Witnesses to Charter 77: Květoslava Princová

“We signed various petitions, but Charter 77 was a huge turning point. The Communists were terrified of it at the time,“ said Květoslava Princová, one of the document’s signatories. She and her husband, Jan, decided to move from Prague to the countryside in 1976. From the outset, they knew that they did not want to live alone, but that their house in Rychnov near Děčín would become a refuge open to all those in need. The ruling Communist regime made unprecedented efforts to thwart them. However, despite nonstop harassment from officials and the police, for 10 years the Princ family managed to maintain several underground country houses in northern Bohemia as oases of free life in an unfree country. How did the family with small children manage at that time, and to what extent are the solutions adopted by the dissidents of that era still relevant today? Michal Šmíd will discuss all of this with Květoslava Princová.