Institute of Contemporary History

The volume presents Czech selection of commented texts by Jacek Kuroń (1934–2004). The Polish political activist and thinker, prisoner of conscience, Kuroń was the first of Central European dissident to assume executive post at the end of the Communist era. After the June 1989 electoral triumph of Solidarity, Kuroń was one of the Solidarity candidates for the post of Prime Minister, eventually taking on the post of Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the new government and, as the most popular member of the cabinet, took part in all major political decisions. In 1995 he ran for Presidency, ending up third after Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Lech Wałęsa. Than Kuroń restricted his political activities and wrote a number of critical texts on Polish transformation.

Writings, particularly analyses, forecasts, political manifestoes, as well as memoirs represent major part of Kuroń’s activities during his whole live, ranging from pedagogical observations, that Kuroń wrote, as the methodologist of the Union of Polish Scouts, at the break of the 1950s and 1960s, through the famed Open Letter to the Party (which brought him three years in prison), dissident-era program articles to texts from the last period of life collected in this book. In them, he tried to critically analyze his government experience, named the emerging historical situation and looked for programmatic paths for further development.

ZAHRADNÍČEK, Tomáš (ed.) Jacek Kuroń. Naděje a rozčarování. Texty z let 1989-2004. Praha: Masarykova demokratická akademie : Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i.; Olomouc: Burian a Tichák, 2022. 222 s. ISBN 978-80-87348-82-6 (MDA). ISBN 978-80-7285-238-3 (ÚSD). ISBN 978-80-87274-59-0 (Burian a Tichák).