The Satirist Who Challenged The Dictator: The Extraordinary Life of Milan Kundera

He exposed the hard truths of communist governance, and what it looks like from the inside

Milan Kundera, the brilliant Czech-French anti-communist satirist and prolific writer, died July 11, but the work he left behind still offers crucial insight into the hard truths of communist governance–and what it looks like from the inside. “Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth,” he once argued, “the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise.” 

Kundera was born in what was then Czechoslovakia April 1, 1929—a fitting birthdate for someone who became known for his biting wit and humor. In the 1930s and ‘40s Czechoslovakia found itself in a turbulent vice between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, two totalitarian dictatorships. The Nazis’ brutal, six-year occupation was only the start of the country’s troubles; three years after the war’s end, the Soviet-sponsored communist coup installed yet another brutal regime that dominated Czechoslovakia for the next four decades. 

Armed Soviet border guards in Berlin on Aug. 13, 1961. CIA/Flickr.

It was in this environment that the young Kundera grew up. His artistic talent earned him a place at Prague’s prestigious Charles University, where he studied “literature and aesthetics.” After graduation, he taught world literature at the nearby Academy of Performing Arts. 

Kundera started out as a communist; he supported the 1948 coup that established the communist regime and joined the Communist Party that same year, but he later soured on the ideology. The Party kicked him out in 1950 for “individualistic tendencies,” though he temporarily rejoined it later. 

His first published novel, 1967’s The Joke, is a satirical story about a young communist student who is expelled from school and sent to a labor camp because of a joke at communism’s expense. One reviewer praised the book by saying: “No other writer . . . has so keenly drawn a Communist society in its phase of decadence.”

In a sad and ironic twist, Kundera’s humor landed him in trouble shortly after his debut novel’s publication. In 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to stamp down the government’s reformist agenda which promoted, among other things, “freedom of speech and religion, the abolition of censorship, an end to restrictions on travel, and major industrial and agricultural reforms.” The hardline communist authorities banned The Joke (as well as all of Kundera’s other writings) in the ensuing crackdown, and Kundera lost his job at the college.

Czechoslovaks carry their national flag past a destroyed Soviet tank during the Prague Spring in 1968. CIA/Flickr.

Kundera escaped the stifling communist totalitarian atmosphere in his native country by moving to France. He lived the rest of his life in Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1981. But exile didn’t dim his writing. Kundera’s pen was kept busy as he wrote several more books, including one of his best known works, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which has been described as, “a work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness,” and which was adapted into a movie. He also authored The Art of the Novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and many other works.  

Kundera received many accolades for his life’s work, including the prestigious Czech Franz Kafka Prize for his “extraordinary contribution to Czech culture,” the Jerusalem Prize for Literature, and the Ovid Prize, among others. 

Prague in Spring, 2008. Valentina Buj/Flickr.

Kundera’s Czech citizenship—which was revoked in 1979 by the communist authorities—was restored in 2019, but he lived the rest of his life in Paris, where he passed away Tuesday. His prolific literary life and the courage to mock a communist dictatorship that couldn’t abide its citizens’ criticism or satire remains an inspiration for many.