49 pages • 1 hour read
Under a Cruel Star: A Life In Prague, 1941-1968
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Heda Margolius Kovály
Heda is the author, protagonist, and narrator of this memoir. A fiercely intelligent and brave person, she withstands decades of injustice and suffering, all while maintaining her ability to recognize and value beauty and kindness. She is Jewish, and during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, she is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. This experience teaches her to be wary of totalizing ideologies, and as a result, she never fully trusts the Communist Party that rises to power in the Czech Republic after the Nazis’ defeat. While others, including her husband Rudolf, believe in the utopian promises of communism, Heda notices that the party’s leaders live in luxury while others go hungry. When the party’s growing totalitarianism ensnares her husband, she is shocked and frightened but not surprised.
Heda harbors an inclination to recognize beauty in the world, and her penchant for the written word allows her to examine the world thoroughly. In her memoir, she writes about human society as existing away from the natural world, contrasting the innate good of nature with the insidious behaviors of the Czech Communist Party.
Rudolf Margolius
Rudolf is an important secondary character in Under a Cruel Star. Heda’s first husband and Ivan’s father, he is an idealist who at first believes wholeheartedly in the Communist Party. His idealism leads him to ignore early warning signs of corruption and violence within the Party, even as Heda insists that the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous. Even as seemingly innocent people begin to be arrested, Rudolf remains certain that the Party is fundamentally just, and he thus deludes himself into believing that as long as he does nothing wrong, he will not be arrested.
Despite this optimism, Rudolf is soon arrested and made to issue a false confession to crimes against the state. This confession leads to his execution. Years after his death, Heda demands that the Communist Party admit Rudolf’s innocence; they comply, but they refuse to give her proof of their admission.
Ivan Margolius
Ivan, Heda’s son, learns the truth of the circumstances around his father’s death as a teenager. The timing of these revelations demonstrates the lengths to which Heda goes to protect her son from harm and suffering. She takes him to the forest even though she is overworked, poor, ill, and tired, and she protects him from the harsh truths of life by sending him away to the country with his relatives. Ivan becomes a successful architect and currently lives in London with his family.
Pavel Kovály
Pavel Kovály is initially a secondary character, though he takes on a more central role later in the book when he becomes Heda’s second husband. A family friend, shows support to Heda in her time of need, unlike many of Heda’s friends and acquaintances. His courage gives her hope that, even in a violently repressive political climate, there are still some people “whose humanity would prove greater than [their] fear” (28). When he marries her, he suffers greatly for his choice: he loses his job and is looked down upon by those loyal to the Communist Party. Eventually, Pavel finds work again and provides a creative outlet to Heda in the form of her work as a translator.
Unlock all 49 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: