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Czech Republic – Czechoslovakia
70 Years – Birth of Julius Fučík
1978 Silver 100 Korun 32mm (15.12 grams) 0.700 Silver (0.3376 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 92
ČESKOSLOVENSKÁ SOCIALISTICKÁ REPUBLIKA 100 KČS, Czechoslovak coat-of-arms.
JULIUS FUČÍK 1903 – 1978, Julius Fučík facing left.
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 Julius Fučík (23 February 1903 – 8 September 1943) was a Czechoslovak journalist, critc, writer, an active member of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and part of the forefront of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the Nazis.
The composer Luigi Nono wrote a musical piece titled Julius Fučík based on the journalist’s diary Notes from the Gallows and meant it as a tribute to his resilience in the face of Nazi aggression.
Journalism and politics
In 1920 he took up study in Prague and joined the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers’ Party, through which he was later to find himself swept up in the left-wing current. In May 1921 this wing founded the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC). Fučík then first wrote cultural contributions for the local Plzeň CPC newspaper.
After completing his studies, Fučík found a position as an editor with the literary newspaper Kmen (“Stem”). Within the CPC he became responsible for cultural work. In the year 1929 he went to literary critic František Xaver Šalda’s magazine Tvorba (“Creation”). Moreover, he constantly worked on the CPC newspaper Rudé právo (“Red Right”) and several other journals. In this time Fučík was arrested repeatedly by the Czechoslovak Secret Police, managing to avoid an eight-month prison sentence in 1934.
In 1930, he visited the Soviet Union for four months, including the Czechoslovak collectivist colony Interhelpo in Central Asia, and painted a very positive picture of the situation there in the book V zemi, kde zítra již znamená včera (“In a Land, Where Tomorrow is Already Yesterday”, published in 1932). In July 1934, just after Adolf Hitler had suppressed the SA, he visited Bavaria and described his experiences in Cesta do Mnichova (“The Road to Munich”). He went to the Soviet Union again in 1934, this time for two years, and wrote various reports, which again worked to support the Party’s strength. After his return, there were heated arguments with authors such as Jiří Weil and Jan Slavík, who criticized developments under Joseph Stalin. Fučík took the Stalinist side and criticized such statements critical of Stalin as fatal to the CPC.
In 1938 Fučík married Augusta Kodeřičová, later known as Gusta Fučíková.
In the wake of the Munich Conference, the Prague government disbanded the CPC from September 1938 and the CPC went underground. After Nazi Germany’s troops invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Fučík moved to his parents’ house in Chotiměř (Litoměřice District) and published in civilian newspapers, especially about historical and literary topics. He also started to work for the now underground CPC. In 1940 the Gestapo started to search for him in Chotiměř because of his cooperation with the CPC, and so he decided to move back to Prague.
Beginning early in 1941, he belonged to the CPC’s Central Committee. He provided handbills and tried to publish the Communist Party newspaper Rudé Právo regularly. On 24 April 1942 he and six others were arrested in Prague by the Gestapo, probably rather coincidentally during a police raid. Although Fučík had two guns at the time, he did not use them. The only survivor of the incident, Riva Friedová-Krieglová, claimed in the 1990s that Fučík had had orders to shoot himself to avoid capture.
Notes from the Gallows
 First, Fučík was detained in Pankrác Prison in Prague, where he was also interrogated and tortured. In this time arose Fučík’s Notes from the Gallows (Czech: Reportáž psaná na oprátce, literally Reports Written Under the Noose), which was written on pieces of cigarette paper and smuggled out by sympathetic prison wardens named Kolínský and Hora. The book describes events in the prison since Fučík’s arrest and is filled with hope for a better, Communist future. In later years its authenticity was contested. The book was published in a more “acceptable” version, from which the less pleasant passages, which did not quite fit into everyone’s picture of heroic resistance fighters, had been stricken. After his death those letters were treated as great literary works itself. The notes translated in many languages all over the world.
Trial and death
In May 1943 Fučík was brought to Germany. He was first detained in Bautzen for somewhat more than two months, and afterwards in Berlin. On 25 August 1943 in Berlin, he was accused of high treason in connection with his political activities by the Volksgerichtshof, which was presided over by the notorious Roland Freisler. Fučík was found guilty and was sentenced to death along with Jaroslav Klecan, who had been arrested with Fučík. Fučík was hanged two weeks later on 8 September 1943 in Plötzensee Prison in Berlin (not beheaded as is often stated).
After the war, his wife, Gusta Fučíková, who had also been in a Nazi concentration camp, researched and retrieved all of his prison writings. She edited them with help of CPC and published them as Notes from the Gallows in 1947. The book was successful, and its influence increased after the Stalinist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. It has been translated into at least 90 languages.
Fučík as an ideological symbol
 The Party found Julius Fučík and his book convenient for use as propaganda and turned them into one of the most visible symbols of the Party. The book was required reading in schools and by the age of 10 every pupil growing up in communist Czechoslovakia was familiar with Fučík’s work and life. Fučík became a hero whose portrait was displayed at political meetings. Gusta Fučíková was given a high position in the Party hierarchy (the chairmanship of a women’s organization), holding it for decades.
Many places were named after Fučík, among them a large entertainment park in Prague (Park kultury a oddechu Julia Fučíka), the city theatre in Jablonec nad Nisou (1945-98), a factory in Brno (Elektrotechnické závody Julia Fučíka), a military unit, and countless streets and squares. In 1955, Milan Kundera published a poetic tale entitled Poslední máj (The Last May) that depicts an encounter between Fučík and his Nazi interrogators.
The Julius Fučík (Юлиус Фучик) was a Soviet and later Russian barge carrier. In Tom Clancy’s 1986 novel Red Storm Rising, about a hypothetical war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, this ship was given the role of being used for the Soviet invasion of Iceland.
 The Czech Republic also known by its short-form name, Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres (30,450 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate. It is a unitary parliamentary republic, with 10.6 million inhabitants; its capital and largest city is Prague, with 1.3 million residents. Other major cities are Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc and Pilsen. The Czech Republic is a member of the European Union (EU), NATO, the OECD, the United Nations, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.
It is a developed country with an advanced, high income export-oriented social market economy based in services, manufacturing and innovation. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development. The Czech Republic is a welfare state with a “continental” European social model, a universal health care system, tuition-free university education and is ranked 14th in the Human Capital Index. It ranks as the 6th safest or most peaceful country and is one of the most non-religious countries in the world, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance.
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Coat_of_arms_of_the_Czech_Republic.svg/85px-Coat_of_arms_of_the_Czech_Republic.svg.png" align="left" the="" czech="" republic="" includes="" historical="" territories="" of="" bohemia,="" moravia,="" and="" silesia.="" state="" was="" formed="" in="" late="" 9th="" century="" as="" duchy="" bohemia="" under="" great="" moravian="" empire.="" after="" fall="" empire="" 907,="" centre="" power="" transferred="" from="" moravia="" to="" přemyslid="" dynasty.="" 1002,="" formally="" recognized="" an="" imperial="" holy="" roman="" along="" with="" kingdom="" germany,="" burgundy,="" italy,="" numerous="" other="" territories,="" becoming="" 1198="" reaching="" its="" greatest="" territorial="" extent="" 14th="" century.="" beside="" itself,="" king="" ruled="" lands="" bohemian="" crown,="" holding="" a="" vote="" election="" emperor;="" prague="" seat="" periods="" between="" 17th="" hussite="" wars="" 15th="" driven="" by="" protestant="" reformation,="" faced="" economic="" embargoes="" defeated="" five="" consecutive="" crusades="" proclaimed="" leaders="" catholic="" church.=""
 Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Protestant Bohemian Revolt (1618-20) against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years’ War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, eradicated Protestantism and reimposed Catholicism, and also adopted a policy of gradual Germanization. This contributed to the anti-Habsburg sentiment. A long history of resentment of the Catholic Church followed and still continues. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Kingdom became part of the German Confederation 1815-1866 as part of Austrian Empire (1804 to 1867) and the Czech language experienced a revival as a consequence of widespread romantic nationalism. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and were subsequently the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, which was formed in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I.
Czechoslovakia remained the only democracy in this part of Europe in the interwar period. However, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, while the Slovak region became the Slovak Republic; Czechoslovakia was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. Most of the three millions of the German-speaking minority were expelled following the war. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections and after the 1948 coup d’état, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence. In 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed and market economy was reintroduced. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004.
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