Charter 77
Czechoslovak dissident document
Charter 77 was a 1977 petition by Czechoslovak dissidents protesting their government's human rights violations and demanding civil liberties guaranteed by international agreements.
The document and the movement it spawned—named for the year of publication—became a focal point of opposition to communist rule.
Signatories faced persecution, imprisonment, and professional ruin.
Václav Havel, its most prominent figure, later became president after the Velvet Revolution.
- Helsinki AccordsMultinational European cooperation agreement
- samizdatClandestine dissident publishing
- Prague Spring1968 Czechoslovak reform period
- freedom of speechProtected right to speak
- underground pressRadical countercultural publishing network
manifesto · Velvet Revolution · Cold War · signatures · dissidents · human rights organizations · dissent · democratic reforms · civil liberties · communism · democracy · Soviet Union · political activism · petition · Prague · totalitarian · human rights · freedom
- Cold War Dissentdissidents, samizdat, refuseniks, defectors, Radio Free Europe
- CzechoslovakiaPrague, Bratislava, Bohemia, Slovakia, Moravia
- dissidentsdissident, dissidents, dissenter, rebel, Sakharov
- Eastern BlocEastern Bloc, communist regime, Warsaw Pact, Iron Curtain, Soviet Union
- Cold War CzechoslovakiaPrague Spring, Velvet Revolution, normalization, dissidents, Bratislava
- samizdatsamizdat, underground press, underground newspaper, banned book, banned books
Charter 77normalization
Adjusting to a standard
Warsaw Pact · Soviet occupation · collaborators · informants · Brezhnev Doctrine
Charter 77political repression
State suppression of opposition
censorship · show trials · totalitarianism · secret police · political imprisonment