Spoušť Příběhy o lásce a nenávisti

How far can hatred take a society? The shooting at the Tepláreň bar was not the act of one radicalized young man; it opens up the space for hate speech around us: the language of public debate, the speeches of politicians, the comments on social media.

Mark Hudec's reportage is a very personal text that shows the frightening consequences of the search for any "common enemy". Matúš Horváth and Juraj Vankulič, murdered on 12 October 2022 in Zámocká Street, are unfortunately just another of many people who paid with their lives for a very natural thing - they wanted to choose who they would love and who they would like to be. Marek Hudec reconstructs the events of that terrifying night and what preceded it, based on many interviews with witnesses and relatives of the victims. The lives of the two victims, their family and friends. And the shock they and the whole society went through. It also gives us a much broader context: it takes us into the Slovak LGBTQ+ community, among activists and into the recent past, when homosexuality was treated as a disease in Czechoslovakia. We follow recurring stories of intolerance, gratuitous hatred, persecution or even simple indifference. It is clear from these stories how much responsibility for developments in society lies with each of us. We see how easily aggressive words can turn into actions. And the value of empathetic gestures like Zuzana Čaputová's: the hug from Roman Samotný, the owner of the Tepláreň bar, to express her despair and support.

The book Spoušť is published in translation by Michal Lebduška in the edition Prokletí reporterři.