Czechoslovak democracy activists

Václav Havel ( 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, writer and former dissident, who served as the last President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs.

Olga Havlová, born Šplíchalová (11 July 1933 in Prague – 27 January 1996 in Prague) was the first wife of Václav Havel, the last President of Czechoslovakia and first President of the Czech Republic.

Alexander Dubček (27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Slovak politician who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) (de facto leader of Czechoslovakia) from January 1968 to April 1969. He attempted to reform the communist government during the Prague Spring but was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.

Jan Sokol (18 April 1936 – 16 February 2021) was a Czech philosopher, dissident, politician and translator. He briefly served as Minister of Education, Youth and Sports in 1998 under Prime Minister Josef Tošovský. From 1990 to 1992 he was Member of Parliament for Prague. From 2000 to 2007 he served as the first dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague. Sokol ran for President of the Czech Republic in the 2003 election but lost to Václav Klaus.

František Kriegel (10 April 1908 — 3 December 1979) was a Czechoslovak politician, physician, and a member of the Communist Party reform wing of Prague Spring (1968). He was the only one of the political leaders who, during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, declined to sign the Moscow Protocol.

Monika MacDonagh-Pajerová (born 8 January 1966) is leading personality from the 1989 Velvet Revolution and former chairperson of the pro-European organization ANO pro Evropu (YES for Europe) which campaigned for Czech membership of the European Union and higher public understanding of European issues. She is currently a lecturer in the Centre for International Education and Exchange CIEE attached to the Charles University in Prague.

Václav Benda (August 8, 1946, Prague – June 2, 1999) was a Czech Roman Catholic activist and intellectual, and mathematician. Under Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, Benda was rare in being a believing Christian while also a senior member of the anti-communist dissident organization Charter 77. After the Velvet Revolution, Benda became the head of an organization charged with investigating the former Communist secret police and their informants.

Milan Balabán (3 September 1929 – 4 January 2019) was a Czech theologian, professor of religion and the Old Testament, Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB) pastor, and poet. Balabán, an anti-communist dissident during Czechoslovakia's communist era, was a Charter 77 signatory. He was also among of group of Czech Old Testament scholars who wrote and translated the Old Testament theologians the Czech Ecumenical Translation of the Bible, which remains the most widely used Czech language translation of the Bible today.

Jiří Pelikán (7 February 1923 in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia – 26 June 1999 in Rome, Italy) was a Czechoslovakian journalist and member of parliament, then a member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party.

Jaroslav Kořán (17 January 1940 – 2 June 2017) was a Czech translator, writer, screenwriter, and politician. A dissident and signatory of Charter 77 during Czechoslovakia's Communist era, Kořán translated over seven dozen books, mostly by American writers, from English into Czech, including major works by Kurt Vonnegut, Henry Miller, Roald Dahl, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, John Kennedy Toole, and John Wyndham.