Tigrid, Pavel

TIGRID, PAVEL (P. Schönfeld; 1917–2003), Czech author, publicist, essayist, politician. Born in Prague, Tigrid started publishing in the Studentský časopis ("Students' Review"); his studies at the Faculty of Law were interrupted by the Nazi occupation. His family perished in the Holocaust. He lived in exile in London 1939–45, where he worked for the BBC and for the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. He returned to Prague in 1945. He founded the weekly Obzory ("Horizons") with I. Ducháček, editor-in-chief of the journal Vývoj ("Progress"). After 1948, Tigrid's second exile was spent in Munich, where he worked for Radio Free Europe; the U.S., where he studied at Columbia University; and Paris from 1960. In 1956 he founded the exile quarterly Svědectví ("Testimony"), the main political and cultural review of the Czechoslovak exile. After 1989 he returned to Czechoslovakia and became an adviser to President Václav Havel (1991–92) and minister of culture of the Czech Republic (1994–96). He was also active in Czech-German relations (1998–2000) and was a holder of the T.G. Masaryk Order. For almost five decades, Tigrid provided commentaries on the political and cultural situation in Czechoslovakia as well as analyzing and influencing it from exile or at home.

He published numerous articles and commentaries in the press, on radio and TV, and wrote a considerable number of books, such as Ozbrojený mír ("An Armed Peace," 1948); Marx na Hradčanech ("Marx at the Castle," 1960, 2001); Politická emigrace v atomovém věku ("A Political Emigration in the Era of the Atom," 1968, 1974, 1990); Le Printemps de Prague (1968); La chute irrésistible d' Alexander Dubcek (1969); Amère révolution (1977); Dnešek je váš, zítřek je náš. Dělnické revolty v komunistických zemích (1982, 1990; French, Révoltes ouvrières à l'est 1953 – 1981); and Kapesní průvodce inteligentní ženy po vlastním osudu ("A Pocket Guide of a Cultured Woman to Her Own Fate," 1988, 1990). A legend of the anti-Communist struggle, Tigrid died in France and was buried there in the presence of Václav Havel, former president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Slovník českých spisovatelů (1982); Slovník českých spisovatelů (2000).