Word: czechoslovakia
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...call Jaroslav Seifert, the dominant figure in Czechoslovakia's national literature and culture, "obscure" [BOOKS, Oct. 22]? And why is the decision of the Swedish Academy, which awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature, "mysterious"? Seifert is one of the greatest poets of this century...
...those relations are prickly, a steady stream of high-ranking officials from Peking has fanned out across Eastern Europe during the past four months. President Li Xiannian traveled to Rumania and Yugoslavia. China's Minister of Foreign Trade, Chen Muhua, made well-publicized visits to Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria. The good feelings have been reciprocated. Last August, Hungarian Deputy Premier József Marjai became the highest-ranking East European official to visit China in nearly two decades. Peking has also played host to the Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland...
...caught up, inevitably, in the crisis of 1968, when Czechoslovakia seemed for a few giddy months to have won a measure of independence. As Soviet tanks finally invaded, the ailing Seifert angrily hobbled to the Czech Writers' Union and got himself elected chairman so that he could take part in whatever resistance was to be offered. He helped organize the major protest declaration known as Charter 77. "If an ordinary person is silent, it may be a tactical maneuver," Seifert declared. "If a writer is silent, he is lying...
...documents into the tape recorder, remove the tape, hide it in a cigarette pack and hand it to a 67-year-old female courier. He was assured that the FBI "would never suspect an older woman." Agents seized the courier as she was preparing to board a plane for Czechoslovakia. Her real name turned out to be Alice Michelson, an East German citizen who taught Marxist studies at an East Berlin institute...
Because East Germans may travel to Czechoslovakia without restrictions, the Prague embassy has been used as a haven by refugees before. Faced with this week's influx, the Bonn government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl finally decided to order the embassy doors closed. As tactful West German officials were aware, the new exodus came just as the East German state was preparing to celebrate the 35th anniversary of its founding under Soviet supervision...