Jan Zajíc (died 25 February 1969) was a Czech student who killed himself by self-immolation as a political protest.

Biography

He was a student of the Střední průmyslová škola železniční (Industrial Highschool of Railways) technical college in Šumperk, specializing in railways, and was also interested in poetry and humanities. In 1969 he took part in a hunger strike and a commemoration ceremony by students for Jan Palach near the statue of Saint Wenceslas in Prague. On the day of the twenty-first anniversary of the Communist takeover (25 February 1948), he travelled to Prague accompanied by three other students. His intention was to warn the public against the forthcoming political "normalization" of the country. He had several letters challenging the people to fight against the Warsaw Pact's military occupation of Czechoslovakia. Around 1:30 in the afternoon he walked into the passageway of the building at No. 39 on Wenceslas Square and ignited his chemical-soaked clothes. He was unable to run out of the door, and collapsed and died in the hallway. In a letter he left behind he wrote: The police prohibited his burial in Prague because they feared demonstrations, such as the ones that followed the burial of Jan Palach. He was later buried in his hometown of Vítkov. After the Velvet Revolution, a bronze cross was set into the ground in front of the National Museum in Wenceslas Square to honour both Palach and Zajíc. His death mask by sculptor Olbram Zoubek is situated at his high school (now Vyšší odborná škola a střední průmyslová škola Šumperk).

Legacy

In 2019, a graphic novel was published about Zajíc's life and suicide.