MILENA REŽKOVÁ
In the early nineteen-fifties, when Emil Zátopek was king of the ten-kilometre run (he was undefeated at that distance for over six years), there were frequent dual meets between Czechoslovakia and the USSR, with four runners in each race, two from each country. The second-string Czechoslovak runner was always instructed, by his Moscow-obsequious coach, that his job was to come in fourth: it was conceded even by the Kremlin, that Zátopek was bound to win, partly by reason of supreme talent, and partly because he would never throw a race however heavy the political pressure put on him; but, this being so, it was important that the Soviet runners at least come in second and third, to save face. Obediently the Czech second-string settled for fourth, and even made it look convincing, seeming to challenge hard for the bronze medal. One day however, the worm turned. Zátopek, as usual, ran away to a monumental lead. The Russians and the Czech trailed along in his wake, way behind, running as hard as they could but not in the same league. When they began their final lap, with Zátopek already coasting home to the tape, they began the traditional finishing kick: as far as the Russians were concerned, it was a perfectly honest duel for second place, with the Czech in fourth place as a foregone conclusion. The Czech, however, had other ideas: with a hundred metres to go, pride and self-respect at last rose in his heart, impervious to the local political correctness; he mounted an extra sprint, passed both Russians, and came in second. The consequence? He never ran for Czechoslovakia again, and was barred from his sport. The further consequence? He emigrated to Canada, when the frontiers were briefly open in 1968, and enjoyed a postscript-career in Masters meets.
That year, 1968, was of course the year when Czechoslovakia, under Alexander Dubček, returned for a while, in the Prague Spring, to the ideal of sovereignty and parliamentary democracy that had inspired its founding as an independent republic in 1918. During its first twenty years, before World War Two, Czechoslovakia had been a truly just society treating all its citizens fairly and equally, under an enlightened constitution. This was in contrast with the injustices and inequality inflicted on most citizens under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Indeed, the chief feature of the new republic was its humanity, its sense of compassion; and inevitably this reminds one of two famous lines in William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence”, which read, “For Mercy has a human heart, / Pity a human face”.
There is, incidentally, an echo of those lines in Dubček’s famous slogan, “Socialism with a human face”, which was his rallying-cry for reforms that would put compassion back into the body politic.
When the Soviet Union led a Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, to crush the reform movement, compassion disappeared from the public scene once again, just as it had under the Nazi occupation and after the Communist coup of 1948. During the Communist years, both before and after 1968, every aspect of public life was tyrannized, directly by the Party and indirectly by the Kremlin; justice disappeared. The one general exception to that brutal fact was sport. Under a tyranny, the only place where a citizen can count on fair play most of the time, either as participant or as spectator, is the sporting arena. I say “most of the time”, because this is not always so. In certain sporting events where the outcome is determined by judges, corruption easily sets in; and every Czech remembers the case of Věra Čáslavská, who was denied an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics by a stacked jury of pro-Soviet toadies, who awarded it to a clearly out-performed Russian. But in track events, the outcome is decided by which runner finishes first, not by a judge’s opinions or loyalties: there may be corrupt examples of political pressure being put on a runner, as cited above; but this is rare, and most races are honest. The same holds good for all events that can be objectively evaluated, by the stopwatch or the measuring-tape: in them, politics cannot contradict the evidence. One such event, for example, is the high-jump.
In 1968, the Olympic Games were held in Mexico City just a few weeks after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Anti-Russian feeling, among Czechs and Slovaks, ran understandably high; and their sadness, their sense of loss, and their resentment could find few safe outlets. Even sports heroes were persecuted — among them, Zátopek, who had publicly condemned the invasion. But there was, at Mexico City, one shining moment of reprieve. In the final of the women’s high-jump, most of the competitors were eliminated, one by one, as they failed to clear the bar. In the end, at the last height, a young Czech, Milena Režková, was pitted against two Russians. Both Russians failed, on all their three attempts. On her third attempt, Režková cleared the bar and won the gold medal. Standing on the podium afterwards, flanked by the two defeated Russians, she was overwhelmed by the significance of what she had done. Sports are not supposed to be anything but a world unto themselves. But this particular victory seemed, to her and to many others, such a valiant little reproof to the big lie inflicted on her country only weeks before. As the Czechoslovak flag was raised, the Czechoslovak national anthem was played. The first half of it, the Czech half, is devoid of the belligerent pomposity that characterizes most such music: it is, instead, lyrical, almost wistful, Režková stood there while it was being played (it is, by the way, a quite long anthem) and the tears coursed down her face through every note of it. And the television camera moved in for close-up, and held that shot undeviatingly until the ceremony ended. It was a prolonged scene of immense beauty and poignancy.
I met Režková two years later, at a party I threw in Prague for friends and acquaintances who were still unafraid to get together for free-thinking conversation despite the secret police. Most of them, became committed dissidents in the years that followed — and paid a high price for it. I did not get the sense that Režková herself was a political activist. But certainly, like every patriot living under a foreign tyranny, she was politicized; and she certainly realized, as did everyone else in the room, that what she had done in Mexico City had huge symbolic importance.
It is with admiration, therefore, that I dedicate to her the following poem.
