Antonín Zápotocký had been dead for over twenty-five years by the time this coin was issued, which tells you something about the selective memory of late socialist commemoration. He served as both Prime Minister and then President of Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s, presiding over the show trials and purges of that period — a biography the state chose not to dwell on when recycling his image for official numismatic purposes.
Antonín Zápotocký had been dead for over twenty-five years by the time this coin was issued, which tells you something about the selective memory of late socialist commemoration. He served as both Prime Minister and then President of Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s, presiding over the show trials and purges of that period — a biography the state chose not to dwell on when recycling his image for official numismatic purposes.