Notebooks I (1960-1964)

The volume Notebooks I contains Jiří Němec's diary entries on separate sheets from 1960 and the First (6 August 1961 – 12 May 1962), Second (15 May 1962 – 2 May 1963) and Third Notebook (10 May 1963 – 28 October 1964). Jiří Němec systematically wrote his intellectual diary for more than fifteen years, from August 1961 – at the behest of Vladimír Holan – until 1978. He recorded the public activities in which he participated and his reading, reflecting on both in his notebooks. The notebooks are a testament to their author's inner growth and the external struggles in which he took part, centred on the effort to live a free life in the conditions of the then communist-controlled society and to 'open windows to Europe'.