Paulina Bren: There was a large spectrum of collaboration during normalisation – just to function, you had to be somewhere on it

In her book The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the
1968 Prague Spring, historian Paulina Bren offers fresh perspectives on
various aspects of Czechoslovakia’s normalisation period. These include
how the Communists used TV serials to get their message across at a time
when the nation, forced to accept the re-imposition of relatively hardline
rule, largely turned inward. She makes particular reference to TV writer
Jaroslav Dietl, creator of some of the most popular shows of that era.