Dvě rodiny Jozefa Lenárta: rodinné prostředí, baťovská léta a jejich vliv na kariéru komunistického funkcionáře

• Authors: Lukáš Cvrček

Title variants

EN

The two families of Jozef Lenárt: family roots, Baťa years, and the making of a Communist official

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The article deals with the formation of the personality and political attitudes of Jozef Lenárt (1923-2004), a leading party and state official in communist Czechoslovakia. From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Lenárt was a member of the innermost leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa, KSČ), and he also served as chairman of the Czechoslovak government (1963-1968). During the period of normalization, he was first secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia (1970-1988) and then a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (until November 1989). The article focuses on Lenárt's childhood and adolescence, when the foundations of his later political career were laid. According to the author, two of Lenárt's families played a key role. The first consisted of his closest relatives - modest Slovak peasants, among whom radical left-wing attitudes resonated strongly. The second family, figuratively speaking, were the tutors and teachers of the Baťa School of Labour (Baťova škola práce), in whose care Lenárt grew up from the age of sixteen. Thanks to his work at Baťa, the world's leading shoe manufacturer, he met Emilie Hradilová (1921-1989), to whom he was married for several decades. With some exaggeration, the author includes her in this article as part of the circle of Lenárt's second family, the Baťa family. The author presents the specially created Baťa educational system and its influence on Lenárt's thinking and actions in the period when he became a professional politician. He gives a number of examples that illustrate the profound influence of the Baťa education on Lenárt's later life and political career, from his personal characteristics to his views on the management of the state economy. He characterizes him as a cautious, modest and loyal man of compromise, with above-average rhetorical skills, a supporter of economic reforms in the 1960s and a proponent of technologically advanced industries, but at the same time lacking major power ambitions and always remaining a staunch supporter of communist ideology and the Soviet political leadership. The final part of the article examines Lenárt's private life during his marriage and after the fall of the communist dictatorship, when he lived as a pensioner in seclusion from public affairs.

Keywords

CS

Jozef Lenárt; Československo; Slovensko; komunismus; Komunistická strana Československa (KSČ); Komunistická strana Slovenska (KSS); komunistické elity; československá vláda; Baťovy závody

EN

Jozef Lenárt; Czechoslovakia; Slovakia; communism; Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; Communist Party of Slovakia; communist elites; Czechoslovak government; Baťa Works

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Soudobé dějiny (Contemporary History)
• Year: 2025
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 102-136
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Lukáš Cvrček

• Soudobé dějiny, redakce, Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i., Vlašská 9, 118 40 Praha 1, Czech Republic