190
said that August was a month of absti-
nence and that we would not be drinking.
We were climbing to the peak in smaller
groups. One of them ran into a Border
Control solider who checked their IDs.
He wrote down their names, but seem-
ingly did not connect them with the op-
position. Even though it was hard not to
make such a connection, as the people
whose names he wrote down included
Jacek Kuroń, Józef Pinior and Zbigniew
Bujak. After his return from duty to the
precinct, he handed his notebook to the
supervisors who were indeed alarmed
when they saw who was spending time
in the mountains that were under their
control. They started a chase.
I also remember seeing Havel in
Prague when he was writing the proc-
lamation in defence of Pospíchal. After
that, together with Peter Uhle and Han-
ka Sabatova, we went to Karlštejn and
from there we sent Pospíchal (who was
still in prison) a card with a wonderful
stamp which was made underground to
commemorate the ten years of the sign-
ing Charter 77.And a postcard with such a stamp could
make it to a prison?
Yes, it did. There were tens of thou-
sands of such stamps. We were making
them in Poland, based on a Czechoslo-
vak design, and then delivering them
to Czechoslovakia. We wanted our col-
leagues to start making money with their
printing activity (we ourselves were still
learning how to do it); as in Poland, at
that time, there was already an under-ground publishing industry. Our ini-
tiative became so popular that in the
spring of 1987 the Czechoslovak min-
ister of postal services sent an alarm-
ing message to all Czechoslovak postal
offices stating that illegal stamps, with
references to Charter 77, were in circu-
lation and instructing them that once
they were encountered, they needed to
be sent back to the return address. We
were surprised by this ourselves as we
would never have come up with such a
wonderful promotion of our activity –
indeed through his message, the minis-
try even informed the smallest post of-
fices about Charter 77.What were the results of the co-opera-
tion between Polish and Czechoslovak op-
position circles in the 1980s?
The fact that the Soviet troops left
Poland.In what ways? Could you be more spe-
cific?
In 1990 both countries were gov-
erned by people who, not that much
earlier, had been involved in the anti-
communist opposition. These politicians
knew each other and had good relations.
Many initiatives were also born at that
time. For example, the Visegrad Group
was created in 1991. The Polish govern-
ment, led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, start-
ed negotiations to ensure the departure
of the Soviet Army from Poland. That
happened by the end of 1990. At that
moment, the response from the Rus-
sian side was “no”. However, the SovietPoles and Czechs across generations A friendship that bore fruit, Interviewer: Zbigniew Rokita