Central European University A Program for University Teachers, Advanced Ph.D. Students, Researchers and Professionals in the Social Sciences and Humanities Summer University

since 19-09-2003 you are visitor no. 

MIROSLAV KUSY

Chairholder, UNESCO Chair for Human Rights Education;

Comenius University

Professor Kusy (*1931 in Bratislava) is a graduate of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, in Prague. Over the years, he has held a number of prominent academic posts, and has lectured extensively on Epistemology, Political Philosophy and Human Rights. Professor Kusy distinguished himself as a prominent personality of the 1968 Prague Spring. After the Prague Spring, he was deprived of all status, expelled from public and academic life, and imprisoned. As one of the original signatories of Charta '77, Professor Kusy became an active participant in the dissident movement which culminated in the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Throughout the last decade of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, Professor Kusy continued to publish books and articles, and to make radio broadcasts denouncing the political regime. After the Revolution of 1989, Professor Kusy successively occupied a number of prominent posts including that of the Member of the first Federal Parliament, Cabinet Minister, Rector of Comenius University and Chief of Staff of the President of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel as his Chancellor for Slovakia.

Professor Kusy's research interests are centred around the problems of Human Rights and Minority Rights and the study of nations and national movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Throughout his career, Professor Kusy has published 14 books (the last title: What to do with our Hungarians?), and more than 600 articles and essays. Professor Kusy founded the Department of Political Science of Comenius University (as the first in Slovakia) in 1990 and headed it up to 1998. He is the founder (1992) and the Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights Education at Comenius University in Bratislava, founder and Chairman of the Milan Simecka Foundation, member of the Academic Council of the Comenius University and m.o. committees and councils at home and abroad (in the Czech Republic, in Poland, in Italy/. He participated at founding of the Czechoslovak Helsinki Committee (1989) and of the Slovak Helsinki Committee (in 1990), presided now by him. After the splitting of CSFR he became a honorary member of the Czech Helsinki Committee. After the 1998 parliamentary elections, he became the advisor of the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for human rights and minority issue.