This book by Jiří Lederer, in Italian translation by Tiziana Menotti, aims to be a biography that helps dismissing the wrong interpretations that have misshapen for decades the story of Jan Palach. The book intends to be a useful tool to eliminate misappropriations of the figure of Palach, appropriated even in the past by political formations progenies of the “early twentieth century”, of the military State, the integral statism, the primacy of the collective principle over the individual one, of the violence elevated to an ideal and of political obedience which doesn’t admit any right of resistance to tyrannical power. Quite opposite of what Jan Palach wanted to communicate with his gesture, with his appeal to fight for a life worthy of free people, believing deeply in the naturally free destiny of the people and in their natural right to freedom, becoming a permanent and terrible monition, especially for those chained down nations who suffer harassment and abuse of power.
Jiří Lederer,
Jan Palach. La vita, il gesto e la morte dello studente ceco,
Translated by Tiziana Menotti,
Schena Editore, 2019
206 p.