Prague, July 17 (CTK) – The Jan Patocka Archive will gain the broadcasting rights for the only existing TV recordings with Jan Patocka, the late Czech thinker and dissident, from the Prague-seated French Institute that will pay for them to the French National Audiovisual Institute, the French embassy said on Tuesday.
It told CTK that French ambassador Roland Galharague will hand the contract on the transfer of the rights to Ivan Chvatik, director of the Jan Patocka Archive, next Tuesday.
Czech academicians tried to gain the broadcasting rights for these several film materials in the past five years, the embassy said.
The Jan Patocka Archive, supported by Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, gathers manuscripts, pictures and other documents linked with Patocka’s life and work.
“The Archive maintains the intellectual and moral heritage of Jan Patocka, and is therefore entitled to own these films and also acquire the rights to use them within its activities,” the French embassy in Prague said.
Patocka (1907-1977) was one of the most significant Czech 20th-century thinkers, dealing with the philosophy of history, Czech literature, arts and culture.
He was forced to leave Prague’s Charles university three times. First, due to the Nazis, second, he was ousted for ideological reasons in 1950 and third, the hardline communist regime forced him to retire in 1972.
In the 1970s, he came close to political dissidents and became one of the first three spokespersons for the Charter 77 pro-democracy movement. He died in March 1977 of heart and brain failure following an 11-hour interrogation by the communist secret police (StB).
