Abstract
Julius Fučík, a name full of controversial symbolic meaning. He was also a historical figure acting at a specific time and place, as well as a worshipped and execrated monument.
Looking back, Fučík's actions during the occupation and the interwar period merge with the memory of him into an inseparable whole. This fact introduces a set of the following questions: Why did he become, or at least was to become, a significant memory of the Nazi occupation period? How was he commemorated and how were his actions interpreted? The text summarises and analyses various interpretations of Fučík's life that have been arising since the end of the Second World War to this day.
The slowly revealing attitudes of official Communist cultural policy of the late Stalinism period, the reformists' attempt at reflection upon Fučík's values in the 1960s, and dissident criticism and disputes over the interpretation of the socialist past after 1989 represents an extraordinary opportunity for an extensively unconventional view of Czechoslovak history in the second half of the 20th century. The decision to publish Fučík's work, the power interventions leading to its adaptations, the relationship of intellectuals and politicians to Fučík's literary and ideological dimension strongly influenced the general public's reception of the work through the educational system and public commemorations.
The description of this treatment of Fučík's Notes from the Gallows of the period, typical of various approaches oscillating between unconditional adoration and hypercritical destruction reveals the relationships of various interpretations with the aim to show the history of the mechanism of origin and questioning the story of the national hero