Minister of Culture

Pavel Dostal

     After completing an apprentice training course and a two-year secondary industrial vocational school programme in chemistry, Mr.Dostal worked as a technician until 1965. Between 1966 and 1969, he was repertory adviser and artistic director of the Experimental Theatre in Olomouc and also worked as a theatre producer and writer, television script writer, columnist, choreographer, librettist and lyrics writer. During the 1969-1988 period Mr.Dostal could only be employed in blue-collar and technical professions because of the political persecution he suffered for his attitudes in 1968 and for his part in anti-occupation broadcasts in August 1968. Branded as a hostile person during the "normalization" years, Mr.Dostal was under constant political police surveillance. He was detained for the last time in October 1989 for disseminating the petition A Few Sentences. He was a member of the opposition leftist-orientated Obroda (Rebirth) grouping. A Communist Party member between 1962 and 1969, Mr.Dostal renounced his membership on April 17, 1969 in protest against Gustav Husak coming to power. From 1989 to 1993, Mr. Dostal was artistic director of of the Musical Theatre in Olomouc. From June 1990 to December 1992, he was an MP in the Federal Assembly's Chamber of Nations, first for the Civic Forum and then for the CSSD which he joined in 1991. In 1996 Mr.Dostal was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the CR Parliament, and re-elected in 1998. Between 1994 and 1996 he also served as Deputy to the Olomouc Municipal Council. Mr.Dostal has authored, among other things, fourteen drama pieces, TV and radio productions, and one film.