Edwin Muir in Prague; Czechoslovakia; Willa Muir, The Usurpers (unpublished novel)

Edwin Muir in Prague

From Radio Prague, David Vaughan.

A Poetic Guidebook to Prague

Willa Muir also wrote about Prague, in her diaries and in her important but still unpublished 379-page novel "The Usurpers", which I have now read in the original typed manuscript (as by Alexander Croy).

Declassified classification from my own StB files:

My Czechoslovak journals (3 volumes)

Here's a poem I wrote back in the 1980s, well before the Velvet Revolution. It's from my (as yet unpublished) book, "Czechoslovakia: Secret Journals of the Poets’ Revolution":

November Cloud
For Peter Butter, On the Occasion of the Edwin Muir Centenary Lecture, Prague

On the way to the Writers' House -
Bohemia in mid-November -
Professor Butter, Muir's biographer,
Sat beside me in the car.
We talked of the poem called The Cloud,
Of what Muir meant, of what he'd seen.
The Dobříš Mansion had hardly altered
Since its use had changed in '45
From residence of Reich's Protector
To haven for the harrassed writer,
Reserved these days for the Party-favoured -
Those writers blessed by the Union-Reich,
The loyal-elect, the Committee-chosen,
With three books to their names at least,
Sound authors of the State's persuasion,
Rewarded by a stay at Dobříš
With stipend and a stately room;
The privilege of elegance
For the price of a cribbed, diminished soul.
Today the seminar's behind closed doors;
Young eager writers have been assembled,
They're being shown the prizes and rewards
To be won for staying in line and silent.
For the Mansion of Comfort is not twenty miles
From the cancerous mines of uranium towns,
Where dissenting scribblers were sent for correction,
Příbram, seat of the Dissidents' Mines.
But we were given the royal treatment,
In Dobříš' fine reception halls.
We were glad to see the guest-book there,
The first they'd had, from forty-five.
Aragon and Eluard, their signatures were all too clear: -
Near theirs we found it, Edwin Muir's!
In '46 and '47, Edwin Muir and Willa too.
Who'd come later? Dylan Thomas, and then the usual crew,
Ritsos and Hikmet, Neruda et al
(Kundera's cursed archangels all,
Whose lyres psalmed death, praised freedom's end).
Who here remembers Edwin Muir ?
Perhaps a man in a cloud of dust ?
We presented two books to the lady custodian,
They were gladly accepted by the Keeper of Keys:-
Muir's poems, and prose of life in Prague.
I wonder what they'll make of them,
The comrades in their graceful suites,
Looking for honest inspiration,
Unguilded themes which suit the times,
But which won't offend the Party chiefs?
Let them read The Good Town and The Cloud.
As they stroll French Garden or English Park,
Casting backward looks and sideways glances,
As they search for the wire in the antique vase,
In rococo mirror, baroque writing-desk.
Let them remember, as they shred each draft:

The labyrinth begins right here.