Věněk Šilhán

Věněk Šilhán (born February 12, 1927 - † May 9, 2009 in Prague ) was a Czech economist and politician. He was one of the leading supporters of the Prague Spring , after its defeat he was a dissident and, among other things, a signatory of the opposition Charter 77 .

Life

Šilhán could not finish his school education during the Second World War. He did an apprenticeship as a locksmith and was initially a factory worker at "Manesmanka" in Chomutov . In Prague he later studied at the School of Politics and Sociology. During his assistantship he studied at a Russian university for two years. In the 1950s he taught at the University of Economics in Prague , completed his habilitation there and was a professor until 1970. During the 1960s he specialized in industrial economics and was director of the research institute of the same name.

In 1968 he was elected as a representative to the 14th Congress of Komunistická strana Československa , which had to take place as an extraordinary congress due to the Russian invasion ("Vysočanský Congress"). He was elected head of the Congress and was General Secretary under Alexander Dubček .

He was a signatory to Charter 77 . At the end of the 1980s, he became active again and founded, among others with Čestmír Císař , the club for social restructuring Obroda . During the Velvet Revolution he was a co-founder of the civic forum Občanské fórum and a member of the Chamber of Deputies . In the early 1990s he was rector of the Prague University of Economics, later chairman of the board of directors of Preciosa and chairman of the Preciosa Foundation.

Web links

• Literature and other media by and about Věněk Šilhán in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Biography of Věněk Šilhán (English)