Madeleine Albright visited MU twice. During her first visit on 6 March 2000, she received the Great Gold Medal of Masaryk University, joining the ranks of other important world figures who had received the medal such as Charles, Prince of Wales, Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former Slovak President Andrej Kiska.
Twelve years later, in October 2012, Madeleine Albright visited Masaryk University again to talk to students about her new book, international politics and building democracy. She was greeted by a full auditorium at the MU Faculty of Law – in fact, there were so many people interested in her lecture that some were not able to get inside and watched the live stream in the faculty atrium or on the Internet.
Madeleine Albright was the first woman in the history of the United States to become the country’s Secretary of State. Earlier, during the first Clinton administration, she served as Ambassador of the U.S. to the United Nations. From 1998 to 2000, she played a key role in resolving the Kosovo crisis. Madeleine Albright was also instrumental in the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that saw the accession of the former Eastern Bloc countries. She helped to carry through the admission of former Warsaw Pact members – the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary – into NATO. She always insisted that NATO was not just a military pact, but a political alliance based on democratic principles as well.
MU will honour her memory.