CZECH REPUBLIC: Prague Winter - Madeleine Albright

In Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937–1948, Albright may well have written the most poignant account we have in English of the tragic destruction of the so-called First Republic — the Czechoslovakia of interwar Europe — at the hands of Hitler and Stalin. Not much of this account is truly autobiographical: Albright was born only in the last years of the Republic’s existence and spent much of her childhood either in exile in London or with her diplomat father in postwar Yugoslavia. Like her contemporary, the future Czech president Václav Havel, Albright was too young to understand the larger forces undoing her country.

For contemporary reflections on the Republic’s fate, Albright turns to the letters, journals, and articles of her parents’ generation, especially those of her extraordinary father, Josef Korbel. This perspective allows Albright to infuse old political debates with the warmth of conversation at the family dinner table. Korbel and his contemporaries were not merely serving a historical state — they were building a home for their children. Albright portrays Korbel’s colleagues, especially Czechoslovak foreign minister and future president Eduard Beneš, in a detailed historical setting that feels as personal as a family photograph.

I'm breaking my rule about 'war novels', because this seems particularly poignant, and a great autobiography after a few fiction novels in a row.

ALSO, PLEASE NOTE: I am extending the date of this to March 1, because I'm going to be out of town the previous week. If anyone has a conflict, please let me know.