COURAGE

povezivanje zbirki

John (Ivan) Pintar bio je američki državljanin hrvatskoga podrijetla kojeg je komunistički režim u Jugoslaviji uhitio 1946. i 1947. osudio na smrt pod optužbom da je američki špijun. Kazna mu je smanjena na 20 godina zatvora, a zahvaljujući posredovanju američkih vlasti kazna je smanjena na četiri godine koje je proveo u zatvoru u Lepoglavi i u Srijemskoj Mitrovici.
Nakon izdržane kazne krajem 1950. godine vraća se u SAD (New York) gdje je napisao knjigu o komunističkom režimu i svojem zatvorskom iskustvu. Knjigu nije mogao objaviti u Jugoslaviji, ali ni u SAD-u, jer su osobe koje su bile u vezi s jugoslavenskim veleposlanstvom u Washingtonu činile sve da tu knjigu ne objavi te su mu čak nudili poveću svotu novca da im preda rukopis samo da ona ne ugleda svjetlo dana. Za slučaj je saznao Ljeposav Peranić, predratni hrvatski emigrant iz Argentine, koji je Pintaru ponudio objavljivanje knjige u Argentini te je ona i objavljena u Buenos Airesu u nakladi od 3 000 primjeraka. Knjigu je posvetio svim žrtvama komunizma.
U Lepoglavi, gdje je bio zatočen 1947., bio je zatvoren u isto vrijeme kad i zagrebački nadbiskup Alojzije Stepinac o čemu je ostavio svjedočanstvo u svojoj knjizi. U zaključku knjige Pintar navodi da se ono što je on doživio u Titovoj komunističkoj državi, ponavlja u svakoj državi koja je bila pod komunističkom kontrolom. Godine 1995. objavljena je i na hrvatskom jeziku (Četiri godine u Titovu paklu, Zagreb: Hrvatsko književno društvo sv. Ćirila i Metoda).

Hrvatske emigrantske novine Hrvatski dom, koje uređuje i objavljuje Augustin Juretić u Švicarskoj, u svome broju od 15. studenog 1950. objavljuju članak Suština sukoba Kominform – Tito. Članak je nepotpisan, ali kao i većinu nepotpisanih tekstova u listu, i ovoga je najvjerojatnije autor Augustin Juretić. Članak opisuje suštinu sukoba Tita i Staljina, razmatrajući ga kroz prizmu marksističke teorije i prakse. Juretić zaključuje kako je Tito proveo posljednju komunističku revoluciju u svijetu što ga prema marksističkoj teoriji čini vođom svjetskoga komunističkog pokreta, odnosno stavlja ga ispred Staljina. Kao upozorenje zapadnim vođama, Juretić upozorava kako bi Tito u budućnosti mogao postati opasniji i od same Moskve, te kako je „za uništenje svjetskog komunizma neophodno potrebno uništiti i Tita.“ (Hrvatski dom, 15. studenog 1950., 3-6)

Rukopis članka Suština sukoba Kominform – Tito nalazi se u zbirci Augustina Juretića u Papinskom hrvatskom zavodu sv. Jeronima u Rimu. U zbirci se čuva i tiskana verzija članka objavljena u Hrvatskome domu.

This photograph was taken by Jerzy Kośnik during the Cannes Film Festival in 1981.

Kośnik was sent from Poland as a photojournalist. During his encounter with Jack Nicholson he asked for his sympathies for freshly-formed Solidarity movement. When Nicholson responded enthusiastically, Kośnik gave him a Solidarity badge. Actor pinned it on his jacket and wore it through the whole festival. After a film by Andrzej Wajda ("Man of Iron", talking about the beginnings of Solidarity movement) won the Palme d'Or, the photograph gained powerful symbolic meaning.

The photo cost Kośnik his job at the Polish newspaper, but simultaneously it became a symbol of world support for Solidarity. It was adopted by its members to various publications and leaflets.

The symbolism of this photo was used again in the campaign during the first afetr Worl War II semi-free elections in Poland in 1989. Based on Jerzy Kośnik's photos taken in 1989, a series of poster entitled "The stars vote for Solidarity" was produced (with celebrities like Jane Fonda, Natasha Kinski and Grace Jones).

The picture of Jack Nicholson wearing a Solidarity badge was used for advertisement posters and banners during the opening of European Solidarity Centre (ECS) in Gdansk in 2014.

At the InterContinental Hotel in Prague on 1 March 1977, Czech philosopher and dissident Jan Patočka met with Max van der Stoel, the Dutch foreign minister, who was at the time on an official visit to Czechoslovakia. The meeting was initiated by the Dutch journalist Dick Verkijk at a time when the Charter 77 signatories were persecuted and silenced by the police. This was the first official meeting of a Charter 77 spokesman with a foreign political representative who recognized Czechoslovak dissent.

Patočka explained in German to the minister and, through a recording, to the international public, that the aim of the Charter 77 was not to fight against the regime, but to demand the observance of the valid constitution and other laws. A day later, President Gustáv Husák called off official talks with the Dutch minister. Jan Patočka was ill at the time and after this meeting he was subjected to days of interrogationby the State Security. Eventually, on 13 March 1977, he died.

This unique sound recording documenting the meeting between Patočka and van der Stoel was made by Dick Verkijk, who initiated and attended the meeting. The recording is stored in the Jan Patočka Archives, which has also decided to make it public and uploaded it to YouTube.

Dick Verkijk played this sound recording during a ceremonial meeting organised on 1 March 2017, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of this event, in InterContinental Hotel in Prague. Several high representatives of the Czech Republic took part at the ceremony, including the Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lubomír Zaorálek. The ceremony was also attended by, among others, the Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans and by the director of the Jan Patočka Archives Ivan Chvatík. Frans Timmermans stated at the ceremony that the activity of the Charter 77 Czech dissident movement had a significant influence on the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War in Europe.

“Does History Have a Meaning?” is the third essay from Patočkaʼs most influential and famous work entitled “Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History”. This oeuvre, compiling six essays of Patočkaʼs late philosophy of history, is considered by many authors to be Patočkaʼs most original work. “Heretical Essays” was published for the first time in Czechoslovakia as a samizdat in 1975 by Ludvík Vaculíkʼs publication Petlice and by Jan Vladislavʼs publication Kvart. In 1988, this text was published again in samizdat as part of the Patočka anthology “Archivní soubor Patočkových prací”. The first official publication in Czechoslovakia before 1990. Nevertheless, before then many foreign translations of this text had appeared, including the French edition from 1981 with a preface by Paul Ricœur and an afterword by Roman Jakobson. This work was also published in 1980 by the Czechoslovak exile publisher Arkýř in Munich. “Heretical Essays” was written concurrently with the cycle of Patočkaʼs lectures dealing with philosophy of science that took place secretly in Prague from September 1974 to June 1975. According to Ivan Chvatík, these lectures and “Heretical Essays” strongly influenced the Czechoslovak intellectual milieu and made Patočka an “important dissident” in the eyes of the Czechoslovak police. Lectures were initiated by the young Polish philosopher Krzysztof Michalski who had been corresponding with Patočka since 1973 and invited the Czech philosopher to write essays about his phenomenological conception of history for the Polish philosophical revue Znak. However, due to the political situation and censorship, only one of these essays, entitled “Does History Have a Meaning?” could finally be published in Poland (Cf. Jan Patočka. 1975. “Czy dzieje mają sens?” Znak, No. 11–12: 1396–1414, translated by Krzysztof Michalski). This essay is based on a lecture by Patočka in Prague in February 1975, in the atelier of Czech photographer Jaroslav Krejčí. Jan Patočka Archive possesses Patočkaʼs typescript of this essay with handwritten notes and corrections. This original typescript was discovered in 2005 thank to Czech philosopher and Patočkaʼs friend Jaroslav Kohout.