Jiří Pelikán

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Jiří Pelikán (born February 7, 1923 in Olomouc , Czechoslovakia , † June 26, 1999 in Rome ) was a Czech publicist, an important communist politician in the Prague Spring , and later a member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party .

Life

Jiří Pelikán is a son of the sculptor and medalist Julius Pelikán (Nové Veseli 1887–1969 Olomouc). In 1939, Pelikán became a member of the exiled Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . After the Second World War, he was committed to the election victory of the communists in his home country. From 1953 to 1963 he held leading positions in the Communist-dominated International Union of Students . He was then director of Czechoslovak television until 1968 . In this capacity and as a member of the Czechoslovak Parliament, he made a significant contribution to the Prague Spring and became one of its protagonists. With Helmut Zilk, he succeeded in the first live discussion of the City Talks , together with ORF , which was broadcast both inside and outside the CSSR.

After the Warsaw Pact troops marched into Prague on August 20, 1968, he organized the journalistic resistance. Therefore, after the final victory of the anti-reform wing of the KPČ under Gustáv Husák , he had to leave Czechoslovakia in 1969 and found political asylum in Italy. There he joined the Italian Socialist Party and was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1989. After the Velvet Revolution in his Czechoslovak homeland, he was a member of the Consultative Council of the President of the CSFR, Václav Havel , from 1990 to 1991 . Jiří Pelikán died in Rome in 1999 after a long illness.

Pelikán was married to the Czech actress Jitka Frantová , who was best known for the ORF series “The End of the Great Vacation”.

In 2009 allegations became public that in 1960/61 Pelikan helped the Czechoslovak secret service to lure Dieter Koniecki , the West Berlin student functionary and former Eastern speaker of the Liberal Student Union of Germany , to the eastern part of the city, where he was arrested and later on charges in Prague alleged espionage was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank Herold: The entanglement of Jiri Pelikan. In: Berliner Zeitung . April 23, 2009, accessed June 17, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Pelikán, Jiří
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech publicist and politician, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Olomouc , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1999
Place of death Rome