Not us, but they were affraid
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Ivan Mačura was born on November 27, 1939 in Bratislava. When he was eleven, his father was arrested and sentenced in a political trial. In 1956 his father was released from the prison and in the same year Ivan passed the leaving examination at the grammar school. During 1956 - 1962 he represented the Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) in volleyball. He studied at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports of Comenius University in Bratislava, where he graduated in 1960. A year later he got married and in the following year he moved with his wife to Nitra, where he worked from 1962 until 2006 as a professor at the Faculty of Education. He founded the Club of Committed Non-Party Members during the era of Prague Spring in Nitra. During the normalization he taught at the Faculty of Education and coached a university volleyball club. In November `89 he founded the Non-Party Members Forum, which organised a new Dean’s elections in the mid-December. He co-organised the general strike in Nitra (November 27, 1989) and from December 1989 until January 1991 he was a chairman of the Public against Violence Movement (VPN) in Nitra district. In 1990 he participated in many activities: in February he founded the Department of Romani Culture (first in Slovakia), in March he co-founded the first elementary catholic school in Nitra and was in charge of the first free elections in Nitra district. After lecturing at the Faculty of Education (at the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, in 2006 he started a business related to sport and healthy lifestyle.
