his misgivings regarding lustration. Havel was less adamant on these issues. While sharing to a large extent Michnik’s worries, Havel remained convinced that the origins of totalitarianism were in the Communist ideology itself. He was one of the initiators, together with Joachim Gauck, Vytautas Landsbergis, and other prominent former dissidents, of the 2009 Prague Declaration calling for a merger of European memory based on the recognition of the common criminality of both Communism and fascism. Michnik did not endorse this view and refused to sign the declaration.

On the other hand, as Czech president, Havel publicly criticized his country’s lustration law for some of its more excessive provisions, notably the inclusion of some largely irrelevant entities such as the People’s Militia among the main Communist organizations whose members needed to be vetted and lustrated. All these topics are prominently and substantively featured in the volume. The editor, New School professor Elzbieta Matynia, and the staff of Yale University Press, deserve high praise for putting together this illuminating volume.

Matynia’s thoughtfully detailed introduction highlights an important topic: the history of the collaboration between dissident groups in the two countries. For example, Havel’s most influential political-philosophical essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” was commissioned by Michnik during one of the encounters between members of Charter 77 and members of the Workers’ Defense Committee in the Tatra Mountains. Before being published by the Czechoslovak underground press, the essay came out in Polish. Together with Michnik’s own essay “The New Evolutionism,” it was to become one of the most authoritative moral and strategic documents generated by Eastern...