Krzysztof Michalski was a Polish philosopher and the founder and long-term rector of Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. Michalski studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw and graduated in 1974 with a dissertation on Heidegger. He was inspired, among others, by Czech phenomenologist Jan Patočka, with whom he consulted on his dissertation. He spent 1977-1978 as a Humboldt Fellow in West Germany. From 1981 to 1982 he co-chaired post-graduate courses at the Interuniversity Centre in Dubrovnik and was a Thyssen Fellow at the University of Heidelberg. He was also a Visiting Fellow of the Churchill College at Cambridge University (1982–1983) and a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna (1984–1985). In 1982 he founded Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna and became its first rector. He held this position until his death in 2013. The IWM is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences aiming at promoting intellectual exchange between East and West, between academia and society, and between a variety of disciplines and schools of thought. As a founder and rector of this Institute, Michalski significantly help to disseminate Patočkaʼs philosophical legacy abroad and to bring his thinking to the Western audience. In 1986, Michalski was appointed an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw. In 1990, he became Professor of Philosophy at Boston University, and in 1994 Professor at University of Warsaw. He specialised mainly in Heideggerʼs and Gadamerʼs writing, and later those of Husserl and Nietzsche. He occupied many scientific and social functions – he was, among other things, chairman of the Institute for Public Affairs in Warsaw, and president of the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study. In the Polish and world intellectual milieu, he was perceived as a respected scientist, who, as pointed out by his colleagues Ira Katznelson and Claus Offe, was “reminding others of the need for the virtues of ʻdecencyʼ and ʻcourageʼ.”

Ort:
- Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Heidelberg, Germany
- Općina Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Vienna, Austria
- Warszawa, Warsaw, Poland

Michnik, Adam

Adam Michnik is a Polish journalist, former dissident and political activist. He had been actively engaged in Polish democratic opposition movement from the late 1960s till the early 1990s, when with his co-workers he established Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading daily. In the 1970s, he spent a year in Paris, but apart from that he was very active in forming the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and supporting the "Solidarity" movement, he was also imprisoned during the Martial Law. He took part in the Roundtable Talks in 1989.

Ort:
- Warszawa, Warsaw, Poland

Michálek, Jiří

Jiří Michálek is a Czech philosopher and former pupil of Jan Patočka. In 1964, he graduated with a degree in chemistry from Charles University in Prague. In 1965, he began his doctoral studies at the Department of Philosophy within the Faculty of Science at Charles University, focusing on the philosophical problems of the natural sciences. As this department was dissolved in August 1968, Michálek could not defend his dissertation. In 1975, a special commission that investigated Michálekʼs political views was created. As a result, he was forbidden to teach and was forced to leave the University in 1977. The main reason was his long-term close relationship with Jan Patočka and other Charter 77 signatories. Michálek attended Patočkaʼs underground seminars and also participated in the rescue of Patočkaʼs documents after his death in 1977. After his dismissal from the university, Michálek worked as a labourer in a wrapping shop, and later as a specialist in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the National Health Institute. In 1984, he finished his distance study of Psychopedy at Palacký University in Olomouc. In April 1990 he was admitted to the newly created Department of Philosophy of the Natural Sciences at Charles University. In October 1994, he defended his dissertation in philosophy at Charles University. After the restoration of the Czechoslovak Philosophical Union in 1990, Jiří Michálek became a member of its presidium. He focuses on phenomenology and the thinking of Martin Heidegger after the “turnover” and the question of co-existence and philosophy of education of E. Fink.

Ort:
- Praha, Prague, Czech Republic

Mieczysławska Raczyńska, Aniela

Aniela Mieczysławska Raczyńska (1910-1998), de domo Lilpop, was a Polish émigré activist and a longtime partner of Edward Raczyński, Polish President in exile.

Aniela came from a pre-war Polish intelligentsia elite. Her father was a renowned architect. Aniela, along with her three sisters were a part of a colourful cultural life of Polish artists in the 1930s. They were known as “Lilpop sisters”. Among their closest friends were such figures of cultural environment like: Wieniawski, Słonimski, Tuwim, Ejsmont, Iwaszkiewicz, Stryjeński, Rubinstein, Czapski. The rumour has it that the famous Iwaszkiewicz’s novel “Panny z wilka” (1931) was based on the characters of “Lilpop sisters”. They were in the centre of lively avant-garde environment, befriending poets, writers, actors, painters, artists.

Aniela’s first fiancé died suddenly. She soon married Polish diplomat Witold Friedman Mieczysławski which was believed to be a marriage of convenience. However, it lasted just a few years. When the Second World War started, Aniela lived with Mieczysławski in Romania. She engaged in helping war refugees. In 1941 she evacuated to France and then U.S.A. – without her husband, since the two were already separated. She lived in New York, working as a shop assistant and helping Polish emigrants in the evenings. In 1950 she hosted Józef Czapski, who helped her with fundraising for Jerzy Giedroyc’s Kultura in Paris. The two became lifetime friends.

In 1961 she relocated from New York to London to be with her last long-time partner, Count Edward Raczyński (1891-1993), former Polish Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Great Britain, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and President of Poland in exile from 1979 to 1986. The two of them officially married in 1991, when Aniela’s previous husband passed away.

From the late 1940s to the 1970s, Mieczysławska was a close collaborator, friend and fundraiser of Jerzy Giedroyc, chief editor of the France-based Kultura monthly and founder of the Literary Institute in Paris. Her friend Józef Czapski painter, soldier, and writer, was another towering figure of the Kultura milieu. During her long relationship with Count Raczyński, who was one of the leaders of the Polish exile community in Great Britain and worldwide, Mieczysławska stepped into the role of the First Lady taking a leading role in the social and political life of émigrés. She organized numerous fundraising initiatives to help Polish cultural institutions abroad and actively supported anti-communist dissidents and opposition activists in People's Poland. She was an invaluable fundraiser, successfully gathering money and mobilising émigré elites. Aniela was well-known of her adamant attitude towards communist regime, as well as towards émigré leaders who represented softer approach. Well-known anecdote states that when Aniela saw Antoni Słonimski (one of her closest pre-war Polish friends) on the street of New York, she refused to greet him, since he has never openly opposed the socialist regime in Poland.

Ort:
- London, United Kingdom

Mihailović, Dragoslav

Dragoslav Mihailović (1930) is a Serbian writer and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU). As a student, he was arrested for banned political activity during the severe break between Tito and Stalin. Commenting what happened, he said: ‘At that time I was a member of the League of Young Communists, disappointed because a lot of people I knew were arrested without reason. I said that openly and was subsequently punished.’

In other interviews, he spoke in more detail. ‘I was punished by the Offences Commission of the second district of the city of Belgrade. At the time I was eighteen years old and was in the first year of literature studies. They pronounced me an adherent of the Informbiro [Cominform] because I had defended two arrested comrades from Ćuprija. Their ‘crime’ was that they had said that after the five-year plan, heavy industry would be producing wooden combs'.

Subsequently, Mihailović was interned in several Yugoslav prisons in Ćuprija, Kragujevac and Belgrade, while he spent a total fifteen months on Goli Otok (1951–52). At the end of the 1960s, he again found himself targeted by the Party because of his play, ‘When Pumpkins Blossomed’ (1969), which dealt critically with the legacy of Goli Otok, the largest Yugoslav labour and punishment camp (1949–1989). The play was based on the 1968 novel of the same name. Although the novel's publication did not draw much attention, the play proved controversial due to changes introduced with the aim to intensify criticism. After several performances, the play was banned through the direct intervention of Yugoslav President Tito. In the following years, Mihailović came under pressure for his literary work – he was accused of plagiarism for his book ‘Petrijin Venac’ (Petria’s wreath), similarly to Danilo Kiš –though he was not arrested. ‘Actually, I heard somewhere that Tito had said that I would not be arrested again while he was alive, so I was not afraid of prison. However, today it appears that people do not understand what it means to go through Goli Otok as a young man of nineteen, twenty. If it does not break you, you become resistant, insolent. And, if you like, courageous’, said Mihailović, talking about his need, beside his experience of Goli Otok, to continue with his literary work that was not in line with the dominant political paradigm. For a long time, his work was banned from school reading lists.

At the beginning of the 1980s, after Tito’s death, the position on Mihailović changed gradually and he was elected a corresponding member of SANU in 1981, and a full member in 1989. Dragoslav Mihailović was one of the initiators of the ‘Committee for the Defence of the Freedom of Artistic Creation’ at the Association of Writers of Serbia in 1982. The committee was founded to express protest against the arrest and conviction of the Serbian poet, Gojko Đogo, for his collection of poems, ‘Vunena vremena’ (Woollen times). In the following years, the committee dealt with protecting the freedom of artistic expression. Mihailović published a series of books under the title ‘Goli Otok – a Documentary: interviews with former camp inmates’, in which he dealt with the experiences and legacy of this brutal camp. His other important works are: ‘Frede, laku noć’ (Good night, Fred, 1967), ‘Petrijin Venac’ (Petria’s wreath, 1975), ‘Čizmaši’ (The boot men, 1983), ‘Zlotvori’ (Villains, 1997). In 2006, at a special trial in Belgrade, Mihailović was officially rehabilitated.

Ort:
- Belgrade, Serbia