Kundera spy row reignites

"The document implicating Kundera is not a fake,“ reveals Lidové Noviny. Over a year ago, a historian sifting through the archives of the Czechoslovak secret police came upon a report which indicated that Kundera had informed on an opponent of the communist regime in 1950. The daily now explains that the arrest of Miroslav Dvořáček, who later spent 19 years in Czechoslovak prisons, was later mentioned in a brochure written by the deputy minister of defence in 1952. In a course entitled "Defence against enemies of the people," the senior civil servant responsible for state oppression presented Kundera's alleged action as an example of "the heroism of the people in the struggle against enemies of the state" — an expression which Respekt describes as "a eulogy for an informer." For the weekly, which first broke the story last year, this is evidence that the police report implicating Kundera was not falsified during the 1950s, or during the so-called period of normalization in the 1970s, with a view to discrediting the famous author. However, as Lidové Noviny points out, this latest discovery "should not be interpreted as definitive proof that Kundera is guilty.“ Milan Kundera, who has lived in France since the 1970s, has yet to respond to this latest revelation.