Together: Contacts between the Czechoslovak and Polish Dissent in the 1980s

​Friendships that dissolved borders – such was the cooperation between the anti-communist opposition in Poland and Czechoslovakia. The secret police tried to prevent meetings between them, only intensifying the mutual solidarity and giving rise to a unique international opposition group, Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity. The first contacts between the world of Charter 77 and Poland’s KOR were mediated by, among others, Andrzej S. Jagodziński, a Czech Studies expert and translator of the works of Václav Havel, Josef Škvorecký and Jiří Gruša who later became a diplomat and journalist. One of the most active members of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity was Mirosław Jasiński, an art historian, diplomat, politician and today the director of the City Gallery in Wrocław. This discussion with them will recall key moments of Polish-Czechoslovak opposition cooperation, of which they have many personal memories. The talk will be moderated by Petr Blažek, historian and director of the Museum of 20th Century Memory.