Zdeněk Nejedlý was born on February 10, 1878 in Litomyšl and died on March 9, 1962 in Prague. He was a Czech literary and music historian, musicologist, university professor and politician. In 1945-1946 and again in 1948-1953 he was the Czechoslovak Minister of Education and the leading cultural ideologist of the hard communism of the Gottwald era. He was born into the family of Roman Nejedlý, a teacher and musician who was an important regional cultural worker in Litomyšl . He studied history and aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague.