Adam Michnik, Author at Public Seminar

Helping Ukraine We Help Ourselves

An appeal of Nobel Prize winners, former presidents and prime ministers, scientists and journalists to adopt a plan to help Ukraine fighting against Russia’s aggression

March 22, 2022 • by Adam Michnik

For three weeks, Ukraine has been courageously repelling the military aggression of a treacherous and more powerful enemy. Ukraine’s strength has two sources. The first is the bravery of her soldiers and volunteers, who are defending their families, their homes, their native land. The second is the solidarity and assistance ...

Democracy

30 Years Ago, A Moment of Joy and Hope

December 13, 2019 • by Adam Michnik

*** I clearly remember that November evening. In my country, Poland, events of great importance were taking place. Poland’s first non-Communist government had already been operating for three months. The prime minister was Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a broad-minded catholic intellectual and long-standing advisor to Lech Wałęsa. Just at that time, a delegation from the Federal Republic ...

Feature

From Velvet Revolution to Velvet Dictatorship

Reflections on Democratic Regression

May 3, 2018 • by Adam Michnik

Let me start by describing how communism died. The first thing to perish was the communist faith. And this faith had two dimensions. It was a faith in the project of a just world, a world of solidarity and freedom. And it was a conviction that people had finally deciphered ...

Uncategorized

Vilnius and Warsaw: Our Common Cause

Upon receipt of the Freedom Prize

March 31, 2015 • by Adam Michnik

Mrs. President, Mrs. Chair of the Parliament, Mr. Prime Minister,

I am moved and embarrassed by this honor bestowed by the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania on a Pole -- a Polish journalist and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza. I treat it as a sign of recognition for my friends and colleagues ...