Czechoslovakia was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and the remaining territories in the east became part of Hungary, while in the remainder of the Czech Lands, the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
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 of Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms.
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental organizations, but some are semi-autonomous agencies within government or are associated with particular political parties, businesses or the military. Think-tank funding often includes a combination of donations from very wealthy people and those not so wealthy, with many also accepting government grants.
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 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.
Isaac Deutscher was a Polish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom before the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs. His three-volume biography of Trotsky was highly influential among the British New Left in the 1960s and 1970s.
Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media. The group's name was inspired by Karl Popper's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies.
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 the members of the initiative played important roles in Czech and Slovak politics.
The Civic Forum was a political movement in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia, established during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The corresponding movement in Slovakia was called Public Against Violence.
John Joseph Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.
Isser Harel was spymaster of the intelligence and the security services of Israel and the Director of the Mossad (1952–1963). In his capacity as Mossad director, he oversaw the capture and covert transportation to Israel of Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann.
Martin Sean Indyk is an American diplomat and foreign relations analyst with expertise in the Middle East. He was a distinguished fellow in International Diplomacy and later executive vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C from 2001-2018. He took leave from the Brookings Institution to serve as the U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nations, a play on the term Spring of Nations that is sometimes used to describe the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. It also led to the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union—the world's largest communist state—and the abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world, some of which were violently overthrown. The events, especially the fall of the Soviet Union, drastically altered the world's balance of power, marking the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Cold War era.
Štefan Harabin is a former Slovak judge and politician. He served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Slovakia for two terms and Minister of Justice from 2006 to 2009. In 2019 he ran unsuccessfully for President of Slovakia.
Relations between Israel and the Czech Republic, and its predecessor state Czechoslovakia, have varied widely over time. Initially warm, Czechoslovakia-Israel relations deteriorated, and the two countries did not have diplomatic relations during most of the Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. However, after the Velvet Revolution and dissolution of Czechoslovakia the countries re-established contact, and the Czech Republic is now one of Israel's closest allies, frequently demonstrating strong support for Israel at the United Nations and within the European Union.
Damon M. Wilson is an American foreign policy expert and the President and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy, an independent grant-making foundation supporting freedom and democracy around the world. From 2011 to 2021, he was the Executive Vice President at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank focused on international cooperation. A former civil servant, Wilson served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during the second term of President George W. Bush.
Jan Ruml is a Czech politician who was interior minister from 1992 to 1997.
GLOBSEC is a non-partisan, non-governmental organisation based in Bratislava, Slovakia. One of its main activities is the annual GLOBSEC Bratislava Global Security Forum, in existence since 2005. Other projects include the Tatra Summit conference on European affairs or Chateau Béla Central European Strategic Forum. Its think-tank called GLOBSEC Policy Institute boasts a wide research area based on four pillars. Its main outputs are policy papers and analyses on different topics in the area of international politics and security issues. Since 2016, GLOBSEC is not only the name of one of the top forums on international security worldwide, but also of the legal entity and organiser of the Forum.
Alan Claude Robin Goldsmid Montefiore is a British philosopher and Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a co-founder and Emeritus President of the Forum for European Philosophy, as well as Joint President of the Wiener Library, and a former Chair of Council of the Froebel Educational Institute.
