Jozef Lenárt

Jozef Lenárt
Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
In office
20 September 1963  8 April 1968
Preceded by Viliam Široký
Succeeded by Oldřich Černík
Acting President of Czechoslovakia
In office
22 March 1968  30 March 1968
Preceded by Antonín Novotný
Succeeded by Ludvík Svoboda
Personal details
Born (1923-04-03)3 April 1923
Liptovská Porúbka, Czechoslovakia
(now Slovakia)
Died 11 February 2004(2004-02-11) (aged 80)
Prague, Czech Republic
Nationality Slovak

Jozef Lenárt (3 April 1923 in Liptovská Porúbka, Slovakia – 11 February 2004 in Prague) was a Slovak politician.

He graduated from a chemistry high school and worked for the Baťa company. He became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) and of the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS).

Lenart was a member of the federal parliament (whose name changed several times) from 1960 to 1990, and was Speaker of the Slovak National Council 1962–1963. He was also a member from 1971 to (?)1990. He served as Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia between 1963 and 1968.

Although ethnically Slovak, he became a Czech citizen after the country had split in 1993.

On the basis of insufficient evidence, on 23 September 2002 Lenárt was acquitted of treason charges (along with his co-defendant Miloš Jakeš), related to his handling (or lack thereof) of the Prague Spring events in 1968. He was accused of attending a meeting at the Soviet embassy in Prague on the day after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, planning to establish a new workers and farmers' government.

Jozef Lenárt was one of the most resilient figures in Czechoslovakia's communist hierarchy, occupying one post or another in the leadership for no less than a quarter of the century. That achievement was all the more remarkable because his career at the top straddled a succession of regimes and several abrupt changes in policy.

Major functions

See also

Political offices
Preceded by
Viliam Široký
Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
19631968
Succeeded by
Oldrich Černík
Preceded by
Antonín Novotný
President of Czechoslovakia
(acting)

1968
Succeeded by
Ludvík Svoboda
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