V+W: The Letters

Voskovec’s and Werich’s correspondence is a strong statement of life of two extraordinary people in uneasy times. Mutual letters of the legendary founders of the Liberated Theatre, whose lives were separated after February 1948, are a fascinating testimony of their originality and artistic maturity. At the same time, the letters reveal the life stories of these important personalities in a bipolar world full of iron curtains and cold wars. These letters are priceless evidence of the intellectual and spiritual world of V+W and they are also the top literary work in Jiří Voskovec’s postwar period. “The form of abbreviation, short connections, theatrical allusions, plus the private codes and brilliant stylization, unbelievable addressing and signing” – these are the apt words the critics used to describe the correspondence.