PhDr. Radomír Malý

* 1947

  • "It wasn't until the article ´The Self-Insisted and the Lost´ that was published that I illegally obtained the text of Charter 77, despite the fact that it was also broadcast on the Voice of America, which I listened to regularly at the time. I decided to sign the Charter. I did so in June 1977, and my motivation was that they actually stand up for me, as I was fired due to religious reasons and persecuted for not being able to pursue his profession, for which he has a hryvnia. That was why I signed the Charter. I did so through the evangelical pastor Jan Šimsa, who lived in Brno without state consent, but had close contacts with Prague, so he delivered my signature there."

  • "I also started working with my very good friends, albeit a generation older, such as Dr. Mečislav Razik, the brother of my mentioned father Václav Razik, also a prisoner from the fifties, and then Dr. Radovan Perka, who was my colleague from the faculty, and when he finished earlier than me, we began to issue a Catholic samizdat. This was long before Charter 77, when we published various publications in typescript. We used our contacts in Poland, because thanks to Dr. Razik, I also made contact with the Catholic Intelligence Clubs in Poland, where the situation in terms of religion was much looser than in our country and where a quantum of Catholic literature was also published. We took it home, and we rewrote what we needed. He also went directly to Tygodnik Powszechny's house, which was the most widely read Catholic periodical in Poland. I also translated what was needed from it, and the typescript then expanded further. I would especially draw attention to the activities of a self-sacrificing man, I say intentionally a man, because he was a small figure, but a great spirit, ie Josef Adamek, who set up an illegal printing house and literally spewed illegal religious literature here."

  • "They wanted us not to move at all, to be gathered in only one room, me and my wife and children, who were small at the time. The third child, a son, was not even born yet, he was not born until fourteen days after this house search. Basically, we weren't even allowed to move. Then, after the house search, I was taken to Bohunice for interrogation in prison and it was not clear whether I would return or not. I spent about five hours there during the interrogation, when the investigators took turns and constantly wanted to know who gave me the task to write this work here, a publication about John Paul II. etc. And what do I know about the activities of Josef Adamek and the like. Of course, I insisted that I didn't know anything, and if I admitted something, then that I did something, that I did it myself, that I have contacts with Poland and so on."

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    Brno, 14.08.2019

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The system was morally most corrupt as it forced people to harm others

Radomír Malý in a graduation photo in 1965
Radomír Malý in a graduation photo in 1965
photo: archiv pamětníka

Radomír Malý was born on June 4, 1947 in Brno into a clerical family. The father did not have a suitable staff profile, so he had to leave the office job for Valašské Meziříčí, where Radomír spent his childhood. His uncle - the priest František Dvořák, imprisoned for political reasons in uranium mines, had a great influence on him. Radomír studied archiving and history at the University of Brno. Under the leadership of the College of Philosophers, he promoted the rights of Christian students, but his efforts were stopped by the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968. After graduating, he found a job as a historian at the Museum of Art History in Kroměříž. He became involved in the hidden church, especially in publishing a Catholic samizdat, for which he wrote authorial texts and translated. When he signed Charter 77, the State Security (StB) focused on him. In 1979, they conducted a house search and took him for questioning. The StB classified Radomír as an enemy person of the 1st category of danger and further monitored and often interrogated him. Nevertheless, Radomír continued to issue a samizdat, collaborated with other dissidents, and participated in a number of initiatives and public demonstrations, especially in support of religious freedom and unjustly persecuted people. During the Velvet Revolution, he worked in the Civic Forum. After the fall of the totalitarian rule of the communists, he worked as a journalist for four years and then began lecturing on church history at the Faculty of Theology of the University of South Bohemia, where he worked until his retirement in 2009.