Ferdinand Peroutka

6 February 1895, Prague –20 April 1978, New York, USA

Peroutka was an icon of Czech journalism. His critical commentaries and thoughts on current events became a model of critical analysis as the basis of journalism. He was originally connected with the circle of authors writing for Lidové noviny. Later, as the editor-in-chief of the weekly Přítomnost he influenced the political consciousness of the Czech public with his intellectually oriented and critical commentaries. He was a participant of the Friday meetings by an informal group of intellectual close to President T. G. Masaryk. He was also close to the writer Karel Čapek and together with him represented a distinctive figure of democratically-oriented left-wing liberalism. Peroutka was equally persistently critical of the radical communist tendencies and of the xenophobic tendencies of domestic nationalism, taking a position of critical distance. As an intellectual, he was often attacked by political radicals. He summarised his political thoughts on the formation of Czechoslovakia in the large and never finished work State Building (Budování státu), which is still an important source for studying the history of Czechoslovakia after 1918.

After 1945, Peroutka persisted in his critical position towards communist radicalism, which gradually threatened his independent journalist position and resulted in his forced exile after the communist coup in February 1948. Soon he became one of the spokespersons of Czechoslovak anti-communist resistance abroad. In 1949, he wrote the constitutive declaration of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia, which was meant to become the central exile organisation. Between 1951 and 1961, he worked as the director of the Czech department of Radio Free Europe. In the escalating first phase of the Cold War, Peroutka had a direct influence on the ideological content of broadcasts and became the voice of the Czech democratic intelligence abroad. He died in 1978 in New York. The Ferdinand Peroutka Award is given to Czech journalists in recognition of their moral integrity.