Pithart, Petr

Basic Biographical Information

Petr Pithart was born in 1941 in Kladno to a prominent communist family. He himself joined the communist party as a 19-year-old student of law at Charles University in Prague. After graduation, he began teaching law at his university and publishing essays in various political and literary journals that started appearing during the political thaw in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. During 1966–1968 he was a member of the interdisciplinary team that was preparing the political and economic reforms of the Prague Spring. After the Soviet army crushed the Czechoslovak reforms in 1968, Pithart left the communist party to become one of the most prominent dissidents against the regime established by the Soviets in occupied Czechoslovakia. He was among the first signatories of Charta 77. Making a living at menial jobs, he organised clandestine seminars in private apartments, organised the smuggling of forbidden literature into Czechoslovakia and the publication of samizdat...