Michael Žantovský (born 3 January 1949, Prague) is a Czech

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

. He is a former Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom, as well as to Israel and the United States.

Education, background, scientific work

Born in Prague in a literary family, he was educated at the Faculty of Arts of the

Charles University, Prague Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest universities in the world in continuous operation, the oldest university north of the ...

(

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

''summa cum laude'' in clinical and social psychology, 1973) and

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

, Montreal. From 1973 until 1980 he worked in the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, where he did research in the fields of theory of motivation and sexual behavior. He left the Institute in 1980 and worked as a free-lance translator, lyricist and publicist. He contributed to the underground press. In 1988-89 he worked as the Prague correspondent for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, the international news agency. With his first wife, playwright and journalist Kristina Žantovská, they have a daughter Ester (*1980) and son Jonáš (*1984). With his second wife, Jana Žantovská, a photographer working under the ''nom de plume'' Jane Noseková, they have a son David (*2001) and daughter Rebeka (*2003).

Political and diplomatic career

During the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he was among the founding members of the Civic Forum, the umbrella organization coordinating the overthrow of the communist regime, and became its press spokesman. In January 1990 he became the spokesman, press secretary and advisor to President

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...

. From 1992 until 1997 he served as the Ambassador of Czechoslovakia and subsequently (from January 1993) the Czech Republic in the United States. In November 1996, he was elected to the

Czech Senate The Senate () is the upper house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The seat of the Senate is Wallenstein Palace in Prague. Structure The Senate has 81 members, chosen in single-seat constituencies through the two-round system. If no ...

in a Prague district. From 1996 until 2002 he was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security. He initiated and co-drafted, ''inter alia'', the Czech Freedom of Information Act of 1999. In March 1997, he was elected leader of the

Civic Democratic Alliance The Civic Democratic Alliance (, ODA) was a conservative-liberal political party in the Czech Republic, active between 1989 (founded shortly after the Velvet revolution) and 2007. The ODA was part of government coalitions until 1997 and partic ...

(ODA), a liberal conservative party, member of the governing coalition. He was the Vice-president of the party from 1998 until 2001, when he was again elected the party's leader. In 2002, he returned to the Czech Foreign Service. From 2003 until 2009 he served as the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the State of Israel. Since October 2009 until September 2015, he was the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom. In 2003, he was the co-founder and first executive director of the Program of Atlantic Security Studies (PASS), a part of the think-tank

Prague Security Studies Institute The Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI, ; ''PIBS'') is a non-profit, nongovernmental organization established in early 2002 to advance the building of a just, secure, democratic and free-market society in the Czech Republic and other post-co ...

(PSSI). Since July 2012, Žantovský served as President of the Aspen Institute Prague and member of the Board of Trustees of the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., but also has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, its original home. Its stated miss ...

.. He is now the Honorary President of Aspen Institute Central Europe. Since September 2015, he is the Director of the Václav Havel Library. He is also a member of the board of the New York-based Vaclav Havel Library Foundation.

Literary work

He translated more than fifty works of fiction, drama and poetry, of mostly contemporary American and British writers, including works by

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'' has been ranked ...

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least ...

Joseph Heller Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is the 1961 novel '' Catch-22'', a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for ...

, E.L. Doctorow,

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (; born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

et al. He translated films and short stories of

Woody Allen Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...

, and wrote a monograph on his life and work (1990). He translated also non-fiction works by

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...

Madeleine Albright Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Körbelová, later Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political science, political scientist who served as the 64th United States Secretary of State, United S ...

Joshua Muravchik Joshua Muravchik (born September 17, 1947, in New York City) is a neoconservative political scholar. He resides in Washington, DC based World Affairs Institute, he is also an adjunct professor at the DC based Institute of World Politics (sinc ...

et al. From Hebrew he translated the memoirs of

Amos Oz Amos Oz (; born Amos Klausner (); 4 May 1939 – 28 December 2018) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onwards, Oz was a pro ...

''A Tale of Love and Darkness''. With his first wife he co-authored a play, ''The Poor Mouth'' (1985) based on a short novel by Myles na gCopaleen (

Brian O'Nolan Brian O'Nolan (; 5 October 19111 April 1966), his pen name being Flann O'Brien, was an Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth-century Irish literature. Born in Straban ...

). He has written and published many essays and articles on foreign policy, current affairs and literature. He co-authored the book ''Freedom of Information in the Legal System of the Czech Republic'' (2002). In 2014, his biography of

has been published both in Czech and English (

Atlantic Books Atlantic Books is an independent British publishing house, with its headquarters in Ormond House in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is perhaps best known for publishing Aravind Adiga's debut novel '' The White Tiger'', which re ...

) and subsequently in more than ten other languages.

References

External links

Embassy of the Czech Republic in the UK

Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic

Embassy Czech London Facebook
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Aspen Institute Prague
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zantovsky, Michael 1949 births Living people Diplomats from Prague Czech male writers Czech diplomats Czech translators Czech journalists Translators to Czech Czech psychologists Czechoslovak diplomats Charles University alumni McGill University Faculty of Science alumni Czech-language writers Ambassadors of the Czech Republic to the United States Ambassadors of Czechoslovakia to the United States Ambassadors of the Czech Republic to Israel Ambassadors of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom Civic Democratic Alliance senators Leaders of the Civic Democratic Alliance Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic) senators People of the Velvet Revolution Václav Havel