The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and most Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms.
Olomouc is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 102,000 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city in the country. It is the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region.
Jaroslav Hašek was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian, first anarchist and then communist, and commissar of the Red Army against the Czechoslovak Legion. He is best known for his novel The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I and a satire on the ineptitude of authority figures. The novel has been translated into about 60 languages, making it the most translated novel in Czech literature.
The Czechs, or the Czech people, are a West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and the Czech language.
Jaromír Nohavica or Jarek Nohavica is a Czech recording artist, songwriter, lyricist and poet.
Dominik Jaroslav Duka, O.P. is a Czech prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Prague from 2010 to 2022. He was made a cardinal in 2012.
Jiří Voskovec, known in the United States as George Voskovec, was a Czech-American actor. Throughout much of his career, he was associated with actor and playwright Jan Werich. In the U.S., he is known for his role as the polite Juror #11 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.
Emil Viklický is a Czech jazz pianist and composer.
Petr Kroutil is a Czech musician and actor. He is a vocalist, composer, arranger, and bandleader who plays clarinet, flute, saxophone, and the bansuri.
Czechoslovakia's jazz roots were established by Jaroslav Ježek and Rudolf Antonín Dvorský in the 1920s and 1930s. Ježek's influence in this realm is particularly noted and by the time he immigrated to the United States in 1939, his compositions blending jazz and classical music were among the most popular music. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis, however, jazz was banned and it was not until 1947 when the Australian jazz pianist Graeme Bell and his Dixieland Jazz Band performed at a World Youth Festival in Prague that the jazz movement was revived.
Jaroslav Erik Frič was a Czech poet, musician, publisher and organizer of underground culture festivals.
Pavel Kohout is a Czech organist.
Karel Duba was a Czech guitarist, composer, and bandleader. He was one of the first musicians to play electric guitar in Czechoslovakia. During his career, he collaborated with important exponents of Czech jazz and pop music. He died on a concert tour in Mongolia.
Jiří "George" Traxler was a Czech Canadian jazz and swing pianist, composer, lyricist and arranger, and was considered a founder and co-creator of the swing music era in Czechoslovakia. He was the last surviving collaborator of the renowned Czech pre-war composer Jaroslav Ježek. In 1951 he emigrated to Canada, and lived with his wife, Jarmila, in Edmonton until his death in the summer of 2011.
Jaroslav Jakubovič is a Czech-born Israeli jazz saxophonist, composer and record producer.
Jiří Korn is a Czech recording artist and actor. Korn is a highly acclaimed musician in his native Czechoslovakia, and remains after his five decade long career one of the most prominent Czech singer-songwriters, but is internationally perhaps best known for his single Miss Moskva, which received radio play in most European countries, including France, Germany, Croatia, Hungary and Norway.
Jaroslav Krejčí was a Czech-British sociologist, historian, economist and former professor of sociology at Lancaster University.
Radim Hladík was a Czech guitarist, composer and producer. He was known primarily for his trademark rock and jazz-fusion electric sound, although his early style was more blues-oriented, and Hladík also played acoustic folk. Since the second half of the 1960s, he has been considered one of the best and most influential Czech guitarists, and has won awards in the "beat rock" category.
Ludvík Kundera was a Czechoslovak musicologist, pianist and academic administrator.
Václav Jelínek was a Cold War era spy for Communist Czechoslovakia, who worked in London under the assumed identity of Erwin van Haarlem.
