Vlado Gotovac

Vladimir "Vlado" Gotovac (18 September 1930 – 7 December 2000) was a Croatian poet and politician. Early activism In the late 1960s, Gotovac joined the Croatian movement demanding political and economic reform, which eventually led to the Croatian Spring in the early 1970s. Unlike the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, the Croatian Spring wasn't violently quashed by military use, although it resulted the period known as "the Croatian silence", alluding to the Yugoslav government's tremendous skill in suppressing any opposition or criticism. Before being arrested in 1971 Gotovac became the editor-in-chief of Hrvatski Tjednik (The Croatian Weekly), which historian Marcus Tanner explains, "was a real phenomenon – a mass-circulation newspaper with an enormous audience that went way beyond the confines of the Communist Party and made a national reputation." Imprisonment Growing up in Tito's Yugoslavia, Gotovac was arrested in January 1972 and sentenced to four years in prison, based on charges of being a "separatist" and "nationalist". In an interview with Swedish television in 1978 he reflected rather dejectedly about his experience:"No basis was found in my actions or in my activities, but, rather, like in all such processes, criminal actions were assumed and corroborated, not only in my case, but in the cases of a whole group of others whom I know."