Famous People
He
was born in Uhrovec on 27/11/1921,in the same house in which Ludovit Stur,
another very important Slovak personality of the 19th century, was
born in 1815.
He
learned the trade of a fitter. He
worked as a petrol station attendant and later as a tool-man.
He took part in the Slovack National Uprising in 1944, later he occupied
various positions in Czechoslovak Communist party. In the years 1951-55 he was a
deputy of national Assembly. Between
1952-1958 he studied law and humanities in Bratislava and in Moscow.
In
1963-1968 he was the first secretary of the Central Committee of Czechoslovak
Communist Party and was also a member of parliament.
He
belonged among reformed communities, who argued for changes in socialistic
regime. Alexander Dubcek advocated
freedom of expression, gathering and places for more open discussions about the
economy. People could travel abroad
and the flow of information from developed countries was opened to the public.
Prague
spring:
In
1968, the leader of the Czechoslovak communist party, Alexander Dubcek began
speaking of reforms. He wanted to
give socialism a human face and loosen the control on censorship.
The period of reform that blossomed from Dubcek's ideas came to be known
as Prague Spring. Prague Spring naturally upset the leaders in Moscow.
On June 27 there appeared in Literarni listy an article written by Ludvik
Vaculik and signed by a large number of people representing all walks of life.
The article called “Two Thousands Words”, was urging even more rapid
progress to reel democracy. Dubcek
remained convinced that he could control the transformation of Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet Union however began to take a different view.
The Czechs and Slovaks failed to comprehend the hostility of the reaction
of the two thousand words, particularly by the Soviet Union, Poland and East
Germany. Dubcek declined an in
vitiation to participate in a special meeting of the Warsaw Pact powers, which
on July 15 sent him a letter saying that his country was on the verge of
counterrevolution and that they considered it their duty to protect it.
To the last, Dubcek remained confident that he could talk himself out of
any difficulties with his communist neighbours.
He accepted an invitation by Brezhnev to a conference at Cierna-nad-Tisou
(a small town in Slovakia), where the Soviet Politburo and the Czechoslovak
leaders tried to resolve their differences.
On August 3, representatives of the Soviet, East German, Polish,
Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Czechoslovak Communist Parties met in Bratislava. The statement issued after the meeting although loosely
written gave impressions that pressure would be eased on Czechoslovakia,
beginning a 20-year period of occupation and normalization. The Soviets insisted that loyal Czechoslovak Communists had
invited them. A column of tanks
flanked by thousands of troops marched through the streets of Prague and
straight to Dubcek. The Soviet
authorities seized Dubcek, Cernik and several other leaders and took them to
Moscow but failed to produce alternative party and state leaders acceptable to
the people. The invasion of
Czechoslovakia became an infamous example of Soviet oppression.
Communist parties in Western Europe, already shocked by the invasion of
Hungry in 1956, now began too think twice about supporting the Soviets.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was planning on travelling to the Soviet
Union in 1968, dropped his plan postponing by four years.
The uneasy tension between the two super powers, the US and the USSR,
placed a strain on both of the nations economies.
Communications were disrupted, supplies were held up and the country was
left almost leaderless, bet life went on as if the troops weren’t there.
On August 23, President Svoboda, accompanied by Husak, left for Moscow to
negotiate a solution. The negotiations were concluded on August27.
Svoboda bringing with him Dubcek, Cernik and Smrkovsky returned to Prague
to tell the Czechs and Slovaks what price they would have to pay for their
Socialism with a human face. Soviet troops were going to
stay
in Czechoslovakia, and the leaders had agreed to tighter controls over political
and cultural activities.
After
the failure of the Prague Spring, Czechoslovak reformists tried to preserve at
/east some of the achievements of their reform efforts. One of these was the
constitutional issue, which gave more autonomy to Slovakia. On October 28, 1968,
the Czechoslovak National Assembly approved a new constructional law on the
creation of a Czechoslovak Federation. President Svoboda signed it into law at
Bratislava Cast/e on October 30, and it decreed that Czechoslovakia would be
divided internally into two separate Czech and Slovak Republics. The federal
setup took effect on January 1, 1969.
Dubcek
was in a weak position. Gradually, his more progressive aides were removed, and
in April 1969 he was demoted from first secretary of the party to president of
the Federal Assembly (the national parliament). Husak, ‑ who promptly
declared the Dubcek experiments to be finished and proposed a process that he
called "normalization", rep/aced him. Husak's modest policy of
normalization included the dual aim of ending political experiments and
concentrating on economic progress. He patiently tried to persuade Soviet
leaders that Czechoslovakia was an orthodox member of the Warsaw Pact. He had
the constitution amended to embody the newly proclaimed principle of proletarian
internationalism and in 1971 went as far as to repudiate the Prague Spring,
declaring that "in 1968 socialism was in danger in Czechoslovakia, and the
armed intervention helped to save it." His most cherished aim was to turn
the federal arrangements, which came into force on January 1, 1969, into a
reality and then concentrate on economic issues. In fact, the implementation of
federalism had helped him to get rid of many hard‑liners and rep/ace them
with his own people. In 1970 OldrVich Cernik was finally forced to resign the
premiership and was succeeded by Husak's Czech rival, Lubom Strougal. In 1975,
when President Svoboda retired because of ill health, Husak once again fused the
two most important offices in Czechoslovakia and became president himself, with
full Soviet approval.
Turkey.
After he was expelled from the party he had to find a new job. It was very
difficult to find a good job, because the communists wanted to see him working
under humiliating conditions and apart from the public life. They gave him a job
in the forestry administration, located outside Bratislava.
In
the years 1969‑1970 nearly 500,000 people were expelled from the party.
They were forced to leave their old jobs and find a new profession.
On November 7,1989, as a part of the country's Velvet Revolution, he spoke at a rally in Bratislava and later stood on the balcony above the Wenceslav's square with the newly elected President Vaclav Havel while huge crowds cheered. DubcVek was elected chairman of the Federal Assembly on December 28, 1989, and re‑elected in 1990. By 1992 he had become the leader of Slovakia's Social Democrats.
She was born on the 16th of January, 1976 in The Slovak town of Piestany. It is known for its spas, which are a big tourist attraction. She was born two months premature and she was dangerously under-weight. She was placed in an incubator and nobody whether she would survive or not. But she did.
However she remained sick and weak until the age of three. Doctors tried to help her but could not. One day her mother took her to the public swimming pool and then she began to go regularly. By the age of six she was swimming four times a week, an hour each time.
At the age of ten she won her first medal, because she had to be ten to be allowed to enter any competitions. She won every race she entered, each win giving her more confidence and motivation.
When she was twelve, she won her first National title at the Chechoslovakian Nationals. At that age she swam a total of 25km per week. Then when she went to training camp, she swam 60km per week!!
Since the early ‘90’s she has become a permanent member of the Junior National Team.
In 1992 she went to the Olympic games in Barcelona. She didn’t win any thing, but it was a great experience for her.