Martin M. Simecka
is a Slovak author and journalist. He belongs to the few Slovak authors who published in the "samizdat literature" during communism. Simecka’s novel The Year of the Frog has been translated to English and French. In 1990 he founded the independent publishing house Archa. He later became editor-in-chief of Domino-forum, a Slovak weekly. From 1997 to 2006 he acted as editor-in-chief of SME, Slovakia's leading daily newspaper, in 2006 to 2008 as editor-in-chief of Respekt, and from 2009 as editor and contributor.
Eurozine Articles
After the velvet divorce
Differences between the Czech and Slovak national cultures begin with language and range from newspaper circulation to attitudes to corruption. Yet they don't justify seeing the Czecho-Slovak split as blueprint for dismantling the EU, writes Martin Simecka. [Hungarian version added] [more]
The EU: The real sick man of Europe?
Democratic deficit, enlargement fatigue and ever more rescue funds: is there still a future for a common Europe? In a discussion in Eurozine's series "Europe talks to Europe", prominent intellectuals diagnosed causes for the current malaise of the EU. [more]
Dilemma '89: My father was a communist
Two sons of well-known persecuted communists discuss the still unanswered questions surrounding the involvement of their fathers' generation in post-war communism, and the failings of today's debate about the past in the former communist countries. [more]
Still not free
Why post-'89 history must go beyond self-diagnosis
The dissident generation of the 1970s and 1980s produced a body of work unprecedented in Czech history, says Martin Simecka. Yet it is precisely the monumentality of this generation's legacy that prevents the interpretation of the communist past going beyond self-diagnosis. [more]
Central Europe's laboratory of freedom
The quest for a media culture in Slovakia
The Slovak media has had a turbulent career since 1989. But although the most serious challenges to press freedom have been seen off, a media culture free of the legacies of the past has yet to develop, writes Martin Simecka. [more]
Havel's paradox comes to an end
Martin M Simecka talks to the power brokers of the NATO-summit in Prague. [more]


















