Jozef Lenárt

Jozef Lenárt (3 April 1923 – 11 February 2004) was a Slovak politician who was the prime minister of Czechoslovakia from 1963 to 1968.

Life and career

Born in Liptovská Porúbka, Slovakia, he graduated from a chemistry high school and worked for the Baťa company. He became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) and of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS).

Lenart was a member of the federal parliament (whose name changed several times) from 1960 to 1990, and was Speaker of the Slovak National Council from 1962 to 1963. He was also a member from 1971 to (?)1990. He served as Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia between 1963 and 1968.

Although ethnically Slovak, he became a Czech citizen after the country split in 1993.

On the basis of insufficient evidence, on 23 September 2002 Lenárt was acquitted of treason charges (along with his co-defendant Miloš Jakeš), related to his handling (or lack thereof) of the Prague Spring events in 1968. He was accused of attending a meeting at the Soviet embassy in Prague on the day after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, planning to establish a new "workers and farmers'" government.

Jozef Lenárt was one of the most resilient figures in Czechoslovakia's communist hierarchy, occupying one post or another in the leadership for no less than a quarter of the century. That achievement was all the more remarkable because his career at the top straddled a succession of regimes and several abrupt changes in policy.

He died in Prague in 2004.

Major functions

• 1950–1953, 1957–1966, and 1970–(?)1990: Member of the KSS
• 1956–1958: Leading Secretary of the Regional Committee of the KSS
• 1958–1962: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
• 1958–(?)1990: Member of the Central Committee of the KSČ
• 1962–1963: Chairman of the Slovak National Council
• 1963–1968: Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
• 1968–1970: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSČ
• 1970–1987: First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
• 1970–(?)1990: Member of the Presidium of the KSČ
• 1971–(?)1990: Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic, and Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

See also

• List of prime ministers of Czechoslovakia
• List of presidents of Czechoslovakia

References