Abstract
National publishing house Odeon existed in Czechoslovakia from 1953 to 1992, when it underwent an unsuccessful reorganization, after which in 1994 the publishing house was shut down. Odeon existed throughout nearly the entire period of Czech history called totalitarianism which was in cultural field characterized by certain typical features such as press censorship, banning of certain authors etc.
While studying the modern history of the Czech nation, one can easily stumble across essential term "islets of freedom", which refers to certain places, organisations, groups and so on, that operated either more or less noticeably in the boundaries of totalitarian state. They all had one thing in common, that being their very limited influence.
That is just the attribute in which the Odeon was strikingly different. During its existence the publishing house Odeon published about 8 000 titles (that is 150 titles per year), the Readers club, established as part of the publishing house, had over 400 000 members, Odeon won many awards on book fairs all over the globe and published translations from a large number of foreign languages, including Persian and Inuit.
That all makes it in my view nothing less than an "island of freedom" and not just another "islet". But the main question is how could this national publishing house develop into "island of freedom" within totalitarian state? I'll present how the editorial office worked, how could it cope with the government censorship, what exactly was "covering" of translators, just how thorough the state control of Odeon's daily activities was and several other topics, through which will everyone have a chance to see just how much has Odeon been important to the Czech nation.
My own findings will be accompanied by quotes from formal Odeon employees, that'll add authenticity to the whole topic.