Ján Mlynárik

Ján Mlynárik (11 February 1933 – 26 March 2012) was a Czech and Slovak historian and dissident, Charter 77 signatory, and member of the Federal Assembly from 1990 to 1992 as a representative of Public Against Violence.

Life Mlynárik was born on 11 February 1933 in Fiľakovo, Slovakia, the son of a blacksmith, in straitened circumstances. His family moved to , in the former Sudetenland, which led to Mlynárik's interest in the expulsion of Sudeten Germans. In 1957, he graduated from Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, going on to teach history at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Through the end of the 1960s, his historical work focused on Slovakia in the interwar era. By 1964, he was considered non-conformist, which led to a rebuke from president Antonín Novotný. Because he condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he was dismissed from his job and expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

After the Velvet Revolution, Mlynárik returned to Prague. In 1990, he was elected to the Federal Assembly as a representative of Public Against Violence. He advocated for all Communist-confiscated property to be returned to its original owners, due to his belief that a democratic and free society must respect property rights. After his term expired in 1992, Mlynárik continued to publish and lecture,

Documentary Mlynárik was the subject of a documentary, Lyrik by Arnold Kojnok, which premiered at Febiofest in 2014.