MONSTRUM

"It's not a monument, it's a monster" – is how the sculptor Švec judges his new commission which he received against his will. When the government announces a competition for the erection of a 30-metre-high Stalin monument, it invites all the leading sculptors to participate. And they have to accept the invitation because the 1950s are the time of arbitrariness and political trials in Czechoslovakia. Švec may not have any sympathies for the Communist system, but he wants to complete the commission in a proper manner now that he has been entrusted with it. He comes under increasing pressure: ministers keep visiting his studio, give contradictory instructions for the execution of the monument and threaten the artist. Friends and acquaintances, on the other hand, scorn Švec and, above all, his wife for her alleged links to the system. She no longer seems able to cope with the pressure, and his assistant Pavel is seriously thinking of fleeing the country. CF