Even if Povodí Moravy (Morava River Basin) says it could not drain the Vranov reservoir any earlier than it did and could not repair the Znojmo dam, which is perhaps true, the company could have at least warned citizens more effectively.

Only two hours before being informed by the regional head that Znojmo citizens must be evacuated, Mayor Pavel Balík heard from Povodí Moravy that there would be no immediate threat in the next 24 hours. Instead of being warned in advance, people were left uninformed.

At the start of spring, the only real indicator of a problem was the Vranov dam, which is now a major trouble spot and the subject of a dispute: How much water was it possible to drain from the reservoir? Dirty water is now pouring from the dam and Povodí Moravy's conscience must be even dirtier, Škrabal writes.

Perhaps he wrote something about lovers from Verona, but he was also suspected of being Queen Elizabeth I's secret agent; thus, if only for moral reasons, William Shakespeare could never be placed on the honor roll by any Czech city, Jiří Hanák writes in Právo March 30.

It goes without saying that [Czech writer] Ivan Olbracht never reached Shakespeare's fame, nor is he suspected of being a secret agent. Nevertheless, his native Semily has removed him from the town honor roll. He has enriched Czech literature with splendid novels, but so what? Councilors from Semily smelled communism and stripped him of the accolade.

The expulsion of people from the nation, from history and from memory is an old Czech game.

Karel Sabina had been festively ostracized for being a confirmed secret police spy. But who remembers this while watching The Bartered Bride, for which Sabina wrote the libretto? After 1918 there were efforts to expel "Austrians" from the Czech lands but President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk prevented this.

After 1945, such expulsions turned into a national sport. And after seizing power in 1948, the communist regime perfected the habit, going as far as expelling the living from life, first with their opponents, then with their fellow party members.

And the story continues today. Olbracht's life was full of dramatic turns. He left for Russia in the early 1920s and wrote there what can easily be described as rubbish. Even Milouš Jakeš (last head of the pre-1989 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) would have been ashamed about writing a book like Olbracht's Anna proletářka (Proletarian Anne). But then, in 1929, Klement Gottwald took charge and made the party more Bolshevik, and many intellectuals left, Olbracht among them.

He rejoined the party after World War II and ascended as high as member of the politburo. Olbracht became one of the icons of the regime. In the years when he was no longer a party member, Olbracht wrote the best of his novels. No one will ever be able to expel these from the treasury of Czech literature. Perhaps the councilors of Semily should read some of Olbracht's books from those days in order to see who they've really expelled from the honor rolls, Hanák writes..