September 2020 – 1984

Jakub Nešetřil, a member of the Red Button network, talks about the book.

1984, now a classic work of the dystopian genre, is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable novels of the 20th century and a brilliant analysis of all totalitarian systems. The "dystopia" also has its "antihero": Winston Smith, an ordinary, not very brave man who desires nothing revolutionary: he just wants to know the true, unmanipulated version of the past, to believe what he sees with his own eyes, and to have the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. These basic demands, however, directly threaten power built on lies, and so Winston’s rebellion against the monstrous organism of which he is a tiny cell is doomed to fail from the start. Yet the author gives him a certain hope, made all the more powerful by being spoken in a torture chamber: "Somehow it will fail you, something will defeat you. Life will defeat you." Orwell wrote his novel in 1947. Unlike many at the time, he did not succumb to the post-war euphoria of eternal peace, and his work is therefore a vivid portrayal of the political perversion that ends every revolutionary movement in history.

Who is Jakub Nešetřil?

Jakub Nešetřil is one of the most successful IT entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic. He built and then sold the startup Apiary in 2017 to the global giant Oracle, where he subsequently served as vice president of product development. Today, Jakub leads Česko.Digital, which aims to connect IT with both governmental and non-governmental organizations around a unified, common goal – helping the Czech Republic become a better place to live.