Daniel Bútora

“Although, there was one sign that became evident. Sometime in 1989, I can’t tell exactly, but I guess it was in March, the Czechoslovak communists got short of money and they stopped disturbing the broadcast of Radio Free Europe. It seems quite trivial, but the Free Europe had been broadcasting on medium waves since the 1950s. Today, very few people know what that means. But if you look at an old radio, it has so-called medium waves, not only the ‘FM’ but also ‘AM’. Opposite to those radio transmitters broadcasting from several huge broadcasting stations in the Western part of Europe, the East European countries, ruled by the communist regime, had different huge transmitters set on the same frequency. Whenever Free Europe broadcasted, the Czechoslovak, as well as other Soviet regimes, turned on their anti-transmitters to the same frequency, which disturbed the Free Europe signal. However, it was incredibly expensive. It cost way too much money. From a technical point of view, it used great electric power and it applied only to cities. So practically, it was impossible to listen to the radio Free Europe in Bratislava, maybe only sometimes, or it had to be tuned to another frequency. When we were at our cabin in Hodruša, there the signal wasn’t disturbed. We could listen to Free Europe anytime away from Bratislava. And I guess it was sometime in the spring of 1989, that the tapped-out comrades decided not to give a damn and not to disturb it anymore. They might have also been pushed by Russians or it was a move how to buy those people off, I don’t know. Simply, they stopped disturbing. Wow! I remember that the main program, Free Europe’s flagship, was Events and Opinions (Udalosti a názory) that was broadcasted always at six, at nine, at midnight and it was an hour-long. As they stopped disturbing it, I remember my brother and I lay down at home and listened to it for the whole hour. For me, the chance to listen to it was a little sign of wonder and freedom. It could be compared to Austrian television, which was possible to watch in Bratislava without problems, but it mostly referred to Austria and only from time to time there was broadcasted something little about Czechoslovakia. On the other hand, here in Free Europe, the broadcast was mostly about us and for us. This was another sign that something was going on. Although, even if something was going on, it said nothing about what was going to follow.”

“Talking about the risks… I started to realize the risks a bit more when I was about 18 – 19 years old. It was in time when I became more active in the Christian life. As an 18-year-old I was baptized and then I used to attend various Christian meetings and clubs during my study at the university. I attended small groups that were organized by Silvo Krčméry. Back then we used to have meetings and masses in different flats. I was probably a bit more afraid of this because these activities involved a greater number of people and the State Security, most probably, had monitored them much more closely, as they were considered a bigger threat. There weren’t that many dissidents. So, I would say, I was more afraid of this than of other things.”