Jan Petránek

Petránek was a journalist for Czech Radio, the public radio broadcaster, at the time of the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.^[2] He was fired by Czech Radio's management shortly after the invasion, but resumed underground, independent broadcasts during the country's Normalization period.^[1][2]

In the late 1980s, Petránek also became involved with the samizdat publication of the Lidové noviny newspaper, which had been banned by the Communist government since the 1950s.^[2]

Petránek became the editor of the Lidové noviny once the newspaper was legalized following the Velvet Revolution.^[2] He was also rehired by Czech Radio after the fall of communism in 1989.^[1]

In 2015, President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman awarded Petránek the Medal of Merit.^[1]

Petránek died in Prague on 10 November 2018, at the age of 86.^[2]