Anton Blaha

* 1934

  • “In June they told me that I would get punished and not get a place in the dormitory. That was because of some previous events. Then I was expelled from the Socialist Youth Union (ČSM), I went through a disciplinary procedure at the faculty, and they proposed that I be expelled and banned from all universities, and, thanks to both the Disciplinary Boards and the professors, I just had to work for a year. Then I could come back to the university and continue my studies. I graduated and then my life just went on.”

  • “I considered it quite a natural thing. I was a left-oriented young man, so I thought that in a socialist society one could make things happen. I realized that if I grew up in capitalism, I would not have been able to graduate, because I did not have any parents. I lived just on scholarship.”

  • “When the event of February 1948 took place, our professor at the secondary school came to us and said, ‘The two following classes are cancelled. Get ready. We’re going to the Main Square to gather there.’ In 1948 I was fourteen. We came to the Main Square in Žilina, where all the other secondary school’s students gathered. There was a grandstand; somebody was having a speech. I do not know what was going on there, nor what was the speech about. Our professor stayed with us and told us, ‘Now, clap; now shout ‘Hooray!’’ So, we clapped and shouted hooray. That is how I was a part of Victorious February.”

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    Bratislava, 01.03.2019

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Príbehy 20. storočia
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    Bratislava, 02.03.2019

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Príbehy 20. storočia
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Thanks to being member of the Communist Party, I had more freedom at work than the others

Anton Blaha
Anton Blaha
zdroj: SAK

Anton Blaha was born into a Catholic peasant’s family on April 22, 1934 in Čadca. He studied at the Salesian secondary school in Žilina, the secondary school in Čadca, and the Faculty of Law at Comenius University in Bratislava from 1953 to 1959. In 1956 he co-organized the „pyjama revolution“ at the university dormitory on Suvorova Street in Bratislava. The „pyjama revolution“ was aimed against stricter conditions of compulsory military service for university students. As a result, he was expelled from the university for one year. During that year he had to work in Dunajplavba, a company providing cruises and other services on the Danube River. Later he was able to complete his studies, and he worked as an attorney at the Regional Bar Association. In 1960 he joined the Communist Party. From 1970 to 1972 he worked as the head of the Bratislava City Hall’s Office. Later, from 1972 to 1986, he was the head of the Government Office of the Slovak Socialist Republic and the secretary and the deputy chairman. From 1986 he was practising law again, and after the Velvet Revolution he founded his own firm. Currently he lives in Bratislava, and in his free time he publishes memoirs and books on non-fiction.