Tigrid: Journalist, exile and politician (PDF)
The present publication brings an account of the life, activities and oeuvre of Pavel Tigrid (1917–2003), one of the most prominent figures in Czechoslovak and Czech history. His life was greatly influenced by the great turning points of the twentieth century. He went into exile twice and returned to his homeland twice. During the German occupation, he worked for the Czechoslovak broadcast of the BBC in London. After the war, he worked as a journalist in the Czechoslovak People’s Party (Christian Democrats) press. At the beginning of the 1950s, he was the head of the Czechoslovak exile editorial office at Radio Free Europe in Munich. In 1956, he co-founded the exile magazine Svědectví (Testimony), which he edited until the early 1990s. He supported the domestic opposition. In the first half of the 1990s, he worked in the presidential office as an associate of President Václav Havel. He held the position of Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic in 1994–1995. He received high Czech, French and German state distinctions.