Moji českoslovenští prezidenti - 2. vydání – Císař Čestmír (2013)

The phrase "Císař na Hrad" echoed through spring Prague before the presidential election in 1968, chanted primarily by students and artists, as the bearer of this name had served a few years earlier as Minister of Education and Culture. Although the normalization period drove Čestmír Císař into obscurity for many years, he did not resign from politics and continued to engage with it – he monitored political developments and critically analyzed them in samizdat publications (Úvahy časové i nadčasové, 1976; Náš spor je zásadní, 1978; Na okraj české otázky, 1984 – a collection of essays was published in the anthology I kapky proděravějí kámen, 2011). After the socio-political changes in November 1989, he briefly returned to public life and found himself nominated for the presidency for the second time. In 1992, he retired, but did not sit idly – he continues to follow political events and publish. His magnum opus is his extensive memoirs Člověk a politik. Kniha vzpomínek a úvah (1998), or Paměti. Nejen o zákulisí Pražského jara (2005). This is complemented by a slim memoir book Moji českoslovenští presidenti (1st ed. 2006). It contains a collection of 10 profiles of nine heads of the Czechoslovak state that Č. Císař personally experienced and knew during his lifetime, starting with T. G. Masaryk and ending with V. Havel. The author describes their...