COMMUNISM'S NEGOTIATED COLLAPSE:
THE POLISH ROUND TABLE TALKS OF 1989,
TEN YEARS LATER
A Conference at the University of Michigan, April 7-10, 1999

Lifelong activist for human rights, advisor to the Solidarity movement and negotiator for the opposition in the Round Table negotiations, historian and author Adam Michnik (b. 1946) has been Editor-in-Chief of the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza since its inception in 1989. After being expelled from the University of Warsaw and imprisoned (1968-69) after the March protests of 1968, Michnik completed his degree in history at Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan in 1975. He was a founding member of the Workers' Defense Committee (KOR) in 1977 and a lecturer in the "Flying University," an organization that brought intellectuals and worker activists together in unofficial seminars. Imprisoned again from 1981 to 1984 and from 1985 to 1986, Michnik continued to advocate democracy and civil society. Following the Round Table negotiations, he served as a Deputy in the Sejm from 1989 to 1991 for the Civic Parliamentary Club. Michnik is the author of numerous articles, interviews, and books.

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