# Charter 77 Published (6 January 1977)

URL: https://allhistories.com/slovakia/timeline/1977-charter-77-published
Location: Prague
Themes: Key Events

In 1975 Czechoslovakia signed the Helsinki Final Act and in 1976 incorporated international covenants on civil and political rights into its law. The arrest and trial of members of the underground rock band The Plastic People of the Universe in 1976 prompted intellectuals to remind the regime of its own commitments. Dated 1 January 1977, the Charter 77 declaration was published in the West on 6 January and signed by some 240 people, with Václav Havel, the philosopher Jan Patočka and the former foreign minister Jiří Hájek as its first spokesmen. It documented violations of human rights and called for dialogue with the authorities. The regime responded with a vilification campaign, the "Anti-Charter" signed by artists under pressure, arrests and interrogations; Patočka died in March 1977 after long police questioning. Few Slovaks signed, among them the political philosopher Miroslav Kusý. Charter 77 published more than 500 documents over the next decade and became the moral core of the opposition that led the Velvet Revolution. In Slovakia, dissent took mainly a religious form through the underground church, along with environmental activism, but Charter signatories helped connect Slovak and Czech opposition circles. Kusý later became a leading figure of Public Against Violence.

## Why it matters
Charter 77 created the network and moral authority that made Václav Havel and the dissidents leaders of 1989.

Ruler at the Time: [Gustáv Husák](https://allhistories.com/slovakia/rulers/gustav-husak)

Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia: Lubomír Štrougal (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia)
Prime Minister of the Slovak Socialist Republic: Peter Colotka (Communist Party of Slovakia)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Charter 77](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77)
- [Nation's Memory Institute (ÚPN)](https://www.upn.gov.sk/)
- [Wikipedia — Communist Czechoslovakia (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_Socialist_Republic)