Abstract
« We don't give a damn about testaments» declares Milan Kundera in Testaments betrayed. Why Max Brod has not respected Kafka's testament? Why has Vogel accepted that people make alterations to his friend Janacek's work? Kundera highlights the growing disrespect to the wishes of the authors. The main reason is a serious incomprehension between modern art and its lovers and critics. This essay was originally published in French in 1993 under the title Les testaments trahis. Indeed, Milan Kundera, born in Czechoslovakia in 1929, lives in France since 1975. He is mostly known for his ironical opposition to the communist Czech government in the fifties and sixties. His novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1986) is also well-known.
From his first works, he has always favoured humour, dealing comically with serious topics. As Jean Rubès says in Dictionnaire des auteurs européens, although he has experienced two significant political systems (the totalitarian regime and the liberal society), Kundera is mostly interested on the one hand by the human being when he writes novels and on the other hand by the destiny of European culture when he writes essays.
In Testaments betrayed Kundera develops in nine parts a study of European art situation, place and destiny. He focuses mostly on the incomprehension (or false comprehension) which badly affects European art. How can works be admired without being understood? What are the consequences for art and more generally for Europe?
