Ing. Libor Novák

* 1958

  • "We were involved in the Civic Forum meetings that took place outside of these premises, very often in Špalíček, even as fresh MPs. Draft resolutions or amendments to laws were being prepared that would truly legally confirm the removal of power from the Bolsheviks and the abolition of leadership. This was an article, a number or a paragraph of the Constitution, which was one of the most important provisions that had to be taken out of the Constitution. We worked on the preparation of documents. Because up to that time, the documents were prepared by the party workers, either by a committee or by order of the party workers of the Czech National Council. But now we had to prepare the documents. In the Czech National Council, there were mostly people loyal to the regime, but as it turned out later, not all of them were like that. To my astonishment, it turned out that the staff of the Czech National Council, if I may speak of this institution, were, first of all, quite good officials. And many, as in the companies, in the factories, in the plants, in the enterprises, very much welcomed the fact that there had been a change and that someone other than the incumbent Bolshevik had come in. That made a very strong impression on me."

  • "I'm riding my bike from our house where we lived, where I grew up, I ride five hundred metres, I'm at a right-angle intersection, I turn left, and there's a tank coming at me. I don't know which day after 21 August it was - the second or the third. I don't remember exactly when the occupation troops arrived in Trutnov, what day or what time it was. But at that moment, all the stories my grandmother and grandfather told me about World War II, about the Allied bombing of Neratovice, about which families died where, which German families lost fathers, uncles and brothers because they enlisted in Hitler's troops, I remembered all the death and horrors associated with the state of war. And in that brief moment, they flashed through my mind. Death flashed through my mind. A tank fires, and I cease to exist. I was scared stiff. It affected all my subsequent thinking and feelings, especially the immediate ones - that day, the next day, the next week and, in fact, forever."

  • "On one side, the Bolsheviks, and the other side, us. There was Pavel Pokorný, Petr Vyhnálek, Aleš Bouda, I think Radek Langhammer, Vilém Čermák, as far as I can roughly remember, the Bolsheviks, including the party chairwoman. There were discussions. What were our demands - we had them in writing - and they said something about it. For me, it was all so grey. I didn't speak the Bolshevik vocabulary, and I didn't want to speak it. The Bolshevik chairwoman then said they had the following conditions for further negotiations. It doesn't matter whether it was before or after she presented them - I thought that we needed to give some framework to the debate. I stood up, I banged the table, and I told her that if she hadn't realised it yet, the negotiations were going a little differently, that we were the ones who were setting the conditions for future events. It livened up our meeting, then it was closed. People were waiting for us in the square, which was a short walk from where we were meeting, at the party secretariat. We came there, and they spontaneously told me, 'Tell me what was going on there.' Probably because, as a blunt engineer, I like to shoot myself in the foot, I started with structured thinking and a strong voice. I climbed the fountain and – with my irony – imitated Klement Gottwald, who had just returned from the castle. I said the meeting could be described very simply and succinctly: 'It was like we talked about the goat, and they talked about the cart.' I guess that's when I really became a public figure of the time."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Hradec Králové, 12.09.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:55:02
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
  • 2

    Hradec Králové, 21.11.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:51:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
  • 3

    Hradec Králové, 15.12.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:50:49
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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We are the ones who set the terms here, he announced to the Communists and banged the table

Newlyweds Anna and Libor Novak, Trutnov in January 1981
Newlyweds Anna and Libor Novak, Trutnov in January 1981
zdroj: Witness archive

Libor Novák was born on 2 March 1958 in Trutnov. He spent his childhood in Poříčí. His dad worked in the local power plant, and his mother was a midwife. After primary school, he studied at the Trutnov Grammar School. Instead of being a pioneer, in 1964, he became a member of a youth camping club run in the Scout style. At the grammar school, he and his friends founded a musical group called Bubáci. He graduated in 1977 and was only allowed to study at certain universities, of which he chose the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at ČVUT. In 1981, he got married, and two daughters were then born. He graduated in 1982 and then joined the military academy in Brno. He went on a mission to Libya, where he interpreted while teaching electrical engineering to cadets. In 1983, he started working at the ZPA plant in Trutnov. In November 1989, he prepared the general strike in Trutnov and became chairman of the strike committee. He was the chairman of the Civic Forum of the Trutnov district. In 1990, he was co-opted to the Czech National Council, where he served on the Committee for Trade and Tourism. From 1992 to 1996, he was a member of parliament for the ODS. He became Vice-Chairman of the Budget Committee and Chairman of the Delegation to the Council of Europe. Since 1996, he has been a consultant and has worked in various fields. In 2023, he lived in Trutnov.