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Heldur Viires is an Estonian artist. He began his studies in 1945 at Tartu State Art Institute, but it was interrupted when he was arrested in 1949 as a member of the Tartu Circle group of artists. He was sent to Vorkuta prison camp. After he was freed in 1956, he returned to Estonia and continued his studies at the Estonian State Art Institute in Tallinn. He completed his studies in 1959. He then returned to Tartu, where he worked mostly as a book illustrator. He also took part in exhibitions. He started working at the Konrad Mägi Studio as a teacher in 1989. He lives next to the art studio, still gives advice to students, and is the heart and soul of the studio.

Viktoras Petkus was a religious activist. In 1947, he was arrested and sentenced to the Soviet gulag as an activist with the Ateitininkai religious organisation for youth. He was released after Stalin’s death, but after the events in the Rasų cemetery in November 1956, he was arrested again and sentenced to eight years in prison. During those events, a meeting was organised in the Rasų cemetery to commemorate Jonas Basanavičius, the 'founding father' of the modern Lithuanian state. After the meeting, a demonstration was organised, which was suppressed by the Soviet police. In the 1970s, Petkus was involved in human rights activities, and was one of the founders of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1976, he organised a press conference for foreign journalists, where he and others proclaimed the existence of the Helsinki Group and its aims. In 1977, he was arrested and sentenced again.

Viktoras Petkus was an expert in religious art and history, but he could only publish his writings after the Soviet regime had collapsed. His books were published after 1990: Vilniaus Arkikatedros bazilikos koplyčios (Vilnius Cathedral Chapels, Vilnius, 1994), Vilniaus vyskupas kunigaikštis Ignas Jokūbas Masalskis (The Bishop of Vilnius Ignas Jokūbas Masalskis, Vilnius, 2001), Vilniaus vyskupai Lietuvos istorijoje (Vilnius Bishops in the History of Lithuania, Vilnius, 2002), Domininkonai Lietuvos kultūroje (The Dominicans in Lithuanian Culture, Vilnius, 2004), and Vilniaus šv. Mikalojaus bažnyčia (The Church of St Nicholas in Vilnius, Vilnius, 2004). During Soviet times, Petkus collaborated with the underground Catholic opposition and the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. He was arrested several times, and spent about 25 years in prison.

Petkus' dissident activity was honoured by various international organisations. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times (1987, 1988 and 1999).

Jan Vladislav was a Czech poet and translator. He became a “banned” author after 1948. He contributed to the founding of the “Kruh nezávislých spisovatelů” (Group of Independent Writers) in 1968 and became editor-in-chief of the Světová literatura (World Literature) magazine in 1969. However, in 1970 and 1971 he was stripped of all his functions and was restricted from publishing. He founded a samizdat edition called “Kvart” in the mid-1970s (more than 120 titles were published in this edition) and became one of the first  to sign Charter 77. In 1981 he was forced to emigrate from Czechoslovakia and, thus, settled in France. He took part in the founding of the Czechoslovak Centre for Documentation of Independent Literature in Hannover in 1986. He then lived permanently in Prague after 2003 and  was awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1991), the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1993), the PEN Club Lifetime Achievement Award (1998) and the State Award for Translation Work (2001).

Gordana Vnuk graduated with a degree in English and comparative literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb; she is a dramaturge by profession and a member of the Croatian Association of Dramatic Artists (HDDU). She earned her master's degree on cultural policies from the University of Burgundy (Université de Bourgogne) in France. Her theatre engagement started in secondary school, in the 16^th English Gymnasium, where she was a member of its drama group. During her first year at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, she became a member of the Coccolemocco theatre company, which at the time launched the festival Young People’s Theatre Days. Parallel to her work on the festival, she also participated in the theatre performances - One Day in the Life of Ignac Golob and in the recital You Don't Renounce What You Haven't Got! Later, Gordana Vnuk worked on films in international co-productions between Jadran Film and Hollywood production companies (MGM, Paramount Pictures, etc.). The money she had earned she invested in travel and watching performances throughout Europe, where a new generation of artists began to radically change the European theatrical landscape. The opportunity to show these innovations in Zagreb was the Universiade (World Student Games). She offered an already finished programme to the Steering Committee which thus became a part of cultural events during Universiade. That is how the first Eurokaz was held in 1987. For the next 30 years, Vnuk was its artistic director, and this theatrical engagement would mark her professional career, which also included her posts abroad: theatre programmer at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff (Wales, UK) as well as the position of the intendant of one of the largest cultural centres in Europe, Kampnagel in Hamburg (Germany). In 2013 she was made a Knight of the Order of Art and Letters (Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres) which is one of the highest French acknowledgments for public activity and contributions to the arts. Since 2009 she has lectured at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

In her social engagement Gordana Vnuk refused partisan and factious uniformity, she was fond of left-anarchism and the staunchness of the Praxis philosophy, and even today she does not see anything negative in early Marxism. Working in theatre she tried through her theatre company to influence society and affirm their views of the world: “one socialism, but with a human face in which goods are more justly distributed and in which people feel better" (Vnuk, interview, January 26, 2018).

For Gordana Vnuk, the cultural opposition is "every opposition against human stupidity, but primarily against mediocrity, regardless of the ideological affiliation. While in politics half-knowledge and half-talent, as measurable signs of mediocrity, bring benefits, and even against human stupidity, in culture these two signs work in favour of disagreement, in the sense that one group doesn't want to or doesn't know how to agree with the other one. In Croatia we lack a culture of (such) agreement more than disagreement. There is a quote (so dear to Branko Brezovec, the head of Coccolemocco) by the legendary Croatian theatre director Branko Gavella, who, in truth, was referring to literature, but it can be extended to culture in general: ‘I think that the unevenness of development is typical of small literatures, and not their quantitative backwardness.’ In theatre, everyone has been uptight about disagreeing with the prevailing politics; it would be better to agree, in the way a skilled poker player shuffles the deck: the stack on left and the stack on the right hand are merged into one deck. So the face of one card looks at the back of another. And the game begins" (Email to Lidija Bencetić, February 25, 2018).