Zdeněk Mlynář

Zdeněk Mlynář ( born June 22, 1930 in Vysoke Myto, † April 15, 1997 in Vienna) was a Czech politician and political scientist. He was one of the main actors of the Prague Spring and author of the policy part of the action program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on 5 April 1968.

Life

Mlynář was the son of an officer. In 1946, he became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He originally wanted to be an entomologist, but then studied from 1951 to 1955 Law at the Lomonosov University in Moscow. In 1955, he worked as an employee of the Attorney General's Office in Prague. In 1956 he joined the Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences ( ČSAV ).

In March 1964 Mlynář became secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia at the Law Commission. In April 1968 he also took over its management as Central Committee secretary. In these roles, he became one of the main actors of the Prague Spring. He was the author of the policy part of the action program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on 5 April 1968. He was one of the closest advisers to Alexander Dubček, for which he also wrote speeches.

After the occupation of the country by Warsaw Pact troops Mlynář took part in the negotiations in Moscow and signed the Moscow Protocol. In protest against the development after August 1968, against the stationing of troops contract he resigned in November 1968 by all offices. In 1970 he was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. By 1977 Mlynář worked in the entomological department of the National Museum.

Mlynář was one of the initiators and co-authors of Charter 77 In the course of pursuing the charter signatories by the State Security ( StB ) he was forced to emigrate.

In the Austrian exile Mlynář published in 1978 the book Night Frost in which he explains the background, the rise and decline of the Prague Spring.

First Mlynář worked as a researcher at the International Institute for Systems Analysis in Laxenburg near Vienna. From 1989 he taught until his death as professor at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Innsbruck. He died on 15 April 1997 at the age of 66 years in Vienna from lung cancer.

Private

While studying in Moscow Mlynář lived in a student dormitory in the same room with Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom he shared a friendship to last.

From his first marriage with Rita Klímová Budínová born a daughter and a son come. His second wife Mlynář was married to the Czech philosopher Irena Dubská.

Writings

• Night Frost: experiences on the way from the real to the human socialism. European publishing house, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main 1978 ( Cz: Mráz přichází z kremlu. ).

• The normalization in Czechoslovakia after 1968, in: Wlodzimierz Brus, Pierre Kende, Zdenek Mlynar: "normalization process " in sovietized Central Europe, research project crises in the systems of the Soviet type, Guided by Zdenek Mlynar with Scientific Advisory Board, Study No. 1, October 1982 ( without location )