CIVIC COURAGE AS A PRINCIPLE. THE PUBLICATIONS OF MILAN ŠIMEČKA (1930–1990) AS A REFLECTION OF HIS LIFE AND THE SOCIAL CHANGES OF HIS TIME
Josef Halla
Studia Politica Slovaca, 2025, vol. 18, no. 2, p. 66-81
Language: Czech
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/SPS.2025-2.5
Abstract
Many intellectuals who were excluded from society and the Communist Party after the suppression of the Czechoslovak reform process in August 1968 were unable to continue their publishing activities in the 1970s and 1980s. Excluded from their university jobs, they had to perform manual labour; they could only write in their spare time and in secret. In addition, they had no official publishing opportunities. Therefore, they had to publish their writings in samizdat and/or abroad. It was only after the end of the normalisation regime in November 1989 that they were able to publish freely again. A prominent example of this life path is Milan Šimečka (1930-1990), one of the most prolific dissidents in former Czechoslovakia. After being expelled from university and the Communist Party, he had to take up manual labour. Very active in publishing during the 1960s, he remained silent in the first half of the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, he began writing again, publishing in samizdat and later in exile periodicals and foreign media. His book, The Restoration of Order (Obnovení pořádku), remains a sought-after and inspiring analysis of how the Normalization regime systematically controlled its citizens. The article chronologically traces Šimečka’s extensive publishing activities from the 1950s until his death, with a particular focus on the 1970s. His publication activities are set in a real historical and biographical context.
Keywords
Milan Šimečka, intellectuals, dissent, Czechoslovakia, normalization, samizdat, biography, bibliography
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