The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring

by Paulina Bren

The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia brought an end to the Prague Spring and its promise of "socialism with a human face." Before the invasion, Czech reformers had made unexpected use of television to advance political and social change. In its aftermath, Communist Party leaders employed the medium to achieve "normalization," pitching television stars against political dissidents in a televised spectacle that defined the times. The Greengrocer and His TV offers a new cultural history of communism from the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution that reveals how state-endorsed ideologies were played out on television, particularly through soap opera-like serials. In focusing on the small screen, Paulina Bren looks to the "normal" of normalization, to the everyday experience of late communism. The figure central to this book is the greengrocer who, in a seminal essay by Václav Havel, symbolized the ordinary citizen who acquiesced to the communist regime out of fear. Bren challenges simplistic dichotomies of fearful acquiescence and courageous dissent to dramatically reconfigure what we know, or think we know, about everyday life under communism in the 1970s and 1980s. Deftly moving between the small screen, the street, and the Central Committee (and imaginatively drawing on a wide range of sources that include television shows, TV viewers' letters, newspapers, radio programs, the underground press, and the Communist Party archives), Bren shows how Havel's greengrocer actually experienced "normalization" and the ways in which popular television serials framed this experience. Now back by popular demand, socialist-era serials, such as The Woman Behind the Counter and The Thirty Adventures of Major Zeman , provide, Bren contends, a way of seeing―literally and figuratively―Czechoslovakia's normalization and Eastern Europe's real socialism.

Genres: History, Czech Literature, Nonfiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2010

Reviews

[Haley Hope Gillilan]

Some of this was over my head and I had to look up a few terms, and a few things I only knew about because I've spent time in Prague and know a little bit about Czech history. Because of this, it's not the most accessible text, BUT I think that a media studies person should definitely be interesting in this and the topic of how every-day citizens interacted with television during late communism in the Czech Republic.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, insightful look at post-Warsaw Pact invasion Czechoslovakia and the "normalization" that took place afterwards. The uses of television in normalization are detailed and I couldn't help but see how the effects there in a period of "late communism" bore similarities to our circumstances here in "late capitalism".

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entirely new approach to late communism that deemphasizes the dissidents, highlights everybody else, and illuminates the medium through which everyday people experienced the regime: TV.

[Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for lovers of Czech history, lovers of Czech culture, and those interested in cultural history. An interesting perspective of what average Czechs were watching every night on their televisions. Too often we forget what the average citizen of particular time periods was doing but only look at what the extraordinary were doing. Well that tide seems to be shifting in recent cultural historiography. A bit narrativistic and formulaic this book could have packed a better argument, but it did make me go find the television shows mentioned on YouTube and for that I'm extremely grateful.

[Urian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was very interesting, and more importantly made me want to view these shows to see what the author was referring to in the content. However, rather than reading as a narrative, it read far more like a textbook or a dissertation. While the content intrigued me, it was presented in many parts in a very dry manner.

[Karla Huebner]

This fascinating and well-written study of Normalization makes use of a source not commonly employed by historians: by looking at the making/reception of state television, it illumines the politics, economics, longings, and satisfactions of Czechoslovak life 1968-1989.

[Zdeněk Fekar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pohled na historii československé socialistické televize je o to zajímavější, že naši někdejší realitu popisuje Američanka. Našel jsem tam i pár zajímavých detailů.

[MBeach · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5