Jan Palach – Icon
Some of the Story of Jan Palach It's January 16th and thoughts will turn to an event which happened on this day in 1969. The story must begin in the January of 1968 with the election of Alexander Dubcek (pronounced…
Klement Gottwald – First Communist President of Czechoslovakia
Klement Gottwald - Man for NOT All People Unlike the first three Presidents Tomas Masaryk, Edvard Benes and Emil Hacha, who trained as philosophers and lawyers, Klement Gottwald was considered a man of the people as his first trade was being…
Vaclav Havel – Man for the People
Vaclav Havel a Life in Brief When I came to Prague in June 1996, the Czech Republic had only been in existence for three and a half years and Vaclav Havel was still in his first term as Czech President.…
Edvard Benes – Second President of Czechoslovakia
Edvard Benes - A Good Man in a Bad Time Edvard Benes (pronunced Benesh) worked alongside Tomas Masaryk in the creation and ultimately the governing of the new sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. Edvard Benes became the longest serving Foreign Minister,…
Tomas Masaryk – First President of Czechoslovakia
Tomas Masaryk What an amazing life this guy had and it can be divided into three very distinct parts. Firstly, his fight to raise himself from the poor land he was born into. Secondly, the development of that intellect into…
So You Think You Know About the Velvet Revolution
Velvet Revolution - The Path Less Travelled You'll have read that the Velvet Revolution started on International Students Day i.e. November 17th 1989 but, it started well before that. Actually you have to go back 50 years to understand that…