While in prison in 1981, he befriended the dissident and future Czech president Vaclav Havel. Later, he became a conservative voice in Rome.
Tag: Czechoslovakia
Ivan Klima, Czech Novelist Who Chafed Under Totalitarian Regimes, Dies at 94
A writer, dissident, teacher and critic, he was deeply affected by an early experience of his life: incarceration as a boy in a concentration camp near Prague.
Slovakian Charged in Shooting ‘Was Against Everything’
People who know the suspect described a “weird and angry” loner who wrote erotic poetry, and whose resentments ranged across the political spectrum.
Slovakia Has Charted Its Own Course Since the Fall of the Soviet Union
Slovakia is one of two nations born out of the former Czechoslovakia, a multiethnic nation established at the end of World War I.
Karel Schwarzenberg, Renegade Czech Prince and Politician, Dies at 85
Popular with the Czech public for quietly subverting the aristocracy, he served twice as foreign minister and ran for president in 2013.
Milan Kundera, Author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ Dies at 94
The author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” he was known for sexually charged novels that captured the suffocating absurdity of life in his native Czechoslovakia.
Vera Gissing, Who Was Rescued by ‘Britain’s Schindler,’ Dies at 93
She was not quite 11 when train convoys organized by a London stockbroker carried her and hundreds of other Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II.
George Wolf, Caring Neighbor Who Once Glimpsed the Face of Evil, Dies at 92
Mr. Wolf escaped the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and built a life as a garment manufacturer and lover of music in New York City. He was infected with the novel coronavirus.
Milos Jakes, Czech Communist Leader, Is Dead at 97
In 1987 he was made general secretary of the country’s Communist Party. Two years later he was swept aside by reform.