Jan Vinař (15. 7. 1914, Prague – 23. 9. 1983, Zurich)
“The text of Jan Vinař’s reportage about Tibet was several years ago obtained by Professor Martin Slobodník, then Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the Comenius University in Bratislava, from his colleague, Professor Tomáš Vinař, the grandson of the author. We decided to publish the text officially in a critical edition of a historical document. Unfortunately, this effort was stopped when Martin Slobodník prematurely passed away. Later, the Czech edition was published in cooperation with the Palacky University in Olomouc.” Doc. PhDr. Luboš Bělka, CSc. “Popular Western imaginations often visualize Tibet as a mythical spiritual kingdom, the eternally unchanging Shangri-la that was tragically usurped and destroyed by the red China. Jan Vinař’s reportage shows the land without this mystical veil and exoticization, but with naïve optimism typical for the era of socialism building as viewed in that time by leftist intelligentsia. Thus, this book is not only about Tibet, but also about our own past as a post-communist nation.” Mgr. Kamila Hladíková, Ph.D.
Vinar_Tibet_2024_obalka_eng.indd 1
vanished horizons
ISBN 978-80-244-6506-7
Luboš Bělka & Kamila Hladíková (eds.)
Jan Vinař
Tibet – a Country Where People Have Leapt a Thousand Years Forward
Czechoslovak journalist, the author of the reportage forming the main part of this book, was born into a wealthy Jewish family as Heinz Wiener. As a student he participated in the activities of the Czechoslovak Communist youth organization. Before the World War Two he got married and had a son. After spending most of the war in German concentration camps, upon his release he learned that his wife, nephew and mother-in-law all died during the American bombing of Prague in the last months of the war. Only his son miraculously survived. He married for the second time and moved with his new family to Washington D.C. where he was employed as high-ranking diplomat. After two years he was dismissed due to unjust accusations and made a living as ordinary worker after his return to Czechoslovakia. In 1953 he was employed by Czechoslovak Radio and in 1957 was sent as a foreign correspondent to Beijing. During his Chinese mission he lost his second wife and young daughter in airplane crash. Back to Czechoslovakia in 1960, he continued to work in Czechoslovak Radio and got married for the third time. The highlight of his radio-reporter’s career was his live reporting about the Soviet invasion of Prague on 21. August 1968, after which he decided to emigrate to Switzerland.
Jan Vinař Tibet – a Country Where People Have Leapt a Thousand Years Forward Luboš Bělka & Kamila Hladíková (eds.)
Jan Vinař called his optimistic account of socialism-building on the roof of the world with a title that seemed to express the spirit of the times: Tibet – a Country Where People Have Leapt a Thousand Years Forward. We currently already know that Tibet, not even with the brotherly help of Chinese people’s masses, the CCP, and the PLA, has indeed not leapt a thousand years forward within a few years after the proclaimed ‘liberation’. The so-called ‘great leap forward’, carried out in the entire PRC under Mao Zedong’s leadership between 1958-1960, ended with a huge disaster as a result of which millions of people died of famine. Another of Mao’s campaigns, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which started several years later in the summer of 1966, caused irretrievable damage to the cultural heritage and people’s psyche both in inland China and all Tibetan areas. The reportage written by the Czech journalist who had the opportunity to visit Tibet shortly after the uprising and the escape of the fourteenth Dalai Lama into the Indian exile in March 1959 can now be considered a valuable first-hand account documenting the initial stage of the Chinese ideological civilizing mission in Tibet that was in that time celebrated by leftist intellectuals both in Eastern Europe and in the West. Nevertheless, not even Jan Vinař himself retained his optimism concerning the new, presumably juster social order, when he decided to leave his home country after the Soviet invasion in August 1968. He emigrated to Switzerland, where he passed away in 1983, never returning to Czechoslovakia. His Tibetan reportage could only be published in memoriam by his wife as a samizdat. o A group of Chinese, including two PLA officers, in front of the Zhikatse castle. The photograph shows the original building that was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and later reconstructed. Photographed by Augustin Palát on 25. September 1956, Jan Vinař visited the place three years later. The photograph is from Augustin Palát’s personal archive (courtesy of the Czech-Chinese Society).
21.10.2024 17:57:37