20 Facts About Adam Michnik

1.

Adam Michnik is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, as well as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza.

2.

Adam Michnik was imprisoned after the 1968 March Events and again after the imposition of martial law in 1981.

3.

Adam Michnik has been called "one of Poland's most famous political prisoners".

4.

Adam Michnik played a crucial role during the Polish Round Table Talks, as a result of which the communists agreed to call elections in 1989, which were won by Solidarity.

5.

Adam Michnik has received many awards and honors, including the Legion of Honour and European of the Year.

6.

Adam Michnik is one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.

7.

Adam Michnik was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a family of communist activists of Jewish origin.

8.

Adam Michnik's father Ozjasz Szechter was First Secretary of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, and his mother Helena Michnik was a historian, communist activist, and children's-book author.

9.

Adam Michnik's step-brother on his mother's side, Stefan Michnik, was a military judge in the 1950s, who passed sentences, including executions, in politically-motivated trials of members of Polish anti-Nazi resistance fighters.

10.

Stefan Adam Michnik, was later formally accused of zbrodnie komunistyczne by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.

11.

Adam Michnik was arrested and sentenced to three years imprisonment for "acts of hooliganism".

12.

Adam Michnik became one of the most active opposition activists and one of the supporters of the Society for Educational Courses.

13.

Adam Michnik was a member of the management of one of the biggest underground publishers: NOWa.

14.

Adam Michnik was in jail without a verdict until 1984 because the prosecutor's office deliberately prolonged the trial.

15.

Adam Michnik demanded an end to the judicial proceedings against him or have his case dismissed.

16.

Adam Michnik took part in an attempt to organize a strike in the Gdansk shipyard.

17.

Adam Michnik was released the following year, again under another amnesty.

18.

Adam Michnik took an active part in planning and preliminary negotiations for the Round Table Talks in 1989, in which he participated.

19.

Adam Michnik inspired and collaborated with the editors of the Ulam Quarterly, before 1989 that journal pioneered the World Wide Web in the USA.

20.

Adam Michnik is a member of the Association of Polish Writers and the Council on Foreign Relations.