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Dominik Tatarka was a famous Slovak writer that became a “banned author” after 1968. He criticized Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and he was the first Slovak signatory to Charter 77. Thus, some of his books were published as samizdat or in exile. Tatarka’s book “Navrávačky” was first published in the samizdat journal “Fragment K” in 1986 (the first part) and 1987 (the second part). In 1987, this book was published in the samizdat edition “Petlice”. Then, this text was issued in exile – “Navrávačky” was published in 1988 in Western Germany in Cologne within the exile edition “Index”. These samizdat and exile editions of “Navrávačky” were prepared by Martin Šimečka and Ján Langoš. “Navrávačky” are book of Tatarka’s memories, opinions, and messages about culture, society or his life. This book is based on Eva Štolbová’s interviews with Tatarka that were recorded on twenty tapes during years 1985 and 1986. However, the text of these samizdat and exile editions was modified and rewritten as Tatarka’s monologue (in prose), without Štolbová’s questions. Later, in 2000 and 2013, “Navrávačky” was published in an original and complete version, as a transcription of interviews from tapes without any modification.

Under the title „písačky“ (scribbles) Slovak writer Dominik Tatarka generally described his texts from the so-called Normalization period. Milan Šimečka commented that the word “písačky” contained “deep sorrow of a writer who had been writing in solitude and isolation, without the hope that his manuscripts would be ever a published book, printed, bound and read.” More specifically, “písačky” refers to texts collected in his later book “Písačky pre milovanú Lutéciu” that were created between 1976 and 1978 and were designed as love letters of an older writer to his young lover to Paris. Under the title “Písačky” some texts were published in 1979 already in the samizdat Petlice Edition by Ludvík Vaculík. Miroslav Kusý published about 50 copies of “Písačky” by samizdat in Bratislava but Slovak readers were said to show little interest because they perceived these texts as pornographic. Part of this samizdat edition by Kusý was confiscated by the State Security during one of house searches. In 1984, “Písačky” were published in exile by historian Ján Mlynárik in the Index Publishing House in Cologne. On 23 September 1986, Dominik Tatarka was awarded the Jaroslav Seifert Prize for “Písačky” by the Charter 77 Foundation in Stockholm. The Jaroslav Seifert Prize Committee consisting of Jiří Gruša, Milan Kundera, Antonín J. Liehm, Sylvie Richterová, Josef Škvorecký, Jan Vladislav, František Janouch and “in pectore” Ludvík Vaculík and Václav Havel, appreciated on these works by Tatarka that they “newly developed a genre of human monologue” and also “a bold testimony about a time and so far not reached depths of human mind”. Tatarka learned that he was awarded the prize from the Voice of America broadcasting on the very day. “Písačky” were officially published after 1989 in an edition by Ján Mlynárik (1998, together with “Letters to Eternity” and “Alone against the Night”) and by Oleg Tatarka as “Písačky pre milovanú Lutéciu” (1999, 2003, 2013).

The role of the telegram written by Kurt Furgler (1924-2008), former president of the Swiss Confederation and sent to his personal friend of Alojzij Šuštar was to report on the activities conducted by Furgler in contacting the president of the Swiss Confederation Flavio Cotti and the president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors. Its aim was to stop the aggression of the Yugoslav People's Army against Slovenia. The letter confirms the high level contacts exercised by Archbishop Šuštar in international politics in order to firmly establish democracy in Slovenia. The document shows that Mr. Furgler was active in coordination with Archbishop Šuštar.

The authorities, namely the still communist Yugoslav People's Army (YPA) could not react to the document, because it arrived to Ljubljana on June 28, 1991 at the opening stages of the Slovenian War of Independence. Had they known about it, they would have treated such a case as high treason on Archbishop Šuštar’s part. It was important both to the Catholic Church in Slovenia and the broader Slovenian public, because it was a sign of hope and encouragement at the moment when the democratic will of the Slovenian citizens was being forcibly supressed by the armed intervention of the YPA.

It is used in publications and exhibitions about the activities of Archbishop Šuštar and the Catholic Church in Slovenia. Historians and members of Catholic Church consider it a symbol of the cultural opposition and influence of Archbishop Šuštar. It is located in box 37 of the Alojzij Šuštar Collection and it is provisionally available.