Press Release, 1.04.2026

Last month marked the 50th anniversary of the events of March 1976, when musicians from the rock band Plastic People of the Universe were arrested in Prague and put on a show trial for performing at a festival of “alternative culture”. They were sentenced to between eight and eighteen months in prison for “disturbing the public order”. It was these repressions that served as one of the catalysts for a group of intellectuals led by Václav Havel to produce the document known as Charter 77, which subsequently became a defining manifesto and exerted considerable influence on the course of political reform in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

On 9 April, Yabloko’s central office will host the first event in a series marking two significant anniversaries: the 50th anniversary of the events surrounding the emergence of Charter 77, and the forthcoming 90th anniversary of Václav Havel’s birth, which falls on 5 October this year.

The discussion will focus on the historical context and significance of Charter 77 for the dissident movement across Eastern Europe, as well as on Václav Havel’s essays “The Power of the Powerless” and “Politics and Conscience”. The evening will open with an address by Grigory Yavlinsky, who knew the first President of post-communist Czechia personally.

Admission is free, but advance registration is required.