A historical science-fiction exhibit in Prague illustrates how writing about the future was controlled and then relaxed under Soviet authority

“Unlike Western science fiction, which was more plot-oriented, Czech writers tended to be more oriented to ideas, and maybe moral issues,” added Ivan Adamovic, another curator at the show. It was not until the 1960s that they devoted more attention to action and gripping plots, he noted.

Pospiszyl also pointed out the emphasis on the positive posed particular difficulties in creating plot lines.

“It was actually quite a problem for writers and artists of that time to even find dramatic situations,” he said. “Because the future was supposed to be optimistic and great. They found a solution in ceding little pockets of capitalism that somehow travelled in time, or were rediscovered in the future.”

A more fundamental change also happened around the same time; when the party-line optimism was relaxed, a more critical look at the risks from technology became possible:

“It came in the second half of the 1960s, when people realised we would not reach communism within the 20th century,” Adamovic said. “Also they noticed that technological progress will not solve everything, as they thought before.”