Rudolf Battěk

Rudolf Battěk ( born November 2, 1924 in Bratislava, † March 17, 2013 in Prague) was a Czech philosopher, dissident and politician.

Life

Battěk attended high school in Banská Bystrica and Prague. From 1940 to 1945 he worked in a Prague company as a machinist, took part in the resistance movement, completed in 1952, the political and social college and then worked as a municipal employee and fitter at the company SONP in Kladno and CKD Dukla Prague. In the 1960s, he was a researcher at the Sociological Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences where she investigated relationships and implications of working groups in industrial companies.

During the Prague Spring, he joined the opponents of communism, the chairman of the club dedicated non-party (Club angažovaných nestraníků - KAN) is from July to November 1968 Member of the Czech National Council (Česká národní rada ). After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies and defeat of the movement, he turned with several open letters to the government and demanded negotiations and discussion of the new situation in occupied Czechoslovakia. His immunity was lifted on 25 September 1969, Battek immediately arrested. After his release in 1970 he was allowed to operate only as a doorman.

After leafleting during the first elections after the coup, was in 1971 a new three and a half years' imprisonment in Litoměřice. After his release in 1974, he worked as an assistant and window cleaner. 1977 Battek belonged to the first signatories of Charter 77 and in 1978 was one of the founders of the Committee of the persecuted unjustly ( Výbor na obranu nespravedlivě stíhaných - VONS ). 1980 he was appointed spokesman of Charter 77, 1983 as a member of operating in exile executive body of social democracy in Zurich. However, these functions he could perceive only conditionally, since he was arrested on a public figure on June 4, 1980 for alleged attack. The indictment has been extended to an attempted coup. Until 30 October 1985, he was sitting in prisons Pankrác, Opava and Ostrava.

Three years after his release, he was one of founders of the movement for civil freedom and in November 1989 the co-founder of the Civic Forum ( Občanské fórum ). He stood as a candidate, supported by exile Democrats for the Presidency of the Czechoslovak Social Democracy ( CSSD ), but fell in the election and was expelled from the party.

In June 1990, he was elected for the Civic Forum, its Deputy Chairman he was in the Federal Assembly and Chairman of the People's Assembly. After the collapse of the Civic Forum, he initiated in 1991 the association of the Social Democrats ( Asociace sociálních demokratů - ASD ), which is led by Jiří Loewa.

Battěk and his party fought against the separation of Slovakia, had, however, with the newly formed movement Demokraté 92 no success and the party fell apart after unsuccessful elections. After the political defeat, he began his journalistic work, in which he comments on the political situation in the Czech Republic.

From 1994 his interest of European politics and he took over the chairmanship of the European Movement in the Czech Republic ( Evropského hnutí v ČR ) to. His further candidacy for the Senate was also unsuccessful. In 1997 he was one of the founders of the political clubs.

Works

In the 80s and 90s Battěk wrote a number of philosophical treatises and essays.

German -language publications

• German and Czechs (1995 )