“People, I loved you! Be vigilant!"

From 21 February to 31 May, an exhibition “People, I loved you! Be vigilant!" devoted to the 110-year anniversary from the birth of Julius Fučík runs in the gallery “Atrium” (3rd floor).

The exhibition is prepared by the National Library of Belarus and Julius Fučík Association in the Czech Republic.

The book exposition devoted to Julius Fučík’s life and writing includes three thematic sections. The first of them presents the writer’s work in general and includes his collected works and separate publications, the second section is dedicated to his eminent book “Report from the Gallows” which is presented both in Czech and other languages – Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish. The third section presents editions about Julius Fučík’s heroic life and his literary and publicist heritage.

Along with book editions the exposition includes illustrations – copies of photos, articles, book covers and posters.

Julius Fučík (1903–1943), Czech journalist, literary and theatrical critic, writer and publicist was born on 23 February, 1903, in Prague, the capital of Czechia which was at the time a part of Austria-Hungary. He studied at the faculty of philosophy of the Prague University. Since the 1920s he had been one of editors of print media of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party – the newspaper “Rudé právo” and the journal “Tvorba”.

In the 1930s, the journalist visited the USSR, in particular Tashkent. Impressed by this journey, he wrote the book “In a Land, Where Tomorrow is Already Yesterday" (1932) and a cycle of literary sketches.

Julius Fučík was a convinced anti-fascist, and during the World War II – a participant of the Resistance movement. During the Nazi occupation he published a cycle of patriotic articles and essays about the best representatives of democratic culture – Bozena Nemcova (1820–1862), Karel Havlícek Borovsky (1821–1856), Jan Neruda (1834–1891). Since 1941 Fučík had been at the head of underground editions. In April 1942 he was detained by Gestapo.

In the Pankratz prison in Prague he wrote his most known book “Report from the Gallows” (in Czech: “Reportáž psaná na oprátce”, the Belarusian translation is known as “Slova perad pakarannem smertsyu”) with the eminent aphorism: “People, I loved you! Be vigilant!" (in Czech: “Lidé, měl jsem vás rád. Bděte!”). This book first appeared in print in 1945 and later it was translated into 70 languages. The edition is a documentary and literary evidence of the struggle of the underground anti-fascist Resistance movement in Czechoslovakia during the World War II, as well as Fučík’s reflections on the meaning of life and the responsibility of each person for the fate of the world. For this book the writer was posthumously awarded the International Peace Prize (1950).

In summer 1943 Julius Fučík was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Germany and tortured and killed in the notorious Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. Since 1958 the day of Julius Fučík’s death has been celebrated as the International Day of Solidarity of Journalists.