(21st July 1942 -30 January 2015)
Ladislav Macháček was born in Communist Czechoslovakia and died in the Slovak Republic, part of the European Union. In many ways Ladislav played a part in shaping these great changes for his country and for Europe.
Ladislav was always a driving force internationally. From the 1980s onwards Ladislav was a very active member of the International Sociological Association RC34 on Youth. He helped to bring Central European perspectives to this association and for many years was editor of the International Bulletin for Youth Research, which was a significant publication for disseminating research information for at least two decades. He organised a number of international meetings in Slovakia and was Principal Investigator in a number of international projects including Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity (2001-2004), UP2Youth (2006-2009). He was a partner in ENRI-East (2008-2011) and was the regional co-ordinator for MyPlace Slovakia. Other international positions included co-operation with the Council of Europe. He managed to turn his distinctive language skills from Russian and German towards English over this period and nobody will forget his interesting style of speaking and writing.
Ladislav Macháček was very good at identifying intellectual trends and opportunities and building upon them. In his own country Ladislav made an important contribution to intellectual life and was a key actor in internationalising Slovak sociology and putting it on the world map. He enjoyed a long career, stretching from when he achieved an MA in Philosophy from Comenius University in Bratislava in 1964 and a PhD in Sociology from the Institute of Sociology of the Slovakian Academy of Sciences in 1968. Starting as a researcher in the Institute of Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Ladislav organised a number of meetings, conferences and seminars to exchange information and ideas with colleagues in Bratislava and internationally. He went on to hold senior positions in the Slovak Academy of Sciences, where much of his research was conducted. He contributed a number of important monographs to Slovak social science during this period, including “Citizen Participation and Young People” in Slovak.
Ladislav Macháček was well connected with the Slovak Ministry of Youth Affairs and had the important talent of being able to make the links between research and policy. As a result, the Slovak Republic had a progressive and enlightening youth policy that was an example to other countries. He was active in promoting co-operation between Czech and Slovak sociology after the breakup of Czechoslovakia. Ladislav was also an editor of Sociologia, the main sociological publication of the Slovak Republic between 1995 and 2004 and later of Slovenská Politologická Revue (Slovak Journal of Political Sciences) and encouraged publications of original papers by political scientists and sociologists from Slovakia and by international scholars.
During the noughties he took up a position as Vice Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava where he became Director of the Centre for European and Regional Youth Studies (CERYS). He was also a Slovak partner in a consortium that has been developing MA European Youth Studies (MA EYS). Many of us used to marvel at his many activities at home and abroad. He still managed to find time for his students at the University too, where he was a popular tutor.
Ladislav was one of the great characters of Central Europe, a patriot of Slovakia and a truly European person. He was an energetic , unwavering supporter of European youth research and youth politics. As a very effective communicator, his gentle and humorous style could liven up any meeting. His diplomatic and organisational skills helped to build bridges between East and West at a time when the traffic of people and information was very limited. We will always owe him a debt for this.
The Research Committee 34 will miss the commitment that Ladislav Macháček brought to the organisation over many years. We will miss him as a friend and intellectual too.
Claire Wallace and Lyudmila Nurse