New Czech President Petr Pavel (right) started his visit to Poland, March 16, 2023, Warsaw. From the representatives of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity, he received a postage stamp issued by Samizdat from 1987 depicting the symbol of Charter 77.
Warsaw – Representatives of Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity presented Czech President Petr Pavlov with a samizdat-issued postage stamp for communism. It depicts the symbol of Charter 77. It was given to him during a late afternoon meeting at the Czech embassy. Only a few examples of these stamps are known, the rest were destroyed.
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Photo gallery: President Petr Pavel in Poland
< img class="aligncenter" src="/wp-content/uploads/9493d66d3de11f547629c48e35d6e9cb.jpg" alt="President Pavel in Poland received a stamp printed with Polish dissent" />
During today's visit to Warsaw, in addition to official events, Pavel also attended a meeting with a group of Czech compatriots. The meeting took place in Warsaw's Václav Havel Square, near which the Czech Embassy is located. The new Czech president spoke briefly with a small group of Czechs who work or live in Warsaw. As a gift from them, he received a symbolic book with a flannel cover, the inside of which hid Polish vodka, a biker scarf or an educational CD with a Polish language course.
The compatriots noted that it was the first time since the days of Václav Havel that the Czech president had met them. During the debate, they focused on, for example, Czech beer and its popularity among Poles. First Lady Eva Pavlová then continued the conversation with them in the Czech Center.
Even before meeting his compatriots, Pavel laid a bouquet of flowers to honor the first Czech president, Havel, after whom the square near the embassy is named and commemorated by a plaque.
At the embassy, the president then met with representatives of Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity. They handed him a postage stamp that was issued by the samizdat in 1987 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Charter 77. The stamps were illegally transported to Czechoslovakia, but the police discovered and destroyed most of them; only a few specimens remain. Pavel wants to donate the donated stamp to the Memory of the Nation.
Polish-Czechoslovak solidarity was established in the early 1980s in Wrocław. It was intended as an umbrella platform for cooperation between opponents of communist regimes from both states. In 1984, it managed to publish a joint statement by a number of well-known representatives of the Polish and Czechoslovak opposition.
In the second half of the 1980s, Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity prepared several personal meetings at the state border. Polish activists helped their colleagues from a neighboring country with the printing of samizdata and the provision of technology. Joint photographs of well-known dissidents from meetings in the mountains had publicity especially in the Western environment, where they soon became part of the image of the activities of opposition movements in the Soviet bloc.
The activities of the members of Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity peaked at the beginning of November 1989, when in cooperation with exile groups they prepared an international discussion seminar and a show of independent Czechoslovak culture in Wroclaw, where several thousand Czechs and Slovaks came. Today, the company is mainly dedicated to cultural activities and helping democratic movements in authoritarian regimes.
