Ivan Langer

* 1967

  • “Before 2006, we were living in a situation when there was a part of our past none could have access to. There was a multitude of files, records and documents on the working mechanisms of the State Security, and not just the secret police, locked in the archives of the Ministry of the Interior. And as I had found out later, in 2006, after I joined the Ministry of Interior, the archives were still managed by the former State Security officers which was a fact that had shocked me deeply. So the Opened Past was a project by which we had stated: That´s just enough. The situation was that only the files you had gained permission to could be assessed. We wanted everything to be declassified apart from the clearly defined materials dealing with the matters of national security which has to remain classified under all circumstances. That means we turned it upside down once again. Everything is opened to the public and there is a part which remained classified. So we are no longer in a situation when everything was classified and the organisation, the ministry, was free to decide on what should be made public.”

  • “It was a success as in the hall there was no seat left vacant. There were college officials at a long table and they would talk and talk. There were also few of us who were sitting there with them. Their aim was to play it vague and don´t allow students to organise themselves in the first place, to stop it from happening. And I think that the breaking point was professor Jařáb´s speech which filled us with courage. After that, everything just happened somehow. And I remember myself. Maybe that was the part I had to play in history, as I stood in front of the microphone stating: “Let´s vote on whether we would join the strike or wouldn´t. And that´s it.' Then the question was how to vote. Should we raise our hands as the hall was full of people? Who would count the votes and how would be decided? You had no idea what the result will be and how the balance of power was shifting. As artists and fellow students would speak, you would get the feeling that it could end well after all, but the result had to be so decisive that no one could question the result. So no vote casting or ballot papers. So I had the idea to urge the people to stand up and tell those who want to join the strike to sit down. And that was interesting from the psychological perspective, as if it had been the other way round, if those who wanted to join the strike had to stand up, those who didn´t want to would just hide themselves and the ones who would stand up would risk that they would be standing there alone. Also, it would be difficult to count the people, to note who would sit and who would stand up. So I did the other way round. Those who agree, who want to join the strike, would sit down, and it was just an unbelievable sight, the hall in which just a few people, maybe in their tens, would stand there as poles in a fence, as Jakeš would put it. And it had been decided we would join the strike. And that was the beginning of those many amazing days and nights we would spend at the Faculty of Philosophy many many other places.”

  • “My mother came from a kulak family which was evicted from their farm in Central Bohemia in the 50s. My grandfather ended up in prison and they would put my grandmother with her two kids on a hay wagon and they would take them to Podkrkonoší, where they had been living in a cabin for years. I remember it, as I had been there several times. Of course, there was a latrine, and neither electricity nor water. In fact, there was a brook running through a part of the house.”

  • Full recordings
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    Olomouc, 07.01.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 03:13:54
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Emotions of the students were so important as they touched the hearts of the people and opened their minds

Ivan Langer in 2018
Ivan Langer in 2018
photo: Vít Lucuk

Ivan Langer was born on January 1st of 1967 in Olomouc. After graduating from Slovanské gymnasium in Olomouc, he decided to study medical science. In 1985, he began to study at the Jan Evengelista Purkyně´s Military Medical Research and Educational Institute in Hradec Králové. Eventually he decided not to peruse a career in the military so he had to do the compulsory military service. After that, in 1987, he was admitted to Palacký University Olomouc´s Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry . During the revolution in November and December of 1989, he was a member of both the university and the national student strike committee. In 1991, he joined the Občanská demokratická strana (The Civic Democratic Party) and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament in 1996. From 1998 to 2002 and again from 2004 to 2010, he was the vice-chairman of the party; from 1998 to 2006, he was the vice-chairman of the Chamber of Deputies. From September 2006 to May 2009, he was the Minister of the Interior, he was also serving as the Minister of Informatics. In 2000, he married Markéta Vobořilová, with whom he has three children. When talking about his involvement in the top-level politics, he mentioned the police reform, the public administration computerisation project, the Czech POINT project and any more issues. However, in the course of the interview, he was most excited by the 2007 Otevřená minulost (Opened Past) project, i.e. the declassification of the former Secret Police archive files making them available to the general public; an act, which made him a lot of enemies. In 2018, Ivan Langer has been working as an advocate and has been living in Olomouc.