ABSTRACT
The National Theater and other established houses had become a middle-class stronghold, trying to keep up with Paris and London. The theatrical establishment first came under fire from three stage directors: Jindrich Honzl, Jiri Frejka, and E. F. Burian. Frejka chose the path of a liberal. But Honzl and Burian accepted the political consequences of their attachment to the Soviet avant-garde and, like many other Czech artists of the time. At the time of the Nazi occupation, Voskovec, Werich, and Jezek fled to the United States; but Honzl remained behind. When a storm of neo-Stalinism broke out in 1958 in reaction to events in Poland and Hungary, and when thunder and lightning descended on the Czechoslovak film industry, two heads rolled. The early 1960s, marked by symptoms of economic crisis in Czechoslovakia and a general relaxation of tensions all over the world, did not favor harsh measures or harsh men.
