Komplexná biografia posledného komunistického prezidenta
A comprehensive biography of the last Communist president

Summary/Abstract: The author analyzes in detail the extensive biography of the Slovak Communist politician Gustáv Husák (1913–1991) who, ups and downs notwithstanding, ultimately became the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1969 and the President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic six years later. In doing so, he focuses mainly on chapters from the book "Gustáv Husák" by Michal Macháček (Prague: Vyšehrad, 2017) which deal with Husák’s activities in the Slovak Republic during the WWII, when he gradually joined the anti-fascist resistance and later participated in the Slovak National Uprising, and in post-war Czechoslovakia, when he, a top-ranking representative of the Slovak Communist Party, was actively participating in the struggle for power culminating in February 1948. He generally appreciates Michal Macháček’s extraordinarily extensive research of sources (including Russian archives) which the latter undertook, ample information on Husák’s political career and private life, convincing nature of most interpretations that Macháček presents, as well as accuracy and aptness of his characterizations. At the same time, though, he notes some factual errors and inaccuracies, provides missing historical contexts, and shows how the biographer – perhaps much too often – followed Husák’s self-styled renditions of various historical events and episodes.

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