Biography

Magda (Magdaléna) Vášáryová (* August 26, 1948, Banská Štiavnica) is a Slovak politician and former actress and diplomat. Since 2006, she has been a member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic for SDKÚ-DS. On 12 December 2013, she resigned from the party and until the start of the so-called The third government of Robert Fico (2016) worked in the National Council of the Slovak Republic as a non-attached member of parliament. She began her successful acting career as a 15-year-old in the film Senzi Mama (1964). From 1966 to 1971 she studied sociology at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava. Since 1970 she has worked as an actress in the Korze Theater, the New Stage (1971 - 1983) and in the Slovak National Theater (1983 - 1990). She is the author of book memoirs about Banská Štiavnica Short Letters to a Town (1988). In 1988 she was awarded the title of Merited Artist. From 1990 to 1993, she served as the Czech-Slovak ambassador to Austria. During the diplomatic mission, she lived with her daughters in Vienna while her husband stayed in Bratislava. While they provide wife support for diplomats, Vášáryová, as a diplomat, did not receive compensation for the diplomat's non-working wife. Václav Havel and Jiří Dienstbier enforced her compensation payment. On May 3, 1993, she organized a meeting at home, where the Slovak Society for Foreign Policy (SFPA) began to form. From 1993 to 2000, she was its director. In 2020, she is the Honorary Chair of the SFPA Board. In 1998, she founded Občianske oko. In the 1999 elections, she ran as an independent candidate for the post of President of Slovakia. She won 194,635 votes, 6.6%, in the election. She did not make it to the second round. She announced her candidacy in February 1999 in Banská Bystrica. She wanted to confirm the changes in 1989 and 1998. She was the first woman in Slovakia to run for president. From 2000 to 2005, she served as Slovakia's ambassador to Poland. Its predecessor was Ondrej Nemčok and his successor was František Ružička. Since February 21, 2005, she has held the position of State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic in the second government of Mikuláš Dzurinda. In the summer of 2005, she joined the SDKÚ. On 12 December 2013, together with Lucia Žitňanská and Miroslav Beblavý, she resigned from SDKÚ-DS. Since November 15, 2013, she has been the president of the Živena association. Her goals after the election were “I still have three goals within Živena. One of them is, in particular, the modernization of communication, the addition of a membership base, and I would also like to raise more money in more modern ways, for example in the form of grants. " Her predecessor was Zora Breier. In 2016, she did not run for parliament again. In addition to Živena, she also led the Institute for Cultural Policy. He also teaches at the CEVRO INSTITUTE in the Czech Republic. In 2016, The Prague Society for International Cooperation awarded her the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Prize for Civil Service and the Lifelong Fight against Corruption. Sister of the actress Emilie Vášáryová. The first husband was the actor Dušan Jamrich. The second husband is Milan Lasica. He has two daughters.

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