Milan Kundera is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979; he received his Czech citizenship in 2019. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores".
Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, playwright, and former dissident, who served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs.
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 29 December 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic.
Adam Michnik is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, and editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza.
Václav Havel Airport Prague, formerly Prague Ruzyně International Airport, is the international airport of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The airport was founded in 1937, when it replaced the Kbely Airport. It was reconstructed and extended in 1956, 1968, 1997, and 2006. In 2012, it was renamed after the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel. It is located at the edge of the Prague-Ruzyně area, next to Kněževes village, 12 km (7 mi) west of the centre of Prague and 12 km (7 mi) southeast of the city of Kladno.
Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Jiří Němec, Václav Benda, Ladislav Hejdánek, Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, Martin Palouš, Pavel Kohout, and Ladislav Lis. Spreading the text of the document was considered a political crime by the Czechoslovak government. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, many of members of the initiative played important roles in Czech and Slovak politics.
Karel František Koecher is a mole known to have penetrated the CIA.
Josef Škvorecký was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980. He and his wife were long-time supporters of Czech dissident writers before the fall of communism in that country. Škvorecký's fiction deals with several themes: the horrors of totalitarianism and repression, the expatriate experience, and the miracle of jazz.
Ivan Martin Jirous was a Czech poet and dissident, best known as the artistic director of the Czech psychedelic rock group The Plastic People of the Universe, and later one of the key figures of the Czech underground during the communist regime. He is more frequently known as Magor, which can be roughly translated as "shithead", "loony", or "fool", a nickname given to him by the experimental poet Eugen Brikcius.
The Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) is a Czech rock band from Prague. It was the foremost representative of Prague's underground culture (1968–1989), which had gone against the grain of Czechoslovakia's Communist regime. Due to their non-conformism, members of the band often suffered serious repercussions such as arrests. The group continues to perform despite the death of its founder, main composer and bassist, Milan "Mejla" Hlavsa in 2001.
Ludvík Vaculík[ˈludviːk ˈvatsuˌliːk] was a Czech writer and journalist. He was born in Brumov, Moravian Wallachia. A prominent samizdat writer, he was best known as the author of the "Two Thousand Words" manifesto of June 1968.
"The Prayer" is a song performed by Canadian singer Celine Dion and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. It was written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager, Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. "The Prayer" was originally recorded in two solo versions for the 1998 film Quest for Camelot, in English by Dion and in Italian by Bocelli. A duet between Dion and Bocelli later appeared on their respective studio albums, These Are Special Times (1998) and Sogno (1999), and was released as a promotional single on 1 March 1999. "The Prayer" won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999 and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2000. It received highly positive reviews from music critics and entered adult contemporary charts in Canada and the United States in 1999. In 2008, Dion released a live version of "The Prayer" as a duet with Josh Groban. This music download entered the Canadian Hot 100 at number 37 and the Billboard Hot 100 at number 70.
Jiří Gruša was a Czech poet, novelist, translator, diplomat and politician.
Alexandr Vondra is a Czech politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Defence of the Czech Republic from 2010 to 2012 under Prime Minister Petr Nečas and has been Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019.
Prince Karel of Schwarzenberg is a Czech politician, former leader of the TOP 09 party and was its candidate for President of the Czech Republic in the 2013 election. He served as a Member of the Chamber of Deputies (MP) from 2010 to 2021.
The Memorandum is the common name in English for the 1965 play Vyrozumění, by Czech playwright Václav Havel. The first English translation, by Vera Blackwell in 1967, used this title. In 2006, Canadian translator Paul Wilson published a new translation, titled The Memo at Havel's request.
Martin Kratochvíl is a Czech jazz / jazz fusion keyboardist and businessman born in Prague. He cofounded the Jazz Q quartet in 1964. During his career, he has performed in various countries around the world, launched his own record label, opened a recording studio, and released numerous albums both as a solo artist and with other musicians.
Michael Žantovský is a Czech diplomat, politician, author, journalist, lyricist and psychologist. He is a former Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom, as well as to Israel and the United States.
The Power of the Powerless is an expansive political essay written in October 1978 by the Czech dramatist, political dissident, and later statesman, Václav Havel.
The Miracle Game is a Czech novel by Josef Škvorecký published in 1972 by Sixty Eight Publishers in Toronto, Canada. It was translated into English in 1990 by Paul Wilson, and according to The Times is Skvorecky's masterpiece. It was his response to Prague Spring events of 1968 Czechoslovakia. and contains unflattering references to real people, Future Czech President Václav Havel becomes "the world-famous playwright Hejl", the writer Bohumil Hrabal appears as the "gifted non-party novelist Nabal".
