František Mikloško
Laureate of the 2023 edition
František Mikloško was born in Nitra in 1947. While studying at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava, he organised various activities and founded Christian student circles. After graduating, he joined the Institute of Technical Cybernetics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, working in numerical mathematics. In the 1980s he helped organise mass pilgrimages of believers to Levoča, Turzovka, Marianka and Šaštín, which were open acts of defiance against the regime. He did not escape interrogation and surveillance by the State Security (StB) or further persecution. In 1983 he was dismissed from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and worked as a labourer.
Laureate profile
František Mikloško was born in Nitra in 1947. While studying at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava, he organised various activities and founded Christian student circles. After graduating, he joined the Institute of Technical Cybernetics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, working in numerical mathematics. In the 1980s he helped organise mass pilgrimages of believers to Levoča, Turzovka, Marianka and Šaštín, which were open acts of defiance against the regime. He did not escape interrogation and surveillance by the State Security (StB) or further persecution. In 1983 he was dismissed from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and worked as a labourer.
In the second half of the 1980s he took an active part in all the major activities of the underground Church in Slovakia. He co-organised clandestine religious education, youth initiatives to save cultural and sacred monuments, and the printing, smuggling and distribution of religious literature. He was the chief organiser of the Candle Demonstration in March 1988, which is regarded as one of the most significant expressions of resistance to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
This peaceful gathering of believers was brutally suppressed by the communist authorities. The significance of the Candle Demonstration lies, among other things, in the fact that its organisers demanded respect for civil rights in Czechoslovakia for all citizens – believers and non-believers alike. František Mikloško officially notified the authorities of the public gathering by letter and, after it was banned, lodged an appeal. Even after the appeal was rejected he was determined to go ahead with the event, but he was arrested before the gathering began and was therefore unable to take part.
After the revolution, as a representative of the Catholic dissent, he joined the emerging Public Against Violence movement. From 1990 he was for many years a member of the Slovak National Council and the National Council of the Slovak Republic. From 1990 to 1992 he served as Chairman of the Slovak National Council. His work after November 1989 has been marked by his use of his authority to bring together different social and political currents in the interest of society as a whole.