Karel Pichlík

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Karel Pichlík

Karel Pichlík (born March 2, 1928 in Prague ; † April 16, 2001 ibid) was a Czech historian who specialized in 20th century Czech and Slovak history and the history of the Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak armies . He was one of the first to sign Charter 77 and was the holder of the National Medal of Merit II. Degree (1998).

biography

Karel Pichlík was born in Prague. In 1947 he graduated from high school in Prague- Vyšehrad . In the same year he joined the Communist Party . Between 1949 and 1953 he studied history at the Philosophical Faculty of the Charles University . After completing his studies, he stayed in the history department as an assistant and later as an assistant professor. In 1958 he moved to the Military History Institute in Prague as a research assistant. 1959–1965 and 1968–1969 he was a member of the editorial board of the magazine Dějiny a současnost - Past and Present . In 1962 he became Candidatus scientiarum, in 1967 he received a doctorate in philosophy. He completed his habilitation in 1968, but was not appointed professor until 1990 for political reasons.

After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he was persecuted as a supporter of social and political reforms of the Prague Spring in the period of so-called normalization . In 1969 he was expelled from the Communist Party and discharged from the Institute of Military History. For many years he was not only prohibited from scientific publication, but also from qualified work. Between 1970 and 1988 he was employed as a laborer in a waterworks. During this time he lived in a shared apartment with the other two historians who were also killed, Jan Křen and Václav Kural, in a worker's car in a forest outside Prague. He could only continue to work more or less privately and secretly in his own field. At the end of 1976 he was among the first group to sign the Charter 77 Declaration.

He was only able to return to his profession after 1989. Between 1990 and 1994 he worked at the Historical Institute of the Czechoslovak Army (since 1993 Institute for the History of the Czech Armed Forces , the successor organization to the Military History Institute), the first three years of which as director of the Exhibition of Resistance. From 1995–1997 he worked as a consultant for the presidential office. He was chairman of the editorial board of the magazines Dějiny a současnost - past and present (1990–1992) and Historie a vojenství - history and military (1990–1994). He took part in the work of several historical commissions: Historical Commission Občanské fórum (1989–1990), the Czech-Austrian Commission of Historians (1990–1992) and the Czech-Slovak Commission of Historians (1994). It was also a board member of the exhibition on Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (since 1990) and the Czechoslovak Documentation Center (since 1999). In 1998 the President of the Czech Republic awarded him the Medal of Merit II.

He died on April 16, 2001 in Prague, leaving behind his wife and daughter Lenka Pichlíková-Burke .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Portrait: Jan Kren - Effort to Understand , radio.cz , accessed on April 8, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Pichlík, Karel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 2001
Place of death Prague