Aleš Lederer

* 1953

  • “My father was among the first to sign [Charter 77 - trans.] and among the first to be locked up. They did a great big haul, and lots of people ended up in the remand cells. There were about thirty of them for twenty-four and forty-eight hour periods. They released everyone after those forty-eight hours. They only kept Havel, Pavlíček, Ornest, and my dad. I was in my second year [at university] at the time, and of course it made me relate to Dad’s situation again. The development of the Charter 77 case was that Havel and Pavlíček were released after about thirteen days, but Dad and Ornest were retained. I don’t know exactly now, sometime in autumn 1977 Ornest made a speech in television, where he ate humble pie, and so he was released as well. So the whole protest against the regime was concentrated on my dad, who sat for the whole three years.”

  • “I brushed upon the dissident scene thanks to my father. But I wasn’t actively based anywhere. The important thing was that my father supplied me - because he was one of the links for the import of magazines, books, and literature here to the Czech Republic. He was one of the sources who distributed [the books etc. - trans.] here. So I was supplied with literature and magazines from sometime around 1975. At first I received Listy [The Post; published by Jiří Pelikán in Italy - trans.], then Svědectví [The Testimony; published by Pavel Tigrid in New York and then Paris - trans.]. I was a regular subscriber. I read all the authors who wrote for Pelikán’s Listy and Tigrid’s Svědectví.”

  • “In summer 1983 my father suffered a heart attack. He was in Germany. He’d emigrated when they released him from prison. He died in October. In the end I managed to get through to attend the funeral. That was crucial for the existence of our samizdat review Prostor. I met Pavel Tigrid at the funeral. I discussed all the possible channels and ways of getting things in to the Czech Republic. I got some literature and the first fantastic copier, which could even reduce and enlarge. So we were excellently equipped.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 28.02.0017

    (audio)
    délka: 01:01:51
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memory of nations (in co-production with Czech television)
  • 2

    Praha, 03.07.2017

    (audio)
    délka: 01:58:19
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memory of nations (in co-production with Czech television)
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Naive and honest, I wrote a letter to Gustáv Husák

Aleš Lederer, 2017
Aleš Lederer, 2017
zdroj: PB

Aleš Lederer was born on 22 June 1953 in Prague. His father, Jiří Lederer, was a journalist who often came into conflict with the Communist regime. His father‘s stance meant that Aleš was repeatedly denied his applications to university. In 1977 he succeeded in enrolling for the study of mathematics and physics at the Faculty of Education because only few students had applied for this combination of subjects. When his father was sentenced to three years of prison for signing and distributing Charter 77, Aleš Lederer wrote a letter to President Gustáv Husák, in which he expressed his disappointment and disillusionment from how the regime destroyed his father. The letter caused him to be expelled from his studies. The heads of the faculty justified the decision by claiming that he had not passed a mathematics exam. Aleš Lederer obtained confirmation from his professor that he had in fact passed the exam, but to no avail. He then tried out various professions. He worked as a care attendant at vocational schools, but he was forced to continuously switch to new employers, as State Security always informed each of the schools‘ managements that he was unsuitable for work with youth. He took part in the publication and distribution of samizdat literature, he published the secret magazines Zebra and Revue Prostor (Space Review). This made him the frequent target of State Security interrogations. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989 he served briefly as the spokesman of the Czech Prime Minister Petr Pithart. He headed the daily newspaper Prostor (Space) and the weekly Týden (The Week). He is now the owner of the publishing house Prostor (Space).