Rudolf Battěk

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

Life

Battěk attended grammar schools in Banská Bystrica and Prague. From 1940 to 1945 he worked in a Prague company as a machine fitter, took part in the resistance movement, graduated from political and social college in 1952 and then worked as a municipal employee and fitter at the companies SONP in Kladno and ČKD Dukla in Prague. In the second half of the 1960s he worked at the Sociologický ústav ČSAV (SÚ ČSAV, Sociological Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences), where he investigated the connections and effects of working groups in industrial companies.

During the Prague Spring he joined the opponents of Communism in, chairman of the will clubs dedicated party member (KAN - Club of Committed Non-Party Members) and July to November 1968 Member of the Czech National Council (Česká národní rada). After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies and the suppression of the movement, he wrote several open letters to the government, demanding negotiations and discussion about the newly created situation in occupied Czechoslovakia . His immunity was lifted on September 25, 1969 and Battek was imprisoned immediately. After his release in 1970 he was only allowed to work as a porter.

After leaflet campaigns during the first elections after the coup, there was another three and a half year imprisonment in Litoměřice in 1971 . After his release in 1974 he worked as an assistant and window cleaner. In 1977 Battek was one of the first to sign Charter 77 and in 1978 was one of the founders of the Committee of the Unjustly Persecuted (Výbor na obranu nespravedlivě stíhaných - VONS). In 1980 he was appointed spokesman for Charter 77 and, in 1983, a member of the executive organ of social democracy in Zurich, which operated in exile . However, he was only able to perform these functions to a limited extent, since he was imprisoned on June 4, 1980 for alleged assault on a public figure. The charge was expanded to include an attempt to overthrow. Until October 30, 1985, he was held in Pankrác , Opava and Ostrava prisons .

Three years after his release, he was one of founders of the movement for civil liberty, and in November 1989 the co-founder of the Civic Forum ( Občanské fórum ). He ran for the presidency of the Czechoslovak Social Democracy ( ČSSD ) , supported by exile democrats , but failed in the election and was expelled from the party.

In June 1990 he was elected to the federal assembly and chairman of the people's assembly for the citizens' forum, of which he was deputy chairman. After the disintegration of the Citizens' Forum, he initiated the Association of Social Democrats (Asociace sociálních democů - ASD) in 1991 , which is led by Jiří Loewa.

Battěk and his party fought against the separation of Slovakia , but had no success with the newly founded Democracy 92 movement and the party disintegrated after unsuccessful elections. After the political failure, he began his journalistic activities, in which he commented on the political situation in the Czech Republic.

From 1994 he was interested in European politics and he took over the presidency of the European Movement in the Czech Republic (Evropského hnutí v ČR). His further candidacy for the Senate was also unsuccessful. In 1997 he was one of the co-founders of the political club.

Works

Battěk wrote a number of philosophical treatises and essays in the 1980s and 1990s.

German-language publications

  • Germans and Czechs (1995)

literature

  • Eseje z ostrova (1982)
  • Strast z nekonečna (1986)
  • Dámy a pánové! Sbírka aforismů, sentencí a maxim (1992).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zdeněk R. Nešpor: Sociologický ústav ČSAV (1965-1970) , keyword in the Sociologická encyklopedie (Sociological Encyclopedia), ed. from Sociologický ústav AV ČR (Sociological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), online at: encyklopedie.soc.cas.cz / ...

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Battěk, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Battek, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak and Czech sociologist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Bratislava
DATE OF DEATH 17th March 2013
Place of death Prague