Jan Patocka (1907-1977) was the philosophical godfather of the Czechoslovakian “Charter 77” movement and the corresponding politics of the famous dissident playwright and later president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel (1936-2011). In a Times column, Roger Scruton described Patocka as “the greatest luminary of modern Czech culture.” Studying in Prague, Paris, Berlin, and Freiburg, Patocka worked under Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) before completing his thesis in 1936. He soon became the editor of a journal named The Czech Spirit and went on to produce studies of his countrymen Comenius (1592-1670) and Thomas Masaryk (1850-1937) amongst other thinkers.
