Postřehy odjinud
Observations from elsewhere

Latinos about Czechoslovakia of the 1940s and 1950s

Summary/Abstract: Zourek, Michal (ed.): Československo očima latinskoamerických intelektuálů 1947–1959. Translated from the Spanish original by Jarmila Jehličková and Jan Machej. Prague: Runa, 2018, 303 pp., ISBN 978-80-87792-25-4. The anthology "Czechoslovakia in the eyes of Latin American intellectuals 1947–1959", assembled by a Latin American studies specialist Michal Zourek, brings testimonies of fourteen Latin American intellectuals, which describe the time they spent in Czechoslovakia between the onset of the Cold War and the outbreak of the Cuban revolution. Almost all authors of these texts, most of which can be characterized as reportages, including world-renowned writers such as Gabriel Garcíá Márquez,Pablo Neruda or Jorge Amado, shared a left-wing world outlook and claimed allegiance to Marxism. Actually, it was in the end of the 1940s and in the early 1950s that the socialist countries behind the Iron Curtain were most appealing for Latin American left-wing intellectuals, which, according to the author, was true especially for the Soviet Union, with Czechoslovakia as a generally developed country culturally close to the West ranking second. In the reviewer’s opinion, the texts selected from a variety of Latin American sources permit to view post-war Czechoslovakia “through the eyes of others” and provide many unique observations, although they are often uncritical and reflect the authors’ limited knowledge of Czechoslovakia’s reality. Provided with the author´s erudite introduction and conclusion, the anthologyis an important source for learning more about relations between post-war Czechoslovakia and Latin American countries.

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