Jan Tesař (2 June 1933 – 16 June 2025) was a Czech historian and writer who was a dissident in communist Czechoslovakia.
Life and career
Tesař was born in Skuteč on 2 June 1933. He studied history at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, graduating in 1956. He then joined the Military Historical Institute, but was expelled in 1958 for political reasons. After two years without a steady position, working as an independent researcher, he obtained a position at the Museum of Pardubice. In 1961, he rejoined the Military Historical Institute. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1966 but resigned his membership in 1969.
In his professional work, Tesař focused primarily on the history of the anti-Nazi resistance and was among the first historians to systematically work with the memories and personal testimonies of witnesses. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he became actively involved in opposition activities. He was a signatory of Charter 77, one of the founders of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS), and a promoter of meetings between Czech and Polish dissidents in the Giant Mountains. From 1977, he was the editor of the dissident magazine Dialogy. He was repeatedly imprisoned by the communist regime.
In 1980, Tesař left Czechoslovakia, initially going to Germany and later settling in France, where he continued his political activities. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he participated in several academic and political initiatives concerning democratization. He later lived in Slovakia.
Tesař died on 16 June 2025 at the age of 92.
Works
Tesař authored several notable works, including:
- Mnichovský komplex: jeho příčiny a důsledky (2000) – on the Munich Agreement and its consequences.
- Zamlčená diagnóza (2003).
- Traktát o „záchraně národa": texty z let 1967–1969 o začátku německé okupace (2006).
- Česká cikánská rhapsodie (2016, three volumes) – a biography of the Romani partisan Josef Serinek, documenting the history of Romani resistance during World War II.
- Co počít ve vlkově břiše: Práce o vytváření struktur občanské společnosti 1968–1980 (2018).
- The History of Scientific Atheism: A Comparative Study of Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union (1954–1991) (2019).
Archives
Tesař left two important archival collections concerning the history of the Czechoslovak dissident movement. One is located at the Moravian Museum in Brno, and the other is held in the collections of La contemporaine in France.
